The first time I ever felt truly depressed was when I was maybe about 12 or 13 – my mother presented me with a soft toy cat that made attacking noises when its paw was pressed. When I didn’t react with joy, she was really angry with me. I started to cry saying that I’d…
The Four Years I Lost to a Bad Relationship
When I met James (not his real name), I was a deeply naïve eighteen-year-old. I had never had a boyfriend – not a proper one, anyway. I had been in one of those “we kissed once and now we hold hands sometimes” things in secondary school for a hot minute. I was preparing to go…
That Time I got Wankered and Sent Job Applications
In my mid-twenties, I became a functional alcoholic. Kind of – I wasn’t physically dependant on alcohol, I was mentally dependant. I won’t go in to why, but there had been a severe incident which believe me, gave me every reason to try and blot the pain each night. For nearly a year after said…
The Crow Should Never Have Flapped onto a Game
In the mid-90s, the first Crow film received decent reviews. In the world of 90s films, that means it absolutely needed to have a sequel. It could probably have received mediocre reviews and the film distributor would have instantly thrown a bunch of scriptwriters into a room and refused to release them until the sequel…
My Strange Relationship with Learning Music
When I started secondary school, there was a sort of open day in the music department. The music teachers showed off their instruments, hoping to lure a room of 11-year-olds into taking up their chosen subject. I was taken to the violin and the piano – for years, I had fantasised about playing both in…
Yearny Thursday: Spirit of Speed
Oh my god, I LOVE crappy games. I don’t know what it is – I think I have a problem. I was told a while ago that my brain responds to negative emotions in the same way it does positive ones, so I can only assume that there’s some twisted psychology gubbins going on for…
Yearny Thursday: ASCII Keyboard Controller
The GameCube controller is my favorite controller ever. I love how rounded it is, and clicky, and colorful. The only way it could possibly be improved is if I could use it to quickly type to whoever just beat me at Rocket League that I intend to shag their dad. With that being said, and…
Hacker International Made a Bad Game Worse with Pyramid on the NES
Surely adding lewds into a game can only make it better, right? Well, no. Certainly not back in the early 90s, when the games that porny publisher Hacker International were spunking into the Japanese market were already weak gaming experiences. Adding a poorly-drawn schoolgirl who looks like she’s been hit by a bus just adds…
My First Troll was nearly a Decade Ago
Not even a year after I finally split from an abusive relationship, I joined the website StarNow. I was 23, and already feeling like I had missed the boat on my dreams. I put a few pictures of myself up, and a video taken of my band performing at a gig a few years prior….
Yearny Thursday: Seaman
Alright, look. The Dreamcast was ahead of its time. I will die on that hill. A hill that also has Sonic Adventure down as the best 3D Sonic game ever made, and Croc: Legend of the Gobbos as one of the most frustrating and overrated games to hit the PlayStation. Yes, I’m this hill by…