My first Animal Crossing. It'd never been on my radar before, but I had a lovely lovely time with this, running a town and going shopping and hanging out. My crowning achievement was squeezing the words "Lou Reed memorial orchard" onto a custom sign in front of all my fruit trees.

I wasn't that fussed about most of the villagers, but I really clicked with Moe. We'd drop by each other's houses and chat about music and games and write weird letters to each other. He was a good pal.

Eventually I spent less and less time there, because I remembered there are other games, and one day I went back to find Moe had left. I realised I didn't know any of the other villagers, and it felt like the magic had gone, so I nuked the town rather than cling on to it. I think that's how you win the game.

Weird game. It's got the skeleton of old XCOM, but a whole new look and feel. There was a coating of Win95-ness that tainted the general aesthetic, but I loved the whole city setting. The aerial combat was really good fun too, played like an RTS,

I played this mostly in the optional real-time mode, because there was one alien that always messed me up when turn-based. Started dozens of campaigns, but never finished it as the alien dimension always bugged out for me. I might go back and try again.

Fisher lived right near college, so every lunchtime we'd sprint over there and cram in 50 minutes of multiplayer gaming. We all chipped in to buy extra pads for Goldeneye, five of us crammed on his bed, each round the loser and spectator swapping places. Best time.

When I got my own copy, I found it a mixed bag. One of those games where you have favourite bits you do over and over again, and horrible bits you avoid forever. And the floor pattern bit in Egypt, WTF were they thinking with that bullshit?

Addendum: I wrote the above not having touched the game for years. Recently I've been playing it again on Switch, with a Tribute64 pad, and once again I'm having the best time. All of my teen frustrations have melted away (in part thanks to a buttery smooth framerate and save states), and I love it more than ever.

There's a special joy that can only be found in seeing Sean Bean and Robbie Coltrane slide around a room, firing off an entire clip and not landing a single hit, while you walk towards them both with a rocket launcher. Haven't laughed in this exact way for over twenty years.

Look forward to me pestering you all to play this with me at every opportunity.

TOO BAD, YOU LOST UNITY¹

We used to play this with five players: two people would control Twin Noritta, AKA "The Dual Ship", one on steering and one on throttle/boost. Anyone finishing behind The Dual Ship would swap in next round, which made for some violent races.

Once the random track generator gave us a hairpin on the crest of a hill so tight that half the ships would fly off each lap.

I loved everything about this game.

¹unity with the track

I remember seeing screenshots of this, reading it was Japan-exclusive, grumbling for a week, then forgetting all about it. When it arrived in Europe nearly a year later, it felt like a dream. Constant state of "How is this allowed? How is it possible?" while playing, laughing the whole time.

I feel very lucky it came at just the right period for me to get an hour of 4-player every day. I never got tired of it. Thinking about Fisher carrying someone off the edge and screaming "KONG SUICIDE" in their face makes me chuckle to this day.