STACK #186 Apr 2020

FEATURE GAMING

I

I’ve been playing games since 1986

STACK ROVING REPORTER

the passion of games customers. So, what are they snapping up currently? “The Switch, actually. We just got more in about an hour ago and people are going nuts over them!” As for feeding those fresh Switch habits, the titles that sell best are a familiar story. “Definitely games like Mario Kart , which is the one that everybody knows, Super Smash Bros. , Mario Party , Zelda …” With 13 years working in games, Morris has to love them.

But how did he get into them?

best sellers at

“I’ve been playing games since 1986. My dad had an IBM PC XT.

I started playing games like Pac-Man and Tetris , then point-and-click adventure games like Leisure Suit Larry and Police Quest. ” Ever the diplomat, Morris has no particular console allegiance nowadays. “I play them all, because they all have things that are strong. Switch, because I have a 45-minute commute each way, PS4 has a lot of fantastic exclusives and Xbox, I love the controller.” As for a favourite all-time game? “The one tattooed on my forearm, Grim Fandango .” We love that commitment, and it’s something that Morris definitely has to his job. When we asked if he had a favourite piece of games memorabilia, we loved his super-cool response. “Not something I collected, but one I built that was on display in my store. I made the Leviathan Axe from God of War – it even lights up!”

Date ending: 27/03/20

SHOP TALK

W hen we ventured out for this episode of Roving Reporter, Animal Crossing: New Horizons was just a couple of days from release. It’s fair to say that Morris Umali of The Galeries store in Sydney is a fan – he even has an Animal Crossing tattoo! In Morris, we have a new Roving Reporter record holder for the longest time at JB. “It’s coming up to 13 years now.” Morris has worked in games for all this time, but he hasn’t always been Sydney-based. Like us, he’s roved around a bit, getting his start in Canberra before moving to the Cairns Central JB and then on to The Galeries. So, how did he get his start? “A friend of mine posted on an internet forum, ‘If you know games and need a job and live in Canberra…’ and I said ‘Yeah!’” Like most games coordinators that we speak with, Morris loves 1962: The Cuban missile crisis sees the world on the brink of nuclear obliteration, JFK announces plans to put an American on the moon before decade’s end, The Beatles’ debut Love Me Do hits and Dr No sees the arrival of a new movie spy in Bond, James Bond. In other arrivals, on April 22 in English university town Reading a baby joins the family of Mr and Mrs Minter. They name him Jeffrey, and he grows up to become one of the world’s most inventive games programmers. At the birth of the microcomputer boom of the 1980s, Jeff ‘Yak’ Minter soon progressed from creating games for Commodore’s VIC-20 APRIL

1 ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS SWITCH 2 DOOM ETERNAL SWITCH/XB1/PS4/PC 3 PERSONA 5 ROYAL PS4 4 FIFA 20 SWITCH/XB1/PS4/PC 5 STAR WARS JEDI FALLEN ORDER XB1/ PS4/ PC 6 MARIO KART 8 DELUXE SWITCH 7 CALL OF DUTY MW STANDARD XB1/PS4/PC 8 NBA 2K20 SWITCH/XB1/PS4/PC 9 JUST DANCE 2020 SWITCH/XB1/PS4 10 NIOH 2 PS4 Geo’s downfall was both its initial cost and the pricing of its massive cartridges, which in Australia sold for upwards of around $300 each… Games Released In APRIL Dig Dug (1982) Super Bomberman 3 (1995) Super Mario Bros. Deluxe (1999) Dynasty Warriors 5 (2005) GTA IV (2008) Mortal Kombat X (2015) God of War (2018)

Definitely no goose – Morris Umali at JBThe Galeries

A little slice of gaming history…

to its big sibling, the Commodore 64. It was here that his love for pure arcade action – and quadrupeds – really launched upon the world via such titles as Attack of the Mutant Camels and Sheep in Space , delighting, confounding and dazzling gamers. As tech progressed so did Jeff, continuing to surprise on Atari’s ST and onwards through many generations of machines up to

app”. Minter continues a love/hate relationship with Atari to this day... Meanwhile, in April 1990 another arcade manufacturer unleashed their first sortie into the home video game market. The company was SNK, and they took a different tack to their competitors, simultaneously releasing their Neo Geo arcade and home machines with the same internal hardware. So, rather than approximations of

today’s PS4. On April 13, 1994, Minter’s Tempest

arcade games such as those on the competing SEGA Mega Drive and, soon, the Super Nintendo,

2000 , an update of Atari’s 1981 arcade

shooter, launched in the US for Atari’s fledgling Jaguar console, quickly becoming its “killer

what you played in the arcade was what you played at home – if you could afford it. The Neo

23 years since the original Final Fantasy VII released

100 the number of staff that worked on the original Final Fantasy VII

6 live-action films made about the Resident Evil series

22,228 units of Dig Dug sold in a year

12.3 million copies of the game sold as of 2019

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