The Real Neat Blog Award

As it says, I am not in the slightest bit neat!  If you saw the state of my desk in my classroom…

Anyway!  The very lovely Bandicoot Warrior nominated me for this award and I intend to respond.  I know in the past I’ve been fairly lax when it comes to responding to these, but I’m trying to do a better job with them.  So to anyone who nominated me for anything and I didn’t write a reply post, I apologise!  But here’s my response to this one!

Question 1 – What is your earliest gaming memory?

Difficult to answer this one.  I think it might have been Galaxian on our BBC Micro, but I can’t be certain.  The first PC game of my own was Flashback, which I got for Christmas one year (although I enjoyed X-Wing more which my sister received), and my first console was a NES that I got for my seventh birthday.  I can’t be certain which of those came first though.  I’d probably guess at Galaxian though.

I don’t think I ever made it this far

Question 2 – When did you start blogging and why?

Much easier (because I can look back): April 2016.  It was really just a place to write down thoughts about the game I was currently playing.  I expected it to help me get a deeper experience from the game, but I’m not sure if that’s what actually happened.  In some ways I found myself enjoying the games a little less as I found myself trying to analyse them rather than simply enjoying what was presented.  I suspect that’s reflected in my writing as it tends to be quite surface level.  But I don’t mind that too much if it means I’m enjoying the games a little more.

Question 3 – What feature do you wish any of your consoles had that they currently don’t?

How about a free online service eh?  How about that?!

I suppose a catch-all subscription service to access games directly (something like Netflix) would be nice.  Microsoft have something that works pretty well, and I think Playstation Now is supposed to be similar.  They don’t really have a glut of great games available though.

OnLive had the right idea, but it was way before its time.

Question 4 – Name a Movie that you wish had a video game made after it and what developer would you want to make it and why?

This is a hard one as most of the movies I like have a spin off game of some sort, or wouldn’t really suit one.  Here’s a suggestion though: a point & click adventure game based on Ocean’s Eleven (whichever version of it you fancy) could be quite interesting.  There’s potential for all sorts of problem solving there, but you might want to remove any time constraints.

Question 5 – Do you have a Games Room or Corner? If so let us see it and show your favourite thing in there?

Not really.  My daughter’s playroom has my PS4 set up in it, but it’s not really a games room.  Maybe when I’m retired I’ll finally set one up!

Question 6 – Do you have a Child or a Pet? which character do you name it after?

We have a daughter, but she isn’t named after a video game character.  My wife had suggested Anya (from Gears of War) but we didn’t go with it.  We also have two guinea pigs, but they aren’t named after a video game character either.

Look at her tiny nose!

Question 7 – What keeps you going when Gaming?

Honestly, I don’t get a huge amount of time for gaming, so I tend not to need anything to keep me going.  I like to have a glass of scotch from time to time whilst playing, but I’d drink that regardless.  When I did the 24-hour charity marathon I had a couple of cans of Monster to hand, but that’s simply from a caffeine point of view.

Ok, this one isn’t scotch, but it’s still pretty damn nice!

There we go!  I hope you enjoyed reading these, and feel free to answer them yourself if the fancy takes you.  I will nominate 5 people all the same though, as I’d like to hear what they have to say.  Find them below (and maybe hear their way for a read).

Harry Spencer

Baud Attitude

Dan Petito

Art of Redress

Neko Jonez

Have a good day all!