Reconnect Recap - w/e 6th July

A weekly newsletter highlighting some of the best articles to feature on Reconnect in the past week.

Kia Ora folks

Welcome to another week of the Reconnect Recap, the companion newsletter to the games writing aggregation platform, Reconnect.

We’ve got a bevy of great write ups and fun tidbits for you to sink your teeth into today, so let’s dig in.!

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Great Write Ups

• GTAIII Remake Integrade Edition: SuperJump Magazine explains what made GTAIII so special, and digs into its development process and has me thinking a remaster would be a great move for the game.

• Caved and bought a Switch 2: Despite announcing to the world that they wouldn’t get a Switch 2, Nintendo is Great caved and got one, for some very good reasons.

• Waka Waka Death: These kinds of games aren’t usually my cup of tea, but a Pacman horror metroidvania definitely caught my attention when it was announced. Games with James explains their experience with the upcoming PacMan Game.

• The biggest market doesn’t necessarily spend the most: Another great piece of industry insight from GameDev Reports, where the biggest market for mobile games isn’t the biggest spender, not even in the top 5.

• SEGA of the future: I think we’re finally seeing SEGA for the success that it is, after its disastrous fall from grace in the 90s, The Game Business outlines SEGA’s plans for the future and how they approach the world today, in an interview with the companies president.

• The hard games aren’t the ones you’re thinking about: We all ‘instinctively’ know what a hard game is and the culture around them laud their difficulties as badge of honour, but Jake Steinberg has a different take on what a hard game really is.

• Not talking to Kojima: From my home country of Aotearoa, Pixel Fix had the opportunity to fly to Sydney to sit in on a Q&A session with Kojima, I don’t want to give anything away, so I recommend reading about their experience.

• A truly human-written experience: Another great write-up from SuperJump Magazine, that focusses on the humans that wrote Wildermyth and how it shows AI isn’t the way forward, in this department.

• Creating the habit: Rafael Lima breaks down how games help you create habits, for better or for worse.

• It’s not all glass half empty: In an amazing piece by Margot, they outline their concerns, concerns we all have, about how it just seems fun for so many people to shit on things people like. Many people have forgotten that video games are an entertainment medium.

• It’s all about R E S P E C T: Overkill muses on what it’s like to play games as an adult and how games respect a players time.

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Fun Tidbits

• My partner and I love physical media, in a world so digital, the effort that goes into something physical is quite special. So imagine my wonder at these Ridge Racer Type 4 zines.

• The brick is back, in a game, where you need to flip the iconic 90s phone through a series of difficult levels.

• Demakes are so my jam, I think they are some of the coolest things people can make, which is why i’m so excited for this Squid Games GameBoy demake.

• It’s another month, and another time for Crossplay to outline the family friendly games available this month. I don’t have kids, nor the desire, but many ‘kids’ games are great to play with my partner because they have couch co-op when so many games don’t these days.

• You’ve got to see it to believe it, but there was, and someone has one now, a Famicom bootleg all in one device and its W I L D.

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Writer Recap

This week we’re highlighting Jake Steinberg from Jake should be writing. I’ve been hearing Jakes voice on an off over the years as he guests on a plethora of the podcasts I’ve listen to, but on one episode of Giant Bomb, I think it might have been a Game Mess Morning, they mentioned they had a blog and I rushed to check it out and add it to the platform.

Jake writes about normal or not-normal every day issues in a gamers life, always with a comedic undertone but drives their point home in a concise manner I always appreciate it.

I always think of their article on Shiny Pokemon, which is one i’ve recommended to quite a few people, definitely check that one out, or the one featured in todays Recap, and almost certainly give them a follow.

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Housekeeping

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