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: