Jon Gracey's

Posts Tagged ‘videogames’

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Games That Rocked…Luke Malkin’s World – #36: Banjo-Kazooie

In N64, Xbox 360 on May 24, 2013 at 12:43 pm

Today’s post is by Luke Malkin.

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Title: Banjo-Kazooie

Format: N64, Xbox 360 (XBLA)

Released: 17th July, 1998

BK Box Art

Because I’m a box-ticker of a human being, back in the days where you thought it was a good idea to brand your Facebook profile with anything you’ve ever liked, one of the first groups I joined was called “Banjo-Kazooie was my childhood”. Such is my fanboy allegiance to this classic.

Anyone who paid attention to the history of the N64 will know how Rare, the British game developers from Tycross, really bolstered Nintendo’s gaming collection. While Nintendo created the backbone with arguably some of the greatest video games of all time (Ocarina of Time, Lylatwars, Mario Kart 64), Rare filled out the N64 with some real gems. When I look back on my N64 cartridge collection it’s Rare, with titles like Goldeneye, Diddy Kong Racing and Donkey Kong 64 that evoke a stronger sense of nostalgia. But nothing makes my childish heart flutter like their pinnacle; Banjo-Kazooie. Read the rest of this entry »

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Games That Rocked…Seb Patrick’s World – #35: XCOM Enemy Unknown

In iOS, Mac, PC, PS3, Xbox 360 on May 17, 2013 at 4:41 pm

Today’s post is by Seb Patrick.

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Title: XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Format: PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac, IOS

Released: 12th October, 2012

XCOM Box Art

We could have been something, Col. Jessica “Dark Angel” Baker and I. Sure, we had obstacles to overcome, but what relationship doesn’t? Okay, she’s a soldier and I’m her boss; and admittedly, I’m a married man, while she is – let’s be brutally honest here – fictional.

Nevertheless, there was little I could do to stop myself falling in love with this statuesque redhead sniper with sexy black body armour and impressive psychic abilities. And hey, budding relationships have overcome worse. Read the rest of this entry »

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Games That Rocked…Tom Clarke’s World – #34: Advance Wars: Dual Strike

In DS on May 10, 2013 at 8:44 am

Today’s post is by Tom Clarke.

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Title: Advance Wars: Dual Strike

Format: Nintendo DS

Released: 30th September, 2005 (UK)

Advance Wars DS Box Art

War is adorable. At least, Advance Wars: Dual Strike is.

I often think about the numbers I’ve killed. The dozens of Timesplitters, the hundreds of Stormtroopers, the thounds of ethnic Serb- I mean Zergs. Sometimes, I’m haunted by the faces of the trusting soldiers from Red Alert, who would follow my every deranged command with absolute loyalty. They believed in me, even when I decided to tell them to attack a Tesla coil one at a time rather than as a group, just because I was bored. Read the rest of this entry »

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Games That Rocked…Jonathon Valenzuela’s World – #33: Half-Life

In Mac, PC, PS2 on May 3, 2013 at 12:00 am

Today’s post is by Jonathon Valenzuela.

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Title: Half-Life

Format: PC, Mac, PS2

Released: November 19th, 1998

Half-life Box Art

I grew up a PC gamer. Though I lusted after NES and Sega as a child (my parents considered them a waste of time), we always had a decent desktop in an era when all the big innovations in games were on computers, not consoles. In 1993, I finally stopped being jealous of kids whose parents let them have ‘video games’ (the distinction between ‘video games’ and ‘computer games’ was more defined back then). The reason for this was Doom. The first true FPS* (First-person shooter) was a revelatory experience; an entirely new type of game, something I’d never seen before on my friends’ gaming systems, nor my own PC. It blew my 11-year old mind.** Read the rest of this entry »

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Games That Rocked…Tom Crowley’s World – #32: The Longest Journey

In PC on April 26, 2013 at 12:46 pm

Today’s post is by Tom Crowley.

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Title: The Longest Journey

Format: PC

Released: April 20th, 2000

TLJ box

“You’re about to take the first step on the longest journey of your life.”
“I must be insane to do this.”
“Yes, it’s pretty much a given.”

I’ve really dug myself into a hole here. All I had to do was pick a computer game to write about in a heartfelt but vaguely amusing way for up-to-but-not-including a thousand words and I had to choose The Longest Journey, about which unsurprisingly there is far, far too much to say. Ask me to describe this game in real life sometime and see a man say a lot of seemingly unrelated words in sequence and wave his hands around. Ah, well. When it comes to retrospectives, we can all be clever with hindsight. Read the rest of this entry »