STACK #189 Jul 2020

GAMING FEATURE

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…so much of my identity has been formed by games and gaming as a hobby

I

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Xanthe is just as effusive when telling of dealing with her ever-growing array of games customers.

always been a PlayStation kid. “It all started when I was very, very little. I had

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a friend who got a PlayStation and I was introduced to gaming through Crash Bandicoot . I had this weird obsession with jungles, and the very first level in the first Crash was very jungle-based. I just fell in love with it, and I got home and begged my mum to get me a PlayStation. That Christmas we got one with Crash Bandicoot and it’s just been PlayStation ever since.” As for her all-time fave game, Crash has to move aside for something with a western flavour. “It’s Red Dead Redemption II . I feel like it changed me as a person, it was just so good! Being able to play Arthur Morgan the way that you wanted, and interpret and read into the characters and

Date ending: 26/06/20

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“It’s such a diverse kind of hobby, and it can be something that’s so meaningful and shaping for people. In the same way that it built who I am, it can build other people and they can make friends, and create experiences through games. So, being able to find out how people are playing games and using their accessories I find both enjoyable and exciting.” Xanthe tells us that she’s

S ome people do their job encounter somebody who’s full of passion for their work. Xanthe Jeffrey at JBWarringah, NSW, loves games, and as she tells us how she got her start at JB, her enthusiasm is contagious. “I’ve been at JB for almost three years. Games was a department that I’d always wanted to work in, because my interests have always been gaming related, and so much of my identity has been formed by games and gaming as a hobby. So, I expressed my interest and my manager supported me, suggesting I go for software coordinator first. So, I was software coordinator for a little bit and, when the position opened up for games coordinator, I went for it and yeah, I got it. Yay!” just to pay the bills, so it’s always refreshing when you 1985: We go Back to the Future at the movies, Live Aid concerts raise more than US$50 million for Ethiopian famine relief, Michael Jordan is the NBA ‘Rookie of the Year’, and Microsoft release Windows 1.0. While they were a fledgling computing company at the time, Commodore weren’t, and July saw the release of their 16-bit marvel – the Amiga 1000. To say that it was a leap forward from the likes of the Commodore 64 and Sinclair Spectrum was an understatement, with a demo of a 3D rendered ball able to captivate enthusiastic geeks worldwide, while it’s 4,096 colours wowed in a classic still image of a mandrill. These same techies JULY

1 THE LAST OF US PART II PS4 2 ANIMAL CROSSING NEW HORIZON SWITCH 3 MARIO KART 8 DELUXE SWITCH 4 ASSETTO CORSA COMPETIZIONE PS4/XB1 5 SPONGEBOB BIKINI BOTTOM PS4/XB1/SWITCH 6 CALL OF DUTY MODERN WARFARE PS4/XB1 7 FIFA 20

PS4/XB1/SWITCH 8 NBA 2K20 PS4/XB1/SWITCH 9 THE LEGEND OF ZELDA BREATH OF THE WILD SWITCH 10 JUST DANCE 2020 PS4/XB1/SWITCH

the world the way that you wanted, really spoke to me. It was so immersive – I just loved every minute of it.”

Xanthe Jeffrey ofWarringah JB in her element

A little slice of gaming history…

would absolutely wet themselves three years later when the game Pioneer Plague used all the colours at once, just because it could – even though it looked horrendous. Mercifully, better games

was the ugly but effective 500 that saw the Amiga infiltrate homes and, in most spheres, it quickly saw off competition from the Atari ST, which must

been redesigned as a boring grey box – aka the NES – for the overseas market. The game was anything but boring though and the rest is, well, history…

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have annoyed then boss Jack

Tramiel, who’d defected from the company that he founded, Commodore… Meanwhile, in Japan, 1985 saw the release of Super Mario Bros. , a platform game starring Donkey Kong ’s previously generically named hero ‘Jumpman’. It played on the Famicom (short for ‘Family Computer’) console that had debuted in July 1983, and had

abounded. Anyway, the Amiga was a massive leap forward in many ways. It brought 3.5-inch “floppy” discs to the masses (which cost a bomb at the time), and was the introduction to many of the mouse as a controller. It soon made its way into video production, where it continued to be in use for decades to come. It

Missile Command (1980) Bionic Commando (1988) NiGHTS into Dreams (1996)

Soulcalibur IV (2008) Crackdown 2 (2010) Catherine (2011) Journey (2015)

276 thousand copies of Paper Mario sold in the first week in Japan

21 months Rocksteady Studios took to make Batman: Arkham Asylum

388 official games released for the Nintendo 64

18 the number of years Xbox Live has been operating

4.6 million copies sold of the original God of War

JULY 2020

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