STACK #227 September 2023

THIS MONTH at

FEATURE GAMING

STACK’s ROVING REPORTER

What’s your all-time favourite game series?

BEST SELLERS at

It’s so hard to narrow it down to just a single game or series. I loved Strider, Streets of Rage, and Wonder Boy in Monster World on Mega Drive when I was a kid. Syphon Filter, Tony Hawk’s, and Resident Evil as a teenager. Army of Two, Dead Space, Sniper Elite, and Guitar Hero as an adult.

AUGUST 2023

NEEL LANG @ JB Hi-Fi Joondalup,WA

1 THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TEARS OF THE KINGDOM

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

2 MARIO KART 8 DELUXE

What have you been playing most lately?

Getting to share the fun of gaming with the younger generations, while also reminiscing with older gamers about the things that I grew up with.

3 PIKMIN 4

I’ve been playing Dredge a lot lately. It’s a very weird and creepy fishing simulator.

4 HOGWARTS LEGACY

What’s your earliest video gaming memory?

You can only have one games console from any era – what would it be and why?

5 NINTENDO SWITCH SPORTS

Finishing Adventure on the Atari 2600 when I was five. It’s a game that I like to go back to every year just to complete it all over again. I love the Easter egg hidden in the game…

PS2 for sure. It was the peak time for my gaming, and it’s also backwards compatible for all the classic PS1 games that I love.

6 MADDEN NFL 24

7 MINECRAFT

Give your collection of keys a touch of gaming flair with any of these fab keychains! MERCH MONT H M H of the

Minecraft - Creeper Rubber Keychain

Sonic the Hedgehog - Sonic Keychain

8 DIABLO IV

9 ARMORED CORE VI: FIRES OF RUBICON

Super Mario - Mario Keychain

10 IMMORTALS OF AVEUM

The Legend of Zelda - Master Sword Keychain

2010

GAME CHANGERS! A YEAR IN GAMING PlayStation and Xbox both entered the motion control fray with their own spins on getting players moving, while amongst the now expected flurry of sequels were some original new games – or fresh takes on established themes – that impressed…

Xbox set out to wow with their super high-tech Kinect sensor add-on for the Xbox 360, and at its best the system was capable of changing the way that we played games. A hardware item that looked somewhat akin to a robot’s head, the Kinect was packed with various cameras, projectors, and sensors that worked in tandem to detect a player standing in front of the screen that it was mounted on or under in full 3D, complete with voice recognition and control. It did well enough that Xbox created a new one for the launch of the Xbox One…

The PlayStation people took a different tack with their motion control system, with it working more akin to the Wiimotes of the Nintendo Wii. The cool looking Move controller, with glowing rubbery orb atop, was the key component, which could also be coupled with a separate Navigation Controller for more complicated games. Wireless thanks to Bluetooth technology, movement of the Move controllers was tracked via the watchful eye of a PlayStation camera. The controllers went on to play a critical part in the first PlayStation VR.

2010 kicked off with the arrival of PlatinumGames’ Bayonetta , and the witchy protagonist soon became a favourite. February gave us Quantic Dreams’ take on adventuring in Heavy

Rain (and launched many a meme), then May gave us an exhilarating spin on racing games in the hugely underrated Split/Second . Add originals such as the thriller Alan Wake , the hack and slash mayhem of Darksiders , and a nice bookend to the year from Platinum in third-person shooter Vanquish and it was quite a stellar year.

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