STACK #194 Dec 2020

GAMING FEATURE

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I think my personal love for games really shines through

I

STACK ROVING REPORTER

years old, I’ve always loved it. So, I saw this position arise and I wanted to move up. I went for it and I got it!” Sharing his wealth of games knowledge with his customers is something that Liam loves. “Because I personally play games, I can actually talk about them when people come in. I think my personal love for games really shines through.” Liam has sampled both sides of the 21st century console pool. “I have to say I’m a PlayStation kid, I loved the PS2. Then when the Xbox 360 came around I ported over to that and then I moved back to PS4. I’ll

definitely be getting a PS5 now.” As for telling us his favourite games,

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we kind of put Liam on the spot, so he worked backwards. “More recently Ghost of Tsushima , because I really love Japan and I love how that game felt, it was so good. I really liked the first The Last of Us as well, my first PS4 game – I didn’t play it on PS3 as I didn’t have a PS3. Before that, Ratchet & Clank is a favourite series.” Currently, Liam’s back on his PC while he awaits the arrival of something special. “I’m playing a lot of League of Legends and also redoing Skyrim for like the eighth time, but I’m just waiting for my PS5 to come so I can start cracking down on some of those games. I’m really keen for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla , the new Watch Dogs and oh, Cyberpunk 2077 . Definitely Cyberpunk 2077 !

Date ending: 13/11/20

SHOP TALK

1 FIFA 21 (PS4/XBOX/SWITCH) 2 NBA 2K21 (PS5/XBOX/PS4/SWITCH) 3 THE LAST OF US PART II (PS4) 4 TONY HAWK’S PRO SKATER 1+2 (PS4, XBOX) 5 CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS COLD WAR (PS5/XBOX/PS4) 6 CRASH BANDICOOT 4: IT’S ABOUT TIME (PS4/XBOX) 7 SUPER MARIO 3D ALL STARS (SWITCH) 8 MARIO KART 8 DELUXE (SWITCH) 9 SPIDER-MAN: MILES MORALES (PS5/PS4) 10 ASSASSIN’S CREED VALHALLA (PS5/XBOX/PS4) September, although those UMD discs were a tad awkward, and the less said about them the better. GAMES RELEASED IN DECEMBER Final Fantasy (1987) Mega Man (1987) Phantasy Star (1987) Tekken (1994) Mario Kart 64 (1996) Parappa the Rapper (1996) Space Channel 5 (1999) Beyond Good and Evil (2003)

S EGA’s Mega Drive was a great starting off point for any video game education, and it’s how Liam Cozzani at JB Holmesglen in Victoria first fell in love with gaming. It didn’t take him long to advance to other platforms, either. “My dad had a SEGA Mega Drive, and I really enjoyed playing Sonic the Hedgehog and Alex Kidd on that. I moved onto PC gaming a bit, then my mum got me a PS2 and I was playing Ratchet & Clank and Crash Bandicoot and stuff, and that was my start.” Liam has only been games coordinator for a few months, having started in media at JB Knox in mid-2019. He was keeping an eye out for more game-related opportunities though. “I’ve had an interest in games since I was eight

Who is that masked man? It’s Liam Cozzani at JB Hi-Fi Holmesglen!

DECEMBER

A little slice of gaming history…

1993: Disney’s slice of Genie-us Aladdin pips Jurassic Park as box office biggie of the year, Beanie Babies launch, the first Dyson cleans up and Aussies tuck into Meat Loaf more than any other single song for the year. Speaking of big things, December saw the launch of a game that would change everything. Created by five blokes – John Carmack,

could rightfully dispute, but hey, the mob had spoken), and any subsequently similar game was classified as a “ Doom clone”. The series is still going strong today, and in various guises has sold more than 10 million copies along its merry way, as well as establishing gaming tropes that also live on… December isn’t all about the shooting, and the killing and the maiming and the

world over, and has continued to hold such soirees for each of the Big N’s consoles ever since… A year later, SEGA let loose action adventure soapie Shenmue for their Dreamcast console, just two days before havoc was set to break loose via the dreaded Y2K bug. While no planes fell from the sky and banks didn’t melt down, the one thing that did fail was, sadly, the Dreamcast…While Nintendo were partying and SEGA were dreaming, December of 2004 saw Sony unleash their first handheld gaming system, the PlayStation Portable, or PSP, in Japan. A slick little unit, it had a brilliant array of games by the time it hit Australia the following

John Romero, Adrian Carmack, Kevin Cloud and Tom Hall – it was called Doom . It soon became regarded as ground zero for first-person shooters (something which Wolfenstein 3D

2500 The average price in dollars for a Space Invaders cabinet in the US in 1979 glayvin though, for the twelfth month of 1998 saw Nintendo grace us with the first Mario Party game, on the Nintendo 64. Yep, the moustachioed plumber set about frustrating gamers the

7 The number of years that Elder Scrolls Online was in development

2 The number of developers that worked on ZX Spectrum title, Manic Miner

1,247,700 current highest score in Donkey Kong

25 Shigeru Miyamoto’s age when he joined Nintendo

78 DECEMBER 2020

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