Tag Archives: Xbox

One-Shots

The Good Life: SWERY’s Lake District holiday

1 Comment

Hidetaka Suehiro, better known as SWERY or SWERY65, is one of the few people in game development that one can honestly call an “auteur”.

His work is immediately recognisable and well worth exploring — and like all good works of art, it doubtless has a different impact on different people, ranging from enthusiastic adoration to outright disgust. While his most famous work to date remains the wonderful Deadly Premonition, the title which made him a (sort of) household name in gaming, his other work is just as intriguing.

Which, of course, brings us to The Good Life, a 2021 release for Windows PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. It’s a game that actually has a fair bit in common with Deadly Premonition, so if you enjoyed that you may well dig this — but it’s also very much its own beast. So let’s delve right into this goddamn hellhole.

the-good-life_20240416202713
Continue reading The Good Life: SWERY’s Lake District holiday →
One-Shots

Two Point Campus and the management sim as imaginative play

2 Comments

I am, as I have spoken about numerous times previously, not good at strategy games with a competitive component. But I have always enjoyed a distinct offshoot of the strategic genre: the management sim, in which you tend to mostly be competing against “yourself”.

Ever since I first played SimCity on Super NES — a game that I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy when I first got it for Christmas as a kid, but which I ended up loving — I’ve found great value from games where you get to “play God” to varying degrees, having the opportunity to express your creativity within the constraints of a set of game mechanics.

And the latest of these I’ve found myself having fun with is Sega’s Two Point Campus, the follow-up to their successful riff on Bullfrog’s Theme Hospital, Two Point Hospital.

Continue reading Two Point Campus and the management sim as imaginative play →
Retro Select, Videos

Retro Select: Midtown Madness 3

Leave a comment

Retro games are wonderful, aren’t they? That’s why I’ve set up a new series that is just for exploring whatever retro nonsense I feel like enjoying from week to week.

Today, we take a look at Midtown Madness 3 on the original Xbox — yes, like it or not the original Xbox most certainly is “retro” these days — and have a lot of fun with the Paris bus.

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

short;Play, Videos

short;Play: TimeSplitters 2

1 Comment

You asked for it, and I… was going to do it anyway, but here it is! TimeSplitters 2, one of the finest console first-person shooters ever created — and indeed one of my favourite games of all time.

TimeSplitters 2 took everything that was good about the first game and provided more. Much, much more. We have a story mode that is much closer to what its spiritual predecessors GoldenEye and Perfect Dark provided on the Nintendo 64. We have a more structured single-player experience for the “arcade” mode. We have a wide variety of weird and wonderful challenges. And we have many, many, many characters to collect.

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

PS2, Racers

Burnout 2: Point of Impact – They Don’t Make ‘Em Like This Any More

4 Comments

A few days before writing this, I must confess that I hadn’t played Burnout 2: Point of Impact for quite some time. I had fond memories of the series as a whole, but hadn’t revisited any of them — including last installment Paradise — for many years.

Recording an episode of The MoeGamer Podcast on arcade racers (which you can watch and/or listen to right here) inspired me to dig out some old favourites, though — and Burnout 2 was high up my priority list.

After several hours of utter racing joy flew by without me noticing, it made me realise — or perhaps recall — that Burnout 2: Point of Impact is one of the finest arcade racers ever created. And even with the recent resurgence of interest in the genre thanks to spunky indies, they really do not make ’em like this any more. Let’s take a closer look.

Continue reading Burnout 2: Point of Impact – They Don’t Make ‘Em Like This Any More →

short;Play, Videos

short;Play: Joust 2 – Survival of the Fittest

1 Comment

We’re going retro for this week’s short;Play, with one of the many games in the first Midway Arcade Treasures compilation for PlayStation 2, Xbox and Gamecube. (There’s also a PSP version, but that’s slightly different.)

Joust 2: Survival of the Fittest perhaps hasn’t aged as well as some other arcade classics due to its monstrous level of quarter-munching difficulty, but it’s an interesting game that doesn’t get a lot of acknowledgement, while its predecessor is very fondly regarded. This may partly be due to the fact that Joust 2 didn’t get any home ports, while the original Joust was on pretty much everything.

Anyway, it’s an interesting curiosity if nothing else, so check it out in the video below to find out more. And don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube when you’re done!

Waifu Wednesday

Waifu Wednesday: Kasumi

4 Comments

Since she makes a guest appearance in today’s episode of Warriors Wednesday, I thought we’d take a closer look at my favourite Dead or Alive girl for today’s Waifu Wednesday.

Kasumi is one of those characters that it’s probably not fashionable to say is your “favourite”, what with her being one of the most prominently seen characters in the series, but I don’t care. I like ninjas, I like thighs and I like redheads.

She’s also an interesting and iconic character with a long history. So let’s explore the real Kasumi.

Continue reading Waifu Wednesday: Kasumi →

Essentials, Taito

Taito Essentials: The Electric Yo-Yo

1 Comment

One of the nice things about the two Taito Legends compilations on PS2, Xbox and PC (and the separate PSP release, which acts as a kind of “best of” compilation containing elements of both) is that it includes both well-known games and more obscure affairs.

One such example of the latter is The Electric Yo-Yo, an unusual Taito America game from 1982 that is so obscure that it doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia page (shock!). If Giant Bomb’s rather bare-bones page on the game is to be believed, it seems that it wasn’t all that well-received back in the day — but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in MoeGamer’s lifetime, it’s that it’s always worth considering something on its own merits, devoid of its original context and popular reception.

And y’know what? I kinda like The Electric Yo-Yo. I mean, sure, it’s kind of infuriating and I’ve hurled some deeply offensive language at it during my time with it… but I still kinda like it.

Continue reading Taito Essentials: The Electric Yo-Yo →

OutRun 2006, Sunday Driving, Videos

Sunday Driving: Sega Blue Skies – OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast #1

1 Comment

It’s time to start our engines and kick off a new series of Sunday Driving.

This time around, we’ll be exploring Sega and Sumo Digital’s wonderful OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, which you may recall is a game that I am a big fan of.

This is a classic racer that I’ve been meaning to revisit for quite some time now, so what better time than the present to jump back into an officially licensed Ferrari (from before Sega lost the license) and set course for the distant horizon?

Continue reading Sunday Driving: Sega Blue Skies – OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast #1 →

Essentials, PS2

PS2 Essentials: TimeSplitters 2

6 Comments

Yes, yes, yes, I know it’s also on Xbox and Gamecube, but I’ve always thought of TimeSplitters as a PlayStation thing, so that’s where it’s getting categorised today.

Ahem. Anyway. TimeSplitters 2 is, unsurprisingly, the follow-up to the excellent TimeSplitters, a game developed by ex-Rare folks who previously worked on GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark on the Nintendo 64.

The original TimeSplitters has aged very well. Its sequel is even better. Let’s take a closer look.

Continue reading PS2 Essentials: TimeSplitters 2 →