Rob at I Played The Game has nominated Art of Redress for this award, which is curious. I wouldn’t say I’m untidy, but I’m not tidy either. My wife is super efficient though, which means that I’m efficient too. Hence lots of hoovering and cleaning the kitchen floor. If I was left to my own devices, I dread to think what state the house would end up in. A state of decay probably…

Anyway, do take some time out to read Rob’s stuff at I Played The Game, he writes some great stuff on gaming. I quite enjoyed his recent post about NES games that he played too much.

There were some questions to answer, so let’s take a look at them….

Question 1 – What is your earliest gaming memory?

My earliest gaming memory was getting my first computer, an Atari ST, when I was five. My mum wasn’t thinking about returning the Atari ST as it had come with a load of games and she wasn’t sure that it was the right bundle. I spent that day in school hoping that we had the right bundle…thankfully we did!

When I got home from school that night, we were allowed to play it. The first game I ever played (if memory serves correctly) was Nebulous…which is far too hard to be anyone’s first game. I blame that game for my confidence issues with games…I just thought I was bad at games from that point on. I did enjoy the other games on that disk thought…I remember being impressed that Pac-Man could jump in Pac-Mania, I guess I was easily impressed back then!

Question 2 – When did you start blogging and why?

I started blogging with Retro Redress in March 2017 as I needed a creative outlet and wanted a project I guess. I’d been a big fan of Dylan Cornelius’ Sega Does blog and had contributed a review of a Japanese wrestling game to the site. I loved writing it, but realized that it was Dylan’s project and I needed my own space if I was to continue writing. I’d had a bad few months with my career and really just wanted to do something for me, something fun. Truthfully, that first year was a trial…I just wanted to see if I liked blogging and could do it. Since April, I’ve changed things to Art Of Redress as I want to write about more things…

I wrote about this in a lot more detail in part 2 of this post, if you care to read it…

Question 3 – What feature do you wish any of your consoles had that they currently don’t?

All I really want is backward compatibility. Digital or not. There are so many great games lost to time due to licenses or because they weren’t popular upon release. It’s why I’m never too excited about these ‘Mini’ consoles – built in games are fine, but why not give us a cartridge slot so we can discover more games?

It’s almost like a delibrate oversight, designed to make companies more money…I don’t understand why my PS4 can’t play PS1 games when the PS3 could. Why can’t the Xbox One play all Xbox 360 games? Why is Nintendo trying to get you to pay $20 a year to play the same NES games you bought on Wii, Wii U and 3DS? I don’t emulate games personally (it’s a moral thing for me…it didn’t feel right, so I stopped around this time last year) but I can understand why other people do it and I don’t blame them.

Question 4 – Name a Movie that you wish had a video game made after it and what developer would you want to make it and why?

Great question…well, I might have mentioned my love of Altered Beast a few times. That would be my pick. Make it a ridiculous three hour epic full of special effects and an overblown soundtrack based on the Mega Drive’s original tunes.

Maybe get The Rock to star in in it and get Slash to score the soundtrack? I insist that the original speech samples are kept though….

Question 5 – Do you have a Games Room or Corner? If so let us see it and show your favourite thing in there?

Not any more unfortunately. I used to collect for all consoles from 8-Bit onwards and had a great collection, but I had to sell it all in order to buy a house and start a family. These days, my collection is pretty much all digital – I own around 4 physical games (Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 and Lego Worlds for PS4 and Lego Batman 2 and Breath of The Wild for Wii U)

My games collection shrunk more recently as I traded in my 3DS and my PSP a few months ago. Now I just have a PS4 and a Wii U under the TV and my trusty laptop hidden in it’s case in the corner of the living room. I’ve found myself wanting an Xbox One recently (for exclusive games and Xbox 360 backwards compatibility)

Question 6 – Do you have a Child or a Pet? which character do you name it after?

I have two children and two cats…sadly none are named after video game characters. My wife might have shouted at me if I’d named the kids after characters from Golden Axe or something!

Question 7 – What keeps you going when Gaming?

Just a love of games and a need to complete my quest of catching up on all the games I’ve missed out on or gave up on. There are so many classic games I’ve never played and now I have this blog, I feel accountable. I’ve openly declared my mission, now I need to stick with it!

Here are some nominees (if they want to)

The Dragon’s Tea Party – despite liking pineapple on pizza, she’s alright 🙂 You can get to know her by reading her Sunshine Blogger Award post.

Red Metal – this guy writes really intelligent game reviews and I enjoy reading them. Here’s his review for Call of Duty: Ghosts, a great summary of the series’ low-point.

The Gaming Diaries – I’ve enjoying chatting to her over the past few months. It’s always fun reading what she’s overheard in a games shop too…

Polygon Symphonies – the new site by Dylan Cornelius, focusing on PS1 and PS2 games. The first review was of Tekken Tag Tournament, a game I remember fondly. Dylan’s done a great job with the NES and Sega game libraries. so it’s worth getting into this site just as it begins…

Thanks for reading!