Category: ChartedPage 26 of 58

A British history of popular video games, told one sales chart #1 at a time

“It’s a car-crash-car world” – Burnout Revenge

As a child, I played with a lot of toy cars. I gave many of them names, but it was mostly as a way of distinguishing between them…

“Cruising on down to downtown” – The Sims 2: Nightlife

The high sales of boxed copies of expansion packs for The Sims 2 mark a particular transition period for the industry. The success of The Sims and its…

“We’ve got Tangos” – Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Lockdown

My third Ubisoft game has several things in common with the first two, some differences, and a lot that points towards both the future and how Ubisoft ended…

“You are the man” – Ridge Racer (PSP)

I remember the massive British advertising push for the PlayStation Portable in the year following its launch. I was taking the tube every day and the distinctive adverts…

“What is human life but a game of cricket?” – Brian Lara International Cricket 2005

Talk about picking your moment. The back of the box of Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 quotes the Official PlayStation 2 Magazine calling it “the best cricket game…

“Now I’ve seen it all” – Madagascar

When Shrek went from ‘the gulag’, in which Dreamworks staff were exiled, to a huge success, it proved the launchpad for a very successful run of Dreamworks computer…

“Slow in and fast out” – Juiced

I’ve been through many examples of games rushed out for financial reasons, with varying levels of disaster as a result. Juiced is a rarer case of the opposite:…

“Revive used” – Medal of Honor: European Assault

Medal of Honor: Rising Sun didn’t just manage to disgust the likes of me with its approach to telling history. It also got widely dismissed by fans of…

“Objective achieved” – Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith

When I covered The Phantom Menace back in the seemingly Peak Star Wars time of 1999, I ended by commenting on how the game, or rather the film,…

“Free Play Unlocked” – Lego Star Wars: The Video Game

[For the latest guest post, I’m happy to hand over once again to Alexander Sigsworth, who you can find blogging at alexsigsworth.wordpress.com and who most recently wrote about…