life

Derren Brown's unexpected balls up from kestrel1977 34 days old

In the past few weeks, mentalist Derren Brown's been pulling in audiences by apparently predicting the lottery, sticking viewers to their seats and ...

Parasol Stars - a forgotten masterpiece from kestrel1977 40 days old

Of all the games in Taito's Bubble Bobble lineage, Parasol Stars is among the least known. While Rainbow Islands has been ported to almost every computer, ...

Five more weirdest games ever from kestrel1977 64 days old

Readers with keen memories may remember my previous top five weird games from last year. And just to prove that mildly interesting ideas are worth ...

Hard labour: Gradius Rebirth from kestrel1977 70 days old

[ ... ] Lose a life, and you'll have to repeat the entire ordeal again. This stultifying difficulty level will no doubt gratify the genuine Gradius ...

Mega Drive shooting classic: Fire Shark from kestrel1977 72 days old

Now this really is a classic from that hangar of classic shooters, Toaplan. Fire Shark, or (brilliantly) Same! Same! Same!, as it's known in Japan, ...

Five retro game compilations I'd like to see from kestrel1977 78 days old

As I've mentioned before (see The great drunken retro game challenge of a couple of weeks back), game compilations are a fantastically compact, convenient ...

X-Multiply - the shooting genre's forgotten masterpiece from kestrel1977 84 days old

R-Type changed shoot-em-ups forever. It took the core gameplay of Scramble and Gradius - fly from left to right, collect power ups and kill things ...

Back through the Berlin Wall from kestrel1977 105 days old

I know, I know. It's been a long time since my last post. I've been busy elsewhere (writing, drinking, DIY, that kind of thing), but I've promised ...

Resident Evil 5: first play from kestrel1977 332 days old

Thanks to the vagaries of geography, Japan Xbox owners were able to download a playable demo of Resident Evil 5 about four days ago - and it doesn't ...

I've been painting from kestrel1977 379 days old

[ ... ] life size (the original's a dinky four inches square); painting tiny pictures means I can get one finished in a few minutes or so, and I ...