A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME
Video Games, Victorian Style
Category: Reviews
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Need for Speed Most Wanted (Vita) Review – The RX Bandits summed it up really in the title of their song ‘Analog Boy’. I like single-player video game experiences. I don’t think co-op makes everything better. And I haven’t held an Xbox Live Gold Account for a number of years. Sometimes I feel like I…
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I’m a big fan of the original Lost Planet, and I picked up Lost Planet 2 a few months back in the hope of more of the familar giant-monster bashing, robot thrashing and emo Japanese plotting involving people with strange hairstyles. Sadly, it turned out to be rubbish. I was aware that the sequel had…
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SYNDICATE (PS3) REVIEW – It is pure madness that Syndicate exists, really. Like XCOM last year, Syndicate is a reboot (of sorts) of a cult classic 1990’s strategy game. Unlike XCOM however, Syndicate is a far cry from its origins, and instead is a first person shooter based on the universe. Developed by Starbreeze –…
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Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing (Review) I’m not sure if you’ve heard but kart racing is really fun. But did you know that you don’t need balls to race? Just ask AiAi who rolls around the track without his ball. Or Danica Patrick*. Taken at face value anyone can appreciate ASR as a pretty solid racer. It…
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It had all gone wrong. After making my way through the cruise ship incognito, taking out my targets in silence in the process, I had finally reached the top deck where the remaining members of the Gator Gang, and their leader, were awaiting their execution. Disguised as a waiter, I had made my way to…
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I listed El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron at number two in the ‘games I would have played in 2011 if I’d had the time‘, and I’ve finally, FINALLY got round to finishing it. And it was… pretty good actually. Not quite as good as it could have been, but good nonetheless. If you’ve never…
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Limbo will likely forever haunt some part of my being. It may not come to the forefront and manifest in me wetting my bed, experiencing night terrors, or jumping off of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but somewhere in a dark, dank crevice of my mind Limbo is making me very, very uncomfortable. And that’s because there…
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I underwent a somewhat traumatic experience last weekend: while I was on holiday in France, my Nintendo 3DS was stolen from my bag. It’s the first time I’ve ever had anything nicked, and I was pretty upset about it as you can imagine. However, luckily I had travel insurance, so hopefully I won’t lose out…
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If you’re like me, video games are one of many things that I spend my free time doing. You may also be like me in that I find I am having less and less time to actually spend with games, what with all the earning money, keeping fit and domestic duties that have quietly seeped…
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So, seeing as we’re already in the second week of 2013, I thought it’s about bloody time I wrote something about my favourite games of 2012. Unlike in 2011, in 2012 I actually managed to play a few games in the same year that they were released, which somewhat goes against our steadfast determination to…
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I have been on holidays for the last week and for a large part of that I have been sitting indoors enjoying staring at a much larger screen than the one I have at my desk at work, while the season changes rapidly from a cold Canberra winter to a smashing warm Australian spring. And…
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Crysis 2 is perhaps the most intense action-based first person shooter I’ve played in a long, long time. The hit and run tactics the game basically begs, pleads and bribes you to employ are simply exhilarating to the point where long play sessions become a mentally straining experience. Enabling cloak, screwing in a silencer to my…
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It’s very rare that I’ll buy a game on the strength of the box art alone. Usually a game purchase will be the end result of a meticulous information-gathering process: hours spent sifting through reviews and hearing friends’ recommendations before deciding on a game to buy, usually followed by a wait of a few months…
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I finished Far Cry 2 (buy on Amazon) the other day, and I have to say I was pretty disappointed. The designers took on some controversial subject matter by setting the game in an African civil war, and they really don’t do it the justice it deserves. But before I get onto that, let’s look…
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I finally finished Bayonetta last week, just days before the announcement that the sequel is not only in development but that it’s exclusive to Wii U. Who’d have thunk it? Glad to see Nintendo have rightly but their might behind Bayonetta, although it still seems odd: a bit like finding out that Disney are producing…
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Transformers: War for Cybertron was a decent, if not derivative shooter that lived and died by its licence. And that’s okay, really. The Transformers licence is a good one with a lot of potential and a hell of a lot of good lore from which to lift interesting and novel game mechanics from. Being…
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I finished Duke Nukem Forever, but there isn’t a lot I can say about it that hasn’t already been said. There were a lot of missteps, some misguided design decisions, and a general unpolished feel to the whole experience. This has all been said ad-nauseum across the internet, so I’m not going to bother. What…
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Sometimes silliness is okay. If the relatively universal praise for Asura’s Wrath and its over the top action and anime influenced storyline is anything to go by, people are at the point where a bit of fun is really okay. And if anyone knows how to do silly it’s the japanese. Unfortunately they also know how to…
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I have a general fondness for the guys over at Codemasters. What they do, they do well, particularly in the racing space. The Dirt series and the Colin McRae series before that are some of my favourite racing games of the past 10 years, and are games that I will happily pour countless hours into to make sure I…
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Another one bites the dust. Game off the mantelpiece that is. I had to resist the temptation to spell honor correctly for this entire post. For the record, it is H.O.N.O.U.R. Back in 1999 I had my mind blown by a FPS on the Playstation. That’s right, the Playstation. Not the Nintendo 64. Not the…
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Back at the start of 2011 I wrote what can only be described as a love letter to Mass Effect 2. And what better way to celebrate the launch of Mass Effect 3 by republishing an abbreviated form of that original piece. Originally Published March 1 2011. As a game, Mass Effect 2 just did…
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Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars is easily my favourite game on the 3DS so far, and without doubt the best of the 3DS launch games. Rather than being a first person shooter in the vein of its console cousins, Ghost Recon on the 3DS takes the form of a turn-based tactical shooter, and is all the…
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Back in January I got all excited at the thought of playing a version of Star Fox 64 in real 3D, and I have to say I haven’t been disappointed. Out of all of the 3DS games I’ve played so far, the 3D in Star Fox is by far the most impressive: giant starships fly…
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Let me take you back to the dim and distant past of January 2010. I’m in deepest darkest Dunstable, visiting my dear friend Curly (or Rich as he’s now known in respectable society) for his annual birthday bash. It’s rather late, and we have repaired to his luxury chalet for some refreshment and nibbles. Messrs…
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Huge apologies, but this week’s post has been slightly delayed – the perils of holding down a full-time job! Check back here tomorrow evening for my thoughts on Nintendo’s latest handheld box ‘o tricks. Lucius Merriweather
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A New Year’s message from Lucius Merriweather, Esq. As you probably know by now, both Sir Gaulian and I have a considerable backlog of games to play through (see The Mantelpiece), so most of my 2011 was actually spent playing through games from 2010 and earlier. As such, I almost finished the year without playing…
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2011 was a ripper year for gaming. Ken Levine, in an interview with Eurogamer, even went as far as to proclaim it the best year for gaming since 2007. While I would draw the bow slightly longer to compare it to 1998, there is no doubt that the last 12 months has been an incredible…
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Yes, I know I said I wouldn’t be buying any more games until I’ve finished all of the titles lying around on The Mantelpiece, but I have an excuse, honest! Last week I went up to Yorkshire to visit my nan, so faced with a 5-hour trip each way, I thought I’d better charge up…
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As you can probably tell by the fact I’m writing a blog about video games, I’m rather partial to them. It’s a love affair that goes right back to the days of the Sinclair Spectrum (if you’re wondering kids, it’s like an Xbox 360 that refuses to load any games), and if anything I’ve got…
A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME 