A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME
Video Games, Victorian Style
Tag: Video Games
-
Seeing as a sequel to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was announced for the 3DS just the other day, it seems like a good time to write about that other great portable Zelda game, Phantom Hourglass. I only played it for the first time very recently, but I was immediately struck…
-
The 30c cone from McDonalds – high in sugar and low in taste – 30 cents OR Super Metroid – high in action, high in gameplay and high in awesome – 30 cents You decide.
-
I just forgot I owned a video game and the worst part was I was about one mouse click away from purchasing it again. That game was the Heroes of Mana, the Brownie Brown developed Real Time Strategy/Role-playing hybrid released in 2007 for Nintendo’s DS. It was one of the many games of its type…
-
Grand Theft Auto – The Ballad of Gay Tony – I never much liked Grand Theft Auto IV. I bought it at launch, the ‘special’ edition I might add, played it for a few hours, thought it was a bit average and then put it on the shelf. A year later I forced myself through it…
-
It’s not often that a video game makes me laugh out loud, but Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon had me giggling like a schoolgirl. It’s ridiculous, it’s funny, it’s lewd, but most of all it’s bloody good fun. What I like most is that the game doesn’t take itself seriously for a moment, and it’s…
-
I cringed when I spotted this – I mean a game about Wedding Planning? Those Germans do they ever rest in their quest to develop the PERFECT video game? But wait I hear you say, give it a chance. It may be a really great business simulator – the Football Manager that we can…
-
I was sitting in my underwear playing Forza 4 the other night, and when I say playing I mean virtually exploring some of the world’s most exotic super cars in the rather cool autovista mode, when I realised something about myself. First thing was that I needed a shower, it had been while and I’d…
-
I caught up with the rest of the gaming world this week by finally, finally finishing Mass Effect. Loads of people, not to mention my co-blogger Sir Gaulian, have recommended that I play it, and it’s not hard to see why: the story is up there with the best I’ve seen in a video game.…
-
I really wasn’t a fan of Far Cry 2 (see my review) – it was a pretty game with high-falutin’ ideas about player agency, but what it actually delivered was mindless slaughter and repetitive cookie-cutter ‘missions’. In short, it was dumb. Therefore I wasn’t particularly interested when Far Cry 3 came around earlier this year,…
-
Michigan: Report from Hell is the worst good game of all time. Wait you say, don’t you mean best worst game? No, I don’t and let me explain why. Michigan is full of far too many good ideas executed brilliantly for it to be a steaming pile of excrement. By the same token though, it…
-
Need For Speed – The Run (PS3) – I think we as consumers of video games, in general, are getting greedy. We want more for less. We want perfection. And worst of all we want innovation with no concessions made in what we known and love. In short being a developer would suck because there is…
-
I finished Bioshock Infinite last week and boy, what a ride it was. It’s not often there’s a video game that keeps me playing just to see what happens next, but for those few days I raced home to pick up the controller and find out where it would take me. It was like being…
-
On 31 July 2012 Tony Sly, frontman for the punk band No Use For a Name, passed away in his sleep. He was 41 years old. Death is an inevitable part of life and as humans we are cursed with knowing that some day we are going to cease being. It sucks. The death of…
-
Bioshock 2 (Xbox 360) Review – I was not much of a fan of the original Bioshock. I thought that the story was interesting enough but I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that I wasn’t actually enjoying playing the game. Add to that that I was never invested in the plight of the characters…
-
My lovely girlfriend bought me Bioshock Infinite as a surprise present the other day, and I’ve been happily exploring Columbia for the last couple of days. It’s an amazing game – the attention to detail is stunning, to the point where I’ve been dawdling through most areas just to eavesdrop on the citizens’ conversations and…
-
Tomb Raider (PS3) Review – Some of my favourite gaming memories were formed playing the original Tomb Raider. Everything about it resonated with me to a point where I could overlook its flaws and just focus in on what made it so special. It is fitting then that the origin story of Lara Croft in…
-
Good old Nintendo. You may remember that a while back I had my Nintendo 3DS stolen, meaning I lost all of the games I’d downloaded, including the almost-completed Link’s Awakening. Well, I’ve since received the insurance money (which came out at just £100 owing to some sneaky terms and conditions – read the small print,…
-
Kayla Mitchell died late on Tuesday night. She’d just managed to fight her way out of the Nursery after facing and defeating the horror that lurked in the basement, but she died tragically just feet from safety. Low on ammo and on health, she attempted to open a locked door between her and a manhole…
-
I grew up playing 2D fighters at a relatively competitive level. In fact I would say that it was something that I, stupidly perhaps, was pretty proud of. It took patience, perseverance and many many hours of practice at whichever arcade I could find at the time. They were, in some ways, many of my greatest memories,…
-
DOOM is one of the greatest games ever made. It certainly is one of the most influential games ever made, and was so big of a phenomenon that every console known to man from the Super Nintendo onwards has found itself with a copy of DOOM in its lap. The Game Boy Advance even had…
-
I actually remember the time when the house that Mario built was on top of the world. Nintendo was a hot commodity and it was hard to come across anyone who had not played a Mario game. It is a stretch to say that Nintendo’s success was solely built on the humble plumber, but it…
-
Darksiders 2 (Wii U) Review – Darksiders II is the best video game of the generation. It isn’t the best experience, the best story, the best graphics or the most revolutionary gameplay of the generation. But the now defunct (sadly) developer Vigil managed to craft an unbelievably well-rounded game that is far better than it ought…
-
‘My Dinner with Andre’ is a really strange film. The first I’d heard of it was in an episode of Community which heavily referenced it. But it turns out that the film is a bit of a cult classic. I watched it. I liked it. And I still have no idea why. Andre was an…
-
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…
-
Whereas Sir Gaulian is content to just get stuck into his sports games nowadays, I’ve been getting more and more into the gaming scene recently. Over the past six months I’ve bought an unprecedented four games (X-COM, ZombiU, New Super Mario Bros. and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate) on day one at full price, which is…
-
I think that everyone underestimated Sony in its entry to the console market before the Playstation hit. But oh how we were all wrong. Looking back at the mid 90’s when the Playstation was released, I remember the fanfare. The kids at school talking about the absolutely mediocre Kileak: The Blood like it was the second coming…
-
Dragon’s Lair is kind of retarded. Not retarded as in ‘that Downton Abbey show is retarded how good it is’ type, but the ‘i can’t even talk to you anymore you’re speaking like a retard’ type. I know I shouldn’t use that term, and apologies in advance, but it is seriously the only way I…
-
My co-podcaster Ian (see 101filmsyoushouldhaveseen.com) spotted this little oddity on his travels round Walthamstow. It seems the Riddler has escaped Arkham once again and has been leaving trophies a bit further afield than Gotham… Sadly, Ian didn’t have his batsuit with him, so he was unable to scan the trophy using detective vision.
-
There is something personal about the hand-drawn art that permeated through every aspect of video game culture 20 years ago. From magazines to box art to awesome little drawings in instruction manuals, hand-drawn art was everywhere. Yesterday I wrote about Agro Soar, a Game Boy game based on a children’s television show in the 80’s…
-
I have always thought that Australia is a net importer of culture. We get what I feel like almost everything, from television to music to videogames, from our english-speaking allies. Sh!tty gangster rap? Most definitely. Garbage English royal tabloids? Need I ask. Terrible child-focused television show featuring anthropomorphic animals and some random young people that…
-
Sometimes when I sit back and really think about how much everything, including videogames have changed since I was a kid I am blown away. I’m nearly thirty and its only in the last 12 months or so I’ve started to feel my age. How is this for old – kids listening Blink 182’s album ‘Dude…
-
It is time to cry me a river. I have a whole lot of friends that play sports games almost exclusively. But it’s not fair in the slightest to consider these guys ‘non-core’ gamers (whatever that means) because I am talking about people I grew up with playing Adventure games in the 80’s, First Person…
A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME 