Out of all the thousands of hours spent in open world games this generation, loving every minute of the escapism and the wonderful feelings of awe and discovery, never would I have thought that travelling through Turkey with a sweaty back and layers of sunscreen on would bring back that same sense of digital wanderlust. For an almost-exclusively indoor activity such as gaming, it can certainly capture the outside world in fine detail – and despite the oft-occasion when I have thought back to my console and PC library back home, I am happy to report that the reverse is also true; that the world out there can help conjure fond memories of those many adventures we’ve had in the likes

With the announcement that 1up is shutting down, I’m just reposting here, in case it disappears, one of my favourite memories of the community. An observation out of nowhere turned into a fun contest which received a fantastic response. Thank you everyone for making the site as wonderful as it was.

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I am pleased to be listed as a ‘Popular 1up Blogger’ on the front page of this site: now my life is complete. However something bothers me with the picture next to my name…and I don’t want to sound ungrateful or anything but:

Upon closer inspection it is evident that this dude is a keen Wii fan, wears glasses, and has no sideburns… Read More

The new Sim City is on the way, revitalised and as graphically updated as you could imagine on current PCs but also lugging along with it other modern day features such as the always-online DRM system. I can’t help but think back to simpler times, when I used to come home from school to play the classic Sim City 200 on my first ever computer (a Pentium 586 133Mhz), marvelling at all the possibilities at one’s mouse cursor tips and stressing out over dropping approval ratings amongst the general populace as I contemplated raising taxes to garner funds for our soon-to-be-exploding power plant. Well, it was either that or selling off nice old houses with backyards and replace them with soulless glass-windowed sky-rise apartments, and cutting the road maintenance budget so as to make rush hour traffic conditions appalling (in which case, welcome to Sydney Australia!). The game marvelled with its detail and flexibility, teaching me more about renewal energy sources than any class at school ever did, and it was all done with 32 mb of RAM back when such a requirement may have meant a big deal – never mind always having to be online, we didn’t even have the friggin‘ internet back then.

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Just when it seemed as if Sim City was the ultimate game allowing you to yield tyrannical power over an entire city of your own creation, destroying everything with natural disasters or alien invasions and building it all up from scratch again just for kicks, along came The Sims in the late 90′s which put you in charge of the lives of individuals and hence, granting players an incredible package capable of architectural and interior design, family relations and social interaction, regulation over intestinal function and even an insight into psychology – all via a voyeuristic telescope of sorts that tapped into everyone’s curious (and very, very evil) little imaginations.

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What’s with all the animal killing in the latest Far Cry? You could understand being able to do so in Red Dead Redemption given the context, with it being set back in the old west where hunters had to make a living; it was a cold and harsh time, so you needed animal hide to make yourself a nice coat or a rug. Sure, having a stuffed bear placed on display in the living room was perhaps taking things a bit too far, but again, context. Far Cry 3, on the other hand, is set in a tropical paradise in modern, and let’s face it, much more consumeristic times, which perhaps does in itself go some way to explain why we’d even need so many friggin’ wallets and pouches in the first place. The only thing the game required in order to be completely true to its time would be the ability to Tweet about or Facebook update our animal slaughter every waking minute.