A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME
Video Games, Victorian Style
Category: Spiffing Reads
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This week: the definitive ruling on whether it should be Black Ops IIII or IV, a massive mushroom beetle is found in No Man’s Sky, a man plays Nintendo Switch using a 1986 pocket TV, and where it all went wrong for Atari.
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This week: the amazing Papers, Please short film, what Lucas Pope did next, the disco-tastic turn-based tactics game All Walls Must Fall, a secret trick in Super Mario Bros. 3, and Donald Trump targets video games after school shootings.
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This week: the Nintendo Switch isn’t breaking records in the UK, Celeste helps out with mental health, Sleep Is Death deserves a reboot, a Twitter bot unearths a lost game, and why cheating was cool.
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This week: the story of the woman in love with Tetris, the most bastard game you’ve ever seen, the XCOM director on Mario + Rabbids, what went wrong with Lair, Arkane’s lost game, and the hubris of Imagine Software.
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This week: the unlikely return of Nintendo Power, why ARMS is so good, the regulation that could outlaw loot boxes, a fascinating chat with industry veterans and the genius of Nintendo Labo.
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This week: why the fighting game community is so inclusive and a look at the rise, then fall, then rise again of Dance Dance Revolution.
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This week: why Monster Hunter World is flipping amazing, how Mario can make pensioners’ brains better, and a list of the funniest games ever.
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This week: driving a virtual bus for money, the game that can never be remade, Death Stranding, Bayonetta 3, and Little King’s Story. And BAYONETTA 3.
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Welcome to the November 2017 Spiffing Reads Clipstravaganza!
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This week: when Mario released a CD album, a tribute to Runic Games, Terry Cavanagh’s bizarre new game, Mass Effect Andromeda redemption and a beat ’em up with no attacks.
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This week: cockroaches in a frickin’ PS4, Knight Terror, a troll-baiting Mario list, games we need on Switch and goodbye to Miiverse. AND COCKROACHES.
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This week: the press reacts to the closure of Visceral Games, Reddit reveals the designers behind Switch games, RiME gets praised and Sony gets told off.
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This week: Activision patents controversial bots, sublime Zelda propaganda posters, the games that should be on the Game Boy Mini, and a stunning JRPG from Indonesia.
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This week on Spiffing Reads, we kick off with a fevered discussion on what games should be featured on the N64 Mini, should Nintendo deign to make one… A Massive Argument About Which Games Should Be on the N64 Mini (Kotaku UK) This is an awesome discussion of what games should be on the N64…
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This week on Spiffing Reads we start off by looking back on a wonderful video-game version of Blade Runner that’s all but impossible to play nowadays, and sadly is unlikely to be rereleased. Westwood’s Blade Runner is an all-time classic in danger of being forgotten (Eurogamer) The more I read about the 1997 Blade Runner…
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This week, we start Spiffing Reads with yet another crazy tale from the fascinating space world of EVE Online, followed by something much more wholesome and heartwarming… ‘You will lose both hands’ – How the biggest theft in EVE Online history ended in death threats (Rock Paper Shotgun) Ah, EVE Online. The game I am…
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All hail the return of Spiffing Reads! Every Friday we’ll round up the best writing on video games from the past week – and this week we start with an excellent article from a rat’s point of view. How Dishonored: Death of the Outsider makes rats of us all (Eurogamer) Oooh, some proper writing, with…
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This week on Spiffing Reads, we kick off with a couple of interesting opinion pieces on the Nintendo Switch… Don’t Judge Switch by the Stagnant Competition (Kotaku UK) This article struck a chord with me, particularly in how it accuses many in the games industry of not being able to look past technical specs. “There…
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This week on Spiffing Reads, we start off with a worrying look at what madness Twitch hath wrought. How Twitch is turning ‘always be streaming’ into a career with zero balance (Polygon) Once I got past the slightly baffling headline, this turned out to be a fascinating and slightly scary article about how much time…
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I was going to post this on Friday, but then the whole Nintendo Switch reveal got me all hot under the collar and I had to write a lengthy diatribe about it. I’m sure further thoughts will be forthcoming… Anyway, we’ve had some cracking gaming articles over the past couple of weeks, now that the…
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Not a huge amount has caught my Spiffing Reads eye over the past couple of weeks, hence the thin selection below. We’re well into the season of end-of-year lists, gift guides and reviews of AAA games, none of which makes for particularly thrilling reading – unless a hugely anticipated game gets a critical mauling, of…
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I didn’t have time to post Spiffing Reads last week, so this week we have a bumper double issue of the spiffingist reads from the past two weeks, starting off with an insight into how a game idea can end up going nowhere. The Ant Man: my year in development hell (Eurogamer) It must be…
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This week on Spiffing Reads, it’s (almost) all about the Wii U, long may it rest in peace. The ups, downs and future of Tomonobu Itagaki’s Devil’s Third (Polygon) Devil’s Third came out on the Wii U last year to less than glowing reviews. It’s torturous development history over 8 years and across numerous publishers…
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This week on Spiffing Reads, we start start off with how the games industry has finally woken up and listened to some of my amazing ideas. Why VR arcades could be virtual reality’s salvation (Polygon) Back in 2012, I visited an arcade for the first time in years, and found it to be a thoroughly…
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I ran out of time on Friday, so Spiffing Reads is a bit late this week. But just as packed full of goodness as ever. Why I Play (Kotaku UK) “Playing video games is, for me, part of a lifelong rejection of boredom.” Keza MacDonald, the chief ed of Kotaku UK, went on maternity leave…
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It’s been a quiet week on the blog thanks to some crazy work schedules, but as always we’ve got a few Spiffing Reads for you. Of course, the big news this week was a certain console announcement… Nintendo Switch Reveal – ALL EASTER EGGS, Analysis & Things Missed (IGN) Everyone everywhere has been writing about…
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This week on Spiffing Reads, we look into a spooky AI future – and a forgotten past of suicidal game disks. The Video Game Horror Of Westworld (Kotaku UK) The new HBO version of Westworld looks rather excellent. I was a big fan of the original film, and it seems like they’ve done a great…
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This week on Spiffing Reads, it’s all sex and VR. So a bit like the Brosnan-starring The Lawnmower Man, then. The best – and very worst – sex scenes in video game history (The Guardian) When it comes to sex scenes in video games, it seems that Bioware is one of the only developers that has…
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A short one this week, kicking off with some retro-gaming nostalgia. Game Genie declassified: That summer I played 230 Game Boy games (Eurogamer) Do you remember the Game Genie? It emerged after Codemasters worked out a way to get around Nintendo’s restrictions on who could produce NES software by bypassing the infamous 10NES lockout chip.…
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This week on Spiffing Reads, we begin with an eye-opening behind-the-scenes look at a certain 3D vampire series. “We got caught in a s***storm” (Eurogamer) This interview with the developers of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is fascinating. It’s interesting to hear how the two LoS games were by far the most successful Castlevania games in…
A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME 