Simulation games have been around since Fortune Builder in 1984 before being popularised by the first incarnation of Sim City in ’89. Since then their subject matter has taken many forms including malls, hotels, amusement parks, flying and bus driving. Despite the many variants, there is one which, for my money, has yet to be…
Funnily enough, during my first playthrough of Silent Hill 2, 3 and 4, I never actually touched the controller. I sat on a couch, covered in a cocoon of blankets, and watched my friend (we’ll call him Josh) play the game for me. This didn’t dilute the scare-factor, but rather enhanced it. You see, Josh…
At a time when Sega were the forerunners in the home video games market, Sony were trying to launch the PlayStation. Originally conceived as an add-on for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), the PlayStation was now to be its own entity. But experience had taught Sony that to be successful you needed a mascot; a Sonic…
Ever notice how the third of something is usually the best? Die Hard 3, Rambo 3, Alien 3, Starship Troopers 3? Actually, those are all terrible examples. Well anyway, I often get asked which SSX game, in my opinion, was the best – other people say it was SSX Tricky but other people are wrong….
To summarise Red Dead Redemption as simply “Grand Theft Auto in the ol’ West”, is to do it such a disservice that you ought to be rounded up, lassoed, hogtied and fed to the wolves. Red Dead Redemption was a spectacular accomplishment for Rockstar and to consider for a brief moment that this Wild West wonder…
When we think about Marvel superheroes in gaming, one rises above the rest in terms of prevalence: Spider-Man. Spider-Man has had a far greater presence in gaming than any other character from the comic book giant, unless you count up all of the various X-Men appearances over the years. One look at GamesRadar’s countdown of…
By David Haughton With XCOM 2 getting ever closer I feel its time to pay tribute to a series that tired to keep the XCOM style of game alive. One that blew my tiny little mind and paved the way open for games more complex than Mario. Way way back in the dark forgotten times…
By Conor Bailey Star Wars games have always had a special place in the hearts of gamers. It’s very, very hard not to name a great Star Wars game. Battlefront, Rogue Squadron, Jedi Knight and Jedi Outcast. One of the most revered of these titles is the original Knights of the Old Republic, an RPG which…
Those crazy Japanese. Western culture can’t account for them. The Japanese are so bewildering that Sophia Coppola earned four Oscar nominations for a film that did little more than follow a pair of puzzled Americans around a Tokyo hotel. Let’s face it, nothing else happened in Lost in Translation. Okay, Scarlett Johansson was in it…
Guild Wars, World of Warcraft, Neverwinter… The list of RPGs I’ve played and thoroughly enjoyed throughout my life goes on, but none will ever amount to Bioware’s Dragon Age. Come, my friends, as we embark on a journey across the Amaranthine Ocean to explore the wonders of Thedas! Pull up a seat in Kirkwall’s Hanged Man tavern…
Remember when we were innocent? Think about it. Take a break from plotting the growth of your criminal empire or raising your destructive magicka powers to the point where you can char an orc from a hundred yards and consider this scenario instead: your secret banana stash has been raided and the jungle won’t sleep…
We live in an era of invention and, as such, compulsively seek the new. Were someone to have stumbled ontoDragon’s Den in 1997 and said “I want investment in this computer game, it’s a racing game, where you try to beat the other cars to the finishing line”, they’d have been heckled from the studio….
Can you think of anything more boring than Urban Planning? A friend of mine took a degree in it at university and several times I witnessed conversation stop dead at parties when someone asked “So, what do you study?” Urban Planning is up there with Librarianship and Administration as the most tragically dull subject you…
Imagine a world without Lara Croft. The ridge-climbing, relic-seeking, ass-kicking English aristocrat with the curves of a genetically enhanced Page 3 model first somersaulted onto our screens in 1996, courtesy of Core Design. The platform genre, previously the domain of primary-coloured cartoon characters with a kleptomania for rings and coins, would never be the same…
For better or worse we live in a world of franchises. McDonalds and Subways. Dominos and Pizza Hut. Tesco and more Tescos. A franchise is meant to guarantee a certain level of quality, an identical burger in Istanbul and London, but as the latest Terminator fiasco to hit the box office proves, minimal quality and…
Nostalgia. It’s a funny thing. While your run-of-the-mill human being thinks back to summer afternoons spent in the park or on the beach, days of sticky ice lollies, buzzing insects and childhood adventure, a gamer recalls those same days spent in darkened rooms, curtains closed to keep the sunshine out lest it further obscure the…
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