Editing Blog/2024-03-16/Video Games

It's been absolutely ages [https://x.com/arjie/status/1769071112179368264?s=20 since I played video games]. The difference between the number of hours I spent playing them when I was younger and had crappy hardware and now that I can afford good hardware for them is crazy.

I recently ended up on [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hn-pNxtByM a Youtube video remixing the Unreal Tournament soundtrack]<ref>Yay, YouTube recommendations!</ref> and it brought up a whole bunch of memories, mostly of playing two-player split-screen games with my younger brother.

This means that [[wikipedia:Alexander Brandon|Alexander Brandon]] was effectively one of my favourite musicians. The Unreal Soundtrack above is one of his, as is the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZURQtB2Tlws Tubelectric Remix from Jazz Jackrabbit 2]<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2idyeFWdmA The original from Jazz Jackrabbit 1 is great, too!]</ref>, and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UirushkxQuI A Cold Day in Heck from that same game]. Music is unbelievable at bringing back fond memories from that time: making levels for my brother and me to play in, beating the campaign in two-player, complaining about who got what power-ups.

Anyway, that led me down a very small rabbit-hole that ended in discovering that [https://twitter.com/FunkyRustic Alexander Brandon has a Twitter account] and that there's a new remake of [https://x.com/FunkyRustic/status/1767720674984911316?s=20 a classic Contra that has local co-op] and it's available [https://store.playstation.com/en-us/concept/10007962 on a PS5]. Time to convince Julie to play a side-scrolling shooter with me.