Chris Kohler

Mega SG Is An Amazing HDMI Sega Genesis For The Hardcore Retro Nerd

The Sega Genesis has had by far the longest shelf life of any of the 16-bit systems. You could buy Sega’s final “Genesis 3″ model in stores until the early 2000s, and just a few years later, the AtGames released licensed plug-and-play machines, some with Genesis cartridge slots. For the last 30 years, you’d likely…

My friend Frank Cifaldi, producer of many retro game collections like SNK 40th Anniversary, sums up his company’s philosophy in two sentences in a GDC session today.

No, Cuphead On Switch Won’t Be Any Easier

The retro-themed, hand-animated indie darling Cuphead is headed to Switch on April 18, and its developer is excited for a whole new group of players to try it, and maybe even play some impromptu two-player at a rooftop party with single Joy-Cons. But the studio isn’t about to make the notoriously difficult action game any…

The technical director of Bluepoint Games, the tech wizards behind the Shadow of the Colossus remake, just said he would show the GDC audience “what’s next,” and then just showed this slide instead. He did say that its next project would be more than a remaster or remake—more of a “re-envisioning.”

Another game you can find around GDC is the hilarious Sloppy Forgeries. Using just a few sizes of paintbrush, you have to recreate a masterpiece in about two minutes. Very clever game! Feel free to guess which shitty fake was mine.

“Hey Gooch, why don’t you make Tetris with music?” — Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s recollection at GDC of how The Tetris Company’s Henk Rogers pitched him on the creation of Tetris Effect.

From the Panzer Dragoon GDC panel, here’s a look at the motion capture sessions from the 1998 Sega Saturn game Panzer Dragoon Saga. Note the actor riding a budget “dragon” made out of plastic beer crates. 

What year is it?! If you still want to make 8-bit NES games, you can demo and buy “NES Maker” software here at GDC, which lets you create an NES game with a GUI interface, no programming necessary. The games you make can run on actual NES hardware.

Epic Snags More Major Store Exclusives, Including Quantic Dream’s Games

Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, and Detroit: Become Human are all coming to the PC, all exclusively to Epic’s store, Epic said today at Game Developers Conference. Other games whose PC versions will come to Epic’s store exclusively include Control, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, and Afterparty All three Quantic Dream games were previously published by…

Another very cool Xbox One demo at GDC is The Wild At Heart, which is sort of like Pikmin meets EarthBound. I realize that describing a game like that is bordering on irresponsible since it may give people heart attacks. But what else would you call a game about a kid with Pikmin-like pals who…

I was hoping there’d be some hands-on with the Google Stadia controller at GDC, but alas! It is simply here under glass. You can play Assassin’s Creed Odyssey via the cloud here at the Stadia booth at GDC, although that’s something you could have already experienced via Project Stream.

Just checked out a puzzle game called The Sojourn at an Xbox event at GDC. Really neat Portal-style game in which you swap places with statues and activate other stuff in the environment to move through the levels. Coming this summer. 

Laura Hall shares an insightful quote about puzzles in her standing room only GDC talk about escape room narrative design. 

Here’s a fun thing to do at GDC: You can play an interactive detective story, presented as a radio drama, by clicking the dial of an old-timey radio. You can also play a beta of The Klaxo Radio Hour on your PC. It should eventually come to iOS and Android.

It’s hard to miss this massive, nearly empty Google booth here at GDC in San Francisco. Monitors promise that “all will be revealed” at its keynote tomorrow at 10 a.m.  Presumably these kiosks will then be filled with its game device. 

Damn, Yoshi’s Crafted World Looks Gorgeous

I’ve been playing Yoshi’s Crafted World for Switch in advance of its March 29 release, and the thing that’s sticking with me the most is how just plain beautiful it looks. I know we all enjoy playing our Switches in handheld mode, but you should consider docking that sucker for the duration of your Crafted…

Why Almost Every Pac-Man Player Grabbed The Left Side Of The Machine

A fascinating essay by writer Cat DeSpira points out an easily observed, yet seldom-discussed facet of the history of the world-famous game Pac-Man: A near-universal part of the experience of playing the game in arcades was to grip the side of the machine with one’s non-joystick hand. Using dozens of historical photos, DeSpira makes the…

How Reggie Fils-Aime Became A Nintendo Legend

In the spring of 2004, the public perception was that Nintendo was in deep trouble. Going into the company’s E3 presentation in Los Angeles that year, fans wondered which of the company’s heroes might appear, in its time of need, to save it. Mario? Link? As it turned out, they did get a new hero,…

Sealed Copy Of Super Mario Bros. Sells For A Record-Breaking $100,150

Is this copy of Super Mario Bros. the highest-priced video game ever? That’s what experts in the field of classic game collecting are saying today. A first-run copy of the Nintendo Entertainment System game sold in a private transaction earlier this month for $100,150, and the people involved in the deal say it’s the first…

Everything That Happened In Today’s Nintendo Direct

The long-awaited first Nintendo Direct of 2019 hit today, and as expected, it was packed full of news sure to please Switch owners looking for more Fire Emblem, Mario, and even Zelda. Here’s everything we learned. Super Mario Maker 2 is coming to Switch—with slopes!—in June 2019. Freaking finally. We can now create our own…