Cuphead is a good game. Cuphead is a hard game. Cuphead is a Microsoft-backed indie game. Cuphead is meticulously drawn in the style of 1930s cartoons. Cuphead was first announced at E3 2013 as a boss rush game. Cuphead was released recently for Xbox One and PC. Cuphead excited me from announcement to sometime before release. Cuphead is a good game, the critics say. Cuphead is all anyone is talking about in games media this week.

Now I’m talking about Cuphead.

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So, recently I’ve been tinkering with Virtual Reality. With that, I’ve been thinking about the sort of experiences we can convey in VR that wouldn’t be possible in any other medium. Essentially, I’m going to look at three ways you can experience VR and what each can do to tell a story in its own unique way.

Headset Only

The most basic version of VR is headset only. This could take the form of a smartphone and a device like Gear VR or Google Cardboard/Daydream, or it could involve the headset for the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. With this set-up, you are essentially a floating head or camera. So any stories that would use this method would rely on accelerometers to judge what you’re looking at. A couple ideas spring to mind.

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So, in a couple months Super Mario Odyssey will release on the Nintendo Switch. Now, at the start of this year, the game was revealed at an event all about the Nintendo Switch. Now I’m not sold on the Switch personally. I just don’t feel like buying a system for a couple exclusives. The portability is exciting but I wish I could play my current library on the Switch, not work at building a new one. However, that’s neither here nor there.

Anyway, the game was revealed with this trailer. Then at E3, this trailer was released. Now, as the Internet tends to do, this spawned quite a few sleuths and theorists who think they have the whole thing figured out. Despite my derision for them, I’m not out to prove them wrong or insist that I’m right. In fact, this piece is a deliberate attempt to be wrong in my speculation. Being wrong can be fun. Sometimes exploring ideas with no expectation of being right can lead to some interesting insights.

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So, recently I’ve been getting back into L.A. Noire. I reckon I first played the game back in 2012. So, five years on from my original playthrough of the game, how does the game hold up? Also, what was the effect of L.A. Noire on the wider games industry, as at the time of release it was both wildly ambitious and occupied a slice of the cultural landscape for that year.

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[Authors Note: Throughout this piece, when referring to the game series Civilization, I will use the American English spelling because that’s where the game originated and thus what it’s called. When referring to the concept of civilisation I will be using the British English spelling]

So, you may or may not be familiar with the Civilization series of games. In simple terms, the Civ series is a strategy game series wherein you take control of a civilisation and lead it to victory. There are a few things that happen when you game-ify history and I’m going to use that lens to see what the choices made in designing the series say about how its creator’s ideologies. Whether they uphold unexamined ideologies or use the game to delve deeper into these ideas.

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So, E3 was last week. It was mostly a run-of-the-mill E3 with a few nice surprises. For me, the nicest surprise was the announcement from Microsoft that they would be bringing original Xbox backwards compatibility to Xbox One (and hopefully also PC). With that in mind, and the fact that the original Xbox was my first console, I thought I’d compile a list of games that I’d like to be brought into the future.

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Before you start this article, watch this.

Good. Now, that you’ve done that we can begin. I’m going to assume you’ve done it. I’m trusting you here. If you haven’t watched it yet, you’re missing out. Scout’s honour? Anyway, here it is again and then I’ll proceed unimpeded.

So, recently there’s been some hubbub about that new Prey game by Arkane Studios. You might have heard about it. Prey (2017) was teased last year at E3 during the Bethesda E3 press conference. The trailer for that game is alright too, now that I think about it. Link here. The trailer is part-Groundhog Day, part-The Matrix, part-System Shock, part-The Thing, and so on. Prey (2017) blends these influences well and altogether looks like a decent game.

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It’s good.

Ok, some context first. Breath of the Wild is the latest in the Legend of Zelda series that’s been consistently running since 1986. Breath of the Wild was released about a month ago for the Wii U and the Switch. As you might have guessed from my article My First Game, I’m fairly new to Nintendo (and practically a spring chicken in some circles of gaming). This is my first Zelda (I did play about ten minutes of Wind Waker HD on my Wii U but I couldn’t get into it). I have been borrowing my brother’s Switch to play the game when I can. So I thought I’d offer my thoughts as a recent Nintendo convert (as late as the Wii U and 3DS).

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So, recently I’ve been playing a few games that centre around Australia as a setting and inspiration. So I figured I’d take a look at how Australia is represented in games, through the lens of the current games I’ve been playing. I’ve never been a particularly proud Australian, mostly in part because nationalism is … messy. Australia as a game setting though? Hell yeah, sign me up.

The first game I want to look at is also the oldest on the list: TY the Tasmanian Tiger. A PS2/Xbox era game that was recently re-released on Steam sometime last year. TY the Tasmanian Tiger centres around the evil plans of Boss Cass, an evil cassowary (appropriate since Cassowaries are bloody scary) and the thwarting of those plans by TY, the last Tasmanian Tiger after the rest of his species was abducted into the Dreamtime.

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