Category: News commentary

Satoru Iwata (1959-2015)

Published on by Chris Scullion11 Comments

sad MarioAs I write this it’s after 1am and news has just broken that Satoru Iwata has passed away, so please forgive me if this isn’t articulate or is a little more rambling than usual.

Satoru Iwata was a man who embodied everything Nintendo stood for. He was a man who put fun before finances, entertainment before enterprise, smiles before sales.

Before he became the first President of Nintendo who wasn’t part of the Yamauchi family, Iwata was a programmer. He was a developer first and a businessman second.

It was this inherent love for gaming, this passion that he took with him right to the tragically early end of his life, that made Iwata the perfect man to lead Nintendo.

It’s no secret that Nintendo’s finances haven’t been great of late. But it’s a testament to Iwata that despite this he continued to receive sterling approval ratings from the company’s many shareholders. Continue reading “Satoru Iwata (1959-2015)” →

Video – Xbox One backwards compatibility demonstration

Published on by Chris ScullionLeave a comment

Xbox One backwards compatibilityDuring its E3 conference this week Microsoft surprised gamers by announcing that the Xbox One will soon be backwards compatible with a number of Xbox 360 games.

Although this feature isn’t rolling out until later this year, anyone signed up to the Xbox One Preview Program can test it out right now with a select number of games (around 20 or so) in order to give feedback to Microsoft on how smoothly things are running.

I’m a member of the Preview Program, so yesterday I held a quick 20-minute livestream on my Twitch channel showing the entire process. If you missed it, here it is in its entirety. Continue reading “Video – Xbox One backwards compatibility demonstration” →

FIFA 16 has women’s football, and that’s brilliant

Published on by Chris Scullion17 Comments

If you’re the sort who even slightly follows gaming news you’ll probably already be aware that FIFA 16 will feature women’s football teams for the first time in the series’ 22-year history.

To say I’m excited about this is an enormous understatement: not just because it offers the ‘new content’ FIFA critics demand on an annual basis, but because of what it stands for.

Let me be honest: I’m not a massive follower of women’s football. I would be lying if I pretended to know a lot about it. I’ve only been to two women’s games and though I keep an eye on the Celtic Women and Scotland Women teams, my involvement doesn’t go much further than knowing Kelly Clark is a bloody good player:

What excites me, then, is what I might end up learning about women’s football by playing FIFA 16. I’m not the sort of person who’ll just randomly watch a football match (men’s or women’s) if my team isn’t playing, but I am the sort of person who’ll play a random match on FIFA regardless of what team I’m controlling.

Continue reading “FIFA 16 has women’s football, and that’s brilliant” →

Lego Dimensions: Everything you need to know

Published on by Chris Scullion12 Comments

Believe it or not, I’ve never really been a massive fan of Lego sets.

Don’t get me wrong, I definitely want to be. I absolutely love what it stands for, I adore how timeless the design is, and I enjoy seeing all the different things people make with it.

lego_dimensions1I’m just not a very creative person when it comes to making things. It’s the same reason I don’t like Minecraft: any time I play it the result is me just standing there going “ummmm…” and never deciding what to make.

The Lego products that interest me most, then, are the pre-set construction kits that give you all the pieces you need in the box and let you build shit like the Millennium Falcon, the Simpsons’ house and even the United Nations headquarters.

Much as I’d love to get stuck into those however, they’re just too pricey. The recently-released SHIELD Helicarrier from their Marvel Super Heroes line is a wallet-squirming £269.99. Smaller things, like the Eiffel Tower, are still £30 a pop: that’s just too much money for me for something I’ll play with (i.e. build) once and never use again.

Most of my relationship with Lego, then, consists of playing the brilliant Lego games from Traveller’s Tales / TT Games. From the original Lego Star Wars all the way up to the recently released Lego Batman 3, I’ve owned all sixteen licensed Lego games and am pumped for the two upcoming offerings, Lego Marvel’s Avengers and Lego Jurassic World.

That’s why the recently announced Lego Dimensions has me so excited. Continue reading “Lego Dimensions: Everything you need to know” →

2K Games has killed the NBA 2K14 servers. Here’s why that’s bullshit

Published on by Chris Scullion16 Comments

(See bottom of the article for an update on the situation)

Jake McPake is dead.

Or rather, his illustrious career is. Right before he was ready to cement his name in NBA basketball history.

It looks absolutely incredible too
It looks absolutely incredible too

Allow me to explain. First, some background info: I absolutely adore the NBA 2K series. That isn’t bluff and bluster either, you only have to check back to literally the last article I posted, where I wrote:

“The best presentation you’ll see in a sports game these days is 2K Sports’ NBA 2K15. This isn’t a new phenomenon, though. The NBA 2K series has been consistently fantastic ever since… well, the year 2K.”

See? I bloody love me some NBA 2K. Even though 2K Sports has been slowly introducing some new features that I’ve been wary of, for now I’ve given it the benefit of the doubt.

That ends now. And it ends because 2K Sports has shut off the NBA 2K14 servers. Continue reading “2K Games has killed the NBA 2K14 servers. Here’s why that’s bullshit” →