My fond memories of the Xbox 360

By Sam Coles: 

Gaming these days feels a bit lackluster and tiresome, with rehashed ideas with remasters and countless sequels where I find myself going back to the good old days of yesteryear. The Xbox 360 is a console I often go back to, as it was the console I grew up with in my teenage years and early 20s, now this isn’t going to be an article stating old is better and new is bad no far from it but it will be me looking back on my fond memories of Microsoft’s little box.  

Although the Xbox 360 originally came out in 2005, I didn’t get one until my 16th birthday in 2009 where I was absolutely enamored with it immediately as it came with Halo 3 and Mass Effect. It was a console that opened so many opportunities with the worlds I could explore as well as the career path I went down, where I ended up becoming a game critic as well as a video content creator today.  

The core memories stem from not even owning a 360 as a lot of my friends had one, and I just remember them bringing their 360 to my house, and we would play split screen Halo or Call of Duty until the early hours of the morning. Not only that, but it was also the height of the music rhythm game, with Guitar Hero and Rockband serving as excellent house party games which unfortunately became stagnate due to their overabundance. There was something great about mixing music and gameplay together at a party, where most had a few to drink which led to shall we say interesting results when it came to vocal quality with singing.  

As I got older when I got my 360 in 2009, I gravitated towards online play as our internet connection in my family household was more stable compared to our dialup routes. I started playing games like Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 online more, which is how I ended up making friends when I was studying for my A-levels. When Modern Warfare 2 came out, it was a massive social experience, not just because the game was good but that was a big factor but because it brought everyone together no matter your background. People who didn’t even play video games that often or if at all played Modern Warfare 2, that was how much of an impact it had where the 360 was the place to play it.  

However, as I got closer to my twenties, I started to gain more appreciation for singleplayer games. Not that I didn’t have said appreciation before, as some of my fondest memories are from singleplayer games. However, as I got older, I grew to understand art more with games such as Red Dead Redemption, GTA IV, L.A. Noire (a lot of Rockstar titles), and The Witcher 2 showed me how mature the medium could be. This was all in the span of a seven to eight year life cycle too, which seems insane considering how games evolved at such an accelerated rate on a console that had just over 500MB of RAM.  

The Xbox 360 is a console that I grew up with, from my early teens when playing with envy at my friend’s house, to my mid-teens of finally owning one to my late teens to my early twenties of finally accepting the medium as an art form. It shaped the gamer I am today, not only that I developed somewhat of a career out of it as I started to write written reviews about games, which then went onto video content in my later career. It helped shape me who I am as a person today, and honestly, I wouldn’t change any of that.  

L.A. Noire on Nintendo Switch - Murder mystery in the palm of your hands.

By Sam Coles:  

The Nintendo Switch has slowly become my main gaming device over the years, mostly it is easier to grab a portable console and start playing as opposed to booting the television up and playing on my main consoles. Anyway, what I love about the Nintendo Switch is being able to play triple A games in the palm of my hands on a lazy Sunday morning as I have coffee, and one of those games is LA Noire an underappreciated gem from Rockstar Games that first released in 2011. 

LA Noire takes place in 1947 in the titular city of angels, where we take control of Cole Phelps who is a war veteran who thought in the pacific theatre. He has come back from a world at war, where he tries to cut his teeth in the world of police work where he begins his career as a basic patrolman. He works his way up to a detective starting in traffic, homicide, vice and then he is demoted to arson due to certain misconduct. The story is fantastic, it really captures the atmosphere of the era as well as the certain issues that were present such as racism and prejudice, but what I like is that the game doesn’t sugar coat it as it highlights the issues and tries not to erase it. The voice acting across the board is excellent, coupled with the motion scanning technology that was new and exciting in 2011, where the facial animations hold up exceptionally well to this day.  

Gameplay wise it is split into four segments; you have the open world driving and exploration, examining crime scenes, third person shootouts and interrogations. Let’s get the more trivial gameplay out of the way first, you have third person shooting which was rather ubiquitous at the time it breaks up the more slow paced parts with some shootout action, it works but feels a bit clunky compared to Red Dead Redemption from the year prior. The open world exploration is there for the sake of being there I feel, where you can explore the world of 1940s LA but ultimately it is an open world where you can collect cars and solve street crimes but not much else. It feels rather empty and hollow for an open world game by Rockstar Games, I feel this game should have been a more linear game, but ultimate people don’t associate that with Rockstar Games.  

Now we get into the meat and potatoes of the game, that is the detective thriller side of it where you investigate crimes and of course solve them. You start off investigating crime scenes, examining clues that link to the crime, where you then use said clues when interviewing witnesses or suspects.  

The interviews/interrogations work really well, and the facial animations really shine, yes it can look rather obvious when someone is lying, but there were times when I was caught off guard with how convincing someone’s lie was. In this port of the game, you can choose Good Cop, Bad Cop and Accuse whereas in the original it was Truth, Doubt and Lie which was rather ambiguous with what Cole was going to say. The Bad Cop option is often used when Cole doesn’t have evidence, but he knows when the suspect is holding back, but there are moments when you do need evidence to accuse them of lying which makes you pay attention to the dialogue to connect the dots. Playing this on Switch it was like reading a book in the corner of my living room, with the slow burn and you get really invested in it like a good book.  

The Switch port is fantastic, often people dismiss third-party games because there are some bad games that just run poorly, but they tend to be in the minority. However, this game runs great on the Nintendo Switch, visually it looks great and it also runs at a stable 30 fps it really holds up especially on the Nintendo Switch OLED screen.   

Overall LA Noire on Nintendo Switch was a fun romp, it is a classic from 2011 that everyone needs to play, back when Rockstar Games use to release games and were bold with their visions and were willing to take risks. If you haven’t play this game I highly recommend it, and I wish Rockstar would make a sequel.  

The Importance of Replaying Games.

By Sam Coles: 

We live in an era where there are so many video games coming out that it can be overwhelming, from big budget titles to small indie darlings it can be a struggle to keep up. However, we find ourselves with burnout from our passion of escaping in a beautiful video game world, where we end up staring at our games library instead of picking a new title to play. This is where replaying games becomes important, it can reinvigorate our passion for our hobbies and makes us realise why we fell in love with the hobby in the first place. I am going to talk about personal experiences and some of my favourites I love to play, so strap in.  

The main question is, why would one want to play a video game when they know what is going to happen? Well, why would you listen to your favourite album again, watch your favourite film/TV show, or re-read your favourite book? It takes you back to a comfort zone, where it refamiliarises you with the passion that you once had with a hobby when you start to feel burnout with it, so replaying favourite games from the past can help you fall in love again. There can be emotional and personal circumstances that make you drift away from your gaming habits, and revisiting a classic can help one reignite their gaming habits.  

For me it was an emotional and personal circumstances that pulled me out of gaming. The year is 2021 a dark era for everyone but for me an especially dark one as I had lost my mum to terminal cancer and our family dog passed away. My passion for playing new games and games in general fell off a cliff, I was in a state of limbo at this point not knowing what to do with my hobby or life in general. Darkness clouded my emotions, where I felt stuck, and then I slowly got back into the hobby. Going back to the familiar when we are at our lowest fills us with comfort, nostalgia and takes us back to a time where we feel safe and don’t have to worry about real problems.  

Take for example the game I am about to present to you, Red Dead Redemption, a game that needs no introduction but the past 16 years since its release I have made it my routine to replay it at least once a year. The question I am going to hear is, why? Well, for one it is a classic that established Rockstar Games as a company who could write mature and thought-provoking stories, but mostly it is its world and atmosphere. When I replay this game, it evokes memories of hot summers when I was a teenager, hearing the crickets at night as I sip on a cold drink as I explore the vast wilderness of New Austin and Mexico. It is very much a summer game for me, as playing it in hot weather just adds to the atmosphere.  

It is a game that takes me back to times with no responsibilities, not only that it shows what open worlds needs to be when I feel tired or burnout by said genre in the current climate. Red Dead Redemption is a gentle reminder to me when I replay it the genre isn’t stale, it all depends on who makes an open world and who crafts it.  

Moving on from replaying open world games, there are handful of shooters and linear games I love replaying, Max Payne 3, some Call of Duty campaigns as wells as some RPGs like Dragon Age. Again, it reinvigorates my passion for said genres, especially Max Payne 3 shows what singleplayer story driven shooters should be, engaging from start to finish with a great narrative and tight and solid mechanics even to this day. Call of Duty from yesteryear, just remind me of what the series once was compared to the dross they release these days and bring back memories of good times playing online with friends. Not only that, it showed that the series once cared about crafting, engaging and meticulous stories with twists and turns that took themselves seriously.  

Only a few examples but replaying games is something that everyone should practice here and there, not only do you get to revisit some classics you love but it helps you get back on track with the hobby you love. In this era of social media and keeping up with trends, there is constant pressure to play games quickly and move onto the next one. This can cause burnout and sometimes you just need to slow down, play the games you have or if money is a problem one month just go back and experience an already loved game as there is no shame playing a game again.