Category: Video Games

A Discussion of my Current Experience With VR

Published December 7, 2020

I’ve spoken before about my thoughts on VR and a very limited encounter with VR when I had the opportunity to play “Don’t Let Go!” at a con. Since then, I have picked up a VR headset and, while I would still consider myself quite the novice when it comes to VR, I believe that I’ve gained enough experience to at least have a discussion of my current views on VR.

First of all, I would like to share the story of how I got my VR headset. Around the time I wrote my previous article discussing VR, I decided to begin saving money to acquire a VR headset. My target was the Valve Index, a headset developed by the Valve Corporation, primarily because of the controllers. However, the high price tag and lack of availability gave me cause to believe that it would be a few years until I got the chance to experience VR again. However, the release of the Oculus Quest 2 changed that. With higher resolution than even the Valve Index and a much more affordable price tag, I decided that it was enough to begin my VR journey.

Look what arrived today! pic.twitter.com/xzNW3zmJls
— Eoghan O'Connell (@Immortallium_) October 16, 2020

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A History of Sega in Celebration of their 60th Anniversary

Published November 23, 2020

Recently, I was perusing Twitter and came across the fact that Sega is celebrating their 60th anniversary. As part of this, they have established a website called “sega60th.com” and are holding weekly events around their various studios. While the events have thus far, with regards to my interests, been lacklustre with few to no announcements when it comes to new games or ports, I still think this is an excellent opportunity to discuss the history of Sega as part of the celebration of their 60th anniversary.

Sega has its origins in a company called “Service Games” (notice what you get if you take the first two letters of each word) that was originally established to distribute coin-operated machines such as slot machines and jukeboxes. This company was later dissolved and, the company that we are familiar with today, Sega was established on the 3rd of June, 1960. Sega continued their focus on coin-operated machines and it wasn’t until the late 1960s that we began to see the first signs of what Sega would become.

An image of some of Sega’s early slot machines.

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My Thoughts on Stealth in Video Games

Published November 12, 2020

I recently picked up a VR headset (the Oculus Quest 2) and decided to play some games I had picked up from a Humble Bundle. The first game that I chose to play from that bundle was a title called Budget Cuts, a VR game that I had heard many positive things about but knew little of the premise or gameplay. Looking at the promotional images, it appeared to be an action game so imagine my surprise when I soon found out that the game was, in fact, a stealth game! This prompted me to think about and consider my thoughts when it came to stealth video games.

First, for those of you unfamiliar with the genre, a players priority in stealth video games is to avoid alerting the enemies, usually because the player is comparatively fragile with only a few hits leading to death. However, this does not mean that the player is powerless with a player typically able to kill unalerted enemies instantly. Other games may leave the player incapable of resisting in any meaningful way although I would typically see this decision as more appropriate to horror games.

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Square Enix Games I’d Love to See on PC

Published October 29, 2020

I’ve spoken before about my passion for Square Enix’s Final Fantasy series and how my preferred gaming platform is the PC. However, I have continued again and again to be baffled by Square Enix’s decisions when it comes to which games are ported to the platform with big franchises excluded, spin-offs prioritised over main entries and classics remaining unreleased. Taking all of this into account, I thought it might be interesting to look at some Square Enix games that I’d love to see released on PC.

While many of the main entries of Final Fantasy have now seen a release on PC, the elephant in the room remains the conspicuous absence of the first Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II. While neither game tends to rank high amongst Final Fantasy fans, they are still very important entries in the franchise with many recurring elements established in both games and I’d love to see Square Enix release these games on PC.

The logos for the first two Final Fantasy games.

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The Importance of the Element of Wonder in Storytelling

Published October 22, 2020

Whenever I’m writing these articles, I typically pick a YouTube video to play in the background on loop. I was recently recommended the first opening of Naruto (R★O★C★K★S) and I decided to take YouTube up on their offer. Upon watching it though, I was immediately filled with an unusual feeling. I knew it wasn’t nostalgia as I’m quite familiar with that feeling and, upon a few days reflection, I eventually realised that what I was remembering was a faint memory of the wonder I felt when I first began watching Naruto. That realisation made me consider the importance of the element of wonder in storytelling and inspired me to discuss the topic.

There are many wonderful pieces of media featuring children discovering the world and their sense of wonder for relatively banal aspects of everyday life. However, my focus is going to be on stories of adventure throughout anime, manga and video games and how the element of wonder enhances the storytelling.

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Really Difficult Video Games with a Child-Friendly Art Style

Published October 19, 2020

I was recently playing a video game called “Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair” and, as they passed by, people would ask me why I was playing a kid’s game. I was so amused at this interpretation that I decided to show them the titular Impossible Lair. Brutal and unrelenting, they very quickly realized how difficult the game was and conceded. While I’ve spoken about difficulty in video games before, I thought it might be interesting to look at difficult video games that have a child-friendly art style.

When it comes to difficult video games with a child-friendly art style, my go-to example is typically the original Mega Man series. Originally released in 1987 on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), the original Mega Man games have seen 11 main entries with games 1-8 released from 1987 to 1996 and 9-11 released between 2008-2018 and have proven to be a major success with many spin-off sub-series, television adaptations and comics.

Who would guess from this artwork that the games were so difficult!

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My Thoughts on Final Fantasy XVI and the Series’ Future

Published October 8, 2020

I would like to start by saying that I’m a big fan of the Final Fantasy franchise. Final Fantasy IX is my favourite video game ever and many other entries in the series rank amongst the best games I have ever played. I would argue that Final Fantasy has had a profound impact on my life and how I view the world and, with this in mind, I decided that I should share my thoughts on the recently announced Final Fantasy XVI and the series’ future.

I will start off by ignoring the fact that Square Enix have retracted the announcement that Final Fantasy XVI was coming to PC (which, understandably, I find frustrating). Instead, I would like to focus on the game itself, the people who have been assigned to the game and how it relates to prior games. It should also be noted that the game was only recently announced and the information that I am about to discuss could very well change in the future.

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The Significance of Video Game Anniversaries

Published September 24, 2020

September 13th was the 35th anniversary of the Super Mario franchise and Nintendo decided to celebrate by announcing Super Mario 3D All-Stars, a collection of 3 3D Super Mario games, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy. A variety of other products and events were also unveiled and this got me thinking about video game anniversaries in general and their significance.

The video game industry as a whole is still pretty young with the first commercialised video game only being released in 1971 (which, interestingly, makes 2021 the 50th anniversary of the video game industry!). I suspect that this adds gravitas to many of these anniversaries as the industry celebrates its heritage.

The arcade cabinet for Computer Space, the first commercially available video game, released in 1971.

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Can the Epic Games Store Survive?

Published September 14, 2020

It has been a while since I last discussed the Epic Games Store but I thought, with the recent clash between Apple and Epic, that it might be worth discussing how the Epic Games Store has performed so far and if it is likely to survive and become a long term competitor to Steam.

The first thing that I should clarify is that I have never used the Epic Games Store myself. Instead I have been keeping tabs on how it has affected the video game industry and I have spoken before about how I considered the Epic Games Store to be a good thing for the industry. However, I have many concerns that the Epic Games Store may not be able to survive the many fights that Epic are initiating.

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My Take on the Future of Atlus Ports

Published August 31, 2020

With the massive success of Persona 4 Golden on Steam, Sega and Atlus recently announced that they intend to release more ports of older titles and to put more emphasis on multi-platform releases. While they haven’t specified any titles in particular, this development is fantastic! While I have spoken about the history of Sega PC ports before, I wanted to give my take on the future of Atlus ports.

With the successful re-release of Persona 4 Golden, many are calling for Persona 3 and Persona 5 to be ported to PC and, while I would love to get an opportunity to play these games, I’m not sure they are the best choices to be ported next. I would like to draw particular attention to Persona 3 which has two different versions (technically three versions but I’m leaving out the original release). Both Persona 3 FES and Persona 3 Portable have content that the other version lacks and, ideally, Atlus would have to spend time developing a remaster that includes the extra content of both versions. This would be much more expensive than to simply port one of the titles but a definitive release could then be used for future ports to consoles.

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