Challenge One Shelf: Assassin's Creed

It looked nice.

Is there more to say?

If there is, it's probably on how the game embodies everything that is wrong with modern game design.

Challenge One Shelf: Animal Crossing

 Mario can't croon boy, don't ya agree?

Now this is an important one.

Whilst Nintendo had always positioned itself as a family-friendly company, it wasn't until Animal Crossing (which debuted on the N64 in Japan) that we saw the beginnings of the open-to-all design philosophy that subsequently allowed Nintendo to dominate the market with the DS and Wii.

A string of identikit sequels later and it's easy to forget just how forward-thinking the first Animal Crossing was. Before this, games almost always punished ineffective players with virtual death and/or the undoing of progress they'd made. Here players lost virtual friends. Inevitably, that stung more than losing virtual lifes.

Challenge One Shelf: Air Combat

After our inauspicious start yesterday (which was basically, “err, yeah, I haven't played this for ages”), I felt I ought to at least fire this one up again before writing about it. Seems some people think that's an important part of videogame criticism. Anyway, here are my thoughts:

Challenge One Shelf: The Adventures of Alundra

A sneak peak of what's coming

What an awkward place to start. I haven't played Alundra for a very long time and it's far from one of my favourite games, but it's probably kept its place on my shelf for being the very first Playstation game I bought entirely with my own money (previously older brothers had made financial contributions towards purchases).

Challenging One Shelf

There's a small shelving unit next to the TV in my living room that has the majority of the disc-based console games I own on it.

Today, on a whim, I decided I'd organise it alphabetically, irrespective of format. In what's got to be a definitive sign that my nerdiness is increasing rather than diminishing with age, I'm quite pleased with the results:

Some old Nintendo ads

You know you've had an amazing Saturday night when it's midnight and you're watching old TV adverts on Youtube.

Seriously:


Clearly the Gameboy will forever be the coolest handheld console mankind has invented. (Except if you wear it round your neck when you go to raves.)

Tetris DS - Review

The two most important rules in Tetris are:

1. The speed at which tetrominoes shower from the sky should only ever increase. The player should have absolutely no control over the rate at which they fall.

2. The blocks should be sticky. They should rigidly lock themselves into place the moment that their southern most side so much as brushes against another block.

Tetris DS overlooks both these rules, and so – despite what the box says – cannot be considered a proper version of Tetris.

A Fine Fantasy VII

The number seven was clearly on my mind at the end of last year. What follows is a re-worked version of an article I orginally wrote for GAMES? in October 2010. Sadly it seems GAMES? has more-or-less died now, which is unfortunate because I thought the concept of an online champion of left-field/indie games that didn't take itself horribly seriously was a good one.

Anyway, the piece was simultaneously grumpy and silly - in keeping with the previous FF(P)S column I'd written. I'm pretty pleased with most of it, except maybe what I've written about UFO: Enemy Unknown...

Seven Ages of Sebastian Grice

So my buddy Josh and I wrote a screenplay. It's probably slightly preposterous to believe we have any chance of going anywhere in the BBC's Laughing Stock competition, as this is the first time either of us have tried our hand at this kind of thing. But my naive optimism is probably one of my favourite flaws, so no doubt I'll end up paying a little more attention than usual to what the postman brings for the next few weeks.

Shall I show you some of it? Okay, here's a tiny bit of it:

The Sound of Tumult

Kerfuffles and malefactors.

Indiscretions and perfidies.

And of course, supercilious c-bombs.

Those are words. These are songs: on Spotify or Youtube