STACK #239 September 2024

FEATURE GAMING

What’s your earliest video gaming memory?

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Playing Spyro 2: Gateway to Glimmer on my PS1 and getting stuck on the first boss. I tried so many times to beat him and when I finally did that feeling of unlocking the new realm was so rewarding.

AUGUST 2024

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1 STAR WARS OUTLAWS

What’s your all-time favourite game or game series?

2 HOGWARTS LEGACY

It’s probably Call of Duty. Not because I overly enjoy the games, but because I have so many amazing memories of coming home from high school, jumping on with all my friends, and playing for hours grinding out those gold and diamond camos in Black Ops 2 . Just such a fun time.

3 MARIO KART 8 DELUXE

’ s ROVING REPORTER

4 AFL 23

5 GRAND THEFT AUTO V

What have you been playing most lately?

ETHAN HARTILL @ JB Booragoon,WA

6 NINTENDO SWITCH SPORTS

Helldivers 2 . It’s the most fun that I’ve had playing a game in a long time - until you get to the higher difficulties then it becomes a gruelling, intense battle for your life! I cannot recommend this game enough.

7 SUPER MARIO BROS. WONDER

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

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

8 LUIGI’S MANSION 2 HD

Talking about games with so many different people, seeing the joy on peoples’ faces when they buy a new console or a new keyboard, and seeing kids run straight to the games section and seeing them become master negotiators trying to convince their parents to buy a game - always a blast to watch!

It would have to be the PS2. My dad used to deliver magazines, and he’d get the old gaming magazines that would come with PS2 demo disks. I’m pretty sure I played every game on the PS2 - or the demo at least! But there are so many that I would love to go back through and play the full game.

9 MADDEN NFL 25

10 MINECRAFT

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A revolution in rhythm gaming hit on 9/9/09, as The Beatles came to Rock Band – aptly in their own special standalone edition. More than just a song pack, you could buy instruments such as Paul’s iconic Höfner bass, and the game took us on a Magical Mystery Tour through the band’s history.

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cabinets were shipped from Japan to so many remote locations worldwide. Crazy stuff. underrated video game of all time? God Hand by Shinji Mikami. It’s the best brawler from the PS2 era, and a game that genuinely made me lose because of how much I was laughing. Even the credits song is a classic. Shinji Mikami is incredible! This is tough. I never had that thought. But I would be proud if we found a way to almost add a fourth dimension to our next game. That would feel highly innovative.

it’s also very hard to create a great brawler. Those guys combined both really well. Wow! 3 What’s your favourite video game/ series of all time? I made my top 100 some time ago and Street Fighter came top. Street Fighter II is one of those games, like Tetris , Bomberman , or Super Mario World , that seem to just be perfected, and the recent iterations prove that. Long before the internet, there was a time where you could go to any holiday resort, café, or bar in many countries and if you screamed “Hadouken!”, chances are the local kids would have known what you were talking about. It’s hard to take the measure of this, but it was a universal success. So many big arcade

1 What was the first game that you played? I think I was seven or eight, and it might have been a game on a Thomson TO7 (a French computer). I don’t recall much other than remote controlling something on a TV was mind-blowing. My first own console was a NES that I got for Christmas 1989. I was 11 and it came with Super Mario Bros . It took me six months to clear it - I only found out about warp zones much later! 2 What was the last game that

4 What do you think is the most

Studio director on Astro Bot at Team ASOBI. NICOLAS DOUCET

5 What’s the game that you most wish you’d worked on?

you finished? Hi-Fi Rush . It was great. I am amazed by the number of innovative things that game packed in. It’s very hard to create a rhythm game,

Hi-Fi Rush

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