Publishing that last entry about GamesMaster has put me in a mind to update my site with some other other items that I’ve overlooked or simply forgotten to include here. For example, remember Game Reactor? It’s the Danish magazine that I write an opinion column from. I took a break for most of 2008, but I’ve been doing it again for a while so it’s worth noting.

Despite the fact I didn’t take a break from my column until 2008 I actually haven’t updated this site with my columns since mid 2007. Here’s the first one I didn’t update about – a column on Space Giraffe – in which I managed to shoehorn in some discussion of IGF Mobile.

You can still read the full article, in Danish, as part of the PDF found on the Game Reactor website.

If you’re wondering why it’s taken me till Feburary 2009 to post about previews I wrote for GamesMaster over six months ago – admittedly these previews featured in the October 2008 issue of GamesMaster – well, the answer is that I forgot to ask for a copy of the magazine for months.

Well, I have a copy now and I’ve seen my previews of Mirror’s Edge, Fable II, Left 4 Dead, Lips, Guitar Hero: World Tour and MadWorld, and they please me.

If you’ve never seen a copy of GamesMaster, it’s pretty unusual – very kid-orientated, it’s got an astonishingly crowded, text and image heavy design – sort of like Famitsu or the (now departed) EGM have been at points in their history, but far more irreverent than either have ever managed. It was my great pleasure to write for the magazine (which is itself a unique experience, fitting my text around the design…) and I look forward to the next time I do it.

“February has begun, and it’s as if all of the movie distributors have woken up after hibernation, because there’s a sudden deluge of films, and astonishingly not all of them have been shoved out just to get it over and done with.”

Films!

“Now, I’m not one who has ever been willing to talk fondly about my school days — especially not my time during high school. Not that I’m one to hold adolescent grudges long after they have relevance; I’ve just never considered them interesting or remarkable enough.

In Snail Race, there were six racing snails that you could bet on, and it supported several players, so often we’d find ourselves crowded around one of the Macs, literally screaming in encouragement trying to get our snail to the finish line before our opponents — until the reliable point where we were told off for disturbing other classes. No money ever changed hands, but it was about as enjoyable as a group experience could get, and it was this I was hoping for from Place Your Bets.”

If you haven’t been able to tell, my reviews for FingerGaming are almost completely stream of conciousness.

“To a certain strata of gamers — those who owned an Amiga in the early nineties — Pinball Dreams is legendary. So legendary, in fact, that I doubt any who currently own an iPhone or iPod Touch should need any more than the knowledge that a direct port of the title is now available to stump up the $5.99 it costs and envelop themselves in some truly nostalgic gaming.

Of course, there are many gamers out there to who the name means nothing, in which case a history lesson is required. Pinball Dreams is one of the first titles developed by Digital Illusions CE, who we now know as DICE — best known for the Battlefield series (and the recent Mirror’s Edge).”

Clumsily redundant naming aside, this is an essential iPhone/iPod Touch app. I’ve genuinely been playing this nearly non-stop – even when I have other gaming systems to hand.