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CultureTotal RecallWhat Do Warcraft, Optimus Prime and Zelda Have In Common?
Before its realm of Azeroth was brought to life in 2004’s World of Warcraft, Blizzard had tried once before to add a little depth to their fantasy franchise with a game that sadly never saw the light of day. That game was Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans In the late 1990’s, and seeking to…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 24, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallThis is Why You Don’t See Many Games Based On Soap Operas
Think games based on movies, action-oriented TV shows and classic works of literature are a bad idea? They’ve got nothing on games based on soap operas. This is Neighbours. It’s a game based on the mega-popular Australian soap of the same name, which has been shown in over 50 countries since its first episode in…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 23, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
My Favourite Nintendo Console Wasn’t Even Made by Nintendo
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…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 19, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
When Mario Had a Best-Selling…Book?
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…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 18, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
The Atari Games That Became Comic Book Heroes
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…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 17, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
The Beautiful Art of Arcade Video Games
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”…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 16, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
The Day the Secret Service Raided a Role-Playing Game Company
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…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 13, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallThe HD Console Game From…1993?
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…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 12, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallThis Might be the Weirdest Game Boy Game Ever Made
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…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 11, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
Old Consoles: The Illustrated Edition
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…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 10, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
Behind the Scenes of the Most Disappointing Game Movie Ever Made
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…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 9, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallThank You, Star Wars, For All These Awesome Games
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…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 5, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
The Father Of Video Games Fled The Nazis, Fought Them Then Took All Their Guns
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.…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 3, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallMetal Gear Was Born On Microsoft’s Great Japanese Success
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…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 2, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
Sony Hasn’t Always Hated Homebrew Development
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…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 29, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
The Kids Who Grew Up In Arcades
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,…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 28, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallWhen Halo was on the Mac, and was a Totally Different Game
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…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 27, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallThe Town That Banned Pac-Man
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…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 26, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
The Weird And Wonderful World Of The Sega Genesis
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…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 25, 2011
