Daniel Tessier
Bio
I'm a terrible geek living in sunny Brighton on the Sussex coast in England. I enjoy writing about TV, comics, movies, LGBTQ issues and science.
Stories (66)
Filter by community
My Top 25 SNES Games
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System went by many names. In Japan, it was the Super Famicom. In Korea, Hyundai sold it as the Super Comboy. In the West, it was the Super Nintendo, the Super NES... in our house it was always just the SNES. (That's pronounced “snez” by the way. None of that “ess-enn-ee-ess” here.) When we got our own second-hand SNES in the mid-90s, it was a revelation. Our first home console, with full colour games to play on our terribly modest TV screen. Some will favour the Mega Drive/Genesis, others the PlayStation; but for me, the SNES was the great console of the 1990s. Don't worry, I'll get to those other two.
By Daniel Tessierabout 2 hours ago in Gamers
TREK REVIEW: SFA 1-1 "Kids These Days"
Typical, isn't it? I finally find time to sit down and review Starfleet Academy and what happens? Paramount cancels it. It's a huge shame, because this series, in spite of how some fans feel about it, was a real winner for many more. Still, it's understandable. While it's tempting to blame review bombing and negative press, at the end of the day, it's an extremely expensive show and not enough people were watching. (At least in the States; UK and European streaming figures have been very positive.) SFA has been hovering outside the Nielsen Top Ten, and for a high budget, flagship series, that's not going to cut it. Plus, with the studio being bought yet again, it was an easy first move to cut it.
By Daniel Tessier11 days ago in Futurism
My Top 25 NES Games
The Nintendo Entertainment System, or the Famicom in Japan, is the earliest console I have any direct experience of. We didn’t have a NES in our house when we were kids. I was a bit sniffy of it actually, viewing it as old-fashioned and before my time (I was born in 1984, between the Japanese and Western releases of the system). It was years later that I started to appreciate earlier games and hardware. I played the NES round friends’ houses and, eventually, well into adulthood, someone decided to get rid of theirs and now we had our own Family Computer.
By Daniel Tessierabout a month ago in Gamers
My Top 25 Game Boy Games
I've been getting very much back into my games over the last year or so (hooray, hyperfixation!). Not just playing, but reading about, learning about, and, of course, reminiscing about. I've recently been ensconced in Shaun Musgrave's Patreon, and particularly enjoyed his lists of favourite games for various consoles. So I thought to myself, why not have a crack at that myself?
By Daniel Tessier2 months ago in Gamers
Virtual Boy Wario Land: The forgotten Wario game
1995 saw Nintendo release some of its best platformer titles. Yoshi's Island, Donkey Country 2, Donkey Kong Land, Kirby's Dream Land 2 – all were released this year for the SNES (the former two) and Game Boy (the latter). There's one, however, that's been almost forgotten, along with the console it was released for, at least until Nintendo's surprising recent news for its Switch Online/Nintendo Classics service.
By Daniel Tessier5 months ago in Gamers
REVIEW: The Long Walk
Fifty boys walk in a straight line at three miles per hour for as long as they can. If they slow down or stop for too long, they’re shot dead. If they try to escape or even step off the road, they’re shot dead. The last boy walking wins untold riches and his heart’s desire.
By Daniel Tessier6 months ago in Horror
40 Years of Super Mario - Part 1: The 1980s
It’s September 2025 and Super Mario is forty years old. The first game in the series, the legendary Super Mario Bros. was released for the Famicom on 13th September 1985, one of the first games for Nintendo’s earliest true home console. It wouldn’t arrive on the Nintendo Entertainment System – the western version of the Famicom – until the following year in North America, as a launch title for the system, and not in PAL regions such as the UK and Europe until 1987. Regardless, the game was instrumental in revitalising the American video games market, which had suffered an almost lethal crash in 1983 due to a glut of low quality systems and games.
By Daniel Tessier7 months ago in Gamers
Yoshi's Island: A true classic
We all have a favourite video game, one that we return to time and again. Whatever your game of choice is, however old or new it is, playing it again takes you back to the first time you played it, while giving you something more than simple nostalgia value: genuinely classic gameplay.
By Daniel Tessier8 months ago in Gamers
Donkey Kong Land: a retrospective
Donkey Kong Land has a special place in my heart. It was the very first video game that I went out and bought, brand new, with my own money. In fact, it was money I’d received that day for my twelfth birthday. I walked to Woolworths with my best friend Paul (best-friendship still going strong) and bought myself my very own new game, in a special banana yellow cartridge.
By Daniel Tessier10 months ago in Gamers
The Hound of the Baskervilles (2002)
There have been at least thirty screen adaptations of The Hound of the Baskervilles, the best-known of all Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. In 2002, as part of BBC1’s Christmas programming and roughly marking the centenary of the novel’s publication, Tiger Aspect produced a TV movie starring Richard Roxburgh and Ian Hart as the deductive duo of Holmes and Watson.
By Daniel Tessier10 months ago in Geeks
Captain America: Brave New World
Brave New World is the fourth Captain America film for the MCU, and the first to see Anthony Mackie step up as the lead after playing second fiddle to Chris Evans for so long. It's also the 35th movie in the MCU as a whole, and deep into Phase 5 of the increasingly convoluted franchise. This perhaps explains some of the film's messiness and the mixed reviews it's been getting. It's inarguable that Brave New World tries to juggle too much of the franchise's unwieldy backstory, leaving us with a messy script. Yet, for all that, I found Brave New World to be a highly entertaining movie, one of the stronger Marvel movies of recent years, and a great showcase for Mackie's classy new Cap.
By Daniel Tessierabout a year ago in Geeks
