Many fans of Namco’s “Tekken” series may have easily missed this game thanks to it being a spin-off based within the main fighting game franchise. However, ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves to experience a game wholly focused on Namco’s cold-blooded Irish female assassin Nina Williams herself. Read more …
Having garnered something of a reputation for himself in the still-fledgling computer gaming market, Richard Garriott found himself in an unenviable position: how to follow Akalabeth: World of Doom. While not the most sophisticated or visually stunning game made up to that point, Akalabeth was, as detailed in my article on the game, a game of considerable character and charm, one that had caught the imagination of many of the new group of people soon to be called Gamers. Read more …
Japanese RPGs: they divide opinion, arguably, like no other. While any genre of game has its lauders and its detractors, JRPGs seem to have something of a bipolar effect on gaming as a whole. Offer one to a gamer and they will probably have one of two reactions; utter revulsion or eager anticipation. Few games garner such a cult following as some of luminaries of this gaming sub-section and even fewer garner such utter dismissal and ridicule from those who dislike them.
Recently, there has been a dramatic upsurge in the music industry with the fanbases of certain artists causing unnecessary stirs through what can only be described as obsession. I am, of course, referencing the utterly absurd ‘Cut 4 Beiber’ campaign that followed that artist being caught on camera in a compromising situation involving drugs. The deluge of erratic responses this received from his fanbase was absolutely insane, and the response from the wider public was obviously judgemental. Read more …
The games industry has an image problem. Some people may protest, but you know it, I know it and, boy, does the media know it. Computer games and, by extension, gamers are often derided in the general consciousness, seen as a group of social outcasts, misfits who just aren’t like ‘normal’ people. It may be grossly unfair, but the stereotype of a gamer who lives on his own (and he’s always male) or with his parents, doesn’t wash and doesn’t really interact with other people prevails in many people’s minds. In the mental image, he’ll most likely be teenage or early twenties too, sitting for hour upon hour at his computer, playing his games. Read more …
To anyone over the age of, say, 20 Virtual Reality conjures up images of someone wearing a large headset, probably with a big visor screen. They will almost certainly have big gloves with wires hanging out of them, all pretty cumbersome. This setup was the conduit for people entering the ‘Virtual Reality’ world, usually depicted as a whole other world; a different universe in which people were transported though the sensory inputs provided by the headset and VR gear. Or, at least, this was how VR was portrayed in popular media, be it Hollywood films like Lawnmower Man, Science Fiction novels such as the Otherland Series by Tad Williams and in Television series such as red Dwarf and Star Trek. Read more …