The point’n’click fans are a pretty weird bunch: always hungry for more games but rarely interested in going beyond their platform of choice to find some more. I used to be one of them so I can relate to that frame of mind. Among many classic home computers, the Commodore 64 is far from being…
Nobody in the 90s cared about the history of videogames: they just played them really. Back then, though, the medium was still in his teenage years; it would be like expecting 15th century painters to organize an exhibition about Renaissance art. By now videogames are approaching their middle age, consequently we’re seeing more and more…
In the 80s, before complex D&D based RPGs reached a bigger audience, teenagers who didn’t have friends to play with, found companionship in gamebooks. The very first book in the Fighting Fantasy series was The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, originally written by RPG veterans Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson. It is the gamebook most people…
Arcade conversions on Commodore 64 were definitely one major source of revenues for many publishers. But, naturally, most coin-ops from the mid 80s were way beyond the beloved breadbin’s limited hardware. Plenty of times, the public was horribly letdown by subpar or unplayable conversions, like Super Hang On or E-SWAT. Buggy Boy is, luckily, a…
H.P. Lovecraft is one of the most beloved horror authors of the last century, cited as an inspiration again and again by movie directors, writers and, naturally, videogame designers. While reviewing Daughter of Serpents, I’ve mentioned how I feel that games somewhat inspired by Lovecraft seem to actually fare better than those directly taken from…
I had the opportunity to interview artist Craig Stitt: he worked with software houses like Sega Technical Institute and Insomniac games. We went over the titles he worked on, from Sonic 2 to Ratchet & Clank and various infamous cancelled projects, along with some of his personal stories and insights. I thank him for this…
If one should want more proof that games do not need fancy graphics, multiplayer components or breakneck action to actually tug at your heartstrings, well Speed Dating for Ghosts will definitely do the trick. A short visual novel experience that is perfect for both newcomers and veterans of the genre alike. In Speed Dating for…
Nintendo versus Sega. A battle for the ages that made many kids’ blood boil during the 90s, no holds barred bout fought via scathing slogans and – who could forget – the war of the bits. Eight bit, sixteen bits, Genesis does, Nintendon’t and so on. Even though Sega gave up the fight many years…
Trapped in a sprawling egyptian tomb, oxygen running out, monster and creepy crawlers after me all the time… Is such a game appropriate for a child? Well, it sure was for four year old me! I loved that feeling of being endlessly stuck in a dusty suffocating sphinx full of sarcophagi and snakes, desperately searching…
I’ve mentioned visual novels a few times on my blog: a genre interesting first and foremost because it caters more to readers than to actual “gamers” as they are often defined by the press and industry itself. Visual novels are not very often developed by main industry developers, even though there are several exception to…
