-
CultureTotal Recall
Remembering Nintendo’s Other 1980’s Magazine, The Nintendo Fun Club
Today brought reports that, after a publishing run of 24 years, the famous Nintendo Power magazine is no more. If true, it’s a sadder day than most involving the closing of a game publication, because for many Nintendo Power was more than just a magazine. It was a piece of their childhood. Those who are…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 22, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallRacism, Violence & Madness Make This Awful Hong Kong Game One to Remember
Sleeping Dogs has been one of the most pleasant surprises of the year. Part of the game’s appeal is the fact it’s set in Hong Kong, which raises the question: why aren’t more games based around one of the world’s most iconic and populous cities? The answer may well be that this old thing scared…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 21, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Not All Sega Mega Drives Were Made Equally
While these days the release of a new model of hardware is kind of a big deal, signifying as it does important changes in components, capabilities or even a complete redesign, back in the day some companies used to be able to flood the market with different versions of their console and nobody even noticed.…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 21, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Let’s All Read The Very First Issue of Nintendo Power
Designer Eoin Stanley, who we featured a little while ago on Total Recall, doesn’t just archive beautiful old Nintendo logos. He’s also got on ice something more informative; namely, the entirety of the very first issue of Nintendo Power. It’s not his – it appears to have belonged to a young Mr. Jeremy Salsman –…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 16, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Why You Should Never Get Too Excited About a Game’s Graphics
The next time you look at a game and think, wow, how much more realistic can graphics get, remember: somebody has wondered it before, and been answered by the crushing weight of time.
By Luke Plunkett Published August 15, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
These Arcade Games Have Seen Better Days
This is where the machines go after the arcades close down: a basement, or storage dump, where they’re left to rot and gather dust. Sad, but then, such is life. Ashes to ashes, etc. Retro Arcades [Chris London, via it 8-bit]
By Luke Plunkett Published August 15, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
There Once Was a Time Grand Theft Auto Wasn’t Quite so “Cool”
These days, Rockstar are known as a publisher with a reputation for very slick marketing, especially when it comes to their flagship series, Grand Theft Auto. Things weren’t always as “cool”, though. As this advertisement from 1997, for the very first game in the series, shows. Run before Rockstar was even known as Rockstar, it’s…look,…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 14, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
The Machines That Literally Made Atari’s Last Console
Here’s something very cool: a rare look so far behind the scenes of how a video game console is made that you’re seeing the very beginning. The injection moulds used to actually make the plastic components that came together to become an Atari Jaguar. To recap: the Jaguar sucked, it died a horrible death, and…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 14, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallYou Can’t Really Sell a Console Showing Humans Trapped in a Glass Box
I get it. The GameCube was a cube. So you can show stuff happening inside a cube. It’s an advertising brief that writes itself. But for every awesome shot in this old Nintendo commercial – like samurai doing battle, or the world’s only Tie Interceptor living in captivity – there’s something silly. Unnecessary. A little…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 10, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
What is This Weirdly Sexual Mario Image I Don’t Even Um OK
The live-action Mario movie is like a giant scab on your knee. It’s gross, and an eyesore, yet for whatever reason many of us just can’t resist picking at it. Most of the time that invokes painful memories, but not today. Today it’ll provoke some different, much stranger emotions. Witness Golden’s Super Mario Bros. The…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 10, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Nintendo Once Made a Vacuum Cleaner
As you know, Nintendo hasn’t always made video games. Before the dawn of the home entertainment era, the company made everything from love testers to fake LEGO to shooting galleries. Did you know, though, that amidst all that fun stuff, Nintendo also made a vacuum cleaner? This is it. The Nintendo Chiritorie. Released in 1979…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 9, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Thank Your God The SNES Didn’t Actually Look This Hideous
The North American Super Nintendo looked…OK. The Japanese and PAL version looked hot. Oh, how things could have turned out differently, had early concept art become reality. These two early designs for the SNES, drawn at a time when they were still calling the machine the “Nintendo Entertainment System 2”, were hideous. Where the final…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 8, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
A Robot Sex Doll. From The Future.
This incredible animated gif doing the rounds this week (though first published in February) is taken from Paragon Sexa Doll (パラゴンセクサドール Doll), a Japanese “visual novel” developed by Heart Soft and released in the early 80s on the NEC PC-8801, a primitive PC that was pretty big in Japan. Visual novels are barely games; like…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 8, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallPelé and Pete Rose Should Have Stuck to Sports
Athletes still do a pretty poor job in commercials in the 21st century. So as you can probably imagine, in the 1970s, they were terrible This Atari clip from 1978 featured baseball star Pete Rose, football legend Pelé and…Don Knotts. OK, so Don did just fine, but he was an actor, not a sportsman. 1978…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 7, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Taito’s Love Affair With Old Jackie Chan Movies
What kind of developers have the peanuts to rip off Jackie Chan not once, but twice, at the same time? Taito have the peanuts, that’s who. This image is from Silent Dragon, a side-scroller Taito released in 1992. The blue dude on the left may look familiar to anyone who’s seen Jackie Chan’s awesome Big…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 7, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
This Stupid Controller That Looks Like a Sex Toy Helped My Brother Win a Silver Medal
Hurry! There are only two days left until this auction for “Le Stick” closes. You can have this hunk of junk for $29.99, but I warn you, it’s practically useless. Except for one video game, that is. Rewind: It’s 1983. My brother and I live next door to a guy who is an electronics buyer,…
By Owen Good Published August 5, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallWelcome Back, Rise of the Triad, You’ve Been Missed
Perhaps the strangest news of the day, if not much longer, is that cult 90’s shooter Rise of the Triad is getting a remake Considering a whole generation of gamers has now grown up likely not having played the thing, they’re probably wondering, what’s all the fuss about? Here’s what all the fuss is about.…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 3, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
The Horror of Broken Old Nintendo Games
Old video games may have a certain charm to them when they’re working, but what about when they’re not? When they’re crashing and bugging out all over the place, no matter how many times you shake them or blow in the cartridge slot? Glitchee’s site is a wonderful catalogue of just such episodes, mostly of…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 3, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Destroy Satan and Escape From Hades? Sounds Simple Enough.
I remember Ghosts ‘N Goblins being about two things: underpants and skeletons. Mostly about underpants. It’s easy to forget amidst all the cheesy humour of the game, then, that it had a fairly brutal premise. I mean, it’s not like destroying Satan himself and then escaping the netherworld of Hades is tough enough. No, there…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 2, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Show Today’s Kids a 1980s Computer and, Well, Yeah
The Commodore 64 turned 30 this week. As the firs video game platform my family ever owned, it will always have a very special place in my heart. But I was born in 1980. What do kids born in the 21st century think of the machine? The BBC and C64 fan Mat Allen went to…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 2, 2012