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CultureTotal Recall
Before Menu Screens, we Adjusted Consoles With Buttons
These wonderful shots are courtesy of Bleeping Relics, and show the control boards of a trio of old Pong consoles. These old analog systems weren’t adjusted via menu screens or fancy UI systems. If you wanted to change something, well, there was a button right there on the console. Bleeping Relics [Flickr]
By Luke Plunkett Published May 7, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallStraight from 1990, One Kid’s Adorable Painstaking VHS Guide for Beating Mega Man
Before the internet existed, millions of players toiled away in lonely obscurity to find the best way to beat the oh-so-hard games of yesteryear. Lots of us scribbled in notebooks, drew our own maps and called tips lines to figure out how to beat the games we were obsessed with. And then we shared this…
By Evan Narcisse Published May 7, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallThe Moment When Max Payne Realized He Was In a Video Game
It’s not that common that a video game character realizes that he’s actually in a video game. And like any fourth-wall breaking shenanigans, it can be a tricky maneuver to pull off. Leave it to Remedy, the guys running the Max Payne franchise before Rockstar took over, to put their own paranoid protagonist through the…
By Kirk Hamilton Published May 5, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallThe Forgotten TV Debut of the Original Star Wars Game
Happy Star Wars day! There have been, to date, one jillion Star Wars video games. (That figure is approximate). But in many ways, there was only one—the 1983 Atari game Star Wars. I played this game when I was barely old enough to understand the films, much less do well at any of the levels,…
By Kirk Hamilton Published May 4, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallCut a Rug to All of the Greatest Video Game Dance Routines
You know what the world needs more of? Choreographed dance routines. You know what I’m talking about. This is what I’m talking about. In the storied history of video games, there have been a surprising number of amazing dance numbers. Just for you, Chris edited together this video of… pretty much all of them. Sit…
By Kirk Hamilton Published May 4, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Cover Your Eyes, it’s the Horror of Third-Party N64 Contollers
I hated the N64 pad. Hated it. Didn’t like the button placement, didn’t like the ergonomics, really didin’t like the fact the little joystick was broken on half the controllers you ever picked up. But you know what? I could easily live with it if I had the choice between Nintendo’s official pad and those…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 3, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall“Celebrate” May 4th With Possibly the Worst Star Wars Video Game Ever Made
There are loads of terrible Star Wars games. We’ve talked about them here before. But there’s different reasons someone can say a game is terrible. They might not like the genre, or the platform, or the way the game has treated the Star Wars canon. One thing many will agree on, though, is that the…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 3, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Welcome to Total Recall
Total Recall is Kotaku’s nightly look back at the history of video games. Think you know where video games come from? You might know a little, but our aim with Total Recall is to dig a little deeper and shine a light on some of the more bizarre and interesting elements of this medium’s past.…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 3, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallA Booze Company Smuggled the Sega Mega Drive Into India
Take a look at this commercial, for the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis). It’s for the Indian market, and while it’s a little rough around the edges, it’s mostly what you’d expect from the mid-90s. Except for that weird “Shaw Wallace” business. That’s not a YouTube uploader’s watermark, it’s the name of the company that handled…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 2, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
What Assassin’s Creed Looked Like in 2004
Nothing will make you realise just how old this console generation is than today’s Total Recall, which looks at the very first concept art ever put down on paper/computer for the project that would become Assassin’s Creed It was put down in 2004 That’s eight years ago, and while a lot has changed for the…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 2, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallSega Debuts the World’s First Hologram Video Game
We’ve looked at Sega’s pioneering role in the world of 3D gaming before here on Total Recall, but only briefly stopped on Time Traveler, one of the company’s two and only attempts at holographic, 3D arcade gaming. This antique video, from Time Traveler’s 1991 debut, gives only a few hints as to how unsuccessful these…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 1, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Just How Many Damn Call of Duty Games is This Now, Anyway?
Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Activision and Treyarch will spend the next six months telling you this game is a sequel, but the fact the game’s name starts with “Call of Duty” reminds us we’re way past the point of using the number “II” when it comes to these shooters. Unless it’s XII. Or,…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 1, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallThe 1970s Movie That Looks Just Like a Video Game
In 1976, a short film called C’était un Rendez-vous was released in France. It ran for ten minutes. And if you’ve ever played a driving game you’ll probably want to watch it. There’s no real plot or anything to it, at least not until the end. It’s just a guy driving a Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 30, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Video Game Books Used to be Amazing
If cheap magazines or dummy’s guides to dummy’s games are the only exposure you have to video games and the world of words on paper, I’m sorry you weren’t gaming in the 1980s, when you would have been treated to some of these I shared one of them a few weeks back, but seeing a…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 30, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallThe Classic VHS Horror Game That Was So Funny It Was Scary
Yes my gatekeeper!! Last weekend, I was hanging out at a friend’s board game night. There were some dice on one table, and a deck of cards on the other. Then, over in the corner, some people started fiddling with a VHS player. “Oh,” I thought. “Um.” Before I knew what was happening, we had…
By Kirk Hamilton Published April 28, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
In Celebration of Kirby’s 20th Birthday: Fan Art!
Twenty years ago today, Kirby made his debut in Japan on the Gameboy in Kirby’s Dream Land. Today, we celebrate the adorable ball of pink’s birthday, and some of us commiserate with his inability to drink in certain countries. Fortunately I am not amongst those that do. To celebrate, I’ve gathered some standout fan renditions…
By Tina Amini Published April 27, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Quality Time With The Classic Video Game Characters You’d Switch Teams For
Yesterday on #Speakup, commenter chadoban asked which video game characters we’d all go gay (or straight) for. Your answers were as varied as they were enjoyable, so Chris Person thought he’d grab some of the most popular ones and render them into gifs. Check out the gifs below. Enjoy them. Place them on your desktop,…
By Kirk Hamilton Published April 27, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallThe Shameful History of Hip Hop in Video Game Advertising
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, video game publishers and their cohorts in the marketing world thought it would be a good idea to use rap in their commercials. It was not. This clip takes us on a tour of some of the worst, and while some are stretching the definition of hip-hop, others are entirely…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 26, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
The Story Behind Sony’s Homebrew Development Kits
Almost a year ago to the day, I wrote a piece on Sony’s Net Yaroze, a kit which allowed PS1 users to make their own video games. Well, anyone who was interested in the subject, please check out this enormous feature over on Gamasutra, which even has in-depth interviews from the men behind it. [Gamasutra]
By Luke Plunkett Published April 26, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Nintendo Power Sure Had Some Amazing Artwork Inside
After I posted those amazing old Zelda images from Nintendo Power the other day, I got an email from reader Yannick, who just so happens to run a blog that collects all kinds of awesome old Nintendo Power artwork by Katsuya Terada. Double Dragon, Contra, there’s all kinds of old NES games Terada has brought…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 26, 2012