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Editor's note: Shenmue's a game that can do funny things to people. First time round I was obsessed with AM2's detail-rich world, and its take on a place that seemed oh-so-real - Japan in the mid-80s, specifically life in the unremarkable town of Yokosuka. So obsessed was I that when I first made it over to Japan some years later, the first thing I did was drag my partner to the location that inspired it all - a short hour's ride from Tokyo itself - and was impressed how Shenmue had captured the place. The sequel went to Hong Kong, while the third game finds itself in rural China, out in Guilin. How faithful exactly is Shenmue 3's take on that world? British-Chinese journalist Lu-Hai Liang was born there at the very time the game takes place, so I was fascinated to get his take on how well Shenmue had captured his birthplace. I didn't expect to like Shenmue 3. I'd been warned that the game is slow and creaky, and from images I'd glimpsed, the visuals looked like the graphical … [Read more...] about Shenmue 3: the view from Guilin

Editor's note: Shenmue 3 is not only a thing after its reveal at last night's barnstorming Sony conference, it's already reached its Kickstarter goal. What better time, then, to go back to the original Shenmue in this retrospective piece, first published in 2012, about a day-trip to Yokosuka. You can't buy a ticket to the Mushroom Kingdom, and there's sadly no package holiday I know of that will whisk you away for a couple of golden weeks in the kingdom of Ivalice. You can, however, take a train to one of gaming's great locations - although it's hardly the most fantastical of places. 45 minutes up from Tokyo's Shinagawa station on the Keikyu line is Yokosuka, one of the Kanagawa prefecture's more unremarkable cities. It's just beyond the point where the clutter of Tokyo thins, and just before the pastoral countryside comes into focus; an industrial hub, its shores are consumed by a US naval base, its outskirts hemmed in by factories while its centre is a world of humdrum shopping. … [Read more...] about A postcard from Yokosuka: Retracing the steps of the original Shenmue

Home • Death of a gamepad Craig Pearson Contributor 12th December 2019 / 9:00AM Right now, there’s a room in Buffalo Grove, Illinois that’s as quiet as a grave. The power is off, the robotic limbs are becalmed, and the once thumping presses are depressed. The Steam Controller assembly room is assembling no more, and with the recent Steam sale clearing out all the stock, the grand experiment is over. It’s the final part of Valve’s great Steam Machines undertaking to be shut down. They’d hoped to convince you to have a PC in the living room, or a small box for you to stream your library from your main PC. The Steam Machines never took off, the Steam Link box was discontinued a year ago, and now the Steam Controller will no longer be made. Gone, but not forgotten. The Steam Controller made a fan out of me. It freed me from my PC a little, and made me enjoy joypads again. All of them, not just Valve’s. I now own three Steam … [Read more...] about Goodnight, sweet Steam Controller

Home • The Long Dark • 11 Touching the void Adam Smith former Deputy Editor 23rd January 2017 / 5:00PM Below, a thin crevice carved into the rock. Above, the stars. I wasn’t quite at the roof of the world but I was definitely in some sort of grim penthouse. The cold didn’t bother me anymore, frostbite having chewed the nerves out of my extremities, and the cold wouldn’t claim me. Nor would the wolves that seemed determined to keep me on the mountainside. I’d decided to die on my own terms. I stepped into the void. That morning, I’d been reflecting on how grand life can be as I cooked freshly caught whitefish on a pot-bellied stove, snug inside a lonely cabin by a frozen lake. This wasn’t The Long Dark [official site], this was an escape from the rat race, and I was happily prepared for the challenge of Timberwolf Mountain, looming overhead. My previous adventures in The Long Dark seemed like the actions of a fool. No more … [Read more...] about The Tragedy of Timberwolf Mountain – A Long Dark Tale