A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME
Video Games, Victorian Style
Tag: Games
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I’ve played Flow and Flower before – two of Thatgamecompany’s earlier games, both imbued with an ethereal feel and gameplay unlike anything I’d seen. More a meditative experience than traditional titles, they teeter on the fine line between art project and bona fide video game. Both were compelling in their own ways, but I didn’t…
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A few minutes into Uncharted 2, and it’s already apparent that it’s leagues ahead of the previous game, both in storytelling and finesse. After a meeting in a beach bar with some old associates, Nathan Drake finds himself persuaded to join a museum heist in Istanbul – an opener that immediately draws attention to the…
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Welcome to Spiffing Reads, our weekly round up of the best games writing, which this week kicks off with an alternative take on Sonic. Sonic boom: Ellie Gibson on nostalgia, novelty, and that 9/10 (Eurogamer) The ever-brilliant Ellie Gibson penned this meandering article on her expectations for Sonic Mania, interspersed with parenting metaphors, and ex-boyfriends…
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This week on our weekly roundup of the best games writing, we start with a look at the crazy time that Nintendo’s been having lately… Nintendo’s roller-coaster week (GamesIndustry.biz) A look back at an important week for Nintendo, with their share price peaking and then diving in relation to Pokemon Go, and leaked reports revealing…
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Welcome to Spiffing Reads, our weekly round-up of the best games writing. This week, the big story is Eurogamer’s leak of details for the upcoming Nintendo NX. NX is different, and different is Nintendo’s best option (Eurogamer) Part of me wants Nintendo to release a super-powerful console, one that will have third-party publishers rushing back,…
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At E3 in June, Bethesda revealed footage of a long-awaited sequel to Prey. The teaser trailer arrived ten years after the release of the original, a game that itself was in development for nearly ten years. But the game previewed by Bethesda isn’t actually Prey 2 at all. In fact, in a follow-up video released…
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I’ve been playing Pokémon Go for more than a week now, and I’ve yet to earn any Pokécoins whatsoever. I’m level 10, I’ve filled up a good chunk of the Pokédex, and I’ve fought in my fair share of gym battles, but I’ve yet to receive any sort of Pokécash for my troubles. It’s getting…
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Welcome to Spiffing Reads, a new section on A Most Agreeable Pastime where every Friday we list gaming articles that have caught our eye this week. We’re always on the lookout for interesting gaming sites, so if you’ve found a brilliant blog, or you’ve read something amazing this week, please share it in the comments.…
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Metroid Prime: Federation Force has come in for a bit of a kicking from Nintendo fans, which seems to have taken the company somewhat by surprise. In hindsight, perhaps it shouldn’t have come as such a shock. By all accounts it looks like quite a fun game – a cooperative 3DS shooter with added cosmic…
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For pretty much the entirety of yesterday afternoon I was locked out of Pokémon Go thanks to server problems. Every time I tried to log in, I was hit with the ‘Unable to authenticate’ error message, and it didn’t resolve itself until the evening. It’s pretty frustrating, and the lack of updates from the developer…
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I was struck by just how many people I saw playing Pokémon Go on my cycle into work – I spotted at least ten people walking around, glued to their phones, occasionally pausing to do a telltale swipe towards an imaginary monster. Then again, this is nothing compared to the huge mobs filmed in New…
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I’m off to see the new Ghostbusters film tonight. I’m cautiously optimistic that it will be good after reading a four-star review in The Guardian, in which the reviewer was at pains to point out that the movie is a damn sight better than the bafflingly mediocre trailer. Seems this could be one instance where…
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This quote from a Eurogamer article published today really leapt out at me: “And you could even argue – justifiably, I think – that Pokémon Go is in the process of rehabilitating mobile gaming itself with a whole sector of gamers that had grown disenchanted with it, and who form a natural constituency for Nintendo’s…
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I finally got around to getting a PS3 in December 2013, and since then I’ve been gradually playing through some of the system’s exclusives. But with the recent release of Uncharted 4 on PS4, I thought it was high time for me to finally sample this series for myself. So I dutifully loaded up the…
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When I’m not writing video game articles, I’m probably doing scientific copy editing, and it was in just such a capacity that I found myself subbing news articles for New Scientist earlier this week. One of the articles was on Pokémon Go, because of course it was – that’s pretty much the only thing anyone…
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Happy Birthday us! On this very day five years ago, Sir Gaulian and I first embarked on our grand Victorian gaming adventures – and what a merry time it’s been. Many of the Victorian stylings have been dropped along the way, and the ambitious Choose Your Own Adventure game I started to create using nothing…
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After realising the other week that actually I don’t really like 2D platformers very much, no matter their illustrious provenance, I decided it would be a good time to have a bit of a clear out of the games cupboard… ahem, I mean The Mantelpiece. First for the eBay pile was New Super Mario Bros.…
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I had a fascinating chat with Phil Robinson of the Museum of Games and Gaming while I was at Play Expo Blackpool the other month, and it really got me thinking about where this urge to play video games actually comes from. Sure, games are fun, but why are they fun? Phil put together an…
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I spent most of yesterday in shock after discovering that the UK had voted to leave the European Union. In the weeks leading up to the election, it seemed clear that the Remain camp was in the lead, and despite a late surge in support for the Leave campaign, I went to bed on Thursday…
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I was playing through Yoshi’s Woolly World the other day, and about halfway through the second world I put the controller down and decided I’d probably never come back to it. There’s nothing wrong with the game per se – and I love the way everything has been lovingly reworked in wool – but I…
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Whereas Sir Gaulian has been revelling in the resurrection of some of his old favourite games at this year’s E3, I’ve been struggling to find much to get excited about, with the exception of the surprisingly different take on Zelda that Nintendo has been showcasing. However, one thing that everyone seems to be talking about…
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Majora’s Mask 3D is now officially my favourite Zelda game. I never got around to playing the N64 original, although I remember my sister raving about it at the time. I seem to recall that it came in for some criticism for reusing a lot of the assets and game engine from Ocarina of Time,…
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As I said a while back, I’ve been getting back into Batman recently. I’ve read a few more Batbooks since that last post, and they’ve reflected the general trend for Batman stories veering wildly between genius and utter rubbish, with the tales being told in the main ‘canon’ Batman storyline generally being overstuffed and hamstrung…
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The other day, I took Merriweather Jr down to the local library for ‘Bookbugs’, a sort of pre-school jamboree involving singing, hollering and general high-jinks. Afterwards, we tarried a while, and he selected a few cardboard books to borrow that he especially liked the taste of. I decided to get in on the borrowing action,…
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As promised, I thought I’d write up a few thoughts on my visit to the wonderful Play Expo Blackpool just over a week ago. It was a crazily hectic day in the end, as I rushed around trying to interview people and type up my notes, but I did manage to find some time to…
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I read Ready Player One for the first time a couple of months ago, and I loved it. It’s unashamedly packed with references to 1980s games, films and TV shows, and it even feels like a good old-fashioned eighties hero fantasy movie in the way it’s structured. The fact that Steven Spielberg has signed on…
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I’m off to Play Expo Blackpool on Saturday, for what promises to be a hectic but fun-packed day of gaming – of both the retro and future flavours. I have a few potential articles lined up based on some of the people and games being shown at the expo, so it’s going to be a…
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When I heard that there are around 18 quintillion planets in the upcoming No Man’s Sky for PS4, it got me thinking – how does that number compare with the number of planets in the actual Universe? Then I started wondering whether the various procedurally generated creatures in the game would actually be likely to…
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I thoroughly enjoyed TellTale’s take on The Walking Dead. The second season lost its way towards the end, with a final episode that dragged on forever towards a tepid conclusion, but overall I loved the characterization and tense atmosphere. But for my money, The Wolf Among Us is even better. For a start, the film-noir-style…
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My Roy amiibo finally arrived this morning – and only three days late. Ooooh, GAME UK whyIoughta… [shakes fist]. To be fair, they sent it out on Thursday morning, so it’s probably more Royal Mail to blame. But everyone loves to take a pop at GAME sometimes, don’t they? *mumble mumble preowned prices mumble mumble…
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Things have been quiet on the amiibo front of late. The last one I bought was R.O.B. back in November, although before that there was a relative flood of them through my front door in summer. And now another one is due to arrive. Tomorrow, Roy will join my other four Fire Emblem amiibo –…
A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME 