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THIS MONTH at

GAMING FEATURE

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STACK’s ROVING REPORTER

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

BEST SELLERS at

Pokémon will always be a huge part of my life, because it was the first franchise I really committed to, but Final Fantasy has definitely been just as big a franchise for me growing up.

DECEMBER 2023

MITCH RAKOWSKI @ JB Hi-Fi Hobart,TAS

1 SUPER MARIO BROS. WONDER

What have you been playing most lately?

After enjoying the beta for The Finals I’ve done nothing but play the full release since it came out. I’m not usually an FPS guy, but The Finals offers a lot of fun features and build variety to help keep things interesting. The new Pokémon DLC might consume my life for a while though!

2 EA SPORTS FC 24

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

I get to be around something I love and enjoy in my workplace, which makes work feel a lot less like work. Getting to meet other likeminded people through my job is also awesome and makes for some fun conversation while helping them out.

3 CALL OF DUTY:

MODERN WARFARE III

4 MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN 2

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

What’s your earliest video gaming memory?

5 HOGWARTS LEGACY

I would have to choose the Nintendo DS/DS Lite because it gives me the option of NDS and GBA games, which are where some of my best memories playing games are. Back when Google didn’t have all the answers and I needed to learn braille just to catch some rocks… if you know you know!

My earliest memory is when I caught my first Lotad in Pokémon Sapphire . It was shiny, and when every other Lotad I saw was blue instead of red I knew something was up. 17 years later I still have him on Pokémon Sword !

6 AVATAR: FRONTIERS OF PANDORA

7 NBA 2K24

8 MARIO KART 8 DELUXE

Pokémon - Pikachu mug

Pokémon - Eevee mug

MERCH MONT H M H of the When it’s time for a cuppa, why not enjoy it with a Poké-pal?

9 NINTENDO SWITCH SPORTS

10 JUST DANCE 2024

Pokémon - Squirtle mug

Pokémon - Mewtwo mug

2014

GAME CHANGERS! A YEAR IN GAMING Two quite different takes on the horror genre made serious waves in the gaming world, while Nintendo entered the toys-to-life fray and made a rather big splash…

While licensed games were anything but a new phenomenon by 2014, really good ones were still the exception rather than the norm. SEGA’s first-person survival horror outing Alien Isolation , a new story set 15 years after events of Ridley Scott’s 1979

The release of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U was a big one, as it was accompanied by the launch of Nintendo’s take on toys-to-life, in the form of the super-collectible amiibo line. The first cabs off the rank featured familiar characters that featured in the fighting game and were more than just superbly crafted figurines. In their bases, each amiibo housed a chip that allowed wireless communication between it

In August, a curious free demo arrived on the PlayStation Store for PS4. Entitled P.T. , it had nothing to do with public transport, but everything to do with full-on, creepy psychological horror atmosphere. A collaboration between Hideo Kojima and noted moviemaker Guillermo del Toro, it was actually intended as an interactive teaser for Konami’s then forthcoming Silent

Hills , a continuation of the much-revered franchise. When that was cancelled, P.T. disappeared from online, adding to the mystique of what has since become a truly influential horror outing.

movie Alien , had a lot of expectation to live up to, and it didn’t disappoint. Skilfully recreating the tense atmosphere of the movie visually, sonically, and in mood, the game was a tense and often truly scary experience, and stands up today as a high watermark in both licensed games and the survival horror genre.

and the Wii U, then 3DS, and later the Switch console. It could store game

data, and various amiibo also offered bonuses in different games.

32 JANUARY 2024

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