If you're a gamer of a certain age, you're probably already sick to the back teeth of hearing people bang on about Shenmue. The epic series that began on the Dreamcast and...well, died with the Dreamcast, visionary writer/director Yu Suzuki coined the phrase "nonlinear gameplay" to describe the games. Which was just a fancy way of saying they went nowhere fast, as they were supposed to chronicle the grand revenge story of Ryo Hazuki, who is tracking down the man who murdered his father, but mainly saw you working as a fork lift truck operator so that you can afford your bedsit flat. With occasional fights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kuc_Pexr6Ck The Guinness Book of World Records listed the first Shenmue as the most expensive video game produced for its time, with a production budget of US$70 million, and the sequel followed suit. Despite all those excess dollars flying around they didn't manage to give the second game a decent denouement, however, as it ends on a cliffhanger about dragons and mirrors or something. You definitely don't get any closer to finding out who your dad's killer was, and so the whole thing feels like you've been treading water for hours and hours. Plus it's a decade later and there's been no third game, so that's technically the actual ending to Shenmue. So, so disappointing.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
