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THIS MONTH at

FEATURE GAMING

STACK’s ROVING REPORTER

BEST SELLERS at

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

The Resident Evil series would have to be my favourite. I’ve played all the games in the series, including spin-offs. I don’t deal with horror well and I’m still keen to play these games every new release.

NOVEMBER 2022

SAM JOHNSTON @ JB Hi-FiWestfield Sydney, NSW

1 POKÉMON VIOLET

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

2 GOD OF WAR RAGNARÖK

What have you been playing most lately?

The games department is a treasure trove of interesting stories and journeys just waiting to be undertaken. Games also has plenty of likeminded people pass through, always looking to share their experiences and start new ones.

3 POKÉMON SCARLET

I was recently pouring all my time into Elden Ring . I finally finished the game after a long and gruelling slog. It’s probably safe to say game of the year 2022 for me.

4 CALL OF DUTY:

MODERN WARFARE II

What’s your earliest video gaming memory?

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

5 FIFA 23

Playing a horrible game called James Pond , featuring a fish that was a James Bond clone. It wasn’t a very good game, but the name has stuck with me.

6 SONIC FRONTIERS

Nintendo GameCube. It was my first foray into gaming, and I have the most memories with that era of gaming history.

7 NBA 2K23

8 MARIO KART 8 DELUXE

MERCH MONTH of the

Mario Kart – Red Shell Light with Sound

9 JUST DANCE 2023 EDITION

10 HORIZON FORBIDDEN WEST

Super Mario – Yoshi Egg Light

Super Mario – Mushroom Light

Super Mario – Piranha Plant Lamp

2001

GAME CHANGERS! A YEAR IN GAMING When it comes to legendary years in gaming milestones, 2001 is right up there with the best. As well as the launch of two major new home consoles, the line-up of new IPs that would prove to endure for decades to come was phenomenal…

It was time for a new Nintendo console, and it arrived in Japan on September 14 (while here in Australia we had to bide our time until May of 2002). The GameCube was a striking, slightly toylike machine visually, complete with built-in carry handle, but inside it packed a mini-CD drive and processing and graphics power that was impressive. Just one fun trick up its sleeve was the ability to connect to Game Boy Advance as a second screen. Smash games included Super Mario Sunshine , Luigi’s Mansion and Metroid Prime , and the system’s excellent controller remains in demand to this day.

When it comes to new series introduced in 2001, where do we begin? Maybe ‘A’ is a good place to start, with Nintendo’s enduring social simulator Animal Crossing , which started life on the Nintendo 64 before hitting GameCube. The year truly had something for everybody, with such classics as Advance Wars , Burnout , Devil May Cry , Fatal Frame , Ghost Recon , Ico , Jak and Daxter , Max Payne , Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney , Pikmin , Red Faction , Tropico , and Zone of the Enders all launching. Then there was a very small but very big ‘H’ word from Microsoft…

Microsoft launched their first foray into the console market, with their imposing black and green machine the Xbox. Hitting with their killer app, that big ‘H’ game that we just alluded to, Halo: Combat Evolved , it was November 15 when US gamers could first get their hands on the system (Aussies had to wait until March 14 the following year). The console, which was designed to compete with the Sony PlayStation 2, sold some 1.5 million units in six weeks. Inside, it was a concoction of standard PC parts, operating on modified Windows and DirectX code. A powerhouse, it also had a built-in hard drive, and was aimed at cornering the online gaming market. Plus, it gave us the massive ‘Duke’ controller…

GameCube struggled to compete with PS2 and Xbox, partially due to a lack of multimedia abilities, but Nintendo

would later have the last laugh…

3