Posts Tagged ‘donkey kong’
Podcast: Gameboy Top 10
As is per usual for us here at GH101, 40 games enter (20 from each host), and 10 leave. It’s nostalgic, it’s arbitrary, we may annoy due to the lack of Pokemon, but it’s our official Top 10 Gameboy games.
Podcast: Donkey Kong 64 Game Club
Donkey Kong 64 has got to be one of the most divisive titles to be released both by Rare and on the Nintendo 64. Depending on how you came to play it, you either love it or hate it. While Jam had tackled this title back when it released, even getting the coveted 101% completion, Fred had never touched it. Thanks to listener Blake (jedislurpee) we played through the game in its entirety and go back to dissect the development, gameplay, and key factors of a title that probably gets more hate than it deserves.
Podcast: Genre Study of Platformers (Part 1)
This week Fred and Jam begin to tackle the evolution of genres. One of the biggest and earliest influences is definitely the Platformer. In this episode they discuss the early instances, gameplay mechanics, and eventually what comes to define the genre. In what will have to be a multi-part series, this episode covers a majority of 1978-1990.
Movie Review: Pixels
Authors Note: The circumstances surrounding my having seen this movie early and my review having been written months ago are explained at the end of this review.
Here we go again, another video game movie. That’s all I seem to think about whenever I see anything like Pixels advertised, so needless to say I went into my initial screening with very low hopes. Couple that with the fact that the starring roles belong to Adam Sandler and Kevin James, two actors of which I despise most of their work, and you basically have a formula for what I assumed would be a disaster. Thanks to some lighthearted implementation of some of gaming’s first arcade titles (Pac-Man, Centepede, Donkey Kong, etc.) and the assistance of great supporting cast members Josh Gad and Peter Dinklage, this 80s nostalgia flick just became yet another in a sea of big dumb fun summer blockbusters. If you over think it, this movie falls apart, but if you just go in with zero expectations and want to enjoy two hours, you might be pleasantly surprised.
Podcast: It’s On Like Donkey Kong
This week, after talking about the controversial Genesis/Mega Drive Top 10 and getting the community list, Fred and Jam run and jump into the world of Donkey Kong. An unfortunately misnamed ape, Donkey Kong marked another strong arcade property for Nintendo that with the help of Rare evolved into the popular platforming series that still lives on today.
How Product Design has Transformed the Amusement Industry
The term “arcade game” these days conjures up images of cutting-edge graphics and sound, combined with innovative and interactive technology that can bring any concept to life. However, good graphics and interactivity have not always been a necessity for a game that is both enjoyable and addictive. I dread to mention the recent phenomenon of the Flappy Bird app but it is an example of an outrageously faulty and basic game becoming extremely popular. This has been seen in the past with games like Space Invaders, Pac Man, Tetris and Asteroids following very basic concepts and graphics, but still being addictive and rewarding when completed.
The Really Early Days
The first arcade games kicked off at amusement parks and are still present at fairs and theme parks, but there’s nothing particularly sophisticated about them. Ring toss, throwing balls at stacked cans, shooting targets, and other simple challenges have been doing the rounds for hundreds of years and can still draw in the punters to this day. Just don’t go expecting an easy win. Perhaps this is what is indicative of a good game – making it appear simple whilst making it actually fiendishly difficult to win. Make it too hard, however ,and you are left with Zelda II.
Review: NES Remix
Despite all the piracy and archival purposes of emulation, my personal favorite addition to the gaming landscape was the ROM hack. ROMs are the name for the entire program contained on a game cartridge and so naturally a “ROM hack” is taking a game we all know and love and changing it. Nintendo hasn’t really dabbled in this until now – sure, the 1994 World Championship cart and a few SNES competition carts exist, but they are rare and thus hugely expensive. NES Remix takes 16 established early games from the legendary 8-bit system (listed at the bottom of this review) and runs you through a series of challenges to compete with yourself, your friends on the couch, or the world online. While it’s mostly just a derivative of WarioWare, this has to be one of the most addictive games for someone who grew up playing the NES.
Podcast: The Final Countdown – Part 3
We continue our Final Countdown series that swaps the wonderful stories associated with some of the most beloved games of all time. We still couldn’t quite wrap it up, but we crank through games 39-10 and break down some of the biggest titles ever released. This time around Fred from Gaming History 101 is joined by Trees from EZ Mode Unlocked and Jake/Jacob from Gameranx.
Storytelling: How Shigeru Miyamoto Saved NOA
When Nintendo decided to move over to America, it wasn’t to begin the world of the NES but rather to establish a market for arcade games. Nintendo of America (NOA) had struggled ever since it migrated to the United States, complete with difficulty finding a home base in both New York and New Jersey, eventually staying for good in the Seattle area. At the time Nintendo’s owner, a gruff businessman by the name of Hiroshi Yamauchi, had inherited the company and vowed to make it into the powerhouse it eventually became. Yamauchi recently warmed up to his son-in-law, Minoru Arakawa, and decided to make him in charge of Nintendo’s American migration thanks to his free-spirited nature, familiarity with the country and ability to overwork himself. Now Arakawa was attempting to find the big arcade game that would put NOA on the map like Space Invaders had done for Taito. That game was to be a linear space shooter called Radarscope.
Generation Gap Pt. 1
It’s difficult to understand and discern the various console generations that have existed, so here’s a brief overview of each one and the consoles that spawned in North America during these generations. Please note that these posts cover home consoles only (and goes into broad detail on specific larger market share, not every console that released) – while arcades and PCs were a signficant part of gaming in the respective 80s and 90s, they will be covered in different posts.
First Generation (1972 – 1983)
Magnavox Odyssey – Launch Price: $75-$100 (retail dependent) – Released: 1972
Designer Ralph Baer’s team started working on the console, codenamed “brown box”, in 1966 and completed a prototype in 1968. I wasn’t even remotely alive when the Odyssey was on the market, so my experience with the console is limited to a few brief and clumsy plays of Ski at various Midwest Gaming Classic conventions.
The Odyssey had interchangeable cartridges that were purchased individually, much like more modern consoles, and also included an overlay for the television. Since it was unable to generate graphics necessary for the games itself, it would instead use the TV overlay to create the playfield and dots or lines would be the only true visual created by the console. Each cartridge would trigger jumpers in the console to generate the desired images or items on the screen. Some games would also include dice and various other items, creating a virtual board game of sorts. One of the most popular among the Odyssey titles was of course Pong, which was actually named Tennis on the console. Unfamiliarity with a device of this sort and co-branding with Magnavox stores created a public perception that the Odyssey would only work with Magnavox televisions, which wasn’t true.
Gaming History 101 