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‘Switch ones’, ‘Switch 2s’ and lessons in time and space

By Neil Merrett With a shiny new Nintendo Switch console being made available to gamers this month, what does this mean for potentially millions of beloved machines that are set to be swapped out for a more sophisticated and upgraded machine?  As a new generation of the Nintendo Switch console arrives in homes around the world this month, gamers will have decades worth of titles to indulge in,…

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From the BBC Micro to Snipperclips – a personal education in gaming

By Neil Merrett Snipperclips – cut it out, together!, released on Nintendo Switch I 2017, published by Nintendo The growing sophistication of software and hardware available in homes and schools has greatly expanded the capabilities of the medium to educate, as well as entertain. However, ascertaining the educational value of a game and how it is implemented in learning requires a fair bit of…

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A Margate arcade – the value of 20th century places in a 21st century world

By Neil Merrett Does the world need videogame arcades in a world where technology can afford us a whole host of virtual thrills on the go or in bedrooms?  Much like for humanity as a whole, perhaps there is real and cultural value in taking some time to lark about in our analogue worlds – even when keeping our focus on the unknown future. What does it mean to be a British seaside amusement…

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Don't look now - perspective and immersion in 'Doom 1'

By Neil Merrett Doom (1993), released on Nintendo Switch in 2019, published by Bethesda With its now primitive 3D worlds,  Doom 1’s simple premise of running and shooting has a pleasant sense of immersion in the 2020s – even without the ability to look up or down Earlier generations of virtual reality brought to market in the 1990s promised an immersion that would blur the very boundaries of…

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Hunter, hero, consumer – player motivation in Dave the Diver and Monster Hunter

By Neil Merrett The heroes of games such as Dave the Diver and Monster Hunter are less focused about saving the world as they are about getting what they want or need from it. They certainly make for a relatable protagonist – if not exactly a heroic one. Whether we chose to like it or not, a drive to consume is a critical feature of our species and the modern societies we build. There are, of…

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Sins of a Solar Empire – a digital warning about life in 'interesting times'

By Neil Merrett Digital simulations can let us indulge in playing out cultural, economic and military warfare out amongst the stars.  However, like any self-respecting artform, good software can also be a warning that it is a lot more fun to roleplay going through interesting times that actually living through them. Sins of a Solar Empire, released in 2008 on Microsoft Windows, developed by…

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'Getting the job done' – the elusive search for a definite videogame ending

By Neil Merrett Unlike other great art forms, the concept of a player coming to the true end of certain videogames can be deeply subjective and personal. Even after the narrative conclusion of s tory, – a plyer’s work is sometimes only down when they decide, whether through boredom, a long-await sequel or meeting some self-defined sense of purpose or goal. There are those books where a reader…

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Love, life, death and Monster Hunter

By Neil Merrett The continued development of Capcom’s Monster Hunter series into an increasingly online community of gamers sharing immersive digital environments for battling giants beasties and slightly arsey dragons can be a fruitful tool for engaging and building relationships without ever having to meet. Any life where a significant proportion of a person’s time is spent gaming means that…

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Captain Planet on Amiga: Having an earnest go at ‘green’ gaming

By Neil Merrett In our current imperfect age of environmental understanding, some of the earnest attempts in the 90s to make a ‘green’ videogame might now seem frivolous.  But perhaps a seal-saving, ozone replenishing cartoon adventure game in the 90s was a necessary step to trying to make more conscious decisions about the difficult next steps to saving the planet.  The power may not always be…

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Fighting for a doomed world - a Justice League game by another name

By Neil Merrett As a storied game developer announces that there will be no new updates to a year-old big budget ‘superhero game’, the end of its darkly humorous, at times profane experiment in embracing a world without traditional saviours takes on a strange resonance in 2025.   This is Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, a tale about trying to find heroism, hope and toilet…

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Vampire Survivors evolves once more: is a video game ever truly finished?

By Neil Merrett The latest optional DLC content for Vampire Survivors might not be for everyone’s tastes, but the game’s ode to an iconic haunted castle platformer highlights the potentially limitless potential for a videogame to evolve and expand endlessly. Vampire Survivors: Ode to Castlevania (DLC), released on Nintendo Switch in 2024, Developed by Poncle As ambitious developers of all…

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Unveiling the Switch 2 - a (VERY) brief glimpse of the future

In a teaser trailer lasting just over two minutes, Nintendo officially revealed a Switch 2 is coming in 2025 – seemingly with a next gen Mario Kart experience – with plenty left to the imagination to speculate on. By Neil Merrett The original Nintendo Switch was first unveiled in October 2016 to a deeply uncertain world with the very real prospect of apocalyptically chaotic leaders and societal…

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The Year in Squareblind 2024: July – December

By Neil Merrett The final part of the site’s year of gaming, self-reflection and joyously ‘wasting’; time in virtual worlds looks at whether there is a real online audience for 64 player Pac-Man, and whether the medium can do more than let us fantasize about punching our problems away. July By July, Squareblind finally got round to finally playing its way through Hideo Kojima’s esoteric sci-fi…

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The Year in Squareblind 2024: Jan – June

By Neil Merrett The first of a two-part review of Squareblind’s gaming year looks at ten years of Marim Kart 8, virtual maracas and whether the original 1984 Ghostbusters game truly got its capitalist source material. January 2024 opened with Squareblind considering the ongoing development of Super Mario Kart 8 – ten years after its original launch on the Wii U console. Nintendo’s storied…

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Don’t stop – Sony's PlayStation hits a 30-year landmark

By Neil Merrett Both gaming and mainstream media has sought to cover three decades of Sony’s foray into gaming to demonstrate the impact of the console on global culture.  But as well as looking back fondly to a different era of gaming, it’s important to remember to keep our eyes and passions ahead of us, regardless of whether it’s a forlorn or tangible hope for better things down the line. In…

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Super Mario Party Jamboree – A tentative step to bring board games into a metaverse

By Neil Merrett The third Super Mario Party game on the Nintendo Switch has attempted to try and bring some online innovation to the classic board game formula with a 20 player simultaneous mode. The Mario Party series was always intended to be a shared experience.  For over two decades, the game has aimed to simulate the appeal of friendly or not-so-friendly board game sessions with a focus…

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Dropping the ball: Peglin attempts a turn-based pachinko RPG

By Neil Merrett Peglin, released on Nintendo Switch in 2024, developed by Red Nexus Games While hardly a simulation of Pachinko, Peglin takes the gambling and ball drop mechanics of the popular craze to create a playful RPG that aims to give the player a meaningful sense of control over fate, gravity and bouncy balls. It would be fair to say that the UK has very little understanding of the…