Games

since when has this bit been “angel”?

ok so i went into islington this morning to begin changing banks, and was in the co-op where pentonville road meets islington high st — as i wz waiting to be seen i wz lookin round and there on the wall, complete with old-skool monopoly logo, was the boardgames equivalent of a blue plaque, claiming that HERE ON THIS SPOT stood the building which in 1957 inspired the inventor of monopoly to name one of the playing-squares in the london version “THE ANGEL, ISLINGTON”: it was “angel corner house teashop”, a lyons teahouse i believe, and is therefore the only space on the board named after — said the plaque (and wikipedia currently) — a BUILDING

ok so this is sort of true — except eg angel tube was thus named in 1901, bcz there on the corner since time immemorial (or anyway the 17th century) was a PUB called “the angel”… and “angel’ really IS the name of a DISTRICT as much as a teashop. You can’t build houses and hotels in a teashop! (Well you can but they would surely earn less rent even than those you built in the old kent road)

The Forgotten Game

My parents played it incessantly in my youth. They had some kind of clockwork machine to help them which fascinated me.

My in-laws also played it a lot.

My Aunt still does.

What is it? … read on …

The FreakyTrigger Top 25 Brands: 21: POKEMON

Marketers at Nintendo has credited the popularity of Pokemon to its expert combination of two previous fads - the Tamagotchi and the Beanie Baby. Fair enough, but this isn’t why Pokemon has become so successful as a brand, capturing the imagination of children and adults worldwide. A great brand needs a great brand symbol, and Pokemon’s is Pikachu - in fact without Pikachu as an identification point the game would never have been a success. … read on …

I WAS A GOBLIN: Worlds In Collusion

In my teens and early twenties I made three sustained attempts to create worlds.

The first two were for AD&D games, the third was for a freeform - i.e. largely ruleless - role-playing campaign. Each of them ran into two basic problems - one in-game, one out-of-game. The in-game issue - we’ll call it the Balance Problem - is that a role-playing world needs to accommodate the kind of adventures players are likely to have: if the characters are powerful enough and the adventures wide enough in scope, it’ll most likely affect the status quo of the gameworld. The out-of-game issue - we’ll call it the Botherd Problem - is that different players will have different levels of commitment to caring about the game world - and almost all of them will care about it less than you. … read on …

TV Cream’s Toy Catalogue

TV Cream’s Toy Catalogue. Yet more proof that TV cream does pay revisiting from time to time — and it looks like they’ve actually been working on this since late 2005. It’s updated like a blog, but indexed A–Z. Here are some of the more FT-friendly entries:

Big Trak
Top Trumps
War of the Daleks

though that last one sounds entirely made up to me.

Why I Suck At Scrabble

I have just had an enlightening conversation with FT’s own Sarah C during which I made the astonishing - to me and me only - discovery that you’re allowed to change your tiles over in Scrabble if your rack is rub. Sarah’s reply to this was “have you never looked at the rules ever?” and my answer has to be “Erm….no actually.” … read on …

it’s the end of the videogaming world as we know it

This is real Nostradamus end times fare: believe it or don’t but it’s confirmed by Nintendo: Sonic and Mario: together at last in Mario and Sonic at the OLYMPIC GAMES!! Oh. My. God. But Mario beating Sonic at speed? NEVER HAPPEN. Unless the cheating bastards pull a Thundercats on us. I am still traumatised from a story arc of Thundercats where they had to decide who was going to be leader of the Thundercats. The leader had to beat all the other Thundercats at their special abilities. So, RUBBISH old Lion-O had to beat Cheetara in a speed trial, right? So they have a long flat route, and a dangerous short cut through an HORRIBLE JUNGLE. Cheetara runs really quickly over the long route, and Lion-O showing BRAVERY and STUFF takes the jungle route, and just about wins. BUT HE WASN’T FASTER!! Cheetara was awesome and she should have been leader. I’m still angry about this.

PS - I was always a Sonic/Sega person back then. But now I’m all about the Nintendo. The appearance of Tails was bad enough, but when KNUCKLES THE ECHIDNA came along it was just insulting. Never mind “Shadow” the Hedgehog. Stop making “dark” equivalents of good character brands! It hasn’t worked with Pokémon, it hasn’t worked with Sonic, it will NEVER WORK! Note there has never been a “Dark Mario” (there has been an actual ’shadow’ Mario in Paper Mario 2, but he was AN ACTUAL SHADOW which is different as any fule kno).

Pomp and Circumnavigation

On Saturday, a crack FT team took it upon themselves to brave the wilds of North West London, in order that we could report back to you, dear reader, on the condition and facilities of the nu-Wembley stadium. We did it all for you, you ungrateful sods. … read on …

The Twilight Princess is a hottie, the game itself not so much

Anticipation for the Wii and its ‘killer’ game Zelda: Twilight Princess had ‘unreasonably raised expectations’ written all over it. What creative game developers will be able to do with the wiimote is still in the stage of preliminary sketches, and it does look promising. The new Zelda game is not one of those games that anticipates that promise.

As everyone points out the game was originally designed for an earlier console. so yes, the Wii-ness of it is underwhelming. There are lots of special moves that don’t resort to button mashing. Replacing buttons/combos with gestures is sort of a winner, but it’s not very satisfying.

That said, it is a good game — but still not great as the initial over-excited reviews were drooling. I’d give it a 7 or 8/10, or 4 stars or whatever, and tell you it’s great value. It’s got the same mawkish character interaction and lovely touching cinema … read on …

BRANDWATCH: Sony’s PR Stunt*

Magnus poses the following burning question. And I read:

This is a question for the people with marketing knowledge, and the marketers that lurk inside us all:

The PS3 has been suffering from negative press, and the abundant supply and unusually diffident demand also means that those queuing really had no need to do so: you – yes, you – can walk into your local HMV now with a fair chance of picking one up right now. … read on …