Alright, let’s get one thing straight right out of the gate – I was a Sega kid growing up in the early 90s and treated my Sega Genesis like it was my own personal video gaming deity. Sonic was king and Streets of Rage had it’s nice rappin’ beat, but I spent most of my time shooting fools while my friends played Super Nintendo games. Sega did what Nintendon’t, and we held that mentality proudly.…
Beginning as a young gamer and now as an adult, I will write this review for Tim to show him why Age of Empires II is the best Real Time Strategy (RTS) game ever produced. As he continues to tell me that Command & Conquer is better than AOE2, I will show him why the engineering decisions in AOE2 are the basis for all RTS games today. Not just nostalgia, but the design of the…
The sound of cardboard hitting cardboard still makes my ears perk up. Proper weird, that—but there's something about that distinctive *thwack* of milk caps colliding that takes me straight back to Year 5 break times when everyone smelled like Ready Brek and had grass stains on their knees.I remember the exact moment Pogs invaded our playground. Must've been early '94, maybe late '93. This kid called Marcus turned up one Monday morning with a leather…
Picture this: it's 4pm on a Tuesday in 1994, and I'm sprinting home from school like my life depends on it. Not because of homework—that could wait. Not because mum had promised fish fingers—though that was a bonus. No, I'm running because Nickelodeon's afternoon block was about to kick off, and missing the opening credits of "Legends of the Hidden Temple" felt like a personal failure.You know that feeling when you burst through the front…
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory is a stealth action video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. Released on 21 March 2005 (PCGamingWiki), Chaos Theory represents the series reaching its creative and technical peak. Whilst the original Splinter Cell established Sam Fisher as a legitimate alternative to Solid Snake, and Pandora Tomorrow expanded the formula, Chaos Theory perfected it. Ubisoft invested heavily in this vision, with development and marketing budgets of $10 million each…
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was my introduction to sports gaming. Growing up I played Sega Genesis games and Dreamcast games (Sonic, Streets of Rage, etc.). So naturally I wasn’t interested in sports games. To me they seemed stale and repetitive — kick ball, throw ball, try not to lose. What’s the fun in that? Don’t get me wrong, I think I just enjoyed how unpredictable and creative Sega games let you be. That is until…
The sound hit me first. That metallic crunch when Scorpion's spear connected, followed by the digitized grunt that my Mega Drive's YM2612 chip somehow made sound more menacing than it had any right to. I was hunched over our living room carpet—the brown one with those weird geometric patterns that looked like a computer had hiccups—frantically scribbling move commands on the back of a school exercise book. Down, forward, high punch. Got it. But what…
Day of the Tentacle Review: A Space Shooter That Made Pac-Man Look Easy My name is Marcus. Whilst the rest of the world is debating if modern adventure games can compete with the classics, I’m diving into the source code of Day of the Tentacle Remastered to find out exactly what made the original so innovative in terms of both creativity and engineering. The original Day of the Tentacle was released back in 1993 (according…
To this day, I remember hearing those sounds, in passing during the day, or sometimes even in my sleep. If you were lucky enough to grow up with them too, you know what I’m talking about. The glory of a wash of static as the local electronics store ran their loop of EWAV during the daytime. The coins clinking into slot machines. The frantic beeping of Frogger. The laser noises of Defender whizzing around the…
Myst Review: The Puzzle Game That Brought More PC Sales Than Any Marketing Campaign I’m reviewing Myst now because the rest of my crew spent three hours debating whether Myst is a “real” game or simply an interactive screensaver. Joe is adamant that Myst is merely nice pictures with obscure puzzles that don’t form coherent narratives. Samuel claims that the puzzle design is ingenious and revolutionary. John continues to drone on about how Amiga produced…