Owning a video game magazine collection for me allows me to fulfil that fantasy of having my own library of video games related literature. In the last 5 years or so I have begun to fall for the various video games coffee table style books such as Bitmap Books’ Visual Compendium series or their beautiful one-off books like The Art Of Point and Click Adventures. These are the kind of books you can flick through and soak up the nostalgia as you turn each page and transport you back to another time and place where the video games magazine ruled the world.
My favourite video games magazines have to be the Mean Machines run of magazines that were headed up by Jaz Rignall. The original run of magazines only lasted 24 issues before it split into a SEGA and Nintendo variant but those first 24 are ingrained into my psyche and greatly influenced the way I think about games critique and how to have fun with video game writing.
More recently I’ve also had the pleasure to look at a cool magazine called Ninty Fresh which went through Kickstarter very successfully and is now into a run of issues each being funded by Kickstarter backers.
With all this in mind, it feels like there is something of a renaissance of the written word in physical form within the video games world which for me is a great thing and leads me onto the journal which has been absorbing my time lately.
The lovely people from Lost In Cult have just released their first gaming journal entitled Lock On and I was approached to take a look at this beautiful video gaming tome just before I went on my hols to the Isle Of Wight.
Perfect holiday reading was my first thought.
But, though the aesthetic is now a little played out, it’s rare to see it executed as well as in The Ascent.
Crash Drive 3 does not have this problem. It's an open-world, cross-platform arcade stuntfest where you tear about in a huge array of vehicles in amusingly varied environments. And it's fun.
A first-person title with a heavy focus on melee combat, Paint the Town Red’s multiple game modes mean that it can be used for either brief blasts of bloody bashing bonkersness or delved into for a deeper, more RPG-ish experience. The one thing that really feels like it’s missing from the console versions is some sort of multiplayer mode. The game would really come to life with friends - although the PC version does offer it so perhaps it’s a possibility for consoles down the line.
Ranch Sim - Builder. Farmer. Hunter. Trader. Ranching certainly isn’t your average job. Think you have the skills to turn your family’s rundown homestead into the most prosperous ranch in the valley?
Then it’s time to head out into the wilderness in this captivating single and multiplayer open-world simulator.
In Cotton Reboot!, Japan’s favourite shooter mascot finds her way into a beautiful HD game with stunning graphics and remixed soundtracks. This is the original “Cute ‘em up”, and will test your skills as well as tug on the heartstrings as Cotton and her friends are finally back in the ultimate celebration of one of Japan’s most beloved gaming mascots. Choose between the HD Reboot mode or go legit with the X68000 original mode with pixel perfect graphics from the iconic Japanese home computer.
Features:
• Play the brand-new HD Reboot mode or the fantastic retro X68000 mode
• Cute ‘em Up action based on one of Japan’s longest-running game series
• Enjoy the awesome soundtrack either fully arranged or in its original home computer form
• Guide Cotton and her friend Silk in a highly approachable game! Easy to play, but difficult to master!
• Compete online for high scores
A great indie developer with roots going back to 2003, it was a pleasure to find out more about the history of the Senile Team. Also, huge thanks to WAVE Game Studios for just being awesome and so passionate about what they do, quite frankly.
Quite different from other vinyl orchestral releases that I’ve heard/covered, Hang on to Your Hat is recorded in a big band style by the Video Game Jazz Orchestra and is all the better for it with the original tunes completely fitting this particular swinging throwback style.
The blend of familiar, timeless Zelda melodies with trip-hop beats is a real winner and an album we continually return to, several times a week.
Before listening to the album, Lukas Kunce at Amanita Design sent me a link to a documentary put together by the man behind the Hidden Orchestra – Joe Acheson – that turned out to be not just an invaluable resource for understanding the creation of the music for the Creaks soundtrack but is also just plain awesome in terms of being a really relaxing and incredibly interesting documentary, full stop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67S-rAyku3U I urge you all to watch!
Wayo Records’ previous release - a double 12-inch, gatefold presentation of the always-welcome Yuzo Koshiro’s 1990 Actraiser - has been followed up by something distinctly more cartoonish in nature, namely the well-received 1993 French 2D platformer, Mr Nutz.
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