The feeling of emptiness – I assume most of us have felt this at some point in our lives, but the character of Samus Aran may be an individual that feels a level of emptiness that we will never experience; Samus must consistently endure a never-ending onslaught of enemies whilst being completely on her own traversing distant planets.
Samus is the focus this week in Character RETROspect as we take a look at her origins, as well as her earlier missions.
Some games start and you just know instantly you’re in for something special.
Case and point: Kid Chameleon.
Wreck-It Ralph may just have put a new term into our already overcrowded video game vernacular.
“Going Turbo” is a term coined in the film with the backstory of Turbo, the star of a fictional classic racing game called TurboTime, getting upset at a newer racing game and breaking the code by travelling over to it. The character and artwork on TurboTime are clearly based on Namco’s 1980 title Rally-X, which makes it ironic, as another Namco star was “going turbo” around the time Rally-X was originally released.
Do your eyes get bored when your ears have to do all the work? Do you like podcasts, but wish there was something to look at? Fear not! Our scientists at 1 More Castle Labs™ have created a new thing we like to call “Podcast-o-vision”: It’s a podcast, but on YouTube! Hit the jump for the video and classic versions of the podcast.
As most of you may know, it was announced earlier this week that Disney bought Lucasfilms Ltd. With this purchase comes the ownership of the both Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. It also means that Disney now owns Lucasarts, maker of dozens of games over the last few decades.
So, with that, let us discuss one of their greatest games: Rebel Assault!
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Happy Halloween 1MoreCastlers!
How about we once again turn to the Game Boy and check out a truly electrifying, terrifying retro game?
Dr Franken, you’re up ;)
Yesterday was Halloween. I dressed up as a 1 More Castle contributor and went trick or treating, except it wasn’t your normal trick or treat run. I thought it would be fun to play a rousing round of N64 Trick or Treat. Here’s how: I put all 296 North American N64 game titles into a random selector. I had it choose 5 games totally at random. Some are tricks, some are treats. Much like real life trick or treating, you never know what will wind up in your bag. Since we’ve grown so close over the last 2 weeks, I thought I’d make it into an adventure and share the experience with you. In the immortal words of Mario, “HERE WE GOOOOOO!”
Greetings Readers! Carl has stepped through a magical moongate and is in the land of Britannia. Not entirely sure what to do, a gypsy beckons him to choose his path, and mentions he will become the Avatar. Welcome to Ultima IV.
Here we are — the final week in a month long Halloween inspired Character RETROspect event. Last week we took a look at the flamboyant Alucard from the Castlevania series, and this week to cap off the month of October, we are going to take a look at Laura Harris, the protagonist from the stellar vidja game, D.
I’m not a fan of the term “The Golden Age of Video Gaming” – a term that is used in a number of films, podcasts and books to describe one particular era of gaming. Many use it to attach to the early 80s alone, as if gaming somehow went downhill from there.
I’ve been around for all of it, from Pac-Man Fever to the new celebrity-filled Call of Duty trailer. Every single era of gaming has a few true classics, several rock-solid games, countless clones and sequels and a truckload of shovelware. You can’t tell me any one era was any different… it’s only in hindsight that the great stuff is remembered and the bad stuff is forgotten.
Tax Evader, a 1982 “video game”, was meant to be a propaganda tool for the I.R.S.and was created with the help of the C.I.A. It totally backfired.
So in 1981, the I.R.S. approached Atari and the C.I.A. to discuss making a video game for the console that would help them in the goal of curbing the rate of tax evasion. All the parties agreed to the inclusion of subliminal messages and other mind control techniques within the game. The I.R.S. tasked one of their agents, Darrell Wagner (whose name is an anagram for “drawl enlarger,” which isn’t relevant at all, just weird), with coming up with the basic design of the game (i.e., what it should look like and how it should play). The C.I.A. had one of their mind control experts work on the game; however, he is credited under a false name, Todd Clark Wolm, and mistakenly listed as a “independant Investment Advisor” (the mistake isn’t the title, but its spelling).
Space Harrier is awesome, and the best port of the insane arcade game was for the Sega Saturn. Check out the latest episode of Saturnology just after the break!
BOO! Scared yet? No? Well, you will be! Did you expect Jason on this episode? He’s not! We have Andrew on, and he’s Skyping in froooom the graaaaaave!!!
By the time this article is posted, I’ll be somewhere on the coast of Cuba. This, of course, means I should probably thematically link my post to my vacation. Thus, we must discuss the fantastic RTS game, Red Alert 2!
Read on after the break for more information regarding this fantastic, Communist filled game!
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Greetings readers! Carl’s picked up a billy club and he’s on patrol in the local Southwick’s department store, but Harry Hooligan is up to his usual thieving triks. Go catch him before he gets away in the Atari 2600 game Keystone Kapers!
Hey y’all! Guess what?
It’s Halloween! (in like a week)
Let’s explore the darkest, scariest, most disturbing recesses of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, shall we?
It’s that time in-between the annual Madden and Call of Duty releases, meaning that “professional” gaming bloggers everywhere are in full rant mode about the tiny things. It is an apparent job requirement to spew as much hatred as possible for any popular game title.
One I hear the most often is about character models, animations, rendering, etc. Drives me nuts. I don’t really care if my Call of Duty soldier runs a little bit funny as long as the knife I stuck in my opponent’s butt registers when it should, and I can tell stories to these “veteran” gamers who have such complaints.
This week in Character RETROspect, we’re going to take a look at Alucard, the son of Dracula from the Castlevania series. Anyone remember the Captain N version of Alucard though? No? It’s probably better that way…
Nintendo has once again given gifted us with some retro goodness this week, but the question is: Does Gradius live up to its retro legacy, or should it be abandoned to the depths of time? Better yet, is it worth your hard earned cash? Find out after the break.
Body Harvest is an action-adventure game (similar to Adventure in a lot of ways) with some open-world elements. Now, I’m sure some of you are wondering why you’ve never heard of this game. Well, it was released back in 1988 (though I found more than one “reputable” site indicating that it came out in 1998; with those graphics, I don’t think so!), so most of you had probably moved on to the NES and Master System by then. However, despite those atrocious graphics (even by 2600 standards), this game is a truly under appreciated gem.