The August 2009 issue of GamesMaster magazine was its “Hands-on E3 Special” and I was those hands – quite literally, too, because loads of the “hands-on” boxes in this issue are written by me – even if I didn’t write the rest of the article.

So a slightly odd way of doing things, but if you’ve got this issue, I wrote the full previews for Milo and Kate, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, APB, Halo: ODST and Red Steel 2.

Meanwhile, I wrote just the hands-on boxes for Forza Motorsport 3, Blur, Split/Second, Gran Turismo PSP, Zelda: Spirit Tracks, Mini Ninjas, Army of Two: The 40th Day, Heavy Rain and Splinter Cell: Conviction.

It’s all tip-top content, though!

A lovely big picture of one of the completely rubbish new characters they added to Street Fighter IV for no particular reason on the cover of this issue of Game Reactor, which mostly serves to remind me I haven’t played it enough recently and also to be annoyed that they didn’t put any of the brilliantly designed characters from Street Fighter III in IV (like Dudley, who I might have complained about missing before.)

This article has nothing to do with Street Fighter IV though – it’s actually some coverage of the indie games that had warmed my heart across the cold winter – specifically Super Hypercube and the all conquering Spelunky.

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I keep forgetting that I write this column. Unfortunate, really, considering it’s such a lovely magazine (in terms of design; being in Danish I still can’t read a jot of it.)

I should really have remembered writing this one, at the very least to let Jim Munroe and Jim McGinley know that I got some coverage of the Artsy Game Incubator/TOJam Artcade some coverage in Denmark. And probably to let Benjamin Rivers know there’s a whacking great picture of him in the article.

Oh well. I guess I can let them know now!

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I had an absolutely great Develop this year – ignoring getting the worst chips ever in the chip shop next door to the Hilton Brighton Metropole. As well as my coverage for Gamasutra I moderated a session in the first day’s “Evolve” track, After the iPhone Honeymoon:Where Next for Apple’s Mobile? (which went rather well, thanks to speakers such as ngmoco‘s Alan Yu and Tag Games‘ Paul Farley), performed a “Best Worst Game” live on One Life Left, and got stuck in during the Develop Den Opinion Jam arguing against arbitrary moral choices in video games. I only lost out to Ernest Adams, who argued for better writers (which no one could disagree with, surely?)

Develop 2009: David Perry: ‘Gaming Should Be More Convenient’
Develop 2009: Team17’s Brown Talks Challenges Of Self-Publishing Online
Develop 2009: Thatgamecompany’s Chen On How Emotion Can Evolve Games
Develop 2009: Realtime Worlds’ Jones On Players As Content
Develop 2009: SCEE’s Hirani Reveals PS Eye Facial Recognition, Motion Controller Details
Develop 2009: LittleBigPlanet’s Cohesive Chaos

In this article I talk about Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

At the time, I was playing it a lot. I’ll admit that for some reason my addiction waned, and I know why – it’s because I’m a completionist. Any time I came up against a public quest (which rely on grouping with nearby players to complete) I’d want to do it (because they were normally great fun.) Of course, if there was no one about, I’d have to wait until some other players were (or else get into the un-fun situation of repeatedly failing it.)

As a result, with both of my characters – a Chosen and a Witch Hunter – I found myself at public quests absolutely no one was ever around for. So I just stopped playing. Next time I have some free time (rare as it is) I’ll go back to it, though – they’ve made a lot of changes since. Guess I’m just kind of worried about getting addicted to it again.

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This article – my first back on the job -was titled, quite simply, “Leipzig sucks”. It’s a very self indulgent article – after all, it’s almost entirely me complaining about how complicated it is to get to Leipzig, and then complaining about Leipzig (the town, which I notably call “little more than a train station between real places.”)

In fact, I don’t even mention the event until the very last paragraph, where the most interesting thing I can note is that there was an FM Towns Marty on site which was running a copy of Raiden.

There was a Vectrex too, I remember. That was quite fun too.

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This article amuses me! I try list all the postives I can think about Sony’s record with the PS3 – remember this was in November 2007 – and, roughly, can come up with one – their commitment to excellent independent games like Everyday Shooter on the PSN.

Well, in February 2009 I’m really not sure I can come with any more, and the negatives I go on to list – removing backwards compatibility, introducing a Dualshock 3, and so on – still sting.

Despite all that, I should really get myself a PS3 considering this month they’re releasing Flower and Noby Noby Boy, but the price still puts me off. If only Sony would finally be kind enough to give me one (hint.)

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Looking back at this column – which celebrates the release of Sin and Punishment on the Virtual Console – reminds me how long the Wii has been about already. And also the fact that they still haven’t released Mario’s Super Picross in North America, which is an abusively cruel thing for Nintendo to do.

Not that anyone really seems to care about the Virtual Console these days – to be honest I don’t even really remember what comes out from week to week now, as it’s usually some awful Sega game they’re putting out for no reason other than habit.

Intriguingly, at the end of this column I promise I’ll play through the Halo trilogy, because other than playing about six missions of the first Halo one afternoon in London, I’ve never really played them. Here I am nearly two years later and I still haven’t bothered.

Maybe one day.

(You can download the PDF of this issue at the Game Reactor website.)

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.