Dustin Faber

Dustin Faber is a doting husband, devoted father, Team Fortress 2 pyro and retro gamer. When he's not eating ghosts or serving root beer, he can be found at catholiclovebirds.blogspot.com. Tweet him @16bitcatholic.

Chasing Ghosts: One Quarter at a Time

This game really is everywhere: Tetris in the arcade

Tetris is ubiquitous. It surrounds us like oxygen, permeating every digital device we have. Got a gaming console? A PC? A phone? A credit card reader? Then you probably have Tetris.

Chasing Ghosts: One Quarter at a Time

A truly forgotten childhood gem: Cracking the mystery of Crackdown

Note: After this, I have only one entry left in the Chasing Ghosts series, as the premise (arcade games with specific childhood memories) will have run dry. Hit me up on Twitter if you have suggestions for what I should write about next.

Donatello’s video game appearances (most of them anyways), ranked

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard the news in the world of TMNT. If you haven’t, move on.

Go away.

Go read something by Tom Hall. His piece on Star Wars games on the N64 is awesome. Or go listen to my podcast.

OK, you’ve been warned.

Chasing Ghosts: One Quarter at a Time

Bust a stereotype: Puzzle Bobble goes against the 90 arcade grain.

Take a journey back into the mid 90s arcade scene with me.

What was popular? Street Fighter. Mortal Kombat. NBA Jam. Daytona USA.

All fantastic games, mind you, but it’s a far cry from the cutesy characters of the 80s. Pac-Man and Frogger were long gone, either a distant memory or a distant walk to the back end of the arcade. These games were in your face, with announcers screaming “FINISH HIM! BRAZIL! BOOMSHAKALAKA!”

Chasing Ghosts: One Quarter at a Time

When the Saturn was cool: Playing X-Men: Children of the Atom.

In the early summer of 1996, I was obsessed with getting a Sega Saturn.

Like, I couldn’t eat, sleep or breathe without thinking of this system from the same folks who brought me Sonic the Hedgehog and a sorely underrated X-Men game on the Genesis. More than likely I was being brainwashed by the good people at Sega Visions magazine, who made no mention of the Sega’s blunders in debuting the Saturn in the United States. They just made sure I knew all about this fantastic machine and the amazing games it could play.

Live Long and Prosper: Leonard Nimoy and Gaming

Leonard Nimoy is someone I thought would outlive us all. The wisdom of Spock didn’t seem to end when Nimoy was off-camera. Rather, it seemed that the character was an extension of this kind-hearted actor. Even if you weren’t a huge Star Trek fan (I like it more than Star Wars but I’m far from a hardcore fan), you could at least appreciate the life Nimoy led, maybe with the exception of Three Men and a Baby (he directed it, and that’s the worst thing I can say about the man). He was a beautiful soul, and I’ll miss him dearly.

All the games I got for Christmas, a list from worst to first.

With the arrival of Christmas means that kids all over the world will wake up with video games in their stockings. I know I sure did. Well, except for that one year in the early 90s when mom mysteriously said no video games without giving me a reason (looking back, the stuff I got, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves action figures and vehicles was more expensive than a video game, so it’s not as if we were hurting for money). Weird. I probably would have asked for Star Tropics.

Chasing Ghosts: One Quarter at a Time

The future is 3D! A look at the beautiful polygon-filled Virtua Racing

3D!

Ask any game-playing person in the early 90s what technological advancement they wanted to see in video games, and chances are, they would answer, “3D graphics.”

Chasing Ghosts: One Quarter at a Time

The Arcade Evolves (sort of): Konami brings us the X-Men

By sheer logic alone, I should have never been a fan of Marvel’s X-Men.

Chasing Ghosts: One Quarter at a Time

The old college try: Stepping up to the Dance Dance Revolution series

College was a time of exploration.

No, I never did any illegal drugs and never got blackout drunk at a party, but when I wasn’t learning how to become a journalist, I was entering a whole new world of gaming. Read More

There’s a Monster in my Pizza Barn! Rampage series is a childhood fantasy

The following is part of a series about my past experiences with arcade games and running them in MAME. I will only write about games I remember playing in an actual arcade, not games I only discovered through MAME.

Chasing Ghosts: One Quarter at a Time

Who is that guy in the red hat? Vs. Super Mario Bros. boggles my brain

The following is part of a series about my past experiences with arcade games and running them in MAME. I will only write about games I remember playing in an actual arcade, not games I only discovered through MAME.

Chasing Ghosts: One Quarter at a Time

You Must Defeat Sheng Long (and that girl in middle school) to stand a chance

The following is part of a series about my past experiences with arcade games and running them in MAME. I will only write about games I remember playing in an actual arcade, not games I only discovered through MAME. Read More

Remembering Robin Williams in Video Game form

On Monday, we lost a comedic legend. Robin Williams died and left behind an amazing legacy in film. I grew up admiring his comedic talents, getting my first taste of his manic style of comedy in Disney’s Aladdin, where he voiced the role of The Genie (explaining why my mother was so excited to see this film). I’d go on to enjoy more of his work, particularly Good Morning Vietnam and his stand-up comedy specials. And while it isn’t the greatest, Robin Williams left behind a video game legacy as well. His children, Zelda and Cody, are named after well-known video game characters (Zelda from The Legend of Zelda series, and Cody from the Final Fight series), and his likeness appears in a handful of games as well. Let’s take a look at some of those. Read More

Chasing Ghosts: One Quarter at a Time

Teenage Mutant Quarter-Munching Turtles: The Arcade obsession.

A brief note of apology for the delay in this article. The PC inside of my MAME cabinet kept becoming unresponsive and impossible to play. None of the buttons worked, and it kept making a ridiculous clicking noise, to the point where I thought the hard drive was dying and had to keep the PC turned off. Turns out, one the pushbutton wires had gotten loose, and the shift button was being held down, which turned on filter keys and made it not work. In short, if you have PC troubles in a MAME cabinet, make sure all your wires are secure. And you’ll save yourself a month of nonsense.

The following is part of a series about my past experiences with arcade games and running them in MAME. I will only write about games I remember playing in an actual arcade, not games I only discovered through MAME.

Chasing Ghosts: One Quarter at a Time

Is It The Shoes? NBA Jam dominates childhood

The following is part of a series about my past experiences with arcade games and running them in MAME. I will only write about games I remember playing in an actual arcade, not games I only discovered through MAME.

Chasing Ghosts: One Quarter at a Time

My First Crush: An addiction to dots, ghosts and a lady in a bow

The following is a series about my past experiences with arcade games and running them in MAME. I will only write about games I remember playing in an actual arcade, not games I only discovered through MAME.