In an industry where games barely even a month old are slashed in price then swiftly forgotten, World of Warcraft is an exceptional, well, exception. The game, which turned seven yesterday, was first announced back in 2001. For it to be still played today isn’t just mind-exploding, it’s a testament to how addictive and successful…
WARNING: This post contains mild Modern Warfare 3 spoilers. Video games are all about the carrot and the stick. You endure repetitive tasks in order to receive just enough of a reward to compel you to complete more repetitive tasks. Why, then, do so few games ever let you get your hands on the carrot…
Last week wasn’t just the tenth anniversary of the Xbox. It was the tenth anniversary of the North American release of the Nintendo GameCube as well. While the system was home to my favourite game of all time (Wind Waker), and because of the time in my life in which it dominated it ranks as…
The Xbox is ten years old this week. For those who have enjoyed playing games on either the original console or its successor the Xbox 360, it’s a time for heartfelt congratulations. For Sega fans, it’s a time for warm, if slightly tragic, reflection. By the time the Xbox was released in November 2001, Sega’s…
They don’t seem that similar aside from the fact they’re printed on cards, and they were never really competition, either, but in October 2003 that didn’t stop the companies behind Magic Cards and Pokémon battling somewhere other than the tabletop or the schoolyard. This story begins in the late 1990s, when role-playing giants Wizards of…
Later this week, the fifth game in the Elder Scrolls series will be released. Considering the franchise is seventeen years old, that’s not many Elder Scrolls games! It’s been quality over quantity, though, and over the years the series has sought to continuously evolve and improve, staying a perennial favourite while competing games come and…
In 1987, Durell Software released a game called Saboteur II: Avenging Angel. Don’t worry if you haven’t played the original Saboteur, because no prior knowledge will be required for this post. What will be required is an appreciation for awesome game settings and even awesomer box art. Both Saboteur games were designed by Clive Townsend,…
Activision’s Call of Duty franchise occupies a fascinating place in the gaming landscape. It is the world’s biggest-selling annual series, yet each year offers only incremental improvements. It is beloved by millions, yet derided by many as well. Its production values bring out the best in video games, while its online multiplayer community often brings…
It’s fashionable these days to hate Activision. But those over the age of, say, 30-35 may be old enough to remember the time the company went above and beyond the call of duty to keep its fans happy with all kinds of touching gestures. The coolest of which, by far, was the company’s practice of…
The Nintendo Entertainment System, and its Japanese sibling the Famicom, were two of the most successful video game consoles to ever be released. Which led to a lot of, let’s say, imitators. OK, no, let’s say complete unlicensed rip-offs. But we’re not here to tut tut and point fingers. Today, we’re going to celebrate some…
Later this week, the asteroid YU55 will pass close to the Earth. How close? Like, between the moon and the Earth close. PC gamers may remember the last time this happened, in 1995. Back then, it was the asteroid Attila, and unlike YU55 – which should pass by harmlessly – it was headed straight for…
The third game in the Uncharted series is out this week, and will once again bring to the fore the adventures of a man in sloppy clothing climbing all over stuff while stealing priceless artefacts. Which takes me back. Not the the first two Uncharted games. Way back. To the series that tipped its hat…
You’ve seen the bad of the Street Fighter craze of the early 90s. Now see the good. No, not good. Amazing In this clip, from 1993 movie City Hunter, we see martial arts superstar Jackie Chan take a bit of a beating. After which he starts seeing things. Namely, characters from Street Fighter II. Then…
We rarely get to see the process by which a video game is pitched to a publisher, even today in an age of developer diaries and all-access marketing. It’s even rarer we get to see how a game was pitched all the way back in the early 90s. Yet that’s what we’re getting a look…
The first Battlefield game, Battlefield 1942, was released in 2002. Nearly ten years ago! Yet while it was the first game to bear the branding that lives on to this day with Battlefield 3, depending on how you look at it, it’s not really the first game in the series. That honour goes to a…
You have died of dysentery. These are five words familiar to anyone who has attempted to caulk a wagon and ford rivers en route to the Willamette Valley. Oregon Trail not only taught generations of kids about Western migration in 19th-century America, it also familiarized them with various strange-sounding diseases. Let’s catch up with some…
The year was 1993. Street Fighter was one of the biggest things on the planet, and venerable toy franchise GI Joe…wasn’t. In an effort to boost Joe’s sales, Hasbro figured creating action figures based on Street Fighter would be a really good idea! It wasn’t. Between 1993 and 1994, Capcom and Hasbro teamed up to…
Vietnam is a war that still looms large in the American psyche, both in terms of its impact on modern history and its portrayal in popular culture. Yet for all the protests, rock n’ roll and classic films that came out of the war, good Vietnam video games are hard to find. This is mostly…
Forget many of the more modern “arcades”, full of skill-testers and UFO catchers. Sometimes you just want to play something old, vintage, with wood-panelling and a faded marquee. An arcade game with history Sadly, classic arcades are hard to come by these days. So here’s how to find one. Carly Kocurek’s detailed map seeks to…
Around the turn of the millennium, Namco showed off an arcade game that looked like it had fallen out of the 22nd century. Housed in a giant cabinet called O.R.B.S., it was a sequel to old-school shooter Star Blade, and could have been just the kind of thing the dying arcade scene was in need…
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