Back in 2001 – as Dr. Frank N. Furter would put it – it wasn’t easy to have a good time. There were few alternatives, for a PC gamer, to full price titles bought on store shelves: the good free indie titles were still far on the horizon and Macromedia Flash wasn’t yet ready for…
Allow me the comparison: Skitchin’ was to Road Rash what Beavis & Butthead were to The Simpsons. Where Road Rash was direct, brash and kind of rude, Skitchin was rad, awesome and not afraid to flip the bird. Grab your skates, steal a ride on a car bumper and we’re off! Skitchin’, for once on…
It is fascinating how the history of video games tends to be skewed towards the USA. Still today it is easy to come across articles – written by Italians of all people – that keep on mentioning the “console wars” in the 90s or the “great video game crash of 1983”. And yet, all of…
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: everyone just played them really. Truthfully though, back then the medium was still in its teenage years; it would be like expecting 15th century painters to organize an exhibition about Renaissance art. In 2021, videogames are approaching their middle age, consequently more and more documentaries…
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, despite sounding like a bad idea for most players, were a major source of revenue for many publishers at the time. 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…
H.P. Lovecraft is one of the most beloved horror authors of the last century, which won’t come as a surprise since he has inspired countless movie directors, writers and, naturally, videogame designers. While reviewing Daughter of Serpents, I’ve mentioned my sensation that many times, videogames that are “somewhat” inspired by Lovecraft seem to actually fare…
Artist Craig Stitt has worked with software houses like Sega Technical Institute and Insomniac games. In this interview we went over many of the titles he worked on, from Sonic 2 to Ratchet & Clank along with other infamous cancelled projects,plus some of his personal stories and insights. I thank him for this time and…
If one should need any more definite 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…