We’re going to get a little personal today on Total Recall, and take a look at my favourite Nintendo console of all time. Not the best, not the biggest-selling, just…my favourite. And that console is the Panasonic Q, a machine sadly never made commercially available in the West. The Q, a very fancy version of…
Mario has gone through three distinct phases of super popularity. One in the early 90’s. One is seemingly just on the wane, born of the success of his games on the DS and Wii. The other, though, was in the mid-80’s. The fat plumber was so popular then that he didn’t just have a best-selling…
While we normally associate multimedia cash-ins as a recent phenomenon, the practice of spinning games off into other mediums dates back decades. One of the earliest examples of this is the Atari Force line of comic books. While most adaptations of games are expected to be based on the events or characters in the actual…
Since for most of arcade gaming’s heyday graphics weren’t exactly easy on the eye, to lure customers in companies often had to rely on artwork to make a sale. The biggest, grandest works were reserved for the side of the cabinet, but since they usually weren’t seen (with machines stacked side-by-side), it was the “marquee”…
Steve Jackson Games is a company well known for its tabletop RPGs and card games. An innocent enough trade, then, so why in 1990 were its offices raided by the United States Secret Service? It wasn’t because SJG’s products were somehow illegal, or that the company was peddling counterfeit currency. It was because, at the…
While most people would peg the beginning of the high definition era around the time of the PlayStation 2 (some games able to run in 1080i), here’s one game that was running in HD nearly twenty years ago It’s Hudson’s Hi-Ten Bomberman, which has the honour of being the world’s very first high definition video…
Over the decades, there were plenty of kooky Game Boy games released in both Japan and the West. Plenty of strange accessories, too, from cameras to printers to blood glucose monitors. But 2001’s Mario Family was especially kooky. Why? Because it was a cartridge designed not to be played, but to be plugged into a…
We’ve looked at the design of old consoles a few times lately here on Total Recall, in particular my fetish for those with faux wood panelling, but today we’re looking at something a little different. These illustrations, by German artist Sebastian Koch, show a variety of old consoles from the 1970’s. Specifically, those built just…
Considering its budget, the popularity of the franchise and its accomplished cast, 1993’s Super Mario Bros. is—relatively—surely the most disappointing video game movie of all time. Still, train wreck that it is, we can’t help but keep on looking at it, even after all these years. And today we’re getting a real good look, with…
May 4 is Star Wars Day, in honour of, well, the fact “May the 4th” sounds a bit like “May the force…”. Silly, I know, but it also gives us a chance to look back on the amazing video games the sci-fi franchise has given us over the years. And by years, I should really…
These could sit comfortably in a commercial for cigarettes or a fine Scotch
Ralph Baer is widely acknowledged to be the “father of video games”, thanks to his work in the 1960’s pioneering the device that would become the Magnavox Odyssey, the world’s first ever video game console. Unlike most men and women in the industry today, though, his background is not that of a comfortable middle-class kid.…
Microsoft and video games are a bit of a running joke in Japan these days. After a decade of trying (and failing) with the Xbox, the company just can’t seem to win the Japanese public over. It wasn’t always that way, however. Indeed, in the 1980’s, Microsoft produced a surprisingly successful games platform, one that…
Sony’s recent run of legal and now technical issues with hackers can be traced back to a single decision: that of removing the ability to run the Linux operating system on the PlayStation 3. While Sony cut Linux out of piracy fears, fans were upset that it brought to an end over a decade of…
In their heyday, arcades weren’t just about the games. They were about the experience of leaving the house and going to a public space to play games, hanging out with friends and meeting new people who would then kick your ass. It’s a scene that today is sadly long gone. All we’ve got left, then,…
It seems an age since the world first saw Halo. It was the 20th century. Back when it was introduced by…Steve Jobs. And was a…third-person shooter. The series has come a long way since then, but sometimes it’s fun to look back. At blocky space marines and a major game being announced in Comic Sans…
Arcade games may have been a source of great joy and entertainment for millions across the world in the 1980s, but for the small town of Marshfield, Massachusetts they were nothing but trouble. Fearful of the effects arcade video games would have on Marshfield and its inhabitants, in 1982 the town outlawed the use of…
One of the great things about the Genesis (or Mega Drive, depending on where you’re from) is the fact that, unlike most other major consoles, Sega licensed out its technology, meaning a range of companies could , along with Sega itself, come up with their own wacky versions of the console. While some of these…
It’s one of those quirks of history that Nintendo, a company synonymous with colourful characters and fun video games, made its very first independent venture into the world of arcade gaming with…a board game adaptation. While 1981’s Donkey Kong and 1983’s Mario Bros. are most people’s introduction to Nintendo arcade games, the company’s first coin-op…
Acclaimed British actor Tim Curry may be most famous to regular folk for his roles in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and…Muppet Treasure Island, but he’s most famous around here for his work in video games. You see, Tim Curry – who Infinite Lives reminds us turns 65 today – is Kotaku After Dark’s favourite…
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