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CultureTotal Recall
Mass Effect Music-Maker Remixes Mass Effect 1 Music, It Is Rad
A little while back, Jimmy “Big Giant Circles” Hinsen released an album of music that he’d written for Mass Effect 2 but that didn’t make the cut. Now, he’s put out a free remix album called Max Effect featuring music from Mass Effect 1, originally composed by Jack Wall, Sam Hulick, Richard Jacques and David…
By Kirk Hamilton Published April 20, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
The Geek Squad Who Rescued a Gaming Classic
At the end of March, Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner found the source code for the game years after he’d thought it was lost. But the data was saved on computer disks that were more than 20 years old—would they still be readable after all these years? Would it be safe to put them…
By Kirk Hamilton Published April 20, 2012 -
Culture
Beautiful Video Game Art, Direct From Korea
You probably haven’t even heard of the games Korean artist Kang Jin has worked on, let alone played them. But that’s OK. These Fine Art posts aren’t about what the game is, but how nice the art is, and Kang’s art is nice Now employed at online gaming powerhouse Neowiz, Kang has also worked at…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 20, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallWhat Computer Animation Looked Like in 1971
Us 21st century kids with our Unreal Engines and fancy computers think our animation is just so shit hot. And it is! But it had to come from somewhere, and that somewhere are these very humble beginnings. This 1971 Canadian documentary looks at the very early days of the practice of key frame animation. For…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 20, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallThe Man Bringing Classic Arcade Cabinets Back
The 80’s were an awesome and bizarre time for arcades. Nobody knows this better than Gary Vincent, owner and operator of the American Classic Arcade Musuem in New Hampshire. For the past 3 years, he’s been shipping 30 arcade cabinets to PAX East in an attempt to recapture the feel of those classic 1980’s arcades.…
By Chris Person Published April 19, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallThose Dudes in Castlevania are Pretty Intense
Unlike the Konami of today, which relies almost entirely on milking a couple of key franchises and selling mobile games in Japan, the Konami of the 1980s was a more exciting company. You could say, in fact, they were jammin
By Luke Plunkett Published April 19, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallThere was a Good Super Mario Bros. Movie. Let’s Watch it!
When someone talks about the Super Mario Bros. movie, you’d be forgiven for assuming they’re talking about the 1993 live-action flick starring Bob Hoskins. But there are actually two Super Mario Bros. movies, the first one – a feature-length anime – having been released in Japan in 1986. It was called スーパー マリオ ブラザーズ ピーチ姫救出大作戦!…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 19, 2012 -
Culture
Guns, Pretty Ladies & Street Fighters
Artist Arnold Tsang worked on APB before it died and was unceremoniously brought back. He’s also, as Capcom fans may soon recognise, part of the Udon crew, who are unrelenting in their ability to release coffee table books full of awesome Street Fighter art. Right now, he’s working at Blizzard. And right now, we’re going…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 19, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallYes, This is Andy Warhol Painting Deborah Harry on an Amiga
These days, we remember Commodore’s Amiga system for its games. Classics like Cannon Fodder. In 1985, though, the company had grander plans. In this bizarre live demonstration as part of the machine’s launch, artist Andy Warhol, only two years before his death, sits down and “paints” a portrait of former punk idol Deborah Harry using…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallUm, Sega Once Made a Sonic Fighting Game
As promised, today we’ll be looking at Sonic the Fighters. Otherwise known as That 3D Fighting Game Sega Made That For Some Reason Starred Sonic The Hedgehog The story of the game goes like this: in 1995, Sega released an awesome (and sadly forgotten) fighting game called Fighting Vipers. One of the game’s character designers,…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012 -
Culture
The Men, Women & Puffy Shirts of The Witcher 2
Polish artist Marcin Blaszczak is one of the men to thank for bringing the world of The Witcher 2 to life. A 3D modeller, Blaszczak has worked on both games in the series. In this gallery, you’ll see some of his work from The Witcher 2, which this week gets a welcome re-release on the…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallEvery Nintendo 64 Game, in One Giant Video
There were 296 games released for the Nintendo 64 in North America. Which is hardly any, I know. But it’ll still seem like a lot when you sit down and watch this movie which collects footage from every single one of them. I always forget StarCraft came out on the N64. Man, those were the…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 17, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
The Giant Alien Dick Machines of Space Invaders Pinball
In 1980, Bally released a pinball machine called Space Invaders. It was about as shameless a rip-off as you could hope for, as despite the opportunity to lift iconic imagery from Taito’s arcade classic of the same name, it instead stole designs from Ridley Scott’s 1979 movie Alien Given that was over thirty years ago,…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 17, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallRoad Blaster, You Have Stolen My Heart
It’s not often I come across a game I’ve never even heard of putting this feature together, but that happened yesterday with Road Prosecutor. Which means, yes, I’d never heard of its arcade original Road Blaster either. Man, I wish I had. All these years I’ve wasted without having seen this clip. So, first things…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 16, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Check Out What’s New On Total Recall, Our Very Own Retro Section
Brought to you every day, from 11pm-midnight (EST), Kotaku goes retro. The most recent batch of stories include: Mr. Awesome, the Greatest Video Game Player Who Ever Lived Maybe I Liked GoldenEye For Weird Reasons There was Once a U.S. National Video Game Team, and This Guy Was Its Captain The Greatest Justification For Messed-Up…
By Tina Amini Published April 16, 2012 -
Culture
Trials by Fire
The long-awaited return of RedLynx’s acclaimed Trials series, plus the Xbox 360 release of The Witcher 2, highlights an otherwise light week for core video game releases. Tuesday • The Witcher 2 (360) • Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention (Vita) • Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat (360, PS3) • Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet (PC) Wednesday •…
By Owen Good Published April 15, 2012 -
Culture
Sunday Comics: Mass Effect Retake
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. ActionTrip by Borislav Grabovic and Ure Paul published March 19.—Read more of ActionTrip Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published March 19.—Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!!…
By Owen Good Published April 15, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallMaybe I Liked GoldenEye For Weird Reasons
Earlier this week, we published an intelligent takedown of the beloved Nintendo 64 James Bond first-person shooter GoldenEye. Maybe, our guest writer wrote, this game was a little bit flawed. Maybe the campaign was monotonous and the multiplayer map design was weird. Maybe we can still love the game despite or because of its flaws.…
By Stephen Totilo Published April 14, 2012