As I prepare to say goodbye to to the blog, I thought it would be a great time to revisit “Games of our Lives.” The original 3-part series was some of my favorite material to write, and I still go back and re-read them every now and then. I intended to cap off each year [...]
Archive for the ‘Old school’ Category
Games of our Lives: Supplemental
Posted in Games of our Lives, Old school, tagged Playstation 3, Super Smash Bros., Uncharted 2, Wii on November 16, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Silver Mario
Posted in Culture, Games of our Lives, Nintendo, Old school, tagged Mario, Nintendo, Super Mario Brothers on September 15, 2010 | 1 Comment »
In case you’ve been under a rock, today is the 25ht anniversary of Super Mario Brothers original Japanese release. As I write this, “Mario Bros” is the #5 trending topic on Twitter. In addition to the usual suspects, a ton of mainstream press covered it. I even saw a headline about the anniversary on that [...]
The RPG on the Edge of Forever
Posted in Culture, Microsoft, Old school, tagged Big, Mass Effect 2, Xbox 360 on February 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
I can’t get enough of Mass Effect 2. I’ve spent nearly all of my play time over the last three weeks with it, hardly touching any other games. Looking at its impressive debut at #2 on January’s NPD rankings after only six days on shelves, I’m not alone. And with all that love comes A [...]
Filling the Void
Posted in Marketing, Old school, The biz, tagged 8-bit, Capcom, Dark void, Playstation 3, retro, Xbox 360 on December 30, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Just like last year, this Christmas’ new games slate went lighter than planned, as quite a few high priority games’ release dates slipped into the first quarter of next year. Hardly anyone wants to delay a project release, especially when you consider how long the development cycle on current gen games can get. But sometimes [...]
The only game in town
Posted in Culture, Old school, tagged arcades, Capcom, Chinatown, DDR, Namco, SFIV, Street Fighter IV on October 12, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Last week, yours truly was called upon to protect the city and county of New York from the forces of evil. Luckily, jurors get a whopping 2 hours for lunch and my local Hall of Justice is a few shorts blocks away from one of NYC’s truly hidden gems – Chinatown Fair. Once famous for [...]
Instant Replay
Posted in Marketing, Old school, The biz, tagged Capcom, Ico, Loom, LucasArts, Marvel Vs Capcom, PSN, Secret of Monkey Island, The Dig, The Last Guardian, Virtual Console, Xbox Live on July 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Last week, LucasArts announced they’d blow the dust off their venerable adventure games catalog, offering an ongoing selection of hits via Steam. Of course, gamers everywhere rejoiced, and the immediate questions were all positive: ‘what other platfroms will these be available on?’ and ‘what other classics will they release next?’ The announcement came on top [...]
the id and the ego
Posted in Culture, Old school, The biz, tagged adrian carmack, bethesda, DOOM, id software, john romero, PC games, zenimax on July 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve been meaning to write a reaction to last week’s sale of id Software to ZeniMax, but it’s honestly taken me this long to figure out how I felt about it, exactly. For anyone that was an avid gamer in the mid 90′s, id (and particularly the DOOM series) represented a very specific division between [...]
Know Your NPD’s: What Drought?
Posted in Marketing, Nintendo, Old school, The biz, tagged Capcom, Gears of War 2, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, Little Big Planet, Nintendo, Peggle, Resident Evil 5, Street Fighter IV on March 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The NPD report for February came out last Thursday, and if the industry keeps up this pace, I may have to issue a teary, self-depricating apology for my New Year’s rant about release scheduling. The first quarter of the year has always been pin-drop quiet, even during some of the industry’s best years. It gave [...]
