Tag: video games

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Speedrunning Mario

Speedrunning, the technique of completing a video game as fast as possible, is a niche hobby in the video game realm. People focus on a game and look to exploit it as much as possible in order to break records for the shortest completion time. Nintendo’s 1985 masterpiece Super Mario Bros is one such game. The game may be 30+ years old but there is a whole new generation attempting to shave fractions of a second off records. Kyle Orland at Ars Technica has more of how humans are almost beating times only thought achievable by machines. Niftski’s new record…

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Atari Tries Again

When it comes to video games, there is always a sense of nostalgia. Nintendo had a hit on its hands when the NES Classic came out a few years ago. Sega had been doing the same for many years with subpar retro consoles, but then copied Nintendo to release a proper Genesis clone. Sony followed suit with a PS1 version, which reinforced the fact that games from the PS1 / Saturn era do not hold up well. Now Atari is back, again, with a console that will play all those pixel-perfect games, in an emulated fashion. Wes Davis at The…

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It’s-A Time To Retire

Since the first Mario game where the famed plumber needed a voice, one man has held the role: Charles Martinet. For over 25-years he has voiced Mario, Luigi, and a host of other characters in the bestselling franchise. Now, Martinet is stepping down in order to focus on being a “Mario Ambassador”, which is Nintendo-speak for ‘retire’. Ash Parrish at The Verge has more. Martinet has voiced the character since the ’90s, appearing in mainline Mario titles like Super Mario 64, Super Mario Odyssey, and Super Mario Galaxy as well as countless spinoffs. “Charles is now moving into the brand-new role of Mario Ambassador. With…

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Gotta Catch ’em All

There’s a time when things that were popular as kids becomes popular again as an adult. In the 90s Pokemon was a craze. While it’s never faded away, and I was too old to get into it, it has ebbed and flowed in time. But now, we’re seeing something interesting: Pokemon infiltrating everyday life. In this case it’s a new community in Las Vegas where each street will be named after a Pokemon creature. Nicole Clark at Polygon has more. Construction has been booming in the Las Vegas valley, leading to the unique challenge of coming up with names for…

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Intentionally-Stupid Games

In the past decade video games have become an accepted form of art. Millions go into producing Triple A titles in order to give gamers amazing experiences. Bad games are certainly not a thing of the past and James Rolfe continues to be the Angry Video Game Nerd reviewing those bad games. But we also have something interesting that’s come along: a contest to make the stupidest game possible on the ZX Spectrum. Rich Kelly at The Guardian has more. The Comp.Sys.Sinclair Crap Games Contest (CGC for short) has run almost every year since 1996. The idea is to write the crappest…

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Sega’s 3D Tech

There was a lot of hard work being done by video game companies in the 80s. The American market was in shambles and nobody knew how to break into a new era for entertainment. Sega released their 8-bit Master System in 1986 and with it the ability to play some games in 3D. But this wasn’t the Red / Blue 3D you’d see on the NES with Rad Racer. No, Sega created an Active Shutter system that made truly impressive 3D. Nicole Branagan does a deep dive on this early technology to see how it worked and let me tell…

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Getting Cozy With Games

The first thing people generally think of when they hear “video games” is Mario or shooters such as Halo or Call of Duty. While these are wildly-popular types of games, there is a new genre gaining momentum out there: Cozy Games. These are games where the gameplay is simple. No time limits, no complicated set of rules. It’s simply you and a general task to achieve at whatever pace you want. Kelli Dunlap, a PsyD with a doctorate in clinical psychology, and a masters in game design talks about what these games are and why they’re becoming popular. The premise…

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Half-Life’s Dream

Half-Life is one of the most successful video games of the early 2000s. The introduction of supreme storytelling into a shooter while adding exploration elements flipped an industry on its head. Half-Life was everywhere… except one notable place: Sega’s Dreamcast. It has been a mystery as to what happened with a game destined to have a port on every possible platform. And sure enough, it was going to come to the Dreamcast. Now, the Dreamcast Game Preservation group has found reporting of a near-release version of the game. The version I was given for review was about 95% complete with…

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Jack Black: Commercial Actor

Jack Black, the actor loved by many, is set to voice Bowser in the new Super Mario Bros movie. But did you know that forty years ago, he starred in a commercial for Pitfall? Pitfall was a popular adventure game for Atari 2600 and featured advanced graphics for its time. Now, you can enjoy Black’s past work before seeing his new performance in 2023.

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High School Pinball Throwback

Arcades, dominant in the 80s are something of a bygone era. While there is a resurgence in places to play video games in the modern era, no 80s arcade is as unique as this one in Los Angeles. Because its location is quite unexpected: Torrence High School. The Electronics Club of the school did something unique and opened a “pinball room”, which ironically also had arcade cabinets too. The club is the subject of the All American High documentary that was released in 1987. A piece of the footage is below which shows the pinball room in action. It’s an…

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Tetris: The Movie

We can joke around that modern movies using 80s pop culture properties have not usually worked out: Battleship and GI Joe are two examples. If it hadn’t been milked to death, Transformers would’ve broken that trend. Now we get a drama coming soon that looks to actually do what Transformers could not. And that property is Tetris. It may sound laughable, but the story behind Tetris is fascinating for many reasons. First, the Soviet Union owned all intellectual property and that meant Tetris never belonged to creator Alexey Pajitnov. Second, Atari was thought to own the rights to the game…

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Pinball Wizard Music

Video game music is an art form. Composers finally have their own category at the Grammy awards. But watching the music get composed for pinball in the 80s is where some real magic happens. Composer Suzanne Ciani is the main composer in this documentary video showing how she creates music and digitizes speech for Xenon. The table features her voice and original music for all aspects of play. It’s an incredible piece of archival footage; mainly because Ciani talks you through the process every step of the way. From drawings of how the table will look to enthusiastic talk about…

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30 Years of Mortal Kombat

If a singular game made an impact on the arcade scene in the 90s, it is undoubtedly Mortal Kombat. This game could be the pure definition of Right Place at the Right Time. Arcades were thriving, fighting games were hot thanks to Street Fighter II, and this new game was using digitized actors instead of cartoon characters. Oh and it was gory AF (though tame by today’s standards). MK spawned a ton of sequels and was a key component in the case to form the ESRB. From Nintendo’s decision to remove blood from their port of the game to the…

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The Game Preservers

We tend to think that in this age of digital entertainment that things will always be accessible. But what about things such as video games that were all created before the internet? That’s where two ambitious people come in. Kelsey Lewin and Frank Cifaldi are the heads of the Video Game History Foundation, and these pair are single-handedly working to save games from being lost to time. Bijan Stephen at The New Yorker has more of their herculean efforts. The oldest video games are now about seventy years old, and their stories are disappearing. The companies that created early games left…

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SEGA Shamone

One oddity of 90s video gaming is Sega’s clandestine work with Michael Jackson. It was rumored for many years that Jackson composed the music for Sonic The Hedgehog 3 along with Sonic & Knuckles. Even more incredible is recently-found footage of Jackson’s work with an unknown Sega simulator game where all the footage has been found. Matt Gardner at Forbes has more. Previously unseen footage of Jackson as the lead actor in the largely unknown Advanced System-1 (AS-1) motion simulator game Scramble Training has finally been made public by a pair of Sega enthusiasts, following the chance discovery of a seemingly forgotten…

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Notepad of Doom

Doom is one of the most well-known and earliest entries into successful PC gaming. Id practically invented the FPS (First Person Shooter) genre with Wolfenstein and then Doom. For years, the joke is asking if a piece of technology runs Doom. Now, we get the ultimate Doom: running in Notepad. Chris Kerr at Game Developer has more of this incredible feat. In a video uploaded to YouTube and shared on social media, creator Samperson showcased just under one minute of footage that feels like a flickering, greyscale fever dream.  Although they didn’t break down their process, Samperson explained the footage isn’t sped…

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Minecraft Rule Change Collapses NFT Community

Minecraft, one of the most popular and longest-lasting games out there, made an interesting rule change earlier this year: no integrations with NFTs would be allowed anymore. To many (or even most) players of Minecraft, this would likely be no big deal. But to a few who parlayed their servers into a play-to-earn model, the results would be disastrous. That is how I came across this fascinating story by Neirin Gray Desai at Rest of World. Desai recounts the story of how one savvy player established his own server, used NFTs to create an in-world currency, and make money doing…

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Sony’s Coming for Meta with PSVR2

Facebook Meta isn’t the only game in town when it comes to virtual reality. In an approach based in… reality, Sony is developing their second PSVR hardware for the application people would actually use: playing games. Sony released its first edition of the Playstation VR add-on to the PS4 back in 2016. While it was not a massive success, it was good enough to do what they promised. PSVR allowed for immersive gaming using only a pair of Move controllers, the PS Camera, and your existing PS4. Out the door, the entire kit (minus the PS4) was only $300. This…

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An Atari Lookback

Atari was a fascinating company, responsible for both the rise of home video game consoles in the US and also the market crash of the same industry. The legendary 2600 was everywhere in the early 80s and there was certainly no shortage of software. The company may be a shell of itself these days, but Ben Edwards at How To Geek has a great interview with its founder Nolan Bushnell. When it came time to develop and release a more advanced home video game console with cartridges (the 2600), Atari needed capital, and Bushnell sold his company to Warner Communications.…

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About That Netflix Gaming Service

Back in November, Netflix announced it was getting into the gaming business. A slate of five titles was rolling out to start, which is really nothing. However, there was no extra charge for it. Now here we are 3/4 of a year in the future and basically, nobody’s using it. Zack Zwiezen at Kotaku has more of this not-surprising news. Data shows that less than one percent of its users are actually playing any of these games. And while the streaming giant has announced more games coming to its service, very few of its over 200 million subscribers will likely…

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Every SNES Manual Permanently Archived

One thing I love about retro gaming is the efforts to preserve history. There are many instances where someone stumbles upon a prototype or unfinished game and the community jumps on it to copy the code. Game preservation is super important because this software can be lost to time. Equally important is the literature surrounding those games. Now, thanks to Twitch streamer “Peebs”, every single English manual for the SNES has been scanned and archived for preservation. Luke Plunkett at Kotaku writes more about this achievement. I’m happy to report that, as of July 2022, the project has now completed…

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Cowabunga! TMNT Shredder’s Revenge Is Finally Here

Fresh from the sewer and re-emerging from any late-80’s / early 90’s kid’s heart, comes the long-awaited TMNT game for modern game systems. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is a modern-day take on the classic TMNT video games we saw in the arcade and on home consoles back in the day. Game publisher Dotemu announced the game all the way back in March of 2001. A trailer and some gameplay hit the internet in August and it showed how much effort was going into this game. Emulating a 16-bit style, Shredder’s Revenge takes pieces from all the different Turtles…

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The Legend of Beavis

The internet is an amazing place to mix two separate things together and create comedy. Over on YouTube, someone took a Legend of Zelda animated short and overlaid it with audio from Beavis and Butt Head. Not only does it work, but it’s quite funny. Back in the 80’s the Super Mario Bros Super Show was a massive hit. Part live action and part animated shorts, the show was a quick pulling-together of work in order to get something related to Nintendo on the small screen. One great part of the show was that on Fridays, the animated short changed…

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Pac-Mom

A funny thing happened this past week with Bandai / Namco re-releasing the classic game Pac-Land onto the Nintendo Switch. Pac superstar Miss Pac-Man was nowhere to be found. Instead she was replaced with a character named Pac-Mom and, yeah, there was confusion as to what is going on here. Kyle Orland at Ars Technica goes down the rabbit hole that is Pac-Man, the reason such an incredible sequel exists, and the convoluted copyright situation that’s come along with it all since the 80’s. While the original Pac-Man is a wholly owned Namco creation, the Ms. Pac-Man arcade cabinet started life as a “speed-up kit”…

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NF(1)T

Once again we dive into the world of NFTs. As I’ve talked about, these tokens are a huge deal in crypto circles with many using them as investments, get-rich-quick schemes, and complete rip-offs. Now we get to see the flip-side of this with the video game F1 Delta Time. This game, which bears the official F1 licence, used NFTs to sell players unique cars within the game. But now, the studio has lost its licence to F1 and the game has shut down. Players, who were spending a lot of money on these tokens, were given a whopping one day…

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Finish Him

One staple of the mid-nineties is Mortal Kombat. The arcade game took the world by storm due to its digitized fighters recorded from real actors. Oh, and there was violence galore. So it came as no surprise when a sequel came out soon thereafter. Mortal Kombat II was a phenomenon and (in my opinion) the best of the series. Midway took everything great about the first one, dialed it up to the extreme, and improved it in so many ways. Now, YouTuber Modern Vintage Gamer goes over the AI of Mortal Kombat II and how it looks like the game…

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Green Hill Zone: Act 2

A sequel to look forward to. That’s what I’ve been calling the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 movie. This was the last movie I saw in theaters and was only a short time before COVID lockdowns began. Now at a lull in the pandemic, we get the sequel. And, oh man, it looks great. The trailer looks to have a lot of faithful lifts from Sonic 2 and Sonic 3. Chaos Emeralds, Knuckles, snowboarding, red biplanes, and, of course, Miles “Tales” Prower. Luckily enough we don’t need to worry about Paramount retooling Sonic’s look this time after their disastrous Sonic look…

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Why Bother, Nintendo

For all the good Nintendo does for their products, the biggest bugaboo for them has been their online service. From the eShop being a complete mess to their online services lacking basic features, it’s something the company stumbles upon again and again. Five years after the Switch has released, they’ve come out with version 2.0 of their mobile app. Jon Porter at The Verge has more. For my money, the 2.0 update’s most interesting improvement is that it offers an easier way to find and share your friend code, the cumbersome 12-digit identifier that’s the primary way of adding friends…

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Switch At Five

It’s crazy to think the Nintendo Switch has been on the market for five years. Back in 2017, it was very much a gamble. Nobody could know it would be a massive success over and over. Nintendo has rebounded from the Wii U years incredibly well. I personally bought my Switch at launch and fell in love immediately. The biggest change Nintendo made this generation was making sure there was a constant release of games. That (among other reasons) was a big reason for the Wii U’s failure. Over on Endgadget, they go over some of their favorite games for…

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Meta-less VR

With all the hullabaloo about the metaverse and Facebook Meta pitching it non-stop, it is a breath of fresh air to see a VR announcement that doesn’t come from Zuckerberg. Sony revealed the second iteration of their Playstation VR system that will release later this year. Kyle Orland from Ars Technica has more. As far as significant design changes, the PSVR2 will now offer a lens adjustment dial that can slide each lens side to side in order to match the player’s interpupillary distance. Getting a good match there can be key to providing a sharp focus and preventing eye strain…