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Destroy Satan and Escape From Hades? Sounds Simple Enough.

I remember Ghosts ‘N Goblins being about two things: underpants and skeletons. Mostly about underpants. It’s easy to forget amidst all the cheesy humour of the game, then, that it had a fairly brutal premise. I mean, it’s not like destroying Satan himself and then escaping the netherworld of Hades is tough enough. No, there…

By Luke Plunkett Published August 2, 2012

CultureTotal Recall

Show Today’s Kids a 1980s Computer and, Well, Yeah

The Commodore 64 turned 30 this week. As the firs video game platform my family ever owned, it will always have a very special place in my heart. But I was born in 1980. What do kids born in the 21st century think of the machine? The BBC and C64 fan Mat Allen went to…

By Luke Plunkett Published August 2, 2012

Culture

Concept Art From Guild Wars, Halo and Beyond

Meet Thomas Scholes. Well, meet his art. An illustrator and concept artist who has worked at 343 Studios, ArenaNet and Disney, he’s now a freelancer who can draw some of the nicest pieces of environment art around. In the gallery below you’ll see examples of his work on games like Halo 4 and Guild Wars…

By Luke Plunkett Published August 1, 2012

CultureTotal Recall

GameStop’s Trade-In Program, the 1993 Edition

Here’s a flyer for Electronics Boutique’s (now part of GameStop) fledgling trade-in scheme, which not only warns you that the program could end at any time (oh no!), but demands you bring the instructions in. No manual, no trade-in. Compared to the “sure we’ll take any old piece of shit” policy the company has now,…

By Luke Plunkett Published August 1, 2012

CultureTotal Recall

The Only Game Where You’ll Find James Bond, Capcom and Rob Lowe in the One Place

You don’t need me to tell you how awful most FMV games from the 1990s were. But amidst the wreckage of bad racing games and even worse adventure games, I have a soft spot for Fox Hunt. Mostly because, over 15 years later, I can only now appreciate how batshit crazy the whole thing was.…

By Luke Plunkett Published August 1, 2012

Culture

The Art Of Jaime Jones

I’m in love. This is the art of Jaime Jones, an illustrator and concept artist who has worked for clients like Bungie, Blizzard, Wizards of the Coast and Warner Bros. It’s pretty damn special. Lovers of Fine Art may have already caught a glimpse of his work previously, in these Guild Wars 2 clips, but…

By Luke Plunkett Published July 31, 2012

CultureTotal Recall

How Video Game Development Has Changed Over the Past Twenty Years

The video game business isn’t what it used to be. You know that as a gamer, but what you my find even more interesting is the way it’s changed for those actually involved in making the games. Cory Bloyd is a veteran programmer who works at Munkyfun, and who had previously done stuff like helping…

By Luke Plunkett Published July 31, 2012

CultureTotal Recall

Konami’s Cheat to Get Around a Silly Nintendo Rule

Did you know that, before 1993, Nintendo of America had a rule that limited the number of games a publisher could release on one of it systems? Yup. In a calendar year a publisher, or “licensee”, could only release five games. No more. It was a rule with its heart in the right place: the…

By Luke Plunkett Published July 31, 2012

Culture

From Making Star Wars Scenes to Making His Own Animated Movie

Lance Myers has been working in the games industry for well over a decade now, mostly in the field of animation. While he’s currently at Spacetime helping on the upcoming Arcane Legends, his last role was at BioWare, where he worked as a storyboard artist for Old Republic’s cinematic sequences. Before that, though, he worked…

By Luke Plunkett Published July 30, 2012

Culture

The Week in Games: Say It Three Times Fast

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance on the 3DS headlines another light midsummer week. Other names arriving Tuesday include the Risen and Orcs Must Die! sequels. On Wednesday, Awesomenauts comes to Steam and Deadlight continues the Summer of Arcade on Xbox Live. Tuesday • Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance (3DS) • Risen 2: Dark Waters (PS3,…

By Owen Good Published July 29, 2012

Culture

Sunday Comics: The Bad Old Days

Welcome to your Sunday read of the week’s best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic. Legacy Control by Javis Ray published July 25.—Read more of Legacy Control Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published July 23.—Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!! by…

By Owen Good Published July 29, 2012

Culture

This Week in the Business: ‘Nintendo’s on Track to Become Primarily a Software Company’

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “Nintendo’s on track to become primarily a software company.”—Bing Gordon, investor and EA veteran, weighs in on the business strategy and future for the house that Mario built QUOTE | “PCs are far more user-friendly than consoles.”—Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli talking…

By James Brightman Published July 28, 2012

CultureTotal Recall

EA’s Best Game of the 1990s Also Had the Worst Acting

People bug EA all the time to bring back vintage old series like Wing Commander, Road Rash and Jungle Strike. All great games, and all worthy of t least a token attempt at mmodernisation. But there’s one game that, for whatever reason, is always left out. Forgotten. And that’s EA’s Crusader series. The first game…

By Luke Plunkett Published July 27, 2012

CultureTotal Recall

The Awkward Charms of a 1984 TV Show About PC Gaming

This is an episode from Computer Chronicles, a dusty old TV show about…computers. This one is all about games, and features appearances from guys like Atari legend Chris Crawford, EA founder Trip Hawkins and even a guy from Activision. What’s great is that, being a show that’s normally about computers anyway, it doesn’t have the…

By Luke Plunkett Published July 27, 2012

Culture

Fantasy Art so Beautiful it Should be Painted on a Crumbling Old Church

Michael C. Hayes is a fantasy illustrator whose work may be familiar to fans of Magic: The Gathering. He’s also worked with Sony Online Entertainment on the Legends of Norrath franchise. Hayes’ work is, well, beautiful. Unlike most other artists we feature here on Fine Art, who specialise in dark environment pieces, basic character art…

By Luke Plunkett Published July 27, 2012

CultureTotal Recall

Mario’s First Kart Was, Well, a Little Crap

I’m guessing this is an advertisement of some sort for NES Open Tournament Golf or, as it was known in Japan, Mario Open Golf, a Nintendo Entertainment/Famicom golf game first released in 1991 One of the earliest attempts by Nintendo to shoehorn its platforming characters into a console sports game, it’s perhaps notable these days…

By Luke Plunkett Published July 26, 2012

CultureFeature

The Awesome Japanese Models Behind 2012’s Coolest Shooter

Kow Yokoyama's Maschinen Krieger casts a long shadow

By Luke Plunkett Published July 25, 2012

CultureTotal Recall

Let’s All Read This Terrific 1992 Star Fox Comic

If you think everything Nintendo did in the early 1990s outside actual video games sucked, well, no! Sure, there were some awful TV shows, but not everything was bad. This Star Fox comic, for example, was great. It ran in Nintendo Power magazine in 1992, and had – considering the scale of the project –…

By Luke Plunkett Published July 25, 2012

CultureTotal Recall

Gamers “Really Loved Killing” Lara Croft, Because She Was a “Strong” Character

There’s an interesting interview with Toby Gard, the creator of Tomb Raider, over on Critical Path’s site. And it reminds us that, for all the platitudes heaped on the series for portraying a strong female character, the fact is a lot of men enjoyed playing as just such a woman for the wrong reasons. Eerily,…

By Luke Plunkett Published July 25, 2012

Culture

How The First Death Star Was Built

You see the Death Star being built in Revenge of the Sith, but only from a distance. You see the second Death Star under construction during Return of the Jedi, but you don’t actually see it being constructed. There’s no extended footage of imperial workers swinging space hammers, popping galactic rivets or doubling their efforts.…

By Luke Plunkett Published July 24, 2012