Gaming Moments: J

Jaguar XJ220 (Mega CD)

It wasn't as good as Lotus Turbo Challenge on the Mega Drive.  Sure, it looked better, but I still remember the first time I tried to control it.  I couldn't.

Jet Set Radio (Dreamcast)
Jet Set Radio HD (Xbox 360)

I spent hours just trying to get off the tutorial, doing an endless grind around the central bus station.  Made all the worse since I did it twice, once on each console - but there was an achievement for the 360 version so I felt I had to do it again.

Journey (PS3)

A game filled with moments, but I think my pick comes early in the game, at the bridge.  The structures tower above you, and it took me (and my companion) a while to work out that our path wasn't just across the base but we had to somehow get up there.  Learning the floating mechanic in that way together was amazing.

Then there's the snow, but I can't put the words together to describe that.

Jungle Strike (Mega Drive)

Mainly played via the PSP, to be honest, since that added save states.  The last level is set at the White House.  Just as you think you've completed the game, tanks roll in and you have to protect the president's helicopter as he escapes.

Gaming moments: I

Ico (PS2, PS3)

I even remember writing about this on my blog.  I'll paste some text from the previous post:

Ico starts off slowly, with a long cutscene. You get thrown into a murky world and have to work out the controls. The world's not actually murky, but playing it on my HD TV certainly made it look so. I worked my way through the castle, until I found the girl in white. I knocked the cage down the tower, and rescued her from the shadow monsters. I then couldn't find a way out of the room. Huh.

Never mind, I thought, I'll come back to that later. I'd been playing for 40 minutes or so. I turned the console off, and then thought ... hmm, I wonder if the game does save at checkpoints?

Evidently not.

Ikaruga (GameCube)
I have only ever played this for five minutes, and it made my head hurt. 

Gaming moments: H

Half-Life (PC)

The very first time I played this, I remember sitting watching the opening sequence and being amazed by the detail in the surroundings.  I accidentally nudged my desk and the view changed - and suddenly I realised that I could control my character already.

Headhunter (Dreamcast)

Travelling by motorbike, I somehow managed to get myself lodged in some scenery, and span on the spot.  Funny until I realised that I'd lose progress since the last save. The accelerator controls on the game were really sensitive, and it was tricky to steer.

Hexic HD (Xbox 360)

I shouted with joy when I finally got a black pearl. It's so tense working up to it, as one mistaken move can lead to everything collapsing. 

Gaming moments: G

Gauntlet (CPC)

Andrew and I realised that as long as we could keep one of us alive at any one time, we could have effectively infinite lives, moving through levels forever.  We played for about five hours until Death attacked us both at the same time and we both died.  We both stared at the screen for a good minute then shouted "bastard!" together.

Geometry Wars Galaxies (DS)

One of the later levels had a stupidly high score for the silver medal, and enemies spawned all around my ship constantly. I seem to recall the level was shaped like a star. I finally beat it, sitting on the train, hiding in one of the points of the star and setting the drone to be a turret rather than my usual bait type.  I almost missed my stop.

Grand Theft Auto (PS)

I vividly remember completing the Liberty City missions, not knowing that there were two more worlds to unlock.  I also remember the soundtrack with the lyric "Grand Theft Auto" in one of the songs, which I thought was incredibly clever the first time I heard it. 

Gaming moments: F

Floigan Brothers: Episode One (Dreamcast)

I recall being stumped for ages that I needed to get to somewhere distant, but couldn't jump that far.  By accident I managed to annoy the big fat brother, who picked me up and chucked me over to the platform.

Feel the Magic XX-XY (DS)

I had the US version.  One of the first games in the game (if not the very first) sees you trying to get goldfish out of a man's stomach.  The first time I played this I was mashing the d-pad trying to control the goldfish, completely forgetting about the touch screen.  to be fair, it was a new control scheme at the time ...

Forza Horizon (Xbox 360)

Driving around in the early evening, I was worried that my console was dying, with odd spots appearing in the sky.  It turns out they were Chinese lanterns, floating upwards.

Field Commander (PSP)

I tried to play this multiplayer, not realising it would mean staying on the console until we finished the game.  You'd think that a turn-based game would work using a send-turns mechanic, but no - it worked through a continuous connection.  What's worse is that me and my opponent were closely matched, so I eventually got to bed at around 2am.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (Gamecube)

We played through this at regular games evenings and days.  Kieron played a short bloke with a bucket on his head.  At the end of every day, we watched them all dance around the campfire and made sexist remarks about the woman with big boobs. 

Gaming moments: E

Essential Sudoku DS (DS)

After competing 999 picross puzzles, there was one left.  Surely the pinnacle of difficulty, it's surely going to be a trophy or medal or something special.  Oh no, it's really easy and it's a pie chart.  A bloody pie chart.

Earth Defense Force 2017 (Xbox 360)
Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable (PS Vita)

Both games have many highlights, but the thing I will remember most is the mission in which you are sent into battle against the massive walking fortress.  I destroyed more of the city than the fortress did while trying to attack it, and finally the mission ends with you withdrawing because your weapons aren't powerful enough.  Sorry I broke the Space Needle for nothing, guys.

Exit (PSP)

One of the characters you have to rescue is very fat. I called him Fatty.  I pushed boxes onto him.  He died.

Ecolibrium (PS Vita)

Playing on the train, on the tutorial.  And then the game requires me to look around 180 degrees with my Vita to see the animals behind me.  Not going to happen; never loaded up again.

Endless Ocean (Wii)

I recently went back to this as part of the "Au Revoir Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection" drive, which was pointless as the only online mode it has is to connect to a friend who is simultaneously playing the game; that will never have happened.  Anyway, during my brief play I watched the most stilted and awkward cutscene ever made.

EyeToy: Play (PS2)

Accompanying the cleaning suds game with "When I'm Cleaning Windows" was a work of genius. 

Gaming moments: D

Dear Esther (Mac) 

The end sequence will probably stay with me for a long time - but only when combined with the crash scene and hospital bed at the bottom of the cave.

Dancing Stage (arcade)

I only played this a couple of times, at the Trocadero.  The machine felt huge, and even before getting on the platform you felt energised by the lights and colours.  I had seen someone playing already, so knew what to expect, but the first time that two arrows came up the screen at the same time still threw me off guard.  Unfortunately none of the home versions quite hit the same spot, partially because of crappy dance mats.

Daytona USA (arcade)

A four-player cabinet at the bowling alley in Bexleyheath.  I had just learnt to let the back drift out and powerslide around the corners, and overtook my friend John doing so.  He shouted at me that it wasn't a powerslide, just a lucky skid.  So I did it again the next race.

Desert Strike (Mega Drive)

I actually remember this more from my playthrough on the PSP, given the use of save states which allowed me to actually complete the game. There were a number of memorable points, but the best was chasing the madman across the map in his speedboat at the end of the penultimate level.  I was raining missiles on the speedboat the whole time and it didn't explode.  Of course not; where would the last level come in if that happened?

Donkey Konga (GameCube)

The instructions speeding up a few bars into Don't Stop Me Now.  We played this again recently, and it's still great.

Doshin the Giant (GameCube)

I played this when it was first released, back in 2002, to completion. I can remember very little of it now, other than the moment when I first realised you could pick up and throw villagers.  I did it many times and they all hated me, so I had to restart the day.

DLC Quest (PC)

Three points:

1. Being unable to move left at the start of the game, and audio cutting out.  I thought the game was broken; evidently not. 
2. Meeting an NPC called Phil at the end of a long cave, who informed me that he was just there to fill space. 
3. The ending of the game not actually being the ending of the game unless you buy some DLC and finish it. 

Driver (PS)

I have never completed the last level because it was just too hard. 

Gaming moments: C

Civilisation Revolution (Xbox 360)

I had expanded across the map, and suddenly I was attacked on three
sides by the Aztecs and two other nations. In one turn they halved my
forces, and during my turn I could do little to bring it back - I rushed
production of units on all my cities but my forces were still depleted.
Defeat seemed likely. But then the Aztecs spent their next turn
attacking one of my tank units with everything they had, all weakened
from the previous battles, and my tank held on to defeat them all. The
other two nations started to attack each other. In my next turn I was
able to push through and capture the Aztec capital and further defend,
leading to an eventual victory. Magic tank.

Crackdown (Xbox 360) 

I had almost completed the game before I realised you could get cars
delivered to the garage. I managed to drive the SUV up the side of the
boss tower and then jump it off - rather amazing.

Chu Chu Rocket (Dreamcast)
My first ever online game, and I won the first match. It was tricky to
adapt to the one-second delay on inputs, but it was that which led to victory in the end - I had placed a tile to my rocket which my opponent simultaneously directed the mice to.

Castle of Illusion (Mega Drive)

I remember Colin bringing his new MD to my house, and being in awe at
this game.  We played it for hours and got pretty far - and then he had
to go home.  He called me the next day to tell me he'd completed the game.

Conker's Bad Fur Day (Nintendo 64)

I am the great mighty poo and I'm going to throw my shit at you!

Crazy Taxi (Dreamcast)

That huge hill at the start of the game, after you'd picked up a woman
at the tram stop.  Crazy boosting all the way down, ready to drift to a
stop at the bottom, slightly to the left, where you were dropping your
passenger off.  That's not my memory though - my memory is of the time
when my drift was too little, and my taxi ended up stuck in the wall
within the drop-off area, racking up huge bonuses as the game continued
my drift for a good two minutes.  The ungrateful woman told me I was
late - but she could have got out at any time.

Conflict: Desert Storm (Gamecube)

I played through this and its sequel with John and Kieron during
multiple gaming days.  The followup, Conflict Vietnam, suddenly removed
the southpaw options from the game, which meant two of us couldn't
control it.  Idiots. 

Gaming moments: B

Bangai-O: Missile Fury (Xbox 360)

Having played both Bangai-O and Spirits, I was expecting many missiles.  The sheer size and number of projectiles when I first launched a MAX attack stays with me, as well as the slowdown, half of which I'm sure was fake.

Bayonetta (Xbox 360)

I am hopeless at the game itself - but I will never forget the car's radio playing Outrun music in the cutscene after the prologue.

Beyond Good & Evil (Xbox)

The final upgrade to your hovercraft ... and suddenly you have a spaceship.  Having become familiar with the world over a number of hours, being torn away to pursue the final fight was unsettling.

Bishi Bashi Special (PS)

ATTENTION!  Matt didn't read the instructions, and failed time and time again.

Brothers: a Tale of Two Sons (PS3)

Calling upon the bravery and spirit of the elder brother to cross the water. An astounding statement made with no words.

Broken Sword (PS)

Unbelievable slowdown when reaching the desert town. I gave up and played the PC verion a couple of years later.

Black (Xbox)

Having made it to the end of the game, the last corridor and boss were just too difficult.  I never completed it and resent the whole thing to this day. 

Gaming moments: A

This isn't the same as gaming memories - this is about discrete moments in games.  Moments like these:

Aladdin (Mega Drive)

After playing through a number of platform levels, each of which accompanied by music from the film, you get placed on a flying carpet for a section entitled "rug ride".  It's an automatic scrolling level, which speeds up over time to the point where you are almost required to memorise the level - but not quite.  The music that plays is an original composition for the game, and fits perfectly with the acceleration. You get to the end, and realise that for the last ten seconds of the level you've been holding your breath ... but you survived, and you are five lives up.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike (DS)

Not the big oozium level, which is the part of the campaign I can remember, but Twin Isle, one of the war room maps.  Twin Isle was in Advance Wars 2, but it never seemed a stumbling block there.  In AWDS, however, something about the balance had changed and I played that one map for weeks just trying to get an A grade.  I managed it, after working out a wonderfully elegant solution, which this margin is too narrow to contain.

Assassin's Creed II (Xbox 360)

You get towards the end of the game and suddenly you're in Venice.  And it really is Venice - I've been a couple of times and I recognised it immediately.  There have been few occasions when I've felt such a sense of location. 

Game memories: F

Feel the Magic XX-XY (DS)

Project Rub in the UK, but I got this with my imported US DS ahead of the European launch.  In many ways it was an ideal game to launch the DS with, showing many varied ideas on how the touchscreen could be used.  It didn't hang together that well, but I remember the black, white and orange colour scheme vividly.

F1 '97 (PS)

Murray Walker shouting "He's on the green stuff" over and over again; tracks being messes of pixels a little way down the road.  A great game.

F1 2010 (Xbox 360)

Far too many options and menus to wade through.  Completing a single race in the career mode took ages, since you had to go through practice sessions, qualifying and the race itself.  Ideal for people who love F1, but for me it was just a bit painful.

F1 2011 (3DS)

As with F1 2010 above, but with a third of the framerate.

F355 Challenge Passione Rossa (Dreamcast)

At the time this felt like a massive technical achievement and tales of the arcade machine using three monitors underlined the game's credentials.  I played it for about fifteen minutes before being totally overwhelmed by the options and realistic gameplay - in other words, I kept spinning off the track, couldn't work out how to switch to a behind-car view, and had better things to play instead.

Field Commander (PSP)
Like Advance Wars but with little charm, little challenge, and a rubbish online mode.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (Gamecube)
I've never completed a proper Final Fantasy game; I've never even passed the first hour of one.  This, however, was played loads at virtually every games night we held.  Kieron had a bucket on his head, I was a Selkie.  John was accomplished at ranged combat, we all could heal each other but often didn't.

Fire Emblem (GBA)
I never completed this.  I remember it getting very stressful due to the fact that if a character died in a mission, they remained dead.  I restarted missions again and again to protect my favourite characters, and as a result it grew stale and too difficult.

Floigan Brothers: Episode One (Dreamcast)
It's a shame there was no episode two - this was an amusing game which was unlike anything else, as with a lot of Sega's Dreamcast output.  It was far too short and there was a bit too much collection required as far as I recall.  I got this in Singapore and worked out pretty quickly that it was a pirate version, but bought the proper version on my return from HMV for a fiver.

Ford Racing 3 (Xbox)

I was convinced to buy this by people on RLLMUK praising the second game, the fact it was online (when there were few other online games around), and it was £10 brand new.  I think I played it online three times and offline twice, before being tempted away by other games that were just more fun to play.

F-Zero (SNES, Wii, Wii U)

F-Zero GX (Gamecube)

F-Zero X (N64)

F-Zero: Maximum Velocity (GBA, 3DS)
GX is the best.  The Mode 7 games are a bit pants now, but at the time they seemed great, particularly on the GBA where the handling was much more refined.  Replaying them now, they are just too floaty and the career mode is a bit lightweight with daft difficulty spikes.

Future Tactics: the Uprising (Gamecube)

I bought this in the US and as a result, the hassle needed to load the game meant that I played it little.  A shame, as when I did I remember it being a clever game melding a strategy turn-based game with something that felt more action-based.  I'm now able to play US games on my modded Wii; I may try this again when I find it.

Fighting Vipers (Saturn, Xbox 360)

I continue to be hopeless at fighting games that are more complicated that Street Fighter II, but Fighting Vipers has a pleasing lack of combo, super and extra EX WTF meters.  The fighting feels solid and the idea of being able to knock off armour works well.  I get the feeling that if I played this a bit more I could get quite good at it.  That's unlikely to happen.

My favourite Mega Drive games

From a request on RLLMUK, my favourite ten games for the Mega Drive.

Virtua Racing
Three tracks, one car, minimum of content, £60. Utterly amazing and worth every penny. Magazines warned that it wasn't as good as the arcade game, but that didn't matter - the freedom it gave in terms of being able to steer any way around the circuit and not be shifted to the edge of the screen - it felt like the future.

Sonic 2
I won this in a competition in Mega. Release day came, and I had no Sonic 2. A week later, no Sonic 2. Another week, and I had a letter from the magazine apologising for the delay. I eventually got the game a month and a half after everyone had completed it - and yet I still love it. My favourite Sonic game, just.

Street Fighter II Special Champion Edition
When combined with the six-button pad (which I still feel is the epitome of digital pad design), this is the perfect fighter. I spent hundreds of hours on this; I even got a new Mega Drive (replacing my original Japanese model, as SC2 was region-locked) just to play it.

Aladdin
Far better than the SNES game. The rug ride level has one of the most memorable tunes in any game, and I can still remember where to go to get the genie's heads.

Micro Machines 96
A toss-up between this and MM2, but the courses on this are just a bit better. Amazing with four players.

Shining Force
I'd never played a strategy RPG before this; I've still not played one as good. An involving story, great characters and well-balanced gameplay.

NHL Hockey '93
I didn't play ice hockey. I'd never watched a match. None of my friends ever had either. Why, then, was this game so routinely played whenever we went to each others' houses? You felt so stylish grabbing the puck and slaloming up the pitch before shooting and scoring - later versions may have added four-player but they felt a bit too clunky and heavy.

Toe Jam and Earl
If you play it now, it feels so slow and awkward. How did I ever have the patience to complete it? I did, though, several times over. Special mention must go to level zero, where TJ&E get to bathe in a hot tub.

Quackshot
The Disney platformers were almost all great. I feel this is the best of the bunch, though Castle of Illusion is very close behind.  I don't think of Aladdin as a Disney platformer for some reason; it's a film licence.

The tenth place goes to Road Rash. And Desert Strike. And Populous. And Mega Lo Mania. And Mega Bomberman. And Thunderforce III.  Too many great games!

Oh, and the two-player mode of Lemmings was genius. 

Game memories: E

Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future (Dreamcast)
The original Mega Drive games were pretty, and at the time were examples of great pacing and exploration. They’ve aged badly, though, and are far too difficult and imprecise to be fun. The same with this, in fact, with the momentum behind Ecco making any fight a random punching at buttons and hoping to flee. And while the Mega Drive games still look great, in a sprite-based way, this is starting to look a little ropey. Especially when you compare it to ...

Endless Ocean (Wii)
A lovely, relaxing, dive game with little to panic or scare you. Exploring the intricate environments is great.

Evil Twin (Dreamcast)
Mediocre action adventure type game which was far better on the Dreamcast than the PS2, but sold only 12 copies.

Exit (PSP)
I really enjoyed this for a while – working out how to save everyone and get to the exit in time was a good logistical puzzle. But it all moved so slowly, and the animation playing out over and over again made it an exercise in frustration in the end.

Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (Gamecube)
I’ve only even played half an hour of this, because I’m a wuss.

Essential Sudoku DS (DS)
Not for the Sudoku, but for the 1000 colour picross puzzles included. The interface used to complete the puzzles was superb, and while the front-end looks like it was put together by a five-year old with a set of crayons, you can look past that to the excellent implementation. I completed this. All one thousand puzzles.

Elite Beat Agents (DS)
It’s fun, but not amazing. Maybe just because I’m not very good at it.

Excite Truck (Wii)
It’s a racing game, but completely different to every other racing game I own. I love it, but it’s quite a light experience with me feeling very often that progress is down to luck more than anything else.

Earth Defence Force 2017 (Xbox 360)
EDF! EDF!

Game memories: D

Doom (32X)
I played the PC game a fair bit, yes, but the 32X game is where I really learnt to love Doom (and the GBA conversion kept the affair running). It played brilliantly on the console, particularly with the MD's sublime six-button controllers.

Doom RPG (N95)
A really clever adaptation of the game, set to a turn-based first-person RPG with all the enemies and weapons of the original. I'm not sure if there's any way to play it now, short of buying an old phone.

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training (DS)
I played this religiously every day for ages. I'm not sure it improved my mental capacity at all, but I had fun. I have the brain of a 20-year old, apparently. Maybe that explains why I still like S Club.

Drawn to Life (DS)
A surprisingly good platformer, in which you draw the characters (to an extent, within animation boundaries). Each time you find a new thing, you colour it in and it stays like that for the rest of the game. The only issue is that the game is a little too hard for its intended audience.

Disaster: Day of Crisis (Wii)
A great experience, but I don't think it's got a huge amount of replayable value to it. Having said that, I never did finish it, and I last played it ages ago, so I may well start from the beginning again.

Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball (Xbox)
Or "look at our boobs". The volleyball game wasn't as good as Beach Spikers (which I forgot, oops), and the 'gifts' section was awful. I paid £5 for it, and that was £10 too much.

Donkey Konga (Gamecube)
I was so excited about this. I bought the game and bongos in an HMV in Kingston because they were selling it the day before release day, and carried everything home across London during rush hour. The game didn't disappoint; the highlight to me being Don't Stop Me Now, which, whenever it comes on in a club or disco nowadays, causes Kieron, Matt and myself to exchange knowing glances.

Dancing Stage (PS)
I had a load of these. I wish I could play them on the PS3, but there's nowhere to plug the dance mat into.

Game memories: C

Crackdown (Xbox 360)
A sublime game, where the only fault is a limit on 2-player cooperative play. After years, I recently managed to find my last agility orb, and I'm pretending that the hidden ones don't exist any more. The achievements in the game were great as well, with an appropriate balance of progress, difficulty, and silliness. Harpooning 5 people onto a car was good fun.

Crackdown 2 (Xbox 360)
Not as good as the first, but still great, with the bonus that both John and Kieron can join me to shoot people from rooftops. The radar ability means that orbs are a more realistic prospect as well.

Castle of Illusion (Mega Drive)
Possibly the first 16-bit game that made me go 'wow'. I'd been playing on the CPC for a few years beforehand, and everything about Castle of Illusion was a step up from what I was used to. Not only the graphics, but the tightness of control, scale of the world, and variety of gaming. It's the game that sold me the Mega Drive.

Castle of Illusion (Master System)
A few weeks after I saw Colin's Mega Drive for the first time, I went to visit a friend of the family, who I was told had Castle of Illusion. I was looking forward to playing it. Unfortunately it was the Master System game, which was slow and far too difficult to control accurately.

Card Fighter's Clash (NGPC)
I have played this only once, many years ago. I can't remember anything about it.

Colour Cross (DS)
Bargainous colour picross game, which, despite its awful presentation and the need to guess on two of the puzzles, kept me going for four months of playtime.

Cooking Mama (DS)
I don't see the appeal. It's like a minigame collection with a theme, but minigames are done so much better elsewhere.

Chu Chu Rocket (Dreamcast)
Giving away a free game was typical of the Sega of the early noughties. Not just any free game, but an excellent puzzler which caused many fights amongst my friends. The online mode was amazing, although the second-long lag they introduced to compensate for the Dreamcast's 33.6k modem was tricky to deal with.

Civilization Revolution (DS, iPhone)
Civilization is possibly a bit too complex for me. I like my strategy simple - Populous: the Beginning, say - and this does it really well. For a few games. After that you start to try the higher difficulty levels, and there's just a huge wall to overcome.

Contact (DS)
I found this dull and insipid. I was enticed by the prospect of videogame humour and self-referencing, but gave up after I realised that the script was barely English.

Carnival: Funfair Games (Wii)
Actually pretty good. It's well structured, with a decent system of unlocking new games and items. Possibly the best thing is the coin-pushing machine, which I can play for hours (but not as long as my mum, who has racked up 60 hours on the game, of which 40 is on the coin-pushing machine, and 15 is on the horse racing game earning money for the coin-pushing machine).

Cel Damage (Gamecube)
It's only been played twice, both at multiplayer meets, but it's fun.

Game memories: B

Blur (Xbox 360)
Possibly my favourite racing game avec weapons, but opinion on that will flip-flop depending on whether I've played this, Mario Kart Wii, or Wipeout HD most recently. Blur is magnificent though, really well balanced in both single-player and online multi-player. The weapons and their strength have been honed to perfection, and every race is thrilling from start to finish no matter where you end up.

Burnout (Playstation 2)
One of the first racers that showed that it doesn't need to just be a race to the finish line. It seems quite tame now, compared to its sequels, but the seeds were sown.

Burnout 2 (Gamecube)
Not just an evolution but a revolution. Adding so much more content, including the crash junctions and other event types, and the handling was refined so your car felt lighter and more manoeuvrable. Some say it was the highlight of the series. I'd argue they can't have played ...

Burnout Revenge (Xbox 360)
Everything that made Burnout 2 great is here, but with a more defined structure, more cars, content, and with takedowns fully implemented. It's a constant source of fun and mirth.

Burnout Paradise (Xbox 360)
A departure for the series, with multiple routes and hidden events. I've not really explored it much so far, but it's a good game - just not as great as what preceded it.

Bombjack (CPC)
I have fond memories of playing this with my sister. I perfected the lit-bomb runs on the first five screens, and we used to be amazed how colourful and fast it was. We never played the arcade game; I have a feeling that may have spoilt the magic.

Bomberman (DS)
In my eyes, the ultimate version. You will never have ten people and ten Saturn controllers in order to play the full version of Saturn Bomberman, but eight DSs in one room? Easy!

Bonanza Bros (Mega Drive)
Slow, dull, awkward jumps, boring. I always hoped this would be similar to Spy vs Spy, but after finally getting to play it, it wasn't.

Battletoads (Game Boy)
Difficult, smeary, frustrating, dull.

Brick Breaker (Blackberry)
Awful. Really quite awful, in that that ball bounces off your bat at random angles, the icons you collect are difficult to distinguish, it often stutters or slows down when your email downloads, and the levels are badly laid out. But have a colleague challenge your high score, and this can take weeks of your time.

Bust-a-Groove (PS)
One of the first dancing games I ever saw. It's not great nowadays, but back then it was futuristic.

Bust-a-Move (PS)
I never got on with Puzzle Bobble. It always seemed a little random as to when the balls would stick to the side of other balls, or just pass them by.

Bayonetta (Xbox 360)
I want to love this more than I do, because it's good fun, well designed, and is full of amusing touches like the car stereo playing Splash Wave. But I've never got very far into it and then it gets left for months until I can no longer remember the controls and have to start again.

Black (Xbox)
I really enjoyed Black - it had a good story, good range of gameplay, good balance to weapons and enemies. All the way up to the final boss bit, when it got stupidly hard with infinitely respawning enemies. I never completed it.

Beyond Good & Evil (Gamecube)
When this first came out, people were desperately searching for a comparison. It's sort of like Zelda, because you upgrade your craft to give you access to other areas. It's sort of like Pokémon Snap, because you take photos. It's actually a unique game which is perfectly short and sweet, with the best ever text-input system and a cast of amazing characters.

Braid (Xbox 360)
I completed it, thought the puzzles were clever, but the story was trying to be intelligent just a bit too hard. It was fantastic for students desperately trying to prove the worth of games, though.

Game memories: A

Afterburner Complete (32X)
For years I'd wanted an arcade-perfect version of Afterburner. The CPC version wasn't too bad, but rather slow. The monochrome Spectrum version was awful. The Master System and Mega Drive games were getting there, but they just didn't feel frantic enough. This did. I got a 32X a couple of years after the Saturn came out in Pink Planet in Bristol for, I think, £20, and with it came Afterburner, Virtua Racing Deluxe and Star Wars Arcade. Afterburner was an amazing port, just what I'd wanted since first playing the arcade game years before, but given the competition it was quickly at the bottom of the pile.

Ace Combat 6 (Xbox 360)
Previous Ace Combats (plus Air Combat on the PS) have been OK, but this is great. HD really does add to this game, searching the skies for opponents and with loads of screen set aside to just see how pretty it is.

Animal Crossing Wild World (DS)
I remember once hearing that someone had an 800+ price on turnips on a Thursday, when I had thousands of bells invested. I went and stood outside the pub opposite work, in the rain, so I could use their Cloud wifi and trade my turnips in.