Author: chrisscullion

I'm a video game expert who used to be the Games Editor of the Official Nintendo Magazine in the UK, and the Games Editor of CVG. I lived in Scotland all my life until I got the ONM job at the age of 23. I moved to London at the start of May 2006 and have been living there ever since. My spare time is more or less dedicated to movies, Celtic and building my gaming knowledge by digging through rare and retro games.

VHS Preservation Project #5: NMS Street Fighter II Player’s Guide

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The Video Game VHS Preservation Project is an attempt to digitise as many video game VHS tapes as possible for the purposes of preservation. Click here for more information.

The fifth tape in my VHS Preservation Project should hopefully be an interesting one for fans of Street Fighter II

The Street Fighter II Player’s Guide was given away with issue 3 (December 1992) of Nintendo Magazine System.

It comes with commentary by the legendary Julian Rignall and Gary Harrod, and it’s worth a watch. Continue reading “VHS Preservation Project #5: NMS Street Fighter II Player’s Guide” →

Tired Old Hack: a word on the coming months

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Well. It’s been quite the fortnight.

Over the past two weeks I’ve posted nine reviews (a round-up, Layton’s Mystery Journey and Mario & Luigi), two videos and a tips special on the site: given that I’ve been juggling that with a 9-to-5 job and other freelance work that’s a lot of work.

That’s about to change, though. Continue reading “Tired Old Hack: a word on the coming months” →

VHS Preservation Project #4: The N64 Magazine Video

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The Video Game VHS Preservation Project is an attempt to digitise as many video game VHS tapes as possible for the purposes of preservation. Click here for more information.

The fourth tape in my VHS Preservation Project is the one I’ve watched more than any of the others.

The N64 Video was given away with the first issue of N64 Magazine in the UK, and shows a bunch of gameplay footage as well as Nintendo’s 1996 Shoshinkai (Space World) promotional video.

You also get occasional glimpses of some cancelled N64 games. Watch with my commentary and I’ll point them out. Continue reading “VHS Preservation Project #4: The N64 Magazine Video” →

Layton’s Mystery Journey (3DS) review

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Nintendo / Level-5
3DS, iOS, Android (3DS version reviewed)

I remember back in November 2008 when Professor Layton And The Curious Village was released on the DS in the UK.

The DS was massively successful at the time, partly thanks to the likes of Brain Training and partly thanks to the fact the Wii was doing similar degrees of gangbusters.

As such, following a TV ad campaign, the first Professor Layton game sold out all over the UK and became nigh-on impossible to buy until well after Christmas.

Now, here we are nearly a decade later and it’s fair to say the situation has changed. Nintendo is once again massively popular thanks to the Switch and 3DS, but the Layton series doesn’t appear to have enjoyed the same continued success.

Instead, Layton’s Mystery Journey is out tomorrow and it’s fair to say social media isn’t exactly white hot with hype surrounding it. Continue reading “Layton’s Mystery Journey (3DS) review” →

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions (3DS) review

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Nintendo / AlphaDream
Nintendo 3DS

There aren’t many game series that manage to last more than a decade with the same developer intact, but AlphaDream has been rocking the Mario & Luigi games for 14 years now.

Although it continues to see critical success with each Mario & Luigi game released though, the fact that the first title in the series – Superstar Saga on the Game Boy Advance – is now nearly a decade and a half old means many of today’s gamers never got a chance to play it.

That problem has now been resolved with this 3DS remake of Superstar Saga, and it’s a testament to the 2004 release that so little of the core game has been changed here. Continue reading “Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions (3DS) review” →

Review round-up: Switch eShop special

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Last week a metric fuckton of games (trust me, I weighed it) were released on the Switch eShop, so I spent the weekend rinsing the shit out of some of them for your consumer advice pleasure. In today’s round up:

• is Thimbleweed Park more like Monkey Island or Space Chimps?
• is Golf Story a legend at fore play, or an awkward fumble out-of-bounds?
• does Picross S offer another brilliant square meal, or should it be blocked?
• is Butcher a glorious helping of gore, or a grotty little gunge pit?
• does Binaries offer double delights, or a second helping of slop?
• does Conga Master Party have toe-tapping skills, or two left feet?
• is Deemo an operatic masterpiece, or a Fisher Price xylophone? Continue reading “Review round-up: Switch eShop special” →

VHS Preservation Project #3: Blown Away (PS1)

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The Video Game VHS Preservation Project is an attempt to digitise as many video game VHS tapes as possible for the purposes of preservation. Click here for more information.

For the third of my VHS Preservation Project videos, it’s time to move away from the SNES and focus on what could have been its successor in an alternative timeline.

Blown Away is a video commissioned by Sony in 1996 to showcase the games coming to the original PlayStation in late ’96 and early ’97.

It’s got some interesting imagery and loads of stylishly put together game footage. Well, stylish for its time.

Continue reading “VHS Preservation Project #3: Blown Away (PS1)” →