Category: Editorial

Editorial, Gaming, Meaningless Ramble

Editorial: October 2018 – Spooky

Wow, it’s really not been that long since I last wrote an editorial thanks to my poor “time-management” in September and weirder still is that we’re already in October… or as the internet calls it “The Month of Halloween!”

Yes, Twitter and the various fantastic blogs I read are already firing up their pumpkins and kicking the spookfest into overdrive in anticipation of that chilling spectacular that occurs on or around the 31st of the month. Here in the UK of course we’re always a little behind the latest trends so it’s no surprise that when I was growing up Halloween wasn’t the event that it is now. As an adult I’m bemused slightly by the spectacle that this monstrous month seems to have on my friends across the Atlantic… especially as I’m usually more excited by the prospect of Guy Fawkes night that occurs a few days later. Continue reading “Editorial: October 2018 – Spooky”

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Editorial, Gaming, Meaningless Ramble

Editorial: September 2018 -More like… 2 weeks into September…

The evenings are drawing in, the frequency of days in which I complain about the heat is gradually reducing, and the frequency of rainy days in which I revel but pretend to despair of is on the rise. To celebrate, my wife, dog, and I are currently on holiday in Wales enjoying the beautiful countryside, coastline, and weather wrapped up in the comfort of a small cabin complete with log fire.

It’s a welcome break from the pace of August which followed an equally hectic July. I moved jobs at the start of the month which involved a mad dash of trying to wrap up various bits of project in a kind of ‘duct taping over the cracks and passing it on’ sort of way. This past month has proven to be equally busy on that side of things with lots of learning and getting to grips with the project; it still feels like early days, but hopefully the pace will settle soon and it helps that I’m quite enthusiastic about the content of the project.  Continue reading “Editorial: September 2018 -More like… 2 weeks into September…”

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Editorial, Gaming, Meaningless Ramble

Editorial: August 2018 – Where are you?

Hellooooo! Yes, yes, I know it’s been a few weeks now, and I’m sorry about that, but I’m here now ok? … and maybe I’ll manage to shine some light on my absence. 

The end of July was equal parts super hot and super busy which turns out isn’t a good combination for maintaining even a leisurely blogging pace such as mine. I even managed to have a few days of work with the intention of getting some DIY done and have a bit of a blogging spree, but the DIY was severely scaled back to the hours before 11am and after 4pm due to the heat and the blogging just didn’t get started. The frustrating part was that it was even too hot to really play games, let alone write about them.  Continue reading “Editorial: August 2018 – Where are you?”

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Editorial, Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, OffTopic

Editorial: July 2018 – Toasty…

Hello and a happy July to you all; doesn’t seem like so long ago that I was wrapped up warm in the middle of a blizzard writing March’s Editorial and now the UK is in the sweaty grip of a heatwave with people standing on street corners tutting disapprovingly at hose users and making statements about liking it hot, but not this hot.

… of course from a gaming point of view the past month has held the joy of E3, seemingly endless logos and carefully scripted trailers being paraded out to the cheers of a crowd somewhere in the press conference at an unsocial time for anyone in the UK to watch; not that I’m bitter. I don’t generally get caught up too caught up in the E3 hype, but this year I think I enjoyed that collective sense of anticipation in the community more than in the past and there were a few things that caught my attention even at this early stage. I’m was very excited to finally see some of the Resident Evil 2 remake and thrilled that it looks really… really… good. Within the list of other announcements I’m quietly intrigued by Wolfenstein: The Young Blood; TNO was excellent, but neither Old Blood or New Colossus quite captured that same feeling. At this stage there are very few details other than it being a co-op experience so I’ve quietly been trying to convince my wife that she should play TNO in preparation for Young Blood’s release.  Continue reading “Editorial: July 2018 – Toasty…”

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Editorial, Gaming, Meaningless Ramble

Editorial: June 2018 – Vault…ing horse

Tipping of the hat and a “Hey!” to everyone out there for June’s editorial… soooo… are we all looking forward to Fallout 76? At time of writing all we’ve seen of Bethesda’s guaranteed wagon-of-money is a brief teaser showing the occupants of vault 76 preparing to resurface, but unofficially there are rumours of MMO style gameplay, survival & crafting, and inspirations including DayZ and Rust. For me that would be a sharp turn away from what originally drew me to the series at Fallout 3 and I suspect that I’m not alone in those thoughts. Fallout has excelled in the past with its immersive worlds, with focused plots, factions, and overall story which are just not elements that you can really capture in a multi-player experience when (I’m going out on a limb here based on my experiences of Rust) 75% of the players will just be in it to mess with you. Fallout 4 lost a barrel worth of points with me for introducing the building and crafting elements so to hear… even a rumour… that they’re moving in this direction doesn’t fill me with hope. Having said that, a series needs to evolve with the time and hopefully I’ll be proven wrong.  Continue reading “Editorial: June 2018 – Vault…ing horse”

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Editorial, Gaming, Meaningless Ramble

Editorial: May 2018 – Subtitle not Found

I’d have to pick attending Rezzed in London’s Tobacco Dock as my April gaming highpoint. I havn’t been for the past few years and had forgotten how, as an expo, it fits me much better than some of the bigger events with its smaller crowds and developers eagerly waiting to discuss their craft directly with the players. I’d have to admit that it didn’t turn up as many gems as in previous years, but did finally give me the chance to meet with Kim, Ben, & Pete from LaterLevels and without them I wouldn’t have seen Tim Schafer’s developer session. Kim’s follow up to that was also an interesting experiment in free writing; a technique advocated by Tim himself which… even in my brief two-minute session… I could see the benefits of. Forcing yourself to not edit, and just plough on through is liberating, each idea that came in to my head HAD to go down on the paper and it worked its way in to some kind of bizarre detective story. Continue reading “Editorial: May 2018 – Subtitle not Found”

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Editorial, Gaming, Meaningless Ramble

Editorial: April 2018 – Pick ‘n’ Mix

March has been a mixed bag for me over here at Hundstrasse. I guess I’ll kick off with the bad stuff which is me breaking my three month streak of meeting my Wednesday posting regime. I missed a week somewhere in the middle of the month for the arguably weak excuse of just being quite busy and not getting around to writing it. Heck, this kind of thing happens but, whilst nobody was kicking my door down demanding a post, I’m still disappointed with myself that I couldn’t meet my own.. pretty relaxed… schedule. I’ve also felt a little less engaged with the community this past month; I know that I haven’t been as chatty with my blogging comrades, my twitter activity has been low, and I’m generally behind on keeping up with my reading. I do as much as I can with interaction, and I’m sorry if you’ve felt that I’ve been absent recently, but  I’ve always been there in the background taking in what I can handle.

… that’s the bad stuff out of the way… 

I had a fairly extraordinary month in terms of views entirely due to this post about F:BR which seems to be picking up a good handful of hits each day, largely (I’m guessing) because of the popularity of the title and almost all from search engines. Unfortunately, the views feel pretty hollow without the engagement to go with them and I’m doubtful that many of those wandering readers are sticking around to absorb that darn fine piece of videogame commentary – I mean, graphs are interesting… right? Continue reading “Editorial: April 2018 – Pick ‘n’ Mix”

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