As the newest addition to the team at Zero1Gaming, I am to undergo a rite of passage that is to write an article detailing my gaming history. I have decided to narrow down my choices into the three most important games for me, there are of course so many to choose from though I believe my evolution as a gamer stems from three major influences. These games have not only made me the gamer I am today, but they have shaped my friendships, career aspirations and ultimately my personality. Read more …
Recently, I had the chance to pose a few questions to Chris Keenan, Project Lead at InXile Entertainment for the recent game Wasteland 2 (which I gave a massive thumbs up to in my recent review)
It’s not often that I’ve had cause to review a Kickstarted game here on Zero1gaming, but with the crowd-funding movement becoming so prominent over recent years, there’s more than a few titles emerging from the site, so it’s about time I got on board.
Truth be told though, I’d have been all over today’s subject; Wasteland 2; like a tramp on chips whether it was kickstarted, big budget, indie-developed or even, gulp, taken over by EA!
As an avid gamer, my music collection is comprised of a fair number of gaming tracks. Some of these are just songs that were included in games; songs which I grew to love through the association with said game. A couple of good examples would be Goldfinger – Superman and Bad Religion – You, from Tony Hawk’s Skateboarding and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, respectively. Back in the day, I’d happily spend hours playing those games, but those two were my favourite tracks. Then you have games like Elite Beat Agents on the Nintendo DS, which was nothing but a collection of mostly corny or popular songs ranging as far back as the 70’s. That game made me simultaneously adore and hate Jumpin’ Jack Flash by The Rolling Stones and anyone who’s played it will understand why.
But today I’m going to talk about music that was made specifically for games. Because there is still nothing to write about at the moment, what better to pass the time than a highly-subjective and no doubt controversial Top 10 List? Yes, for today’s instalment of journalistic prose, I’ve spent literally minutes thinking up all of my favourite songs from my gaming past. Read more …
Games… They’re brilliant things. They have the power to make us feel things like no other medium. From the heights of adrenaline, through the bleeding edge of tension and to the bubbling realms of humour, games can do amazing things to our senses. We can all remember the time a game has made us whoop with glee at pulling off something brilliant, or the time we shed a tear to something truly moving.
It’s the start of a brand new year and what better way to celebrate then to look back over my almost 30 years of gaming. Some of what follows is 90 percent true but as we’re dealing with a large time scale with at least 10 years of being abused by alcohol you’ll have to allow me some artistic licence in filling in the blanks!
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin…….
I was born in July of 1982, despite what I may think my parents assured me I was not born with a controller in my hand, of this I think my Mother is most grateful, however it always feels like it’s been there. I was far too young to be aware of the “Great Video Game Crash” of 1983 but during my infancy gaming slowly started building itself up again.
I may have had an Atari or an Amiga before this but the first console I remember having is Commodore 64 Games Console. This came out in 1990 according to Wikipedia which I guess would be about right for my age. I don’t really remember having a lot of games for it, in fact i can only remember one.
Fiendish Freddy’s Big Top O’ Fun was essentially a very very early version of a Mini-Game collection. In it you were tasked with saving a circus from an evil business man and his henchman, the titular Fiendish Freddy, by completing six circus events and raising the $10,000 needed to save the circus. The events were Diving, Knife Throwing, Juggling, Trapeze, Human Cannonball and Tightrope Walking. During the events Freddy would appear to the sides of the screen and attempt to thwart your actions, such as during the juggling he would chuck on bombs that you would be required to chuck back at him before they blew up. I remember it being very difficult, although that could of been due to my under developed hand eye co-ordination.
As I said I can only really remember that game from the Commodore days but a year after getting that I got my hands on my first real console, the console that had almost single handedly revived the gaming world. The Nintendo Entertainment System.
My love for the “Big N” knows no bounds, in fact I have owned every Nintendo console that has been released and it all began with that little grey box of joy. I remember the slot that held the game in was broken so I had to use a cassette tape box (remember them!!) to hold the game in place when I wanted to play. I must of spent a small lifetime playing that machine. I kept mine for years and every now and then I used to dust it off and fire it up. Oh the games, THE GAMES!!!!! This was the start of the New World of Gaming. So many of the biggest franchises still going today started off with the NES. Super Mario Bros. Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania, Mega Man. The list goes on and on.
During my time with the NES I also had a Sega Master System, it was ok, I did and still do enjoy Sega’s consoles but in the same way I’ve never really taken to Microsofts forays into todays market, I never really got on with Sega. Sorry. Go Team Nintendo!
After this you can follow my gaming life with the subsequent releases of Nintendo consoles. Our next stop is the Super Nintendo era and a game that devoured an entire Christmas Holiday and still to this day I can’t listen to George Michael’s “Jesus to a Child” without my mind thinking about it. It’s the one, the only, the sex bomb herself. Super Metroid.
The adventures of Bounty Hunter Samus Aran on the NES were unknown to me. I was possibly too young to really notice and too swept up in the colour of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. 3 to really notice the dark environments of Zebes but I found them on the SNES. The game blew my mind, it was like Zelda but in space and with aliens!! How awesome! I was running around, exploring, fighting giant space monsters and weird brain sucking things (later I would realise these were Metroids). It was everything a game should of been but was vastly overlooked back then. Still to this day the Metroid franchise is the forgotten child of the Big N’s Big Three. Did you know it was Metroid’s 25th Anniversary last year…..No didn’t think so, the fanfare that accompanied the Mario and Zelda anniversaries is sorely missing in celebrating the accomplishments of Miss. Aran. If you own a Wii and have never played Super Metroid you resolve this by downloading it from the Wii Store. I urge you to do it as it is one of the best games you will ever play. FACT!
I can’t move on from the SNES era without talking about The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. The first console Zelda since Zelda II on the NES. A Link to the Past was a return to the top down, treasure hunting, dungeon solving Zelda that people had fallen in love with but it was better oh so so better. Again the game reaffirmed my love for the series and still remains a firm favourite.
I think I may leave it there, we’re slowly heading into modern territory now but all you need to know is that if there has been a Nintendo Home system with a new Zelda or Metroid game – I have owned it. My love for these series is unwavering – even when one stumbles (Metroid: Other M)
If you were wondering I currently own a PlayStation 3 so my love is spread over both Nintendo and Sony.
If you don’t mind I will leave you with Jerry Springer style thought. To be a gamer in this day and age is a wonderful experience, it finally feels like Gaming as a hobby is being accepted, yes it may have taken the watering down of some of our beloved franchises and the invention of a new genre which strikes fear into the heart of any hardcore gamer (“Party Game”) but it’s where we want to be as an accepted and admired art form. There’s still enough people out there who would be happy seeing our hobby vanish from the face of the earth so don’t compound their small mindedness by hating on each other because I have a PlayStation and you have an Xbox and they have a Wii. Do you think the studios and the programmers and the artists and the developers give a crap about that or do you think they’re more concerned about being part of an awesome industry, doing a job they enjoy?
