Feature Articles
Saturday17th Feb 2024
Back Page The Best Cows On The Nintendo Switch
We would never steer you wrong
In the magazine business, the Back Page is where you'd find all the weird goofs that we couldn't fit in anywhere else. Some may call it "filler"; we prefer "a whole page to make terrible jokes that are tangentially related to the content of the mag". We don't have pages on the internet, but we still love terrible...
Friday13th Jan 2023
Back Page EVERYONE STAY CALM. Here's How To Game Safely On Friday 13th
It's that dreaded day again!
In the magazine business, the Back Page is where you'd find all the weird goofs that we couldn't fit in anywhere else. Some may call it "filler"; we prefer "a whole page to make terrible jokes that are tangentially related to the content of the mag". We don't have (paper) pages on the internet, but we still love...
Tuesday27th Dec 2022
Feature How Video Games Can Be Brilliant For Your Mental Health
Escapism, education, and being "alone together"
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and as part of our mental health coverage, I spoke to two psychologists from Take This — a non-profit dedicated to reducing the stigma of mental health in the gaming community, as well as raising awareness of the areas in which games and mental health intersect...
Thursday12th May 2022
Feature There's No Storytelling Like Minecraft's Exquisite Emergent Narrative
Story time!
It's the fifth anniversary of Minecraft's Switch release today, and we're celebrating the only way we know how: By writing lots of words about it. Hooray! I was away from home when my house caught on fire. I didn't even hear about it until the next day, when it was far too late: The beautiful Tudor-style cottage was naught but a...
Tuesday28th Dec 2021
Lena Raine talks Chrono Trigger and wanting to write "a really rowdy anime opening"
Lena Raine's meteoric rise over the past few years has taken her from working in Quality Assurance at ArenaNet, all the way to being nominated for a BAFTA and an award for Best Music at The Game Awards — pretty impressive for someone who's technically only nine...
Tuesday7th Dec 2021
Feature Our Verdict On Minecraft's Caves & Cliffs Update, Parts One And Two
Ain't no mountain high, ain't no valley low
After diving deep into the new Minecraft Caves and Cliffs Part II update (all the way down to Y-64), our resident Minecraft expert Kate Gray is ready to declare her verdict on the whole thing. Do new caves and cliffs make that much of a difference to a game that's all about caves and cliffs? Read on to...
Thursday16th Sep 2021
Back Page The Video Game Characters That Snuck Into The 2021 Met Gala
Video games, but make it fashion
On the Venn diagram of video games and fashion, the overlap is probably smaller than the number of people who actually owned a Virtual Boy, but that's alright. I'm here at the centre of the two circles, and if this article only entertains me, so be it! The Met Gala, which took place earlier this week, is a parade of...
Saturday28th Aug 2021
Quick Beats Celeste Composer Lena Raine On Her Love For Ghibli, Hurdy-Gurdies, And Her Cat
The cat is called Bobbin
Throughout the Nintendo Life Video Game Music Festival we'll be speaking to a range of composers and musicians with a mixture of in-depth interviews and shorter, sharper (and perhaps a little goofier) Q&As where we ask just ten rapid-fire personal questions; we're calling these shorter features 'Quick Beats'. Today's...
Monday9th Aug 2021
Soapbox Spin-Offs Can Be A Way In Rather Than A Sell-Out
Playable windows into other worlds
Ah, spin-offs. The cynical shareholder-approved cash-grab created for a series that’s got a little too big for its boots. The desperate last-ditch attempt at trendy relevance for a fading favourite. A shoddily resurrected IP’s woefully undercooked stab at attracting a new audience. They’re the “Grandma...
Saturday24th Jul 2021
Soapbox Parallel Play Is The New Couch Co-Op, And Minecraft Is Perfect For It
My couch isn't that nice anyway
I haven't seen some of my friends in months. Others, I haven't seen in years. It's partly the pandemic, and partly because I moved country four years ago, and also partly because I have a flawed grasp of object permanence, so if I can't see someone's face on a regular basis, I might forget that they exist. But with...
Monday10th May 2021
Soapbox I Miss My Friends, But I Don't Want To Kill Them
Well, maybe a little bit
I highly doubt any of the people reading this have the power to change anything in the games industry, but just in case: my thesis here is that the world is craving online co-op games, and it's crazy that we don't have more of them. Or, at least, more of them that don't involve shooting my friends in the face, or hanging out...
Saturday19th Oct 2019
Feature The Hall Of Shame – Games Or Series We Never Got Around To Playing
Personal confessions from Team NL
It’s a perennial problem for gaming enthusiasts, young or old: how can I play all the video games? With so many across all the systems, it’s nigh-on impossible to play them all and there’ll always be revered classics or entire series that pass you by completely simply because you never owned a particular...
Saturday22nd Dec 2018
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Christmas? (Special Edition)
Here are our picks, but what are yours?
As regular readers will know, each Saturday we all get together to discuss our weekend gaming plans and see what our fellow community members are up to. This week is a little different, however, with many of us taking a little time away to celebrate the holidays and enjoy time with friends or family, or even...
