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CultureTotal RecallI Want A Friday The 13th Game That Lets Me Play As Jason
Happy Friday the 13th! Jason is over right now, he says to tell you guys, “Hi.” I get that survival horror is about being afraid, running away from an unstoppable evil. But Jason is almost too damned goofy to really work as a big-bad in a survival horror game. Maybe that’s why there hasn’t been…
By Kirk Hamilton Published July 13, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Was 1998 The Ultimate Year in Video Gaming?
2011 was a hell of a year for big game releases. I remember at some point in the fall thinking, “Dude, we are approaching 2007 territory here.” 2007 was a hell of a year for big game releases. Modern Warfare. Mass Effect. Bioshock. Portal. That year set the stage for the franchises that would dominate…
By Kirk Hamilton Published July 13, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Nintendo’s Official Super Metroid Guide Featured Transparent Samus Armour
This is the cover to the Japanese edition of the official guide to SNES classic Super Metroid. I can see what they’re trying to do with the idea, maybe, but in execution it just looks weird. Like a Nintendo console getting on in years, re-released in a transparent colour scheme. [via VGJunk]
By Luke Plunkett Published July 12, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
The Weird, Wonderful and Sometimes Secret History of Nintendo
While other video game companies are happy to celebrate 10th, 15th or even 20th anniversaries, Nintendo is over 100 years old. Founded in 1889, the company has enjoyed a rich video gaming tradition dating back to the 1970s, releasing some of the most successful gaming consoles and franchises of all time. Which is great for…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 12, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
That Game Where “Hulk Hogan’s” Chest Nearly Exploded
Wrestle War is a Japanese wrestling game that was released in arcades in 1989 (and on Japanese and PAL Mega Drives a couple of years later). Despite not carrying a single official license, it decided to rip off a number of high-profile wrestlers of the time, like Hulk Hogan (who was awesomely renamed “Titan Morgan”)…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 11, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
A History of Video Game Movies That Haven’t Been Made (And Probably Won’t)
As video game fans, it’s easy to get excited about movie adaptation news because, as video game fans, you expect this means the movie will one day actually get made. It doesn’t. That might be how video games work, but it’s certainly not how Hollywood works. This week has seen three big announcements in the…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 11, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Poor Godzilla, a Game Boy is Too Tiny For His Giant Fingers
When he’s not crushing major Japanese cities, Godzilla likes nothing more than to kick back and play his own video game on the original Game Boy. Only, because his giant claws can’t hit the buttons properly, he’s always dying, which pisses him off, causing him to stomp around crushing cities. Wash, rinse, repeat. It’s a…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 10, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallHistory is Littered With the Corpses of Failed Consoles
So, you’re excited about this weird new Ouya console? Having made over $1 million from Kickstarter backers in a single day, you probably are! So now’s the time I’m going to tell you to cool your jets, if only a little. Why? Because there’s a lot more to making a video game console than just…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 10, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
The Sega Console That Was Just For Girls
Chances are the Sega consoles you played, or at least saw growing up, were actually made by Sega. But not everyone was afforded that luxury. In some territories, the hardware had to be manufactured and sold by third-party vendors, resulting in some bizarre systems like this: The Master System Girl. Note that this is not…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 9, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallX-Men’s Giant Six-Player Cabinet Was an Arcade Marvel
While many arcade games can accommodate two players, and some even four, there aren’t many that can crowd six around a single cabinet like the incredible X-Men arcade game could. Released in 1992, and developed by Konami, the game came out at the height of the studio’s arcade power, during which similar side-scrolling games (all…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 5, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
The History of Blizzard Entertainment, in One Very Pretty Timeline
In 1991, a small development studio called Silicon & Synapse was founded. It would make a name for itself with cult driving games like RPM Racing and Rock N’ Roll Racing. Fast forward to 2012, and that small studio is now known as Blizzard Entertainment. The entertainment juggernaut, behind such blockbusters as World of Warcraft,…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 5, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallThe One Game To Play on the Fourth of July
Not being American, I have no personal affinity towards 4th of July celebrations. If I were, though, you can bet your ass I’d be spending the day playing Sid Meier’s Colonization over and over and over again. First released in 1994, Colonization remains something of a cult favourite amongst PC gamers, never reaching the heights…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 4, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Dragon Ball’s Creator Takes on Street Fighter
Akira Toriyama is famous as being the creator of Dragonball, though he’s also worked on video games, most notably doing character design for the Dragon Quest series of RPGs (as well as Xbox 360 RPG Blue Dragon). This antique image, from what looks like an old Japanese magazine, has the legend giving his take on…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 3, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallThe Time Nintendo Forgot About Games, And Went After The…Stock Market?
Unlike its rivals Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo has usually had a staunch games first philosophy when it comes to hardware. But it hasn’t always been that way. In the 1980s, the company had a brief flirtation with, of all things, the business market. Booming business and ambitious technology were two of the hallmarks of Japan’s…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 3, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Bringing the Perfect Pixels of the Past to Life
Noirlac’s Tumblr is maybe one of the best in existence. The mysterious man, known only as an anonymous Ubisoft employee, has a site cataloguing weird and wonderful pixel art from old video games, many of them obscure Japanese titles that you haven’t even heard of, let alone played. We’ve featured him a few times here…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 2, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Some Things You May Not Know About Mario
You know he’s got a moustache, a red beret and a penchant for jumping on people’s heads, but have you ever stopped to wonder what you maybe didn’t know about Mario, the world’s most popular and iconic video game character? He’s Had Three Names In Mario’s first ever video game appearance, as the hero of…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 2, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Let’s Settle This Once and For All: Genesis Aladdin or Super NES Aladdin?
It’s time. It’s time to settle this. A while back, I got into a HEATED EXCHANGE with Kotaku columnist Lisa Foiles about her flagrant proclamation that the Super Nintendo version of Aladdin was superior to the Genesis version of Aladdin I did not remember this to be the case—from my recollection, the Genesis version was…
By Kirk Hamilton Published June 30, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallThings Sure Got Steamy (And Sandy) in This Insanely Cheesy Atari Commercial
Oh, where to begin with this bit of gaming nostalgia. This commercial for the Atari 5200 is just all kinds of amazing, featuring the beach, surfing, hot girls in bikinis, and some hot! Joystick! Action! Seriously, I kind of wish video game commercials were still this joyfully dorky. I ALSO wish I could play video…
By Kirk Hamilton Published June 29, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallGet a Load of This Super-Hot Game of Thrones NES Game Cartridge
Last week, I wrote about the 72 Pins collection of amazing custom NES art, done in a classic style and affixed to real NES cartridges. They looked plenty cool in pictures on the 72 Pins site, but I didn’t anticipate that they’d be so cool-looking in real life. The people behind 72 Pins were kind…
By Kirk Hamilton Published June 29, 2012
