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Here’s the Juice

Rockstar’s cop thriller L.A. Noire dominates this coming Tuesday, though RPG enthusiasts on the PC will want to take note of The Witcher 2. For those picking up Noire two DLC extensions are available the day of release via PSN and Xbox Live. Clarification: These extensions are preorder premiums; they are not DLC available for…

By Owen Good Published May 15, 2011

Culture

Sunday Comics

Welcome to your Sunday read of the week’s best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic. Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published May 9. – Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira published May 9. – Read more of Nerf…

By Owen Good Published May 15, 2011

Culture

This Week in the Business: “Extraordinary Losses”

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week… QUOTE | “Extraordinary losses.” – Square Enix describes its unfortunate financial state (losses this year to near $200 million) partially due to the Japanese earthquake disaster. QUOTE | “Or they will lose developers.” – PixelJunk creator Dylan Cuthbert warns of developers jumping ship from…

James Brightman | IndustryGamers.com Published May 13, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

The Day the Secret Service Raided a Role-Playing Game Company

Steve Jackson Games is a company well known for its tabletop RPGs and card games. An innocent enough trade, then, so why in 1990 were its offices raided by the United States Secret Service? It wasn’t because SJG’s products were somehow illegal, or that the company was peddling counterfeit currency. It was because, at the…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 13, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

The HD Console Game From…1993?

While most people would peg the beginning of the high definition era around the time of the PlayStation 2 (some games able to run in 1080i), here’s one game that was running in HD nearly twenty years ago It’s Hudson’s Hi-Ten Bomberman, which has the honour of being the world’s very first high definition video…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 12, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

This Might be the Weirdest Game Boy Game Ever Made

Over the decades, there were plenty of kooky Game Boy games released in both Japan and the West. Plenty of strange accessories, too, from cameras to printers to blood glucose monitors. But 2001’s Mario Family was especially kooky. Why? Because it was a cartridge designed not to be played, but to be plugged into a…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 11, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

Old Consoles: The Illustrated Edition

We’ve looked at the design of old consoles a few times lately here on Total Recall, in particular my fetish for those with faux wood panelling, but today we’re looking at something a little different. These illustrations, by German artist Sebastian Koch, show a variety of old consoles from the 1970’s. Specifically, those built just…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 10, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

Behind the Scenes of the Most Disappointing Game Movie Ever Made

Considering its budget, the popularity of the franchise and its accomplished cast, 1993’s Super Mario Bros. is—relatively—surely the most disappointing video game movie of all time. Still, train wreck that it is, we can’t help but keep on looking at it, even after all these years. And today we’re getting a real good look, with…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 9, 2011

Culture

Brought to the Brink

The long-awaited futuristic FPS Brink highlights this week of releases, promising quadrillions of unique characters – no really. If that hurts your brain, try MX vs. ATV, LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean or Virtua Tennis. Tuesday Brink (360, PC, PS3)-The free-running FPS pits two factions in a battle for control of The Ark, a once-utopic…

By Owen Good Published May 8, 2011

Culture

Sunday Comics

Welcome to your Sunday read of the week’s best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic. Another Videogame Webcomic did not publish this week Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published May 1. – Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira…

By Owen Good Published May 8, 2011

Culture

This Week In The Business: “Difficult to Excuse.”

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week… QUOTE | “Peaked in some respects.” – M2 Research’s Billy Pidgeon on the status of Xbox 360 in the market and the chances that Microsoft announces new hardware at E3 2012 QUOTE | “The market opportunity is there.” – THQ boss Brian Farrell talks…

By Drew Cohen Published May 6, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

Thank You, Star Wars, For All These Awesome Games

May 4 is Star Wars Day, in honour of, well, the fact “May the 4th” sounds a bit like “May the force…”. Silly, I know, but it also gives us a chance to look back on the amazing video games the sci-fi franchise has given us over the years. And by years, I should really…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 5, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

A Tribute to the Glory of Wood-Panelled Video Game Consoles

These could sit comfortably in a commercial for cigarettes or a fine Scotch

By Luke Plunkett Published May 4, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

The Father Of Video Games Fled The Nazis, Fought Them Then Took All Their Guns

Ralph Baer is widely acknowledged to be the “father of video games”, thanks to his work in the 1960’s pioneering the device that would become the Magnavox Odyssey, the world’s first ever video game console. Unlike most men and women in the industry today, though, his background is not that of a comfortable middle-class kid.…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 3, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

Metal Gear Was Born On Microsoft’s Great Japanese Success

Microsoft and video games are a bit of a running joke in Japan these days. After a decade of trying (and failing) with the Xbox, the company just can’t seem to win the Japanese public over. It wasn’t always that way, however. Indeed, in the 1980’s, Microsoft produced a surprisingly successful games platform, one that…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 2, 2011

Culture

Apocalypse Now

The zombie fad shows no signs of dying – hah, get it? – as Treyarch delivers the Escalation Map Pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops. The week’s biggest retail drop is Motorstorm: Apocalypse for PS3, but all your racing will be offline if the PSN Apocalypse hasn’t abated by Tuesday. Monday Fate: The Cursed…

By Owen Good Published May 1, 2011

CultureShop Contest

AR Games in Real Life

Headline’s kind of a misnomer because, the deal with the augmented reality games on the 3DS is, they are kinda-sorta played in real life. But not the way we’re gonna play them. See, I have this silly belief that the AR characters are real, and they’re all around us, we just can’t see them. Only…

By Owen Good Published May 1, 2011

Culture

Sunday Comics

Welcome to your Sunday read of the week’s best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic. Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published April 18. – Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira published April 18. – Read more of Nerf…

By Owen Good Published May 1, 2011

Culture

This Week In The Business: “A Nightmare.”

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week… QUOTE | “Definitely affects our bottom line.” – PixelJunk developer Dylan Cuthbert on the financial impact the PSN outage is having on developers QUOTE | “PS3 sales won’t be impacted at all.” – Belief of analyst Michael Pachter that Sony’s PSN fiasco actually won’t…

James Brightman | IndustryGamers.com Published April 29, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

Sony Hasn’t Always Hated Homebrew Development

Sony’s recent run of legal and now technical issues with hackers can be traced back to a single decision: that of removing the ability to run the Linux operating system on the PlayStation 3. While Sony cut Linux out of piracy fears, fans were upset that it brought to an end over a decade of…

By Luke Plunkett Published April 29, 2011