NerdLeaks Team 
For many, the core reason to play video games is challenge. Some play to relax, others to socialise, and still others simply to kill time, but for a lot of gamers, challenge is the crux of what makes a game satisfying to play. There are many developers who recognise this, deliberately creating incredibly challenging games … Read more
Sony’s PlayStation 3 started off at an unfair disadvantage. The Xbox 360 released more than a year before the PS3 got the chance to wow the market, and as such, many gamers had already declared their allegiance before Sony’s console could hook them in. That’s a shame, because the PS3 was a pretty amazing console … Read more
It’s fair to say the Nintendo Game Boy was a runaway success. It’s still one of the top ten best-selling consoles of all time, and in the years following its release, it routinely topped hardware sales charts, demonstrating the incredible staying power of this handheld marvel. Much has been made of the Game Boy’s hardiness, … Read more
The Wii often gets a bad rap. Hardcore gamers dismiss it as a casual console, intended only for families to play and with no real, serious gaming experiences to be had. This is a gross underestimation of how many great games there are on the Wii. This is, after all, a Nintendo console, and Nintendo … Read more
The Wii U is an unfairly maligned console. Sure, the controller was unwieldy and difficult to use, and its battery life was weak, too, but the Wii U had one advantage over its competitors: it was, pure and simple, a games console. It wasn’t trying to be some kind of home media centre, nor did … Read more
The arcade can be seen as the crucible of modern gaming as we know it. A typical arcade contained many cabinets, all of them housing different gaming wonders and promising mastery if only you could spend the time (and, crucially, the money) to get seriously good at them. Many of your favourite games likely began … Read more
It could be argued that the launch of the Xbox 360 was the point at which gaming went truly mainstream. Of course, such a thing is impossible to quantify, but the Xbox 360 did absolutely huge numbers; we distinctly remember almost every household we went into in the 2000s and early 2010s having an Xbox … Read more
When Microsoft entered the console market, it had everything to play for. The Washington tech giant was already dominating the world of PC gaming with its Windows operating system, but it had yet to prove that it could establish itself in console gaming as well. The original Xbox arrived to much cautious optimism and quickly … Read more
The Nintendo Switch launched all the way back in 2017 to rapturous applause. While the Wii U had been somewhat ill-received due to its clunky controller (with pretty poor battery life to boot), the Switch felt like a realisation of all the tantalising ideas the Wii U had pioneered. After all, it’s a hybrid console … Read more
It can sometimes feel like we haven’t had enough time to get to grips with a new technology before its successor arrives. As we get older, this will happen more and more; although there are many who say Moore’s Law doesn’t apply to modern technology anymore, it’s certainly still moving quickly enough to potentially leave … Read more
Scream has to be one of the most misunderstood horror franchises of all time. These films started as an ironic deconstruction of the slasher genre; the characters in the movie actively talk about cliches and tropes endemic to the genre, and in the original 1996 Scream, the killer is someone who’s clearly au fait with … Read more
VR may technically still be in its infancy, but the tech is building up a surprisingly comprehensive suite of must-play games. Major gaming companies and developers are putting all of their eggs in the VR basket; there are huge, tentpole instalments of core franchises that you’re going to need a VR headset to play. Whether … Read more
After the video game crash of 1983, it was going to take something seriously effective and innovative to change the public’s hearts and minds about gaming. That something came in the form of Nintendo’s NES, or Nintendo Entertainment System. By packaging the console as an “entertainment system”, Nintendo sidestepped the idea that it was “just” … Read more
Here’s an idea of just how dominant and all-conquering the PS2 was back in the day. As of 2022, the PS2 is still the best-selling console of all time, outstripping rivals like the Nintendo DS and the PS4 by a significant distance. With over 155 million units sold across its lifetime, the PS2 still stands … Read more
The Sony PlayStation came about thanks to a botched deal with Nintendo. Originally, Sony was to develop a CD add-on peripheral for Nintendo’s SNES console, but the deal fell through, leaving Sony with a whole bunch of CD-ROM gaming research and nowhere to put it. They channeled that research into the PlayStation, which rapidly took … Read more
Ah, the Sega Mega Drive. Sega’s answer to the Super Nintendo had a famously aggressive marketing campaign, claiming that the console (which was called the Genesis in America) “does what Nintendon’t”. Whether you remember this campaign or the infamous “blast processing” that Sega used to promote the Mega Drive, one thing’s for sure: the console … Read more
There are many who say that Sony should re-enter the handheld gaming market. Thanks to the success of the PSP (and, to a lesser extent, the cult popularity of the PlayStation Vita), many gamers clamour for a return to the halcyon days of Sony’s first handheld and its hardcore alternative to the more family-friendly DS. … Read more
The Sega Dreamcast is one of the most underrated gaming consoles of all time. Launched back in 1999 (in the West, at least; it was released a year earlier in Japan), the Dreamcast had to compete with the PlayStation 2, the GameCube, and the Xbox, and it struggled to do so. That’s a shame, though, … Read more