Aggro Sky

Aggro Sky grew up netting tropical fish and eating mostly home grown organic fruits and vegetables. He received an Atari 2600 from his uncle when he was a mere 3 years old and progressed on to pretty much every major gaming platform since. He would like to inform everyone that the Sega Genesis is "God" and that you can follow him on Twitter @zfunk007 or read some of his other writings on Gamers Only Older or his blog at: http://zfunk007.tumblr.com/ which contains links to all of his work. He resides in sunny South Florida with his wife and 3 cats and has no plans for procreation.

The Completist

The End: A Brief History of Video Game Endings

Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,

That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

The end is bittersweet, especially when it’s something you love, but alas, there is no escaping the eventual conclusion to all things. If you look at the humble beginnings of video games however, you may notice an interesting tendency. In the early days, most, if not all games had no predefined ending. Other than the “game over” screen, the player would generally spend their time chasing a high score in a loop ad infinitum. You could argue that a game over screen is an ending in of itself, but have a computer play Pong “perfectly” and the game could technically go on until our sun goes supernova. Pong, or Space Invaders, or Spacewar, or pretty much every game pre 1980 were not designed to be “beaten,” but simply played, products of limited resources in an antiquated era.
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Gaming Soliloquy

Night of the Living MoonWalker

*Authors Note*

With the recent release of “Xscape”, I felt the need to go back. Way back. To Michael Jackson in his prime. Love him or hate him, he is an icon like no other. A tortured and flawed soul to be sure, but a musical genius as well. That genius has had an indescribable influence on my life and I want to share it with everyone. There will be no hate here. Hating is too easy and every fool has done their fair share of that (myself included). I’d rather celebrate love, great music and a totally wacky video game. If it weren’t for MJ, it is doubtful I would have the love of music that I experience today. And on that note, there is only one Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, and there is truly nothing else like it.

Gaming Soliloquy

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Shoddiness of Mediocrity

Upon sitting down one night with my highly inspired other half, I attempted the question:

“Honey, would you like to play a game?”

“Yes!” She gleamed.

Gaming Soliloquy

Road Rash: Solace In A Time of War

The senseless beating of bikers in a war with the road. Angry cops on an impassioned mission of pursuit. Fiercely expedited rice burning motorcycles with a flair for the flamboyant. These are the reasons we rash with the road. Or more appropriately, the reason we Road Rash.

The Completist

Into The Sunset

I would like to dedicate this article to Ivano Palmentieri. A better man than I.

I’d also like to recommend everyone check out and support the wonderful work being done at Flappy Jam. It’s the indy gaming community at its finest.

Storming The Castle

The Fall and Rise of Flappy Bird

This week on Storming the Castle, our group members Zack Smith, Paul Potvin, Johnny de Alba and Alex Weiss ALL team up to bring you our thoughts and ruminations (and a video!) on one of the biggest gaming phenomenons of 2014: Flappy Bird! Love it or hate it, the game is an enigma. C’mon! You know you’ve played it! Everyone has! So what’s all the fuss about? Lets find out!

Storming The Castle

Forget Everything You Know About Retro Consoles

This week on Storming the Castle, we decided to tackle the age old question: What makes a video game console “Retro”? This question has been tackled before by many, but rather than give you a one sided perspective from a single person, we opted to give you three independent perspectives which may or may not coexist in the same macrocosm.

The Completist

“Adventure” for the Atari 2600: The Skyrim of its Day

What’s this you say? An Atari 2600 game? Featured as a Completist column? Strange to be sure… However, since the chances of me writing an article on an Atari 2600 game are close to zero, I found it appropriate to bring in my friend Rizzard Core (his real name is Rich, shhhhhhhh) to do the job for me. I’m just feeling a bit lazy this week, what can I say?

The Completist

The Ultimate, Most Comprehensive Ecco the Dolphin Feature Ever Written

Storming The Castle

Guest Review: Hebereke/U-four-ia “The Saga”

Storming The Castle

Shroud of the Avatar: The “Ultimate” Ultima, Pre-Alpha Impressions

Come one come all! To the world of Ultima! That’s right: Ultima. One of the greatest, if not the greatest RPG series of all time. Created by none other than space faring, gold jewellery wearing, eccentric superman “Lord British” himself. Or as he’s called in real life: “Richard Garriott.” For God sake! This man went to S-P-A-C-E! AND he designs video games! How awesome is that? After all, in Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress, your entire goal was to eventually blast into space at the end of the game. Talk about foreshadowing…

The Completist

The Completist Presents: Ecco the Dolphin – Part 1, An Introduction

Zack Smith is a fellow writer on 1MoreCastle, who is also a member of the Storm the Castle writer’s guild. When I found out about his passion for aquatic life, I was a little shocked that he had very little experience with Ecco the Dolphin. After all, he runs his own business maintaining aquariums for customers. Earlier this year, he even went scuba diving in his home state of Florida. It’s not very often I meet people who have a life and play video games simultaneously. Admittedly, I program, play video games, and have no life. So by challenging Zack to play this game, I wanted to get his perspective on how accurate the game is in relation to actual sea life and his overall experience as well. Which begs the question: Which Ecco the Dolphin would I have Zack play? The best one ever made of course: No, not the PC version, the Sega CD version!

Storming The Castle

Creature Shock: A Round Table Discussion

This week on “Storming the Castle”, we would like to present to you a trifecta of terror. That’s right, three unique perspectives in a round table discussion on the early 90’s Sci-Fi/Horror themed DOS game: “Creature Shock.” What? You haven’t heard of it? Yeah, it is rather obscure and depending on what source you believe, it is either the worst game ever made or a cult classic.

The Completist

The Completist Presents: The Streets of Rage Series – Part 1

Wife: “She kicks.”

Zack: “She kicks? What do you mean by, she kicks?”

Wife: “I’m telling you, she kicks.”

The Completist

The Completist Presents: The Guardian Legend – Part 2

Just a word of warning before I begin:

The Completist

The Completist Presents: The Guardian Legend – Part 1

I would like to start out by getting something off my chest: I had a really rough time writing this article. The reason being that I am attempting to honor one of my most cherished experiences in video games. Normally, I would just start typing and my column tends to write itself. But this game deserves so much more than that. And with that goal in mind, I set out to do something really special. Which lead me to my first problem: I got my first ever case of writers block. Days went by where I just couldn’t bring myself to write a single word. You’d think that writing about a game that you consider to be one of the greatest of all time would be easy right? As it turns out, it isn’t. I wanted everything to be perfect and I wanted to honor this game in a way that it has never been honored before, anywhere on the internet.

The Completist

The Completist Presents: Metroid – A Love Letter to Samus Aran

Metroid! Need I say more? Why would I bother writing about a game that has been written about pretty much ad infinitum? Even by myself no less! It’s simple, I once again feel like I have something constructive to add to the conversation about this incredible game. Not only that, but I also feel like 1 More Castle needs an injection of Metroid into its veins. Tom Hall wrote a nice piece about how the N64 needed a Metroid game. And Eric Congdon wrote an interesting piece on the character of Samus herself. But other than that, there isn’t much else on Metroid here. I plan on changing that right now and probably again in the future.

The Completist

The Completist Presents: Star Control 2

Hello everyone. This week, I have decided to switch things up a bit. I have invited my brother Dana to write about one of our favourite games of all time. Why am I not doing it myself? Simple, I am not qualified. My brother on the other hand probably knows more about this game than anyone else on earth. The game I am talking about is of course: Star Control 2. Which by the way, was covered very nicely by Paul Potvin in a previous column here at 1 More Castle. The main difference between these articles will be the length and detail. While Paul’s article was a nice “summary” of the game, this article is going to be more of a full length feature. One thing I will be contributing to this piece though is the captioning of the photos and the editing. So if you find some funny slang underneath a picture of some Ur-Quan scum, you’ll know who wrote it.

The Completist

The Completist Presents: Batman and the Bullies of Gotham

A gentle breeze whisked through my hair. The sun hit my face like a kaleidoscope of warmth, shifting through the gently blowing leaves all around me. I was 50 feet high, at the top of a giant oak tree which sat in the front of my friend Bryan’s heavily wooded lot. Like Batman on his dark Gotham spire, I was perched atop my tower, watching for the half baked criminals of my neighborhood to wander from their dark corners and into my sight. I was Batman and I was ready to pounce. Or so I thought. Because honestly, when your 10 years old, you are a super hero in your own mind.

The Completist

The Completist Presents: Ninja Gaiden – A Lesson In Insanity

It was June, 1989. I had just finished 4th grade and as Alice Cooper so eloquently put it, school was out for the summer! Those long, hot days in my youth were frequently spent outdoors, climbing trees, building forts in the thorny palmetto’s, exploring the dung filled cow pasture near my neighborhood or doing what most Floridians do in the summer; going to the beach. However, on the days where I wasn’t getting that “Call of the Wild” I found myself craving some downtime with my Nintendo Entertainment System, or in this case, five of them. Now, I know what you are thinking. I must have been one spoiled brat to own five Nintendo’s! Well, that wasn’t exactly the case.

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