STACK #210 Apr 2022

GAMING FEATURE

visit stack.com.au

STACK’s ROVING REPORTER

BEST SELLERS at

What’s your all-time favourite game series?

I’m a massive fan of the Final Fantasy series (particularly 1-9), however, my favourite of all time would have to be a SNES action RPG called Terranigma . It makes you a god on Earth! Besides having a creative story and side quests where the player can have some impact on the game world, Terranigma includes wonderful visuals and an emotionally charged soundtrack.

MARCH 2022

1 GRAN TURISMO 7

TODD DE LARGIE @ JB Hi-Fi Home, MyareeWA

2 ELDEN RING

3 TINY TINA’S

WONDERLANDS

What have you been playing lately?

4 POKÉMON LEGENDS: ARCEUS

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

I’ve been pushing myself to getting into the habit of finishing games I start, as I’ve had a bad habit in the past of not doing so (we’ve all been

5 HORIZON FORBIDDEN WEST

No other job I’ve worked compares to the uniqueness of being in the games department, let alone working for JB Hi-Fi. Being able to engage with customers about my lifelong passion for gaming really is a retail dream. There aren’t many people in the world today who can say that they love what they do for a living.

there right?) I recently completed Returnal and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart , which were so well polished I didn’t want to put the controller down!

6 WWE 2K22

7 MARIO KART 8 DELUXE

8 TRIANGLE STRATEGY

What’s your earliest video gaming memory?

What would be your desert island console?

9 ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS

In the late 1970s my parents bought my three older brothers a Hanimex HMG 1292 game console. I came along in ‘81, so it took a few years before I was capable of picking up a controller, but playing my first game “Tennis” (a bootleg Pong ) had me fascinated and, before I knew it, I was hooked! That was until my parents invested shortly after in one of my favourite gaming consoles of all time, the Commodore 64... What a machine!

I think the Nintendo Switch is the perfect electronic companion that would keep me entertained for all my desert island needs. I’ve got such a huge library of indie games I’ve bought that I don’t think I’d ever get bored!

10 GHOSTWIRE: TOKYO

GAME CHANGERS! A YEAR IN GAMING We didn’t know it at the time, but 1993 turned out to be a landmark year for games releases, with ground-breaking franchises launched that survive and thrive to this day. There were also several new consoles released into an already busy market… 1993

While 1992’s Wolfenstein 3D is considered ground zero for the modern first-person shooter – or FPS – the daddy of them all launched the following year. It was ominously titled DOOM , and enrolled the player as a space marine, tasked with protecting everybody’s behinds from hordes

It was still very much a case of SEGA vs Nintendo in the console space in ’93, but that didn’t stop others from wanting in on the action. Old hands at the console game Atari thought that their new Jaguar was a guaranteed success with its 64- bit heart, but between a lack of games and a controller that was hard to love, it went much the same way as two other new systems, Commodore’s Amiga- based CD32, and the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer (to give its full name). This one tanked despite backing from big-name manufacturers such as Panasonic, Sanyo and Goldstar (now known as LG).

With continual improvements in hardware technology, sports games were a genre that really benefitted. 1993 saw the launch of EA Sports’ FIFA International Soccer on the SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis, and it went on to appear on almost every

format you could ever name, and has been an annual player ever since. Meanwhile, basketball riff NBA Jam hit the arcades with a satisfying “Boomshakalaka!” all-time top five grossing slam dunk, while it was kept company by the car nirvana of Ridge Racer , which would quite soon come home, to serious gasps of awe…

of marauding demons from Hell. It eventually released on most systems – including the Super Nintendo, with the graphics-boosting 1993 invention the Super FX chip inside – and has since been played (unofficially) on such devices as printers, calculators, ATMs and even a pregnancy test.

30 APRIL 2022

jbhifi.com.au