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CultureTotal Recall
How to Find a Classic American Arcade
Forget many of the more modern “arcades”, full of skill-testers and UFO catchers. Sometimes you just want to play something old, vintage, with wood-panelling and a faded marquee. An arcade game with history Sadly, classic arcades are hard to come by these days. So here’s how to find one. Carly Kocurek’s detailed map seeks to…
By Luke Plunkett Published October 17, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallThe Greatest Arcade Cabinet That Never Was
Around the turn of the millennium, Namco showed off an arcade game that looked like it had fallen out of the 22nd century. Housed in a giant cabinet called O.R.B.S., it was a sequel to old-school shooter Star Blade, and could have been just the kind of thing the dying arcade scene was in need…
By Luke Plunkett Published October 13, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallLife in a Video Game is Tough, but in Avalon, it’s Also Awesome
The Last Starfighter is my favourite video game movie of all time. But it had to fight, almost to the death, to claim the top spot. Because at number two is Avalon, a 2001 flick that’s part-Japanese, part-Polish, all awesome. It’s a strange movie. But I love it for the same reason I love Last…
By Luke Plunkett Published October 12, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallClive Owen’s Embarrassing Video Game Past
British actor Clive Owen is a badass. A man’s man. He’s got a deep voice, a heavy face, and is usually in movies where he kills things, or is at least around things being killed. Did you know, however, that between leaving the UK and making it big in Hollywood he appeared in one of…
By Luke Plunkett Published October 11, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallRape, Racism & Repetition: This is Probably the Worst Game Ever Made
When you think about it, commercial video games are usually pretty harmless. Sure, they can be violent, but there’s rarely any larger controversy surrounding a game involving things like drugs, politics, or sex. Which only makes 1982’s Custer’s Revenge all the more interesting. And appalling. WARNING: Some slightly NSFW content follows. For those unfamiliar with…
By Luke Plunkett Published October 7, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallRemembering Apple’s One Serious Attempt at a Video Games Console
Today is a day a lot of folks will be remembering the good, the bad and the downright inspirational from the company Steve Jobs helped found all the way back in 1976. So today’s Total Recall will be all about Apple’s one and only crack at the video games market: the Pippin. Sure, the iPhone…
By Luke Plunkett Published October 6, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
Enjoy This Badass 16-bit Title Screen Art
We’ve seen title art from modern games. And from NES games. Today, we’re hitting the ground somewhere in between with a collection of animated title screen art from the Genesis/Mega Drive and Super Nintendo. These images come courtesy of Title Scream, a site run by Kiwi interactive designer Cameron Askin which is looking to preserve…
By Luke Plunkett Published October 5, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallRAGE Has Been a Long, Long Time Coming
It’s not every day you get to play a new id game. If you’re not counting iPhone games (and we’re not counting iPhone games) or re-releases, the last new title the studio released was Doom 3. And that was in 2004 So this week’s release of post-apocalyptic buggy death simulator RAGE is something to be…
By Luke Plunkett Published October 4, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallBefore They Were Superstars: BioWare
Canadian developers BioWare are known today for blockbuster series like Mass Effect, Dragon Age and the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic We don’t care about those today. Today, for our younger/newer readers that may only know them for those franchises, we’re going back to 1995, where it all began. Unlike most (I’d be tempted…
By Luke Plunkett Published October 3, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallThe Four Stages of Reboot Grief
Today’s Total Recall won’t be about video game history. It’s about dealing with what happens when video game history is dredged back to the present and coated in bright pink lipstick. EA’s Syndicate is but the latest in an ever-growing list of games that are reboots of old franchises. And they’re reboots in the strictest…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 30, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallGoing to War Like Only Nintendo Can
Even though Zelda has killing and even Mario has head-stomping, when you think about it, nearly all of Nintendo’s first-party properties are harmless affairs. Bright colours, innocent storylines, big-eyed cartoon mascots and candy-coloured fantasy worlds where everything turns out just fine With one exception: the “Wars” series, Nintendo’s only foray into, well, war. In the…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 29, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
The Delightful Home-Made Maps of the Zork Series
Zork is one of the oldest adventure game franchises there is. The series is so old, in fact, that aside from a few rare instances you can only play the games using, and seeing, text. No graphics, no icons, no heads-up display, nothing. So how did you get around? How did you use a map?…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 26, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
It’s the end of the World as This Game Knew it (and Nobody Felt Fine)
Our younger readers won’t have lived through it, but the 1980s were in in many ways a bleak time, the spectre of nuclear holocaust hanging over the world for much of the decade. For such a dominant political topic, however, few games chose to address the subject head-on. Ground Zero was one of the few.…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 23, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallThis Star Wars Game Was So Bad They Should Have Made More Of Them
Over the past thirty years there have been plenty of memorable Star Wars games, from the Super Star Wars series to X-Wing to Jedi Knight to Battlefront. They’re all classics, not just awesome adaptations of a movie franchise but awesome games in their own right. Star Wars: Yoda Stories is not one of those games.…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 20, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
The Year E3 Went to Japan and Tried to Kill the Tokyo Game Show
With the Tokyo Game Show having just wound up, I thought today would be a good time to look back to 1996, when for the first and only time it wasn’t the only major gaming event held in Tokyo. For one year, and one year only, it had competition in the form of E3. An…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 19, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
Giant Plastic Alien Heads, Badass Fantasy Art & Video Games
Fans of classic rock and fantasy art will no doubt be familiar with the name Roger Dean. The British artist is as synonymous with 1970’s prog rock (especially the band Yes) as epic guitar tracks, and his bold, unique art style means you’ve probably seen and remembered his work, even if you’ve never remembered his…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 12, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
When Nintendo Wanted to Bring Gambling Into American Homes
In 1988, Nintendo released a modem for its Famicom system in Japan. A crude device, it didn’t allow for online play; just some downloadable stuff and access to basic news and information services. The device was never released in the United States, but it wasn’t for want of trying. Indeed, Nintendo figured at the time…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 8, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallBelieve it or Not, There Was a Goonies Sequel
Despite annual reminders, Hollywood has never made good on its threat to release a sequel to classic 1985 adventure flick The Goonies That didn’t stop video games from coming up with their own Goonies II, though. In 1987, Konami released The Goonies II on the Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System. And proceeded to confuse the shit out…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 7, 2011