Well, last year was a bit of a crap year for creative stuff (Hopefully I’ll have some good stuff to show you soon!) but I did play a lot of games Let’s have a look back at everything I played. Mostly because I’m getting on Read More …
Tag: Games
Trains Vs Zombies: A Surprising Arcade Showdown
It’s 1997 and we’re at the AOU show in Japan, feasting our eyes on all of the exciting up-and-coming arcade attractions on display. Over at Namco, the imminently-released Tekken 3 is an obvious headliner, but there are plenty of other goodies too — not least Read More …
Ghostwire Tokyo
Hello folks, here’s ya boi FatNicK coming at you with…err…reviews of games that have been out for a while and have already been widely covered elsewhere. So what’s the verdict on this one? It’s quite good ‘innit! I could write a whole review focusing on Read More …
Basque Country Sega Master System Championship 2024
A couple of months ago a fellow called Egoitz Campo reached out to tell me he was trying to organise a Sega Master system tournament in the Basque Country, and ask whether I would be interested in recieving a report of the event. Naturally I Read More …
Ooky Spooky: Muppets Haunted House Adventure
Its Halloween! The time when our attention inevitably turns to oOky sPOoky titles. For this Halloween, let’s look at one that lays a little bit outside the usual. With an FGPA Core, a truckload of podcast coverage and the sudden discovery of the immense breadth Read More …
An Arcade Paradise?
Available: Pretty much everywhere (Xbox, Playstation, PC, Switch – Xbox version reviewed here) Price: Bout a tenner (Switch version slightly more expensive than the rest) Erm hello. It’s been a while hasn’t it? Sorry for my absence on a personal level this has been a Read More …
No tengo Amiga: Nintendo Vs Commodore in the UK
Recently, it’s come to my attention that several people aren’t particularly happy with my article about the NES and the Master System in the UK market, finding the evidence supporting the argument to be lacking. Placed in such a position, there’s only really one reasonable Read More …
A Hedgehog and a Mouse: Sega, Disney and a Surprising Attempt to become an Amusement Giant
On social media, old pictures from London’s Sega World are an easy way to harvest some quick engagement. Post the image, chuck in your ‘remember that time when Sega ran a theme park?’ caption then sit back and wait for the likes numbers to rise. Read More …
FatNicK Reviews Stuff: The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers – John Szczepaniak
Having spent five years (half a decade!) of my life on these books, I can honestly say they were a waste of time and a failure. They should have never been written, and whatever value a few academics and a tiny number of readers claim, Read More …
FatNicK Reviews Stuff: The Evercade
So, having been lucky enough to receive one of these as a father’s day gift 2020, here’s my review of Blaze’s little retro-themed box of tricks. Sorry it’s taken so long – I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the thing. I still don’t, Read More …
2021 Gaming Highlights
Well, 2021 was another slightly strange year wasn’t it? I know i’ve been a bit quieter than usual on the creative front so here’s some things that have been keeping me entertained over the last 12 months instead: The Force is With Respawn One of Read More …
Complete Carnage: 32-bit Console hardware and the reshaping of the industry
Recently we looked at the Sega Saturn and whether it was killed too prematurely by Sega. Though these days the Saturn’s renewed popularity means we regularly ask what could have made the console a success, there’s one question that should probably ask first: Could the Read More …
Yaba-SanShiro: Run Sega Saturn games on your PI4
So we’ve looked at the state of pi Emulation and we’ve also seen how you can run Sega Model 3 games on your Pi, so here’s a quick tutorial on how to run Sega Saturn games on your Pi4. It’s worth remembering that from a Read More …
Becoming a Super Model: Adding Model 3 Games to Your Pi4.
JULY UPDATE: All of the per-game optimisations are built into the supermodel.ini file, so you just need to setup and Play. If the previous reasons we’ve looked at for getting a Raspberry Pi weren’t enough, you can now also add Sega Model 3 arcade games Read More …
“The Saturn is not our future” Sales, Costs and the Demise of the Sega Saturn
2023 Update: The recent (and highly dramatic) leak of documents and emails surrounding Sega of America’s 1997FY marketing plan adds some important context to the question of how much the Saturn cost Sega. One particularly juicy little nugget is this snapshot of Sega of America’s Read More …
The Second Sound Chip – The Sega Master System and the YM2413
What is a Master System? If you’re reading this in English and you owned a Sega Master System you probably didn’t own the most complete version of the Sega Master System. This isn’t idle snobbery: the Machine that was released outside Japan was notably different Read More …
A Tale of Three Brawlers
With everything that’s happened last year, it’s been easy to miss some of the more interesting tid-bits – like the universe gifting us updates to three classic 8/16-bit brawlers in the space of 18 months: River City Girls, Streets of Rage 4 and Battle Toads. Read More …
FatNick’s 2020 in Gaming
Well as a remarkably rubbish year comes to an end it seems suitable to look back at what gaming highlights I can haul out of the wreck. Will these all be new games? No! These won’t even necessarily be things I haven’t played before – Read More …
180 Free games: Analysis of a Cover Tape Collection
It just so happened that a few weeks ago I had to move my original Zx Spectrum collection out of storage. Faced with a huge plastic crate filled to the brim with cassettes, it suddenly struck me how ridiculous it was that we had some Read More …
Streets of Rage 4: a Less Enthusiastic Review
It’s no secret that I wasn’t particularly fond of Sonic Mania. Having replayed it more recently, I still stand by my view. Sonic Mania was a game which had a complete mastery of the character at the mechanical level, but didn’t seem to understand why Read More …