When I read stories about unwrapping NES gifts on Christmas morning and watched videos of kids ripping open grey boxes to discover their brand-new consoles in 1986, I felt like I was flipping through a family photo album that wasn’t mine. I was not there, and neither were many others. At the age of 18, I was working construction with my dad, and saving every penny I could for the impending birth of our child…
There are numerous reasons I’m a 42 yr. Old construction foreman and I’ve had so many vivid memories of obtaining my first handheld video game as a child. I purchased my first Game Boy at a garage sale in 2009 for $5. After my daughter said “retro handhelds”, I spent the next 3 hours trying to figure out why anyone would want to play games on a tiny, dimly lit screen. When I purchased the…
Carl’s doing this review since Joe began ranting about how Ubisoft destroyed everything since they quit being quirky French publishers and basically we needed to be able to talk about the game instead of listening to yet another rant about corporate consolidation. There’s an unpleasant reality: Beyond Good and Evil is simultaneously one of the best action adventure games ever created and a textbook example of why incredible games sometimes fail commercially. Released in November…
I have kept the Gateway 2000 mouse pad on my desk at work for over 25 years, and I don’t have that mouse pad there for some sort of retro flair – it is there because it is the only one of the many mouse pads I have bought that has survived three moves from one location to another and remained intact. Each time I see those cows, I am reminded of 1994 and the…
Right, David writing here and I have to get something straight before we write this review. Joe has been yapping on about Command and Conquer for weeks, Sam won’t shut up about how perfectly balanced StarCraft is, Tim says Age of Empires II is untouchable and they are all completely missing the point. Warcraft III didn’t just make a great RTS game, it created the entire MOBA genre and changed gaming forever. That’s not hyperbole,…
When I’m down in my basement game room organising my collection – and my wife tells me that I have obsessive-compulsive disorder; she’s probably right – there is one console that freezes me in place every time. That gorgeous white, curvy beauty on my shelf – my Dreamcast – still takes my breath away every time I glance at it. It didn’t sell enough units to be considered the most successful console of all time,…
Right, the main issue here is that we’ve been debating about what really constitutes an Immersive Sim for years and every time we bring up Deus Ex, the debate escalates. I keep saying that the proof that player choice is more than just a marketing term is Deus Ex and that’s why I always come back to it. Deus Ex was released on June 23rd, 2000. We had passed the point in PC gaming history…
John here and I’ve got to bring up some old business that’s been eating at my brain for nearly 30 years. Whilst everyone else was busy mucking about with their fancy video game consoles back in the early ’90s, PC gaming was providing experiences that would make any Mega Drive user green with envy. XCOM: UFO Defense (a.k.a., UFO: Enemy Unknown if you’re one of the lucky ones living outside of America) was more than…
Joe here, and yes, Carl asked me to review a PlayStation game. I know what you’re thinking – the Genesis fanboy reviewing Sony’s console? Well, I am a Genesis fanboy but I am not blind. The original PlayStation had some fine games and Syphon Filter is definitely one of them. And it illustrates exactly why Sony’s first party development strategy was so great whilst Sega was too busy killing itself with horrible business decisions. Again.…
There's something about that electric blue plastic that still makes me grin like an idiot. I'm talking about the Pikachu N64, obviously—that wonderful, ridiculous console that Nintendo dropped on us in 2000, complete with Pokémon Hey You, Pikachu! and a microphone that barely worked but somehow didn't matter.I remember the exact moment I saw one for the first time. My mate Dave had somehow convinced his mum to get him one for his birthday, and…