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…
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…
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…
During the 80s and most of the 90s, console games were designed to appeal to a young audience, while home/personal computer titles were – usually – meant for an older public. Still, as most gamers know, this doesn’t imply in the slightest that console titles were simpler or, god forbid, kid friendly; Ninja Gaiden or…
In the second part of my Buck Rogers retrospective, we will take a look at the much less lauded continuation of the first game, Matrix Cubed, and then, finally, explain why I feel both games are still relevant all these years later. Prepare for launch. Matrix Cubed, planned as a direct sequel to the first…
What do Zeus and Zombies have in common? Well, other than the letter Z obviously, not very much one would say, but Lucasarts would beg to differ, especially Mike Ebert and Dean Sharpe. The two designers worked on two Lucasarts console releases, Zombies Ate my Neighbors and Herc’s Adventures. The two titles are among the…
How does on go about making a sequel to one of the most famous arcade maze games, fourteen years later? Wait but… weren’t there already sequels to the original game? Not really. Ms. Pac-man was a spin-off, Pac-mania was a “reimagining”, Pac-land another spin-off, even though it definitely did look and play like what the…
As a kid I hated Japanese RPGs with a passion. I remember saying to myself over and over how much I couldn’t stand the genre and reinforcing my intention of never playing a Final Fantasy title or anything remotely close to it. This was mainly because of my prejudice and of my upbringing with Western…
While playing and remembering various movie tie-ins products, there was one question I had no answer to: how did a publisher decide which movie to license to a game developer? Despite still not having a clear answer, for the sake of this article, though, my guess would be: box office success with teen and pre-teen…