Total Recall Archives - Page 6 of 37

Assassin’s Creed IV’s Sea Shanties Are A Treasure

Once a means of passing the time while sailors engaged in back-breaking labour on a ship, 2013 saw sea shanties take centre stage in Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed IV, where they promptly stole the show. They are, without a doubt,one of the best things about a very good video game Because of the way we’re taught…

By Luke Plunkett Published December 11, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

Nintendo’s First Electronic Toy Was Very, Very Cool

We all know Nintendo is a company with a long history. In over 100 years they’ve made everything from playing cards to LEGO sets to video games. But as important as some of those products were (or still are!), few are as important as the Nintendo Companion. Why? Because it marks Nintendo’s first foray into…

By Luke Plunkett Published October 30, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

That Time We Got To See Mario’s Dick

For the first and probably last time, we saw an officially-licensed portrayal of Mario’s dick and balls

By Luke Plunkett Published October 25, 2017

Screenshot: Westwood Studios/Virgin Interactive/Peter Tieryas

CultureTotal Recall

Blade Runner Inspired Two Very Different Video Games

While it's inspired many games, there have only been two Blade Runner games made

By Peter Tieryas Published October 11, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

1994 Nintendo Documentary Gives Us A Look At Miyamoto’s Desk

In 1994, Jean-Jacques Beineix made a documentary called Otaku. It features a nine-minute tour of Nintendo’s offices, and it is wonderful to watch. The original recording is in French (and has circulated online for a while), but ComputerTales recently uploaded a version featuring machine translation into English, which while jarring still at least lets you…

By Luke Plunkett Published October 10, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

The Best Baseball Game Had Explosions And Robots

Being Australian, I don’t have much time for baseball. That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy baseball video games, though. Especially when they’re from the future Super Baseball 2020 is a game developed by SNK and was first released in 1991 for its Neo Geo platform. It is, as the name suggests, an idea of what…

By Luke Plunkett Published October 2, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

Circle Of The Moon Is Secretly The Best Castlevania Game

The original Castlevania released 31 years ago on the Famicom in Japan. It launched a franchise that dominated games for decades. But there’s one game in the series that’s woefully underappreciated, the Game Boy Advance’s Circle of the Moon Released in 2001 as a flagship title for the Game Boy Advance, Circle of the Moon…

By Heather Alexandra Published September 26, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

Working For Nintendo Used To Be Hell, But At Least We Got Cool Music Out Of It

Super Metroid has one of the most famous themes in video games. If you’ve ever wondered where it came from, you’ve got the nightmarish working conditions of 1990s video game development (and some impromptu one-man karaoke) to thank for it. In an interview on Nintendo’s site, Composer Kenji Yamamoto remembers that during the development of…

By Luke Plunkett Published September 20, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

The Story Behind The Home Of Forgotten Video Games

Before the emergence of online stores, if you wanted to play old video games and they weren’t available locally, there was simply no way to buy them. But you could download them, and one of the biggest and most important sites around was Home of the Underdogs It’s hard to pinpoint today just how much…

Alex Walker Published September 11, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

Nintendo’s “Boob Shaped Controller” Was, Sadly, A Failure

One of Nintendo’s most important innovations in video games has been the invention of the d-pad, which is still used prominently on controllers today. To get there, though, they had to go through some less successful prototypes. Some with stupid names. While working on Game & Watch designs in the early 80s, Nintendo legend Gunpei…

By Luke Plunkett Published August 7, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

Earthworm Jim’s Mean-Spirited Satire Doesn’t Hold Up

Earthworm Jim first released on the Sega Genesis today in 1994. The strange side scroller married offbeat humor and experimental level design. The result was a hodgepodge of a game that was frustrating but engaging. Developed by Shiny Entertainment, Earthworm Jim positions itself largely as a work of satire seeking to upend various side scrolling…

By Heather Alexandra Published August 2, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

Jet Set Radio Sure Loved Its Graffiti

It's the heart of the game, even more than its skating

By Luke Plunkett Published July 26, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

The Kojima Game That Made You Play In The Sun

Hideo Kojima is famous for being the driving force behind stuff like Metal Gear and Snatcher. But today, we’re going to talk about another of his games: Boktai, a quirky little Game Boy Advance title that asked the player to go outside and get some sun. While that sounds…odd, it was for a very good…

By Luke Plunkett Published June 21, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

Snatcher Is Cyberpunk Noir At Its Best

Hideo Kojima's 1988 game is a cult classic for good reason

By Peter Tieryas Published June 16, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

That Time Nintendo and Sega Introduced 3D Gaming, In 1987

Years before Sega did what Nintendon’t the two gaming giants briefly went head to head in the newly discovered market of 3D gaming. It didn’t go very well for either of them. In the late ‘80s both Nintendo and Sega had put their main focus on expanding their brand to North America. Nintendo’s Famicom had…

By Ben Bertoli Published June 4, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

Watch (Part Of) A Mario Anime That’s Been Lost For Almost 20 Years

While most of Mario’s adventures through 1980s animation have been preserved on YouTube, not everything has managed to find its way online. Like 1989’s Super Mario Traffic Safety, which for the first time we’re now able to watch (well, at least some of it). Produced by Toei as an instructional safety video for Japanese schoolkids,…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 31, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

A Rare Video Tour Of Peak Sega

The Innoventions pavilion at Epcot is still around, but it’s a bit blergh in 2017. In 1994, though, it was the future, and a big part of that was getting to enjoy Sega in its prime. Which we can all do now, thanks to this video. It was shot by iretrogamer’s dad during a vacation…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 29, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

World Heroes Was A Damn Good Fighting Game

When Street Fighter II hit the big time in the early 1990s, it spawned a lot of competition. Some of these rivals emerged as beloved fighting game series in their own right, and would live on for years. Others, like World Heroes, couldn’t quite escape the crush of the bandwagon. Developed by Japanese studio Alpha…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 25, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

Solving The Mystery Of Perfect Dark’s Hidden Passwords

The 2000 Nintendo 64 game Perfect Dark was full of secrets. There were cheat codes to find, hidden pieces of cheese scattered around levels, and special modes to unlock. One mystery remains, nearly two decades later, with only a few hidden passwords hinting at its existence. Unfortunately, even the game’s developers were not able to…

By Heather Alexandra Published April 24, 2017

CultureTotal Recall

A Dire Warning About Final Fantasy’s Black Magic

Let’s go back. To a time before Jack Thompson, before age ratings. Back to 1980s Canada, when the most pressing concern with video game content—and how it was destroying the youth—was the black magic found in Final Fantasy. “And once again, it’s about how you can get in touch with your wizard”. If you’re short on…

By Luke Plunkett Published April 5, 2017