Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold may go down in the annals of gaming history as one of the most-ill timed releases to ever occur. On December 3rd 1993, Apogee would publish Jam Productions’ Blake Stone. The following week, on December 10th, ID Software’s juggernaut DOOM would be released to the world. If we look back on the history of both games, they would seem forever destined to collide.
Hello and welcome to The Gaming Historian!
DLC seems to be a hot topic in gaming these days. At E3 2012, it was probably one of the most used terms at the conference. Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony all have their own ways to provide downloadable content to gamers. Atari had their own way too….back in 1983! It was called GameLine.
GameLine is the brainchild of William von Meister (what a name!), an entrepeneur who began in the cable industry. It initially began as a way to provide music to cable companies (via satellite). When the record industry stepped in and threatened legal trouble, the cable companies said “no thanks” to Meister. Looking for a way to use his new technology, he founded Control Video Corporation (CVC) and created GameLine.
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Greetings readers! The Fair Shake train is now boarding. Please have your tickets ready. Carl is collecting them as you board. The destination is actually fairly obscure this week, as we’ll be entering the realm of the Aquarius Home Computer System. No, I am not referring to the excellent song by The Fifth Dimension, but there was indeed a computer system released under the name “Aquarius”, by none other than Mattel Electronics. Immediately before the video game crash of 1983, seemingly everyone wanted to be involved in video games. (Heck, Purina Dog Chow had a game made for them.)
You know what’s a good Steven Spielberg movie? Jaws. And you know what’s not a very good Steven Spielberg movie game? JAWS.
The NES game has been reviewed countless times, even AVGN had a crack at it, but I thought I should give my take on the LJN effort following the re-release of Jaws in the UK this week.
I get grumpy e-mails from gamers all the time. Comes with the territory.
Recently I got a pretty harsh e-mail for the statement that the original Halo was a classic game. First thing in the morning, coffee still brewing, toast still toasting, I sat and read a scathing e-mail calling me some pretty unsavory names for daring to use the term “classic” with something so “new” to gaming.
I’m saddened by such thinking. A game doesn’t have to be from 1982 to be considered a classic, and the industry itself has often agreed, going right back to the NES.
The year is 1976, the United States and Soviet Union are in the midst of the Cold War and the economy is shit. So a bunch of nerds decide to make a video game, give the middle finger to the commies, and save America. Such is the power of video games in general, but Breakout in particular. Thankfully for Atari 2600 owners, we only had to wait 2 years for our port so that we too could support freedom and stuff.
Shake, jump, and throw your way to victory in the oddball world of Mischief Makers in this week’s Retro Lookback.
With Remedy Entertainment’s release of Death Rally (2011) for iOS and Android, perhaps it’s time to go back and see what made the original Death Rally (1996) such a good game, and a prime candidate for a mobile revival.
Death Rally, a top-down arcade style racer, is at its core, a greatest hits collection of emerging mid-90’s gaming conventions. Weaponized vehicles, killable bystanders, and upgradeable equipment are all here in mid-90’s DOS glory. Being an Apogee published game, there’s even a cameo by the one and only Duke Nukem. Remedy’s choice to resurrect this franchise for modern mobile devices was seemingly an easy one. The game is simple, and above all, it’s a ton of fun.
Hope all you non ambassadors are ready to play catchup this week, because this week Nintendo is gifting us with the sequel to its first smash game. The question is, has Donkey Kong Jr. stood the test of time like the original? Find out after the break.
Originally written for the Atari 400/800 and published in 1983 by Electronic Arts, M.U.L.E. was an influential multiplayer video game that still maintains a following in the retro gaming community today. In fact, M.U.L.E. was Electronic Arts’ first big ‘hit’ and really helped form the publisher. With versions on the Commodore 64, Nintendo Entertainment System, and other computers and consoles, this planetary colonization economic simulator has struck a fond chord with thousands upon thousands of different gamers over the years.
One of those people was Christopher Williamson, who is now involved with creating an officially licensed sequel to M.U.L.E. I wanted to ask him some questions about this endeavor, called Alpha Colony: A Tribute To M.U.L.E., and am grateful for the time taken out of his busy schedule to answer them.
Hello and welcome to The Gaming Historian!
Today I’m talking about Donkey Kong (again). What can I say? The history behind this game is so significant that the stories could be made into a movie. I’ve done a lot of research on the Universal vs. Nintendo Case (which dealt with a copyright on King Kong), so this encouraged me to look into other court cases involving Nintendo. Little did I know that Donkey Kong was involved in another legal battle, and this one was probably even worse.
Greetings readers! Kick open the virtual doors of “The Fair Shake” and come inside. Our sodium enhanced character above now has a name: Carl. I thank all of you for your name ideas. Sam almost won out, but I felt that Carl was unexpected, so I invite everyone to say hello to Carl, the gaming salt shaker. The Fair Shake is not bound to console games, but will also cover computer games, as in this week’s choice.
The Atari 8 bit computer line was introduced with the Atari 400 in 1979. Initially, specifications for the system was not available to the public. Atari had never intended to release this information as they wished to be the sole provider of software. Over a period of months and years, programmers, both professional and amateur programmers learned how to write on the Atari systems. In 1981, Atari provided a service, known as the Atari Program Exchange (APX), which was a win/win for both Atari and programmers, as programmers now had an official distribution channel to sell their programs and Atari received a small portion of each sale. The most popular title to come out of the APX is this weeks game, Caverns of Mars. Caverns of Mars was programmed by a high school student, Greg Christensen. This game was so well received that a few years later it was released as an actual cartridge game for the 8 bit family.
You go nuts trying to find a game weird enough, obscure enough and relevant enough that it’s both interesting to talk about and ties in nicely to a recent movie release, and when something finally pops up you end up regretting ever opening that Pandora’s box.
Damn you Snow White & The Huntsman for making me hunt down the only Snow White retro game I could find: Snow White: Happily Ever After on the Super Nintendo.
The rare game is based not on the 1937 Disney classic but on the 1993 unofficial sequel by Filmation, whose theatrical release prior to that was BraveStarr: The Legend (lol). Filmation actually closed down a year later, the film being the equivalent of suicide for animation studios it seems. So how do you celebrate a movie that’s not very good?
With a not very good game tie-in of course!
So you wanna be the very best, like no one ever was? Well, to catch them is your real test; to train them is your cause.
This week in Character RETROspect, we’re going to reflect upon the cross-country travels of a young boy named Red, and ponder why in the world his mother is okay with him leaving home at his age to attempt to become the Indigo League Champion.
Released in 1983, designed by Steve “my last name proves I was born to do this for a living” Cartwright, commissioned by the American Dental Association to help promote good dental hygiene to the youth of America, and developed and published by Activision before its evil megacorp days, Plaque Attack is a really stupid idea for a game that somehow manages to be really stupid fun. It’s weird.
Every week, Chris Kunka (@nesdude) unearths a retro gaming gem that was largely missed. While you may not have played it, Chris is here to tell you why it deserves a second shot. This week – Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon.
By now, I’m sure everyone is aware of the success of the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter. If not, Tim Schafer (Monkey Island, Psychonauts, etc.) and Double Fine created a Kickstarter with a goal of raising $400,000 so that they could make a a point and click adventure game, a genre that was seemingly deemed dead. Surprisingly though, they eventually surpassed their goal, raising over $3 million, and thus, the Kickstarter craze was born. Since Double Fine’s success, we have seen many people and many games try to achieve funding. However, one of the more interesting projects has been Chris Jones’ Tex Murphy – Project Fedora.
Tex Murphy, for those of you who don’t recall, was a series of detective games that reigned in popularity from the late 80’s to late 90’s. Utilizing FMV (full motion video), you would guide Tex Murphy through the post-apocalyptic noir stylings of post-WW3 San Francisco as he tracked down criminals, and struggled to get by. The Kickstarter, of course, is a bid to get a new Tex Murphy game made.
To learn about this, and Tex himself, I got hold of creator Chris Jones.
Well, that was quick. Nintendo announced Prince of Persia was coming sometime this summer at E3, and here it is. Find out of this port of the classic game is worth its asking price in the full review after the break.
Hello and welcome to The Gaming Historian!
I’m assuming most people reading this right now know who Mario is. If you don’t, you might be on the wrong website. After the huge success of Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Mario became Nintendo’s official mascot, and development of new Mario games became a big deal. But before all the success, Mario was just another character at Nintendo.
Nintendo.com has an article about the development of Punch-Out!! on their “Iwata Asks” series. In the article, Shigeru Miyamoto claims “We didn’t have an approval system when using Mario images back then.” Thus, any development team could sneak a cameo of their favorite character into NES games, no matter how poorly drawn they were! So let’s take a look back at some of Mario’s lesser known appearances on the NES.
Greetings readers! Once again, welcome to “The Fair Shake”. As you can see above, I now have a wonderfully illustrated logo for my little electronic lean-to here at 1More Castle. Massive amounts of thanks once again go to my artistically gifted friend, Joshua Reinke. I think our gaming salt shaker needs a name, so I have an idea. Best name listed in the comments below will be chosen!