Chris Scullion – Page 29

You remember

Published on May 11, 2015May 11, 2015 by Chris Scullion3 Comments

Last week I posted ‘I remember’, an article in which I shared some of my gaming memories to show how looking back on them can cheer us up when we’re feeling down.

I had a lovely response to the article – for which I’m massively grateful – and a similarly brilliant response to my request for your own gaming memories. You delivered them by the virtual bucketload.

Here, then, are a selection of memories from Tired Old Hack readers, Twitter followers and friends. We’re all different people and we were all brought up in different situations, but we’re all united by the warm feeling we get when we think back to when video games made us happy.

I remember my old man coming home with a rubber keyboard Speccy in an old Tesco bag that he hadn’t told us he was buying. The whole family crowded round our huge CRT TV in total amazement at what we were seeing. I can still remember being in total awe of the graphics in Pajamarama and playing that and School Daze endlessly even though I was rubbish at both of them.

I remember visiting the Golden Goose arcade and the very start of the peir in Llandudno. Rightly or wrongly it was always the highlight of visiting my grandparents and I was introduced to so many games that turned out to be genre-defining classics, although I didn’t realise it at the time.

One time a guy asked if he could join my game of Golden Axe and when I said “sure thing” he proceeded to kick the the life right out of me, before my 10-year-old eyes. I was too busy laughing at his audacity to be angry and mourn the loss of my precious 10p. We ended up gaming together for an hour or so until Thunderblade had swallowed the last of the week’s spends.

You’re right, gaming gives us all memories that we can look back on fondly as well as providing a fantastic distraction from the heaps of actual manure that comes along with adult life.

Your article got me thinking and I’m so grateful for my old man introducing me to computers at such a young age (Vic-20 era) even though he had little interest in them himself. It was that spark that started a lifelong passion for gaming that doesn’t seem to be dimming at all.

Having the opportunity to see games develop from Radar Rat Race to Grand Theft Auto V is a journey that not everyone had the chance to experience. Watching these games evolve over my 37 years on this planet has been such a special experience and not every generation gets to witness something like that.

– Pastebutty Continue reading “You remember” →

I remember

Published on May 8, 2015May 8, 2015 by Chris Scullion19 Comments

I remember being extremely young, maybe three or four, and playing Dangermouse In The Black Forest Chateau with my dad on his ZX Spectrum 48K. It was a text adventure and he’d read it out to me like a story and I’d tell him what I wanted to do.

I have very few memories of being so young but for some reason this one sticks out. Being unable to read at the time, it’s the only vivid memory I have of seeing weird symbols (the words on the screen) and somehow knowing they meant something, but not knowing what. Continue reading “I remember” →

My first Miyamoto interview from 2007

Published on April 23, 2015April 23, 2015 by Chris Scullion3 Comments

I’ve interviewed a number of game developers and other personalities over the years. Of them all, two stand out as personal favourites: Suda 51 and Shigeru Miyamoto.

I’ll cover my first Suda 51 interview in a later article, but for now let me focus on Miyamoto.

Me and Miyamoto — Plot twist: I was wearing trousers, he wasn’t

If you’ve got any sort of gaming knowledge, you know that Miyamoto is, quite simply, the man. If you don’t have any sort of gaming knowledge, I think you’ve ended up here by mistake, probably because you were searching for “Emma Watson upskirt” and Google brought you here because of this sentence. In which case stick around, you sick bastard, you might learn something.

Miyamoto is the single most influential video game creator and developer of all time. People will argue with this. Those people are wrong. Don’t fight them, pity them.

I’ve actually interviewed Miyamoto twice, and both were special for different reasons. The second time was in person, and led to the photo you see above, so naturally it was special for that reason alone: a one-on-one chat with the man whose work shaped my childhood and, ultimately, my career and life. Continue reading “My first Miyamoto interview from 2007” →

Lego Dimensions: Everything you need to know

Published on April 9, 2015April 9, 2015 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.

I’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 April 6, 2015April 8, 2015 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.

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” →

The 30 best Dreamcast games

Published on April 3, 2015April 3, 2015 by Chris Scullion16 Comments

This is the third in my ’30 Best’ series of articles in which I discuss my favourite games ever on a system-by-system basis for the first time. In case you missed them, I’ve already covered the 30 best DS games and 30 best GameCube games.

As before, because this is my own personal list and not a collaborative effort for a magazine or website, there will be some glaring omissions of games I simply didn’t play or didn’t like. So yes, I know Legacy Of Kain isn’t on there: stop riding me, dawg.

If one of your favourites isn’t on the list, feel free to give it a shoutout in the comments below (politely though, mind) and tell everyone what it meant to you.

It wasn’t always just Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo competing in the video game hardware race, you know. I mean, obviously you know, I’m just saying that for effect.

Back in the day Sega was a major competitor too, with the Master System and Mega Drive / Genesis shifting in hefty numbers worldwide.

After its fourth standalone console – the overpriced Saturn – crumbled against the Nintendo 64 and newcomer Sony’s game-changing PlayStation, Sega’s next system would either make or break the company’s future.

Sadly, it would end up doing the latter. Continue reading “The 30 best Dreamcast games” →

Nintendo NX: What I want to see

Published on March 17, 2015 by Chris Scullion14 Comments

Today Nintendo president and CEO Satoru Iwata revealed during a presentation that the next ‘dedicated game platform’ from Nintendo was in development.

Naturally, the main response to this should be “no shit”.

The official Nintendo NX logo. Um, probably

Video game hardware doesn’t just appear out of thin air, it takes an extremely long time to develop and perfect. PS4 lead architect Mark Cerny once confirmed that his console, released in November 2013, was in development as early as 2008.

So yes, of course Nintendo’s working on new hardware. We all knew that. What we didn’t know was its (code)name and when it’s coming out.

Today’s announcement at least answers part of that. The new system has been codenamed the Nintendo NX and is due to be properly revealed in 2016, which – given Nintendo’s usual routine – means we’ll probably see it on shelves in 2017.

What we still don’t know is whether the NX is a handheld or a home console… or even the much-rumoured hybrid system that acts as both.

In fact, here’s the full extent of what was actually said about the NX:

Not a lot to go on, I’m sure you’ll agree. Still, that hasn’t stopped the gaming press jumping on it with some deciding, among other things, that it’s a new home console designed to replace the struggling Wii U (i.e. the console everyone who has one loves and everyone who doesn’t thinks is shit).

I’m not about to get into speculation, because that’s just daft and frankly unprofessional, but what I will do is share a list of things I hope the NX implements.

In short, if I was in charge at Nintendo and the NX was my dream system, here’s what I’d want Nintendo to do with it. Continue reading “Nintendo NX: What I want to see” →

The 30 best DS games

Published on March 12, 2015June 2, 2015 by Chris Scullion34 Comments

This is the first in a series of shameful SEO-milking articles that should hopefully still at least be helpful to you.

These articles are also important to me in a personal sense because they mark the first time I’ve ever been able to write my own definitive ‘top games’ lists, rather than contributing to collaborative lists on ONM, CVG and the like.

The eventual result will be a number of platform-specific articles that, when combined, will list my personal favourite games ever, something I’ve never been able to share in such detail.

Because of this, there will be blatant omissions and odd decisions. But I’m not going to add a game I’ve never played just because it’s widely considered a classic. These are my lists, paying homage to the games that I personally had a great time with.

The Nintendo DS turned 10 years old in the UK yesterday. On 11 March 2005 Nintendo’s chunky flip-case handheld arrived in Britain to a relatively muted response.

Many gamers, feeling Nintendo was losing steam with GameCube sales slowing to a crawl, were more focused on Sony’s upcoming handheld, the PSP.

The best handheld ever? That's a debate for another time — The best handheld ever? That’s a debate for another time

Offering significantly better graphics and games that could pass as slightly low-res PS2 titles, the PSP was far more appealing to gamers than the DS’s N64-era visuals and its touch screen, which appeared to be no more than a gimmick.

And yet, a decade later, nobody can deny the DS’s eventual impact on the gaming world. With over 154 million units sold worldwide, it’s the best-selling handheld of all time and was around a million shy of overtaking the PS2 as the best-selling video game system ever.

The first game I ever reviewed professionally as an employee of Future Publishing was a DS game. Granted, it was the abysmal Dragon Booster, but the DS will always hold a place in my heart for that reason regardless.

So, since it celebrated its 10th birthday in the UK yesterday, and since it was where my career began, it’s only fitting that my first ‘best games’ article should celebrate the best Nintendo DS games I’ve ever played.

In the six years I spent at Official Nintendo Magazine I reviewed hundreds of DS games, arguably more than any multi-format journalist (since their publications wouldn’t have touched half the shite we covered). So trust me when I say these 30 must have done something special to get in here. Continue reading “The 30 best DS games” →