I’ve been sat here for hours thinking about what I want to write. About why I want to write. How can I write about gaming when I haven’t been gaming? Am I still up to date? Do I even like gaming anymore?

Life takes all manner of turns. It’s easy to let things fall by the wayside as something more important in the moment comes along or a looming fear hangs over your every thought. You forget things, your priorities move about and life goes on.

For me, gaming has been that forgotten aspect of my life recently. I’ve barely played a few hours of anything in weeks and, to be honest, I’ve not really missed it. Gaming has been such a central part of my life as long as I can remember and it’s truly unsettling to think on it and unpack why it’s happened. Continue reading “Am I still a “gamer”?” →

One of my first console games as a child was a little-known game from Rare called Banjo-Kazooie, it was also one of the first of many games that I have never finished. When I dove back into it recently I began to remember why I never beat it – it’s really, horribly difficult!

Was it the strength of the enemies? Not even close. Difficulty of the puzzles? They were child’s play (literally). Whenever I found myself messing up a challenge or getting beaten by a grunt, it was because I’d fumbled the controls and mis-stepped. The awkward camera and early platforming design meant that navigation was far harder than we are accustomed to nowadays. Thus I began to wonder – should I persevere and see this as part of the inherent challenge of the game, or should I be angry and brand it a bad game due to poor controls, and stop playing?

The truth is likely somewhere in the middle. Continue reading “Bad Controls, Bad Game?” →