Category Archives: Articles

My First Legend of Zelda – The Wind Waker HD

My-FIrst-Zelda

Last month I wrote a feature (see it here for more context on this “My First” article series) on my first ever purchase and full playthrough of a Castlevania game with the fantastic Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. But Castlevania wasn’t the only beloved and long-running videogame series which had largely passed me by over my many years of playing videogames, so I didn’t want to stop there. And with my Wii U being the first Nintendo console I’ve owned, this has finally given me the opportunity to properly experience some of these other series, one of which is Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda.

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Retrospective: ToeJam & Earl

ToeJam&Earl

Duh-duh-duh-duh-DUH duh-duh-duh-DUH duh-duh-duh DUH-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-DUH…

Brilliant.

There probably aren’t too many pieces of videogame music catchy enough to stick in a player’s mind for over twenty years, but for me, ToeJam & Earl’s main theme is such a track. At the time of writing, I haven’t played the game in many years, but still that main theme remains clear as a bell in my head, as does much of the rest of the game. ToeJam & Earl became one of my favourite Sega Mega Drive titles when I first played it as a kid in the early 1990s, a hugely enjoyable and highly original game that received a great deal of much-deserved praise from many Mega Drive / Genesis owners.

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My First Castlevania – Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

My-First-Castlevania

Although I love quality videogames regardless of their platform and have never been a biased fanboy, Sega and Sony have dominated the majority of my gaming experiences over the years, my list of owned consoles to date including Sega’s Master System, Mega Drive, Mega-CD and Dreamcast; and Sony’s first three generations of PlayStation. I’ve only briefly dabbled with PC gaming and I never actually owned a Nintendo console until my purchase of a Wii U last year – an admitted oversight for someone who has loved the medium literally for as long as I can remember. (Although I did spend far too large a percentage of my university years playing my housemate’s Nintendo 64, so there’s that).

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I Would Walk 500 Miles: In Praise of Journey

InPraiseOfJourney

In these days of retailer-specific pre-order DLC, creatively devoid annual sequels, not-so-micro microtransactions in full-priced games, and the general greed and soullessness exhibited by many videogame developers and publishers, sometimes it can be easy to forget just how inventive, creative and artistically powerful the videogame medium can be. But look beyond the crass greed and you’ll find countless passionate, hard-working developers and publishers creating imaginative and brilliant games which act as reminders of the potential of videogames as an artistic medium. Journey is such a game.

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Overlooked Gem: From Dust

From-Dust

We’re often warned about the dangers of playing god, but that didn’t stop me from genetically engineering the horrific abominations I keep chained up in my cellar and it didn’t stop me from buying and really enjoying god game From Dust.

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MOGA Pro Review

MOGAProReview

Over the last few weeks I’ve had my hands on the MOGA Pro Tablet and let me tell you this thing is a revolution. This small plastic stand collapses into a compact size but when unfolded holds any tablet, phone, cook book or painting canvas with ease. It is solid, hold items at a great viewing angle and had frankly changed my life. 10/10

Everything after the stand is just a bonus

Everything after the stand is just a bonus

Also included in the box is the MOGA Pro Controller. A Bluetooth, twin stick game controller for use with Android based devices.

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Bullets Over Brazil: In Praise of Max Payne 3

MazPayne3

“Time moves forward…” says the titular hero of Max Payne 3 at one point during the game, “and nothing changes.”

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as evidenced by the action-packed third-person shooter Max Payne 3, which, after two previous games in the series, once again drops embattled, world-weary, former NYPD detective and DEA agent Max Payne into a whirlwind of bullets, betrayal and painkillers. Welcome back, Max.

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Retrospective: Road Rash

Road-Rash

When I was a kid, years before Electronic Arts became the obscenely greedy, morally bankrupt parody of cartoonish supervillainy that they are today (“Bah! He was a rank amateur compared to… Dr. Colossus!”), to me they were a company synonymous with interesting and fantastic games due to the titles developed and / or published by EA that I owned for my Sega Mega Drive: The Immortal, Populous, John Madden American Football, Desert Strike, etc. (Also, it was easy to recognise EA Mega Drive games by the oversized boxes and oversized, yellow-chipped cartridges).

One such EA title I owned and became a huge fan of was motorcycle racing / combat game Road Rash, which debuted on the Mega Drive in 1991. The game would later receive ports to numerous other systems and would also turn out to be just the first title in a series that continued throughout the 1990s.

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