STACK #200 Jun 2021

GAMING FEATURE

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STACK’s ROVING REPORTER

What’s your all-time favourite game series?

BEST SELLERS at

My favourite game series is definitely The Elder Scrolls franchise (and just about anything Bethesda, really). The year that I received The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for my Xbox 360, I spent my entire holiday break tearing open Oblivion gate after Oblivion gate in a dark room, armed with an array of snacks and drinks to carry me through my treacherous journey!

MAY 2021

MORGAN ARMSTRONG @ JB Hi-Fi Macarthur Square, NSW

1 RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE

2 NEW POKÉMON SNAP

What’s the best thing about working in games at JB?

What have you been playing lately?

3 MASS EFFECT:

Getting customers excited about all the avenues you can explore when you want to get into gaming - PC, console, mobile gaming and all the amazing add-ons, features and accessories you can get to make your gaming experience as immersive and enjoyable as possible. Trying to take the stress out of helping parents shop with, or for, their kids, is almost always really rewarding, especially when you hand a bag with a new console or game in it to a younger kid and they’re absolutely beaming with excitement.

LEGENDARY EDITION

At the moment I’ve gone right back – as I always do – to The Binding of Isaac . I think I’ve purchased a copy of this game on just about every platform I use so far and after almost 10 years of playing, I’m still finding new content, hidden items, rooms and enemies that I’ve never come across before. I love arcade games and dungeon crawlers, so Isaac always ticks my boxes for an easy to hop in-and- out game that’s fairly casual.

4 BIOMUTANT

5 NBA 2K21

6 MARIO KART 8 DELUXE

7 RETURNAL

What’s your earliest video gaming memory?

What would be your desert island console?

8 FIFA 21

The earliest thing I can remember would be the year that my brother and I received a Nintendo 64 as a shared Christmas gift, and it felt like that viral video with those kids losing their absolute minds screaming,

I’d have to go with my Nintendo Switch, because of the library available. A nice genre mix of everything from arcade to RPG, you’d have something to play for every mood – even Cooking Mama if food source is a little scarce on said island, and you want to live vicariously through a virtual chef.

9 SUPER MARIO 3D WORLD

10 ASSASSIN’S CREED VALHALLA

“NINTENDO SIXTY-FOOOOOOUURRRR!!” …and this is what kicked off our shared obsession with The Legend of Zelda as kids. Ocarina of Time forever!

GAME CHANGERS! A YEAR IN GAMING After a few years of ever-increasing success, 1983 saw the “video game crash” hit in the US, which rippled around the world. Console sales plummeted, arcade revenues were way down, and an air of doom pervaded the industry. But there was still a lot to be excited by…

1983

I n 1983, the next big thing was laserdiscs: LP-sized shiny discs that could house full motion video. SEGA were the first to couple the technology with traditional sprite

A s Atari’s fortunes plummeted, Nintendo of Japan had a third-generation console up their corporate sleeves: the Family Computer, or Famicom. Released on July 15 – the same day as SEGA’s ultimately less successful SG-1000 – it instantly boasted arcade-close conversions of Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and Popeye , and, of course, would go on to help the industry climb out of that big old crash mire when facelifted and launched internationally as the Nintendo Entertainment System.

W hile demand may have waned, 1983 still saw the release of some truly classic arcade games – and the introduction of a legend, as two- player platformer Mario Bros. marked the debut

graphics for their Astron Belt arcade

game. A fairly standard shooter, it was beaten to the western market by Dragon’s Lair , which, with its Don Bluth animated characters, was much prettier, even if it was less playable. While later games left lasting marks – like full-on cutscenes – laserdisc games were a quickly passing fad.

appearance of Mario’s sibling Luigi. Meanwhile, Konami’s Gyruss banged Tempest and Galaga together (and introduced many to the music of Bach), while Atari’s vector-based Star Wars , Namco’s Xevious and Bally Midway’s Spy Hunter all hit.

32 JUNE 2021

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