Culture Archives - Page 1547 of 1557

Guild Wars 2, Your Art is Simply Beautiful

I usually don’t play MMOs. Never played Guild Wars, may never play its upcoming sequel either. But boy, I could look at this concept art for Guild Wars 2 all day long. These are all the work of artist Levi Hopkins, who has been toiling away on the series and its various campaigns for a…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 19, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

My Favourite Nintendo Console Wasn’t Even Made by Nintendo

We’re going to get a little personal today on Total Recall, and take a look at my favourite Nintendo console of all time. Not the best, not the biggest-selling, just…my favourite. And that console is the Panasonic Q, a machine sadly never made commercially available in the West. The Q, a very fancy version of…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 19, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

When Mario Had a Best-Selling…Book?

Mario has gone through three distinct phases of super popularity. One in the early 90’s. One is seemingly just on the wane, born of the success of his games on the DS and Wii. The other, though, was in the mid-80’s. The fat plumber was so popular then that he didn’t just have a best-selling…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 18, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

The Atari Games That Became Comic Book Heroes

While we normally associate multimedia cash-ins as a recent phenomenon, the practice of spinning games off into other mediums dates back decades. One of the earliest examples of this is the Atari Force line of comic books. While most adaptations of games are expected to be based on the events or characters in the actual…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 17, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

The Beautiful Art of Arcade Video Games

Since for most of arcade gaming’s heyday graphics weren’t exactly easy on the eye, to lure customers in companies often had to rely on artwork to make a sale. The biggest, grandest works were reserved for the side of the cabinet, but since they usually weren’t seen (with machines stacked side-by-side), it was the “marquee”…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 16, 2011

Culture

Here’s the Juice

Rockstar’s cop thriller L.A. Noire dominates this coming Tuesday, though RPG enthusiasts on the PC will want to take note of The Witcher 2. For those picking up Noire two DLC extensions are available the day of release via PSN and Xbox Live. Clarification: These extensions are preorder premiums; they are not DLC available for…

By Owen Good Published May 15, 2011

Culture

Sunday Comics

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. Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published May 9. – Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira published May 9. – Read more of Nerf…

By Owen Good Published May 15, 2011

Culture

This Week in the Business: “Extraordinary Losses”

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week… QUOTE | “Extraordinary losses.” – Square Enix describes its unfortunate financial state (losses this year to near $200 million) partially due to the Japanese earthquake disaster. QUOTE | “Or they will lose developers.” – PixelJunk creator Dylan Cuthbert warns of developers jumping ship from…

James Brightman | IndustryGamers.com Published May 13, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

The Day the Secret Service Raided a Role-Playing Game Company

Steve Jackson Games is a company well known for its tabletop RPGs and card games. An innocent enough trade, then, so why in 1990 were its offices raided by the United States Secret Service? It wasn’t because SJG’s products were somehow illegal, or that the company was peddling counterfeit currency. It was because, at the…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 13, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

The HD Console Game From…1993?

While most people would peg the beginning of the high definition era around the time of the PlayStation 2 (some games able to run in 1080i), here’s one game that was running in HD nearly twenty years ago It’s Hudson’s Hi-Ten Bomberman, which has the honour of being the world’s very first high definition video…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 12, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

This Might be the Weirdest Game Boy Game Ever Made

Over the decades, there were plenty of kooky Game Boy games released in both Japan and the West. Plenty of strange accessories, too, from cameras to printers to blood glucose monitors. But 2001’s Mario Family was especially kooky. Why? Because it was a cartridge designed not to be played, but to be plugged into a…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 11, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

Old Consoles: The Illustrated Edition

We’ve looked at the design of old consoles a few times lately here on Total Recall, in particular my fetish for those with faux wood panelling, but today we’re looking at something a little different. These illustrations, by German artist Sebastian Koch, show a variety of old consoles from the 1970’s. Specifically, those built just…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 10, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

Behind the Scenes of the Most Disappointing Game Movie Ever Made

Considering its budget, the popularity of the franchise and its accomplished cast, 1993’s Super Mario Bros. is—relatively—surely the most disappointing video game movie of all time. Still, train wreck that it is, we can’t help but keep on looking at it, even after all these years. And today we’re getting a real good look, with…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 9, 2011

Culture

Brought to the Brink

The long-awaited futuristic FPS Brink highlights this week of releases, promising quadrillions of unique characters – no really. If that hurts your brain, try MX vs. ATV, LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean or Virtua Tennis. Tuesday Brink (360, PC, PS3)-The free-running FPS pits two factions in a battle for control of The Ark, a once-utopic…

By Owen Good Published May 8, 2011

Culture

Sunday Comics

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. Another Videogame Webcomic did not publish this week Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published May 1. – Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira…

By Owen Good Published May 8, 2011

Culture

This Week In The Business: “Difficult to Excuse.”

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week… QUOTE | “Peaked in some respects.” – M2 Research’s Billy Pidgeon on the status of Xbox 360 in the market and the chances that Microsoft announces new hardware at E3 2012 QUOTE | “The market opportunity is there.” – THQ boss Brian Farrell talks…

By Drew Cohen Published May 6, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

Thank You, Star Wars, For All These Awesome Games

May 4 is Star Wars Day, in honour of, well, the fact “May the 4th” sounds a bit like “May the force…”. Silly, I know, but it also gives us a chance to look back on the amazing video games the sci-fi franchise has given us over the years. And by years, I should really…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 5, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

A Tribute to the Glory of Wood-Panelled Video Game Consoles

These could sit comfortably in a commercial for cigarettes or a fine Scotch

By Luke Plunkett Published May 4, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

The Father Of Video Games Fled The Nazis, Fought Them Then Took All Their Guns

Ralph Baer is widely acknowledged to be the “father of video games”, thanks to his work in the 1960’s pioneering the device that would become the Magnavox Odyssey, the world’s first ever video game console. Unlike most men and women in the industry today, though, his background is not that of a comfortable middle-class kid.…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 3, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

Metal Gear Was Born On Microsoft’s Great Japanese Success

Microsoft and video games are a bit of a running joke in Japan these days. After a decade of trying (and failing) with the Xbox, the company just can’t seem to win the Japanese public over. It wasn’t always that way, however. Indeed, in the 1980’s, Microsoft produced a surprisingly successful games platform, one that…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 2, 2011