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CultureTotal Recall
When Sega Wanted to Take Over the World (and Failed Miserably)
The year was 1997. And Sega, the Dreamcast still a twinkle in Segata Sanshiro’s eye, was in a bullish mood. While its rivals were focusing their efforts on winning the video game war, Sega was looking beyond It didn’t have Nintendo or Sony in its sights. It had the Walt Disney Company. Sega wanted to…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 9, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallHappy 25th Birthday, Metroid!
In 1986, a number of Nintendo’s biggest franchises made their debut on the Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System. Zelda was one, and now this month, we celebrate another: Metroid Both have something in common, something that makes them stand out among other company icons like Mario or Donkey Kong, and that something is a more “hardcore” slant.…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 8, 2011 -
Culture
One and Done
Fruit Ninja Kinect? Fruit Ninja Kinect. And folks, that is it for the week. Well, EDGE, another well received (and controversial) iPhone game, hits for PC and Mac. But the dog days of August have nothing for retail shelves this week. Wednesday • Fruit Ninja Kinect (XBLA) — An entry in Xbox Live’s Summer of…
By Owen Good Published August 7, 2011 -
CultureShop Contest
Northern Overexposure
Nolan North appearing in a video game is not exactly news. It’s more newsworthy when he doesn’t. But voicing The Penguin, with a canon-defying cockney accent even, is treading the limits of overexposure even for him. One reason North can get away with this is because, in addition to having great vocal range, we never…
By Owen Good Published August 7, 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 Aug 1. – Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira published Aug 3. – Read more of Nerf…
By Owen Good Published August 7, 2011 -
Culture
This Week in the Business: ‘What’s the point of next-gen consoles?’
What’s happened in the business of video games this past week… QUOTE | “A force to be reckoned with.” – Panoptic Management Consultants CEO Asif Khan notes that if Nintendo’s stock continues to fall the company could be acquired by Apple, creating a gaming powerhouse QUOTE | “What’s the point of next-gen consoles?” – Epic…
James Brightman | IndustryGamers.com Published August 5, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallThe Weird & Wonderful World of Australian Video Game Commercials
Before the internet put the entire planet on the same page, there were certain nations on Earth that were a little…slower than others. Places where the latest trends would turn up late, or turn up filtered through a few different sets of hands. Australia was one of those places. Owing to our extreme isolation, particularly…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 5, 2011 -
CultureThe Sexy, Scribbly Art of Valkyria Chronicles
You wouldn’t think a turn-based strategy game would be the type of thing you could call “beautiful”, but that’s exactly what cult 2008 PS3 title Valkyria Chronicles was. Every aspect of the game’s visual design, from intricate vehicles to a unique “pencilled” graphics filter to some wonderful costumes was a feast for the eyes, and…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 4, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallMark Wahlberg, Not Even You Could Save the Sega Mega CD
Almost every gaming platform ever released has its oddball titles. The ones that weren’t quite games, the ones that weren’t quite there. For Sega’s Mega CD add-on in the early 1990’s, that oddball was the Make My Video series. Spanning three titles, all of them released in 1992 (the year the ill-fated CD expansion for…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 4, 2011 -
Culture
The Sweeping Video Game Art of Nicolas “Sparth” Bouvier
Frenchman Nicolas “Sparth” Bouvier has been drawing pretty pictures for the video game industry since 1996, in a career that’s taken him from Darkworks (Cold Fear) to Ubisoft to id Software and now to Microsoft, where he’s working on the upcoming Halo 4 In that time his art helped shape the vision of games like…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 3, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
This Is the Coolest Stuff Nintendo Has Ever Made
You can say a lot of nice things about Nintendo games. Nintendo hardware, too. Wildly successful, iconic and timeless are just three of them. But how often can you say something Nintendo made was genuinely cool? Not very often. Unless you go back to the 1960’s, to a time before Nintendo was making video games.…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 3, 2011 -
Culture
Don’t Get Caught Out in Heavy Rain’s Concept Art
French artist François Baranger has been doing concept work for years now, and has experience in the worlds of both film and video games. Some of the movies he’s worked on include Prince of Persia, GI Joe and the 7th and 8th Harry Potter flicks. And games? Most of them are still locked away under…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 2, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallHorror Comes In Many Forms (Including Tiny Ellipsoid Cocks)
There was a PC game released in 1994 called Escstatica. It’s notable for two things: it was scary, but it was also a technological marvel. It doesn’t matter that the technology in question never really went anywhere. It was cool for the time, and this feature is all about looking back in time! Ecstatica was…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 2, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallWhen Disgustingly Sexual Art & Adventure Games Came Together
Despite having worked on everything from furniture design to rock concert props (and even directing his own films), Swiss artist H.R. Giger is best known for two things: his concept work for Ridley Scott’s Alien, and his overtly sexual paintings. But today, we don’t care about those. Today, we care about the only two video…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 1, 2011 -
Culture
Insanely Tepid Shipment Plans
It is a thin week for new releases, especially at retail. On shelves, there’s Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension for Wii, 3DS and PS3. On Xbox Live Arcade, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet arrives Wednesday. Tuesday • Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension (PS3, Wii, DS) — Sure, it’s a kid’s game, and…
By Owen Good Published July 31, 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. You can contact Owen Good, the author of this post, at [email protected]. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page. Awkward…
By Owen Good Published July 31, 2011 -
CultureShop Contest
Photobombed Cosplay Winners
Last week we served up 13 of the most exploitable cosplay pics from at Comic-Con 2011 for you to corrupt even further. Many entered, only one will win! Who is it? OK, yeah, it’s that guy above. But see inside for the other 19 finalists! Gofunaki22 (5) kicks things off with a very topical entry.…
By Owen Good Published July 30, 2011 -
Culture
This Week in the Business: “Social games are killer”
What’s happened in the business of video games this past week… QUOTE | “It comes down to Wii U.” – Panoptic Management Consultants Asif Khan describes Nintendo’s precipitous fall and how the future could hinge on Wii U QUOTE | “Really feel the heat from Vita.” – Nintendo’s sudden price reduction on 3DS may be…
James Brightman | IndustryGamers.com Published July 29, 2011 -
CultureSettle In With the Multi-Talented Art of Quentin Marmier
A lot of the time here on Fine Art, we feature the work of an artist who does one thing. They might do character art, or level design, that sort of thing. So it’s great today to showcase the work of Quentin Marmier. His work for Ubisoft includes all kinds of stuff, from colouring to…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 29, 2011 -
Culture
Red Faction’s Art Is Now Buried Beneath the Dust
Despite the guilty pleasures of Red Faction: Guerilla, all it took was one sub-par game in the series (Red Faction: Armageddon) for publisher THQ to, at least temporarily, pull the plug on the series. Which is a damn shame. In memory of a franchise (or at least its contemporary revival) that lived too fast and…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 28, 2011