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Could 2011 be the year?


As a followup to our 2010 Wii Year in Review article I’d like to turn the calendar page to 2011, which could be a pivotal year for Nintendo’s popular home console. Speculation ranges from continued success to a sharp decline in sales; some foresee a high definition rehash of practically the same console, while others are expecting a successor announcement as early as this summer at E3. Will ...

Best year yet, or the beginning of the end?


In what many are predicting to be the Wii’s last year of console market dominance, 2010 turned out to be a year of stellar game releases for Nintendo's little white box--perhaps it’s best year yet. While competitors played catch-up with gesture-based gaming solutions of their own to capture the ever elusive “casual” market, it was mainly a back to ...

It's amazing the stuff you can find at your local drug store. Stuff that just can't be legal, and yet somehow - they are selling it right there on the shelves like a Malaysia piracy kiosk. I've found some remarkable gems before, but this is the brass ring ... the golden chalice of portable emulation devices - The One the Suit Was Made For (sorry, sometimes I just throw in references for myself). ...

Introduction

The year is 1983. Arcades were filled with video games considered archaic by today's standards; Mario Bros. (the original), Spy Hunter, Track and Field, Cloak & Dagger and Food Fight - just to name a few. The home video game market was collapsing and the NES had just hit Japan, but wouldn't hit our shores for another two years. Theaters were playing movies like Risky Business, Scarface and The Dead Zone. Michael Jackson was still black and groups like Eurythmics, Duran Duran and Prince topped the music charts. Chicago elected the first black mayor, Sally Ride was the first woman in outer space and a suicide bomb attack in Beirut killed 241 Marines.

Are you firmly dialed back into the '80s now? Good - because video games like Space Ace and it's older brother Dragon's Lair are "period pieces" - and they require a proper mindset to be enjoyed fully.
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Who's Your Daddy?



That time is upon us again, when a large slice of the gaming world goes into hibernation for the next several weeks (if not months), due to a self-imposed schedule of non-stop online multiplayer FPS carnage for Activision Blizzard’s latest Call of Duty release: Black Ops. Nevermind the Infinity Ward fiasco and the ensuing fan backlash just a few short months ago where fans of the series swore they would stick it to Activision CEO Bobby Kotick and skip this next Call ...

The year is 1983. Arcades were filled with video games considered archaic by today's standards; Mario Bros. (the original), Spy Hunter, Track and Field, Cloak & Dagger and Food Fight - just to name a few. The home video game market was collapsing and the NES had just hit Japan, but wouldn't hit our shores for another two years. Theaters were playing movies like Risky Business, Scarface and The Dead Zone. Michael Jackson was still black and groups like Eurythmics, Duran Duran and Prince topped the music charts. Chicago elected the first black mayor, Sally Ride was the first woman in outer space and a suicide bomb attack in Beirut killed 241 Marines.

Are you firmly dialed back into the '80s now? Good - because video games like Dragon's Lair and its ilk are "period pieces" - and they require a proper mindset to be enjoyed fully.
...