I never owned a Wii, for a few reasons but mostly, if I’m being honest, because it all looked suspiciously like exercise to me. Whilst the wands and nunchucks of the Wii may’ve been considered fun and quirky – the kind of thing you’d have a laugh playing with your friends for an hour or so – the idea of spending large chunks of my downtime swinging my arms around like a lunatic just never really appealed to me. As such, there was a whole console generation of Nintendo Games that I either didn’t play at all, or just tried briefly at friends’ houses, and precisely because a lot of them seemed intent on making me get up off my arse and dance around like the bastard lovechild of Jane Fonda and Mr. Motivator. Continue reading “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD – Questing Done Right”
Lolz. How’s that for a title? I *totes* bet I’m the first person to make that joke, eh!? Because, like switch… to the Switch. See, switch is a verb meaning “to change”, but also, like, the thing I’m talking about changing to. Ta-dah!! Double entendre in da house, y’all!
No? OK!
Anyhoo, as you may’ve guessed from my title(/exceptionally original and clever wordplay), I’m currently wrestling with the decision whether to buy a Nintendo Switch or not, and it’s rapidly descending into the same kind of mindfuckery that characterised my decision whether to Pro or not! Continue reading “Thinking Aloud: Should I Switch!?”
A little while ago – a couple of hours before a trip and desperate for something to read – I found myself frantically searching through the limited English section of a local bookshop. After looking at all the options – and amidst plenty of cursing myself for leaving it until the last minute, given most of these options were utter shite – I eventually left with (what I hoped were) the two least shite (least Sophie Kinsella-ish) options. One of these was Thirteen Reasons Why, and only after checking Goodreads later did I discover that a) it was “Young Adult” (which, unfortunately, is a ship that’s long since sailed in my case) and that b) Thirteen Reasons Why is actually taught in some schools in the US. Continue reading “Empathy, Medium and Message: 13 Reasons Why vs Life is Strange “
You know that thing when you’re hungry for something specific, but you’re not quite sure what that is…. so you just keep opening the fridge and cupboards hoping it’ll jump out at you. But it doesn’t. So you nibble at stuff, feel wholly unsatisfied, and then return to the fridge in the hope that the little som’thin-som’thin you’re after’s just magically appeared in the time you were nibbling on the other stuff!?
Well, that’s exactly what I’ve been like since my return to Gaming (but with, like, Games instead of food, obviously) Continue reading “Gaming Ennui and the Return of the WUFT”
I knew I’d been neglecting my Wii U, but it wasn’t until I went to set it all up again that I realised quite how much. See, the last time I turned it on was at least November of last year, and I know this because I couldn’t find my fucking transformers – which were always in the same place back when I needed them for my PlayStation 4 (prior to getting a Pro in the US). Hunting all over the house for the bastards wasn’t the most auspicious of starts to my WUFT-ing for sure, and at one point – when an avalanche of shit fell on my head from an overhead cupboard, if you’re interested – I very nearly fucked it all off before I’d even got started. Continue reading “The WUFT: The Hardware and General Nintendo-y Goodness”
Ok, let’s start with another confession: I’m possibly a bit addicted to Gwent. And when I say possibly, I mean definitely, and when I say a bit, I mean massively. If I’m being honest, I’ve spent waaaay too much of my recent The Witcher 3 experience playing a fucking card game. It’s not that I’ve got anything against card games per se, but a) I’ve got quite enough shit to be getting on with in the game, thankyouverymuch – and b) it’s really rather difficult to write about hours and hours of me playing cards and make it sound in any way interesting or exciting. That said though, the Gwent thing struck me as being a bit of a microcosm of my Witcher experience so far, so let’s approach it from that angle, eh!? Continue reading “Hello, my name’s James and I’m an RPG n00b: Part Two”
What, pray tell, is a fucking WUFT I hear you ask? It’s a fair question and, because you’re not actually a mind reader, I’ma go right ahead and explain what it is. See, Dear Reader, WUFT stands for Wii U Farewell Tour, and given the Nintendo Switch is now upon us, and given the Wii U’s days are probably numbered as a result, I thought I’d take the opportunity to do a little series of posts to mark its sad-but-inevitable slide into Gaming obscurity; one last Wii ‘Urrah, if you will! Continue reading “Introducing The WUFT”
This is going to be a loooooong one folks – even by my own rambling standards. If you’ve got any plans for the next five years, or if you’ve just glanced at the size of this motherfucker and are having second thoughts, honestly, feel free to back away now. I won’t mind. Although I hope it raises a few important points, it’s not really what you’d call a barrel of laughs either, so consider yourself warned…..
Recently, a few things have happened that have gotz me thinking about stuff, and given that’s something of a rarity for me anyways, I’ve been struggling to deal with all the extra noise my brain’s been making. Usually content to speak to me in instructional, one-word phrases (“food!”, “Pee!”, “Thirsty”, and the like) all of a sudden it was asking me fucking questions, challenging me to consider complex, multidimensional issues, and no amount of me telling it to “get fucked” seemed to silence it. Continue reading “Do We Need To Do More To Protect Gaming’s Legacy And Reputation?”
Late last year I was watching The Walking Dead, and at one point in a particularly grim episode I was (mercifully?) distracted from all the killing-of-favourite-character shenanigans when a particular bad dude showed up. See, at my age I seem to spend an inordinate amount of my TV-watching time going “what the fuck do I know him from?”, or “what else was she in?” and I then proceed to spend the rest of the episode thinking about that, and only that – and so it was with this guy. Of course, IMDB exists now, but that’s basically cheating, so it’s only to be used in the most extreme circumstances, and I admirably resisted it here (“Hero” is a much overused word these days, but, you know, if the shoe fits….). Continue reading “Gaming’s Come A Long Way, Baby: GTA V and The Walking Dead”
QTX 