Author: Chris Scullion

Chris Scullion is a Scottish video games journalist who's been covering video games professionally for 16 years. For the first six years of his career he worked at the Official Nintendo Magazine in the UK, then became the Games Editor of CVG before its untimely end. After setting up his own site, Tired Old Hack, Chris then joined Video Games Chronicle (VGC) where he is currently Features Editor. He has a passion for retro games and cataloguing their history, hence his ongoing series of console encyclopedia books (search his name on Amazon).

10 years as a games journalist – my most memorable moments

Published on by Chris Scullion11 Comments

On 2 May 2006, I joined Official Nintendo Magazine as a Staff Writer.

After a quick glance at my calendar, I have determined that today is therefore my 10th anniversary as a video games journalist (or critic, or writer or whatever you want to call it: I still don’t really know myself).

My first ever ONM review: a shit DS racing game. The glory days
My first ever ONM review. They got better, honest

Over the past decade I’ve loved every minute of working for ONM, then Nintendo Gamer, then CVG and finally as a freelancer.

And now I’ve got Tired Old Hack, which gives me more freedom to write what I want than I’ve ever had. In short, it’s been a bloody good 10 years.

With that in mind, although games are usually the main focus when I write, I hope you don’t mind if I make today’s article about my own career.

Here are 20 of my favourite memories as a games journalist over the past decade. These are not all of them, not by a long shot: they’re just the ones that stand out at this very moment. Continue reading “10 years as a games journalist – my most memorable moments” →

What next for Lego Dimensions? Season two character predictions

Published on by Chris Scullion1 Comment

The fifth and ‘final’ wave of Lego Dimensions characters is due to be released on 10 May, adding Slimer, Bane and Ninjago character Lloyd to the roster.

lego-ghostbusters-12-25Once those three are out, that’ll be essentially be the entire first batch of Dimensions figures available to buy. But it probably won’t be ending there.

Warner Bros and developer Traveller’s Tales have made it very clear that there’s a three-year plan for Lego Dimensions, and so far we’re only 7 months into it.

It’s almost certain that more ‘seasons’ of content are on the way, adding even more characters as well as (hopefully) level packs and free-roaming adventure worlds to expand the game further.

On Friday, an apparent promotional image showing off a Supergirl minifig for Lego Dimensions was supposedly leaked, suggesting the second batch of content could be announced any time now.

With that in mind, I’ve put together this list of 20 potential new licences I’d love to see in Lego Dimensions, to join the 14 already in the game. Continue reading “What next for Lego Dimensions? Season two character predictions” →

Cover Me Badd #3 – The 20 worst Nintendo 64 game covers

Published on by Chris Scullion6 Comments

Cover Me Badd is my regular series looking at the worst video game covers in history. Each article will focus on a specific format. If you missed it, catch up on Part 1: NES games and Part 2: SNES games.

It was a mere month and a half ago that I regaled you with tales of the 20 worst SNES covers of all time. Oh, how we chuckled.

If you still pine for that lovely time some 40-odd days ago, now’s your lucky moment, as we both continue our journey through shit box art memory lane. This time, it’s the Nintendo 64’s turn. Continue reading “Cover Me Badd #3 – The 20 worst Nintendo 64 game covers” →

Tired Old Hack – The header collection

Published on by Chris Scullion1 Comment

TiredOldHackIf you’re the sort who visits Tired Old Hack on a semi-regular basis, you may have noticed that the site had a wee bit of a sprucing up about a month ago.

As part of this, the header image featuring the Tired Old Hack logo has been changed.

You may also have noticed that, depending on your browser, refreshing the page or navigating to different articles changes the header to something different.

Just in case you’re curious as to how many headers here are in total but can’t be arsed battering ‘F5’ over and over again like a WWE scriptwriter planning a Brock Lesnar match, I thought I’d help with this article.

There are in fact a grand total of 20 different header images, each based on a classic (or not-so-classic) game that meant something to me back in the day.

Below you can see all 20 of them, so you can marvel at my sub-par Photoshop skills. Click on them to see them full size, if you must. Continue reading “Tired Old Hack – The header collection” →

Active Soccer 2 DX (Xbox One) review

Published on by Chris Scullion1 Comment
THE FOX SOFTWARE / SELF-PUBLISHED
XBOX ONE

Despite being the most popular sport in the world, there haven’t been many football games released on consoles for a while.

Active Soccer 2 DX pic 2Indeed, outside of the annual FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer instalments (and their tournament-based spin-offs), you’d be hard pushed to think of another football game released on an Xbox or PlayStation system in the last five years.

Active Soccer 2 DX, developed by Roman studio The Fox Software, changes this for Microsoft’s console at least, offering not just a new footy game but one that harks back to the simple days of Sensible Soccer, Kick Off, or…

Well, okay, just Sensible Soccer. Let’s not piss around and pretend this is trying to be any other arcade-style football game.

This one was clearly ‘inspired’ by Sensible Software’s 1992 gem, from obvious things like the menu interface (which is more or less lifted from Sensi) to more subtle things like the way yellow cards appear above players’ heads when they commit a foul. Continue reading “Active Soccer 2 DX (Xbox One) review” →

Lego Dimensions – Midway Arcade level pack review

Published on by Chris Scullion1 Comment

Lego Dimensions Midway Arcade level pack hero picLego Dimensions is a ridiculously ambitious crossover of all things pop culture, bringing together characters from popular movies, TV shows, comic books, toys and games in one massive mash-up.

However, until now the latter category there – video games – has been a bit under-represented, with only Portal 2 flying the interactive flag. That’s finally changed with the Midway Arcade level pack.

Having already treated us with individual level packs focusing on The Simpsons, Back To The Future, Portal 2, Doctor Who and Ghostbusters, this sixth and final (for now) level pack is aimed squarely at retro gamers, particularly those who had a soft spot for ‘80s arcade games.

What may surprise you, though, is that this isn’t really your conventional Lego game level. Instead, it’s more of a retro gaming compilation, a bit like the old Midway Arcade Treasures games back in the day. Continue reading “Lego Dimensions – Midway Arcade level pack review” →

Senran Kagura: Estival Versus (PS4 review)

Published on by Chris Scullion5 Comments
Marvelous Entertainment / Tamsoft
PS4 / Vita (PS4 version reviewed)

Warning: Some of the content in this game could be considered adult in nature. If anime-style nudity isn’t the sort of thing you want saved in your internet history, don’t read on.

Senran Kagura Estival VersusRight. Here’s the deal.

There have been countless articles written about the Senran Kagura games for reasons that will become breast-wobblingly obvious very soon.

Most of these articles fit into two distinct categories: those who think Senran Kagura is all that is evil in the world and dragging civilisation back 70 years, and those who think it’s just a bit of a laugh and hey lighten up don’t censor me bro etc.

For this review, I’m going to attempt to play it right down the middle. If you absolutely must know, I’m not in favour of it and really don’t think it’s the healthiest thing young teenage boys should be playing.

That said, considering I also have a website dedicated to weird and wonderful horror movies, it would be massively hypocritical of me to declare: “My choice in questionable entertainment’s better than your choice in questionable entertainment.” Continue reading “Senran Kagura: Estival Versus (PS4 review)” →

Don’t Die, Mr Robot! (PS4, Vita) review

Published on by Chris Scullion3 Comments

Don't Die Mr Robot pic 3When the PlayStation Vita launched back in 2011 its big selling point was the fact that it was essentially a slightly underpowered PS3 in handheld form.

In the early days this resulted in a bunch of handheld versions of beloved console games, with the likes of Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Resistance: Burning Skies and Killzone: Mercenary really driving home the ‘console in your pocket’ mantra.

While this sounded exciting in theory, for some – including me – the concept didn’t quite work in practice.

On public transport my journeys were never quite long enough to comfortably finish the often large stages in adventure games. Level exploration was ditched in favour of hurriedly yet grudgingly running to my next destination, like someone bursting for a shite trying to discreetly get to the nearest toilet without outright running to it.

At home, meanwhile, the novelty of playing a console game on a handheld isn’t quite as enticing when there’s the obvious alternative of playing a console game on an actual console and a dirty big telly.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that for me, the best Vita games weren’t the ones that embraced the feel of console gaming, but those that stuck to the tried and tested handheld formula of quick-burst experiences. Don’t Die, Mr Robot! undoubtedly falls into this latter category. Continue reading “Don’t Die, Mr Robot! (PS4, Vita) review” →

Tired Old Hack – Level 2

Published on by Chris Scullion2 Comments

MarioveggieBelieve it or not, Tired Old Hack is already over a year old.

Originally launched as a way for me to deal with the closure of CVG and the apparent end of my games journalism career, Tired Old Hack has developed into a wee site I’ve become proud of, a games publication I can truly call my own.

It isn’t just mine, though. Tired Old Hack belongs to you lovely readers as much as me: I write these articles for you and am more than willing to get feedback on what you think is and isn’t working.

I’ve always tried to be as transparent as possible when working on Tired Old Hack, which you’ll know if you follow my Twitter feed. So that’s why I want to share with you my plans for the next stage of the site. Continue reading “Tired Old Hack – Level 2” →

World exclusive – A look at all the Sonic characters in Mario & Sonic At The Rio 2016 Olympic Games

Published on by Chris Scullion4 Comments

Mario_Sonic_-_Rio2016Mario & Sonic At The Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the fifth game in the Mario & Sonic series, is released in Europe on 8 April, which coincidentally happens to be my birthday.

The last Mario & Sonic game featured 20 playable characters, ten each from both the Mario and Sonic universes.

Recently Sega dropped a bombshell by revealing that another TWENTY characters would be added to the Rio game, on top of the 20 already there.

Naturally, this has led to some wondering what Sonic characters are left, considering the previous game had fucking Vector the Crocodile in it.

Well, here at Tired Old Hack I can finally bring to you this world exclusive look at every character in Team Sonic, thanks to Sega who gave me unprecedented access because of the whole birthday thing or something.

Enjoy, and remember where you saw this first – for future news bombshells, keep it tired and keep it old. Continue reading “World exclusive – A look at all the Sonic characters in Mario & Sonic At The Rio 2016 Olympic Games” →