There has been a growing trend of late to try to revitalise brands by tenuously affiliating them with video games. American gamers have been wooed with snacks, soft drinks and (erm) shaving products which are somehow conducive to the gamer ‘lifestyle’. The people at the Guinness Book of World Records (presumably facing dwindling sales in […]

I’m slightly late with this one (the Mega Drive’s birthday was on the 29th October) but I realise that I’ve never written anything on this site about the console that was in many ways Sega’s greatest contribution to gaming outside of the arcade – and certainly the system that had the greatest transformative effect on […]

Achievements. Trophies. Badges. They go by many names, but the concept of doling out meaningless (and yet strangely compelling) “meta” rewards for completing a catalogue of in-game tasks (ranging from the trivial to the impossible, the obvious to the obtuse) has become practically mandatory for any new game or platform. Xbox Live popularised the idea […]

Age classification for games in the UK is currently undergoing an upheaval. Presently we have a dual system, with the voluntary Europe-wide PEGI system applied to all games, and the legally enforceable BBFC 15 and 18 ratings also used in cases which fall under the BBFC’s remit (i.e. games with graphic violence, sex and adult […]

On June 30th 2008, after nine eventful years, London-based games developer Morpheme Game Studios officially ceased to exist. You’ve probably not heard of Morpheme. Like dozens (perhaps hundreds) of other small developers in the UK, they quietly went about their business for years without ever being thrust into the limelight by a blockbuster hit or […]

Games developers are illusionists. Convincing players to mentally conjure places, people and stories out of rudimentary arrangements of switches and blinking lights demands something more than just engineering skill. As hardware has grown ever more powerful and sophisticated, the need for creative sleight-of-hand has not diminished. That whizzy new console may provide a leap in […]

The three console manufacturers have made their annual addresses to US retail laying out their wares and plans for the rest of the year. The general consensus seems to be that this was very much business as usual, with no earth-shattering announcements. Microsoft reeled off an impressive array of third party content, all of which […]

I don’t want to make a habit out of making fun of people on this site, but this week Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg (who we saw defending the insane pricing of the Xbox 360 HDD a while back), is coming out with stuff that’s too good to ignore: “I think that there’s a difference in the […]

Judging by the traffic and feedback that I got from the earlier Games for Windows 2000 article (where I collected together workarounds that had been found to allow various supposed “Windows XP only” games to run on Windows 2000) it would seem that there’s still a small but dedicated userbase for this venerable OS among […]

Earlier this month, Lindesay Irvine made a post on the Guardian’s books blog bemoaning the news that thriller writer James Patterson was collaborating with Oberon Media on a casual game. Irvine’s confusion and apprehension at this specific instance of a writer crossing over into a new medium (he seemed, perhaps understandably, to be unaware of […]

The whole situation is profoundly regrettable. I hope that there will be a way to salvage Gamespot‘s reputation and working environment before it’s too late, but it will require everyone involved to act quickly and cohesively to restore order before the damage can be addressed. Unfortunately I suspect that the person(s) at CNet who found […]

A couple of years ago I had the good fortune to meet Ron Gilbert at an informal “meet the fans” event in London. I asked if he’d ever thought about making the production notes and materials for the Monkey Island games available to the public. His reply (paraphrasing from memory) was: “Arrr! But why? Who […]

Spare a thought for us Windows 2000 users. I’ve been happily using the OS for close to five years, and have never had a pressing reason to upgrade to Windows XP (in fact, I prefer Windows 2000’s slightly more responsive UI and modest appetite for physical memory – not to mention the futuristic name). Until […]

The topic of mobile games (by which I mean the more commonly understood definition of games played on mobile phones, rather than the whole spectrum of portable handheld devices) is one that I’ve become closely familiar with over the past few years, having been involved for an extended period in mobile publishing and development. I’ve […]

So, it turns out that Xbox 360s break down rather a lot. But then Microsoft quite unexpectedly decided to tackle the problem head on, putting measures in place to make sure that everyone who has seen or may see the dreaded “ring of death” error code (three red lights on the LED display on the […]