STACK #202 Aug 2021

GAMING FEATURE

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STACK’s ROVING REPORTER

What’s your all-time favourite game series?

BEST SELLERS at

It’s a tie between Final Fantasy and Resident Evil , for sure. Or The Legend of Zelda . But my favourite game of all time is Bloodborne .

JULY 2021

1 THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: SKYWARD SWORD HD

Bloodborne

MICHAEL CAVERZAN @ JB Hi-Fi Craigieburn, VIC

2 MARIO KART 8 DELUXE

3 F1 2021

4 MARIO GOLF: SUPER RUSH

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

5 MONSTER HUNTER STORIES 2: WINGS OF RUIN

What have you been playing lately?

Working with a team that loves games means I get to talk about them pretty much all day!

6 JUST DANCE 2021

I’ve been playing Yakuza: Like a Dragon , and it’s very quickly becoming one of my favourite games. It looks great, the story is excellent, and a cute main character brings it all together for a perfect JRPG.

What’s your earliest video gaming memory?

7 MINECRAFT

8 NBA 2K21

For my seventh birthday, my aunt gave me a Nintendo 64 -- my first game console -- but no games. The next day, my mum came home with a game wrapped up because she felt bad that I had nothing to play. Unfortunately for me, the game she gave me was Superman 64 ! I forced myself to look happy playing that game because I felt bad. Luckily for me I had enough money to buy Ocarina of Time shortly after that.

What would be your desert island console?

9 ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS

If I have power and a TV, then the PS5, since it plays Bloodborne . But if I didn’t have power then I’d take an NES, because that’s an absolute unit and would be more useful as a cooking/self-defence-against- island-cannibals implement if I needed it.

10 RATCHET & CLANK: RIFT APART

GAME CHANGERS! A YEAR IN GAMING Come the mid-1980s, game design was continuing to go great guns creatively. While coin-op machines such as Commando , Ghosts ’n Goblins , Gradius and Gauntlet provided templates for many games to come, some arcade manufacturers decided to go big – really big… 1985

I n 1985, SEGA released their first “taikan” arcade cabinet, for their simulated 3D motorcycle GP racer Hang- On . While the standard arcade machine with handlebars bolted on was cool, this took things to a whole new level, with a big model bike to straddle and play as if you were riding the real thing. Using the same game engine, shooter Space Harrier

W ith the Commodore 64 selling in Australia faster than the company could make them, it became the dominant games platform locally. Melbourne-based Beam Software, having already done some C64 ports, set about developing their own game, a fighter loosely based on arcade brawler Karate Champ . The Way of the Exploding Fist is still regarded as a classic, winning rave reviews, several awards, selling like mad and prompting ports to other formats such as Spectrum and Amstrad.

W hile Nintendo’s Famicom console was going well in Japan, it didn’t have a “killer app” – until a plumber came along to help out in the now legendary Super Mario Bros . Its arrival in 1985 was timely, with it becoming the pack-

followed later the same year, offering another wild ride for

those who were game enough to get onboard.

in game with the later western release of the renamed and redesigned Nintendo Entertainment System (or NES to save syllables). While earlier games played with the platformer format, SMB laid down the rules for pretty much every one that would ever follow.

32 AUGUST 2021

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