Pac Man is a classic, in that upper echelon of arcade legends that only the likes of Donkey Kong, Space Invaders and Gauntlet reside. It’s also been wonderfully reinvented for a new generation with the neon-infused Pac Man Championship Edition. Freelance game designer Tom Davies has taken the yellow pill-popper’s evolution a stage further by mixing the usual maze wandering with this generation’s obsession with the FPS. Thus FPS Man was born.
Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear series is entering new ground with upcoming release MGS Rising. The trademark stealth mechanic has been abandoned for Platinum Games’ riotous over-the-top action. Aside from a few handheld experiments, this is the first time a Metal Gear game has crept into a new genre. With such a rich and varied universe of characters and conflict, there’s plenty more scope for branching out into even more genres.
Here are a few suggestions, some serious and some not, of genres I could see a Metal Gear game in.
Facebook games conjure up negative connotations for many gamers. They’re often seen as devoid of skill, micro-payment laden exercises in repetitive clicking. Scottish development house Ludometrics have taken a different, more traditional approach to social media gaming with their retro-tinged title, Bips!.
The shoot ‘em up genre has underwent something of a renaissance this console generation. As with many other ‘niche’ genres, they have benefited greatly from delivery via digital download. It was Geometry Wars and Super Stardust who rekindled my love affair with all things shooty spaceship, then Futurlab’s Velocity came out of nowhere to send me head over heels. So can the Voo Foo Studios and Boss Baddie collaboration for PS3 and Vita, Big Sky Infinity, steal my shoot ‘em up heart all over again?
NEW SERIES! I get in about my ’Pile of Shame’, a scarily long list of games purchased that I simply haven’t , or hardly, played. From PSX and PS2, to Wii, 360 and PS3, there’s always something to have a blast on and see if it’s worth playing through.
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To many, the insolvency of Blockbuster isn’t a landmark in their lives. Those who live in large, urban areas with an abundance of entertainment retailers probably won’t even notice a possible store closure. Well, once the initial wave of reporting dies down anyway. As one tweet on my twitter feed said: “Blockbusters has gone bust… I didn’t even know they were still about, haven’t seen one in almost 3 years. I’ve used one once ever.” Outside of shop staff and their families, the fall of Blockbuster may be most keenly felt in smaller towns. Like my own, a small town on the West Coast of Scotland – Dunoon.
Actually they can, and will, if you go see their special screening of Alien on Sunday, 27 January. Ridley Scott’s classic sci-fi horror will be shown at 4.30pm in the Glasgow Film Theatre from, get this, a 70mm print! In an age where digital reigns supreme in cinemas across the world, take a couple of hours to pay tribute to a fine movie displayed in a fast-disappearing format. You can’t call yourself a real Alien fan until you’ve seen a chestburster on the big screen.
You can book tickets for the special screening at glasgowfilmtheatre.org.
