MONTHLY 5 - January 2025

The first month of 2025 is at an end, and boy has it been an eventful one. To distract you from those January woes, why not try one of these five resurrected gems from the past.

In the case of B.C. Racers (1994-5 Core Design Inc), that's the distant past. Pre-history even. A mascot kart racer with some nice sprite-scaled visuals playable on DOS, SEGA CD, SEGA 32X and 3DO! Next, board the Black Pearl in the late 17th century and flip off some balls in Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean Pinball (2005 Disney Interactive). 

Head over to war-torn Europe of the 1930s and beyond and platform through some of Tintin's most famous escapades in Tintin: Destination Adventure (2001 Infogrames). From World War II to Woodstock, peruse the pages of the famous weekly periodical in The Face of Life (1994 Time Inc & Creative Multimedia), a fascinating educational multimedia CD-ROM.

Finally, head on to the cyberpunk future of 2095 and take on the role of a Neo Hunter (1996 Virgin Interactive Entertainment Inc). From the imagination of Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game) and developed by ex-LucasArts employees who took the cancelled project with them, it's an epic gallery shooter with a heavy dose of adventure.

Still to come in February is my rundown on the TV shows of 2024 but more gaming goodness will arrive on the last day of the month. I'll see you then!

TOP 10 GAMES OF 2024

 

 

This site frequently harps on about old-school games, but this is the time of year where I get to give my thoughts on new ones. If you ask me, 2024 hasn't been as great a year as last years. There were less  depth in the larger games and less invention in the smaller ones. And my most anticipated games - Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth and Spider-Man 2 are locked out for me and other PC-users until the end of January (soon!). But that's not to say I didn't have fun with interactive media these past twelve months. Read on to find out what I think was the best of it.

TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2024

 

 

2024 has been a funny year for entertainment. Unlike many previous years, I cannot speak of one cinematic event that truly stood out. There's no Barbenheimer counter programming despite Glicked trying too hard to be a thing (maybe if they chose Wadiator it would be different?). No teenagers in tuxes turned out for Despicable Me 4 like they did with the pandemic-delayed Minions 2. And more to the point, there were a notable lack of comic book movies whirling through projectors. It is also the year that, after the success of Everything Everywhere All at Once and Poor Things (which was a 2024 movie in the UK), the uber-weird became the new critical darling. Watch The Substance, Love Lies Bleeding or Better Man and you'll get an idea what I mean. But that doesn't mean this year wasn't a memorable one. Far from it. Read on to read my movie reviews of the year and catch my Top 10 while you're at it...