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Archive for December, 2010

GSQ6: The year-end hold-over

31 Dec

I would really like to have a more momentous post with which to end the year, but I really want to finish posting the last bits of GameSpite Quarterly 5 so I can close that InDesign file and never have to worry about it again. Also, I’m hard at work on GSQ7 this week and don’t have time for original thought. Sorry about that.

Technically, this article isn’t from GSQ5; it’s one of the three articles that somehow got lost in the GSQ5 production shuffle and had to be printed in the next volume. But at heart (and page layout) it’s totally GSQ5. And isn’t heart what counts at this time of year?

GSQ7, by the way, is shaping up really nicely. I was worried about it for a while, since it’s the villains-only counterpart to GSQ3, which wasn’t all that popular. But the layout and contents are really strong, and there’s a section at the end with half a dozen straight-up game critiques with varied layouts and strong art, so now that it’s all coming together it has a little something for everyone. Please look forward to it, bow bow bow, etc.

Anyway, read this Contra article or Bill Rizer will blow up your face and run through your esophagus and destroy your parasite-spawning heart. He’ll do it, you know. He’s crazy. And he has thirty lives, too.

 
7 Comments

Posted in 2D, Games, GameSpite

 

GSQ5: The games, they are too many

30 Dec

Man, this NES roundup is a beast — I spent all yesterday morning compiling the thing. Basically, it goes to prove that 1990 was an amazing year for the NES. Look at all those great games, most of which were entirely new titles rather than sequels! I don’t know that there’s ever been a year so dense with good, original works, and I can guarantee there certainly won’t be another. Originality is much, much too risky with game budgets being what they are these days. Not that sequels are inherently bad, unless they’re terrible, but I do miss the days of going to the store and being surrounded by dozens of new creations and knowing that I had even odds of taking one home at random and being satisfied by its offerings.

Blah blah blah, shaking cane, yelling at kids re: lawn, etc.

I’ve also tweaked the format of this article style, so this entry looks a lot better than the past few. But man, you can just forget about me revamping the existing posts to match.

 
9 Comments

Posted in 2D, Games, GameSpite

 

GSQ5: The NES Mac venture

29 Dec

To put the wraps on the online edition of GameSpite Quarterly 5 (save those danged game roundups), we have the first part of a double-header about noir and adventure games. Here’s the first part, wherein we explore Mac games about people (namely, players) dying in a multitude of ways, all lovingly preserved in the transition to NES. Exciting!

 
7 Comments

Posted in 2D, Games, GameSpite

 

“It’s away!”

28 Dec

Hello there, friendly GameSpite support subscribers whose generosity continues to keep this site ad-free. You’ll be happy to know I’ve placed the print order for the next bonus book, which means your respective copy should be in the mail by mid-January. Of course, this makes the “Fall 2010″ date on the label something of a lie, but the best-laid plans and all that. The next book definitely will go out in the actual spring of 2011. Fer reals.

This book, as you can see, is called “An Oral* History of Games,” though as usual with the book subtitles around here it features an asterisk to denote the inaccuracy of the name. In this case, we really have more of a verbal history of games than an oral one, what with this being printed rather than spoken and passed down through the generations among a preliterate society. But anyway.

This volume is a sort of test run for an idea I’ve had in mind for years — hardly a revolutionary idea to be sure, but one that I’ve never quite seen executed in this particular manner. Each entry (about a specific game) consists of an illustration, an anecdotal piece about my most memorable experiences with said title, and a more objective critique/retrospective. A trifecta of content, if you will. The games remembered in this book are:

  • Pong
  • Ms. Pac-Man
  • Donkey Kong
  • Tempest
  • Zaxxon
  • and Final Fantasy III (VI)

One of these is not like the others! Because I wanted to mix things up a bit.

I really enjoyed putting this book together and hope that you, the audience, also enjoy it. Because I would like to create many more of these. You guys need to let me know what you think this time, instead of just suffering my random whims in silence.

And just for posterity, here’s a sample (sketch and anecdote) spread about Final Fantasy VI:

No, it’s not especially legible. Gotta keep anticipation high, after all. And maybe inflict eyestrain so you’ll think my out-of-practice doodles are better than they actually are.

 
5 Comments

Posted in Blog, GameSpite

 

GSQ5: And the rest

27 Dec

I keep meaning to post the rest of GSQ5‘s mini-articles on games, but we did a ton of them and they take an unreasonably long time to put together. Fortunately I was immobilized by a food coma yesterday, so I had nothing better to do. So, please to enjoy this roundup of the most interesting games released for NES in 1988 and 1989 (that don’t have full articles devoted to them). It is not a comprehensive listing of NES releases, but it’s better: a listing of worthwhile ones.

 
13 Comments

Posted in 2D, Games, GameSpite

 

GSQ5: Excellent work, Iago

26 Dec

I guess the title of this post is a little too oblique for its own good. Yes, Prince of Persia features an evil, sorcerous Persian vizier named Jafar, but he doesn’t have a parrot that sounds like Gilbert Gottfried. Chalk up another victory for Jordan Mechner, I guess.

For Christmas, someone got me a spambot that insists on filling my blog’s comments field with headline news. Thanks?

 
5 Comments

Posted in 2D, Games, GameSpite

 

GSQ5: Seriously not even slightly seasonal

25 Dec

It’s Christmas Day, which means most people aren’t online, which means barely anyone will be reading whatever is posted today. So why even bother? Because I care, gosh darn it.

Or possibly because I have a sickness. Whatever.

I hope your Christmas* is hecka sweet, as they say down here in Orange County. I thought “hecka” was a terrible stereotype until we were out having dinner the other night and heard a couple of girls say it. And my heart grew three sizes that day, to hear such unflattering stereotypes given flesh. A real Xmas miracle, if you will.

Meanwhile, two new (“new”) articles are up for your perusal, should you be one of those people who (gasp) uses the Internet for dumb stuff like reading about video games on holidays. Both are chapter summaries for GameSpite Quarterly 5. The first, An Active Retirement, is nothing special — the sort of thing you read just to complete your collection for when you trade your Articles I Read On The Internet cards with your buddies. The second, however — The Apocrypha of NES — is actually pretty good! Please do not overlook it on this splendid holiday, or the baby Jesus will weep in his manger. And that would be, like, hecka sucky, y’know?

*Unless you don’t celebrate Christmas for religious or allergen reasons. In which case I hope you enjoy a similarly satisfying soy-based substitute.

 
4 Comments

Posted in Games, GameSpite

 

GSQ5: Not safe for work or family gatherings

24 Dec

I always like to post seasonal stuff when a holiday rolls around, but truth be told there’s nothing left to go up from GameSpite Quarterly 5 that has any relevance whatsoever to Christmas. Or Chanukah. Or, hell, Kwanzaa. So, I decided to do the next best thing and post the issue’s not-work-safe article — after all, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are always, always the lowest-traffic days of the year, and hardly anyone is at the office today. So I don’t have to worry much about work safety.

You probably shouldn’t click if your family is gathered around your computer at the moment, though. Unless your family is totally cool like that.

This is also the single most heavily researched article I wrote for GSQ5; the histories of the NES’s unlicensed publishers is well-documented by this point, but it’s scattered across the web, and I made sure to do a lot of fact-checking. I’m sure some minor error slipped through, of course. That’s just the nature of having to publish on the sly and not having a full-time staff on hand to catch mistakes. My apologies in advance.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a 3rd Birthday to celebrate.

 
2 Comments

Posted in Games, GameSpite

 

GSQ5: Never leave Eurasia alive

23 Dec

I am truckin’ along in my mission to finish posting all the content from GameSpite Quarterly 5 by year’s end, though the fact that I spent all day yesterday either at the office or in a car en route to L.A. may have thrown a permanent wrinkle into my ambitions. I would like to thank San Francisco Bay Area holiday traffic for making the process of driving 20 miles in the early afternoon a several-hour ordeal. Funnily enough, L.A. traffic was totally painless.

I would like to note that this Strider article was posted under hazardous conditions, as an adorable 11-month-old child keeps peeking around the corner of my MacBook screen and smiling at me. Then, when I’m distracted and cooing at how cute he is, he slams his hands against my keyboard. Adorable.

I would be remiss in failing to note that the latest episode of Cast at Demonhead is online. I’m on it! This is not as big a deal as it’s being hyped up to be. You should listen to the show not because I’m on it, but because it’s a heartwarming conversation between e-friends. About GameSpite Quarterly. Aww.

 
7 Comments

Posted in 2D, Games, GameSpite

 

GSQ5: Ooh La La? Ooh La La!?

22 Dec

Apparently there’s a Back to the Future game being released within the next 24 hours. It’s by Telltale, so one can reasonably assume that it’s going to be quite good, if a bit formulaic. Sadly, “good” is not an attribute historically associated with Back to the Future games, as this piece from GSQ5 will happily relate in amusing detail.

Said piece was written by Aaron Littleton, incidentally. That fact somehow didn’t make it into the book, but it’s true! My apologies to Mr. Littleton for the oversight.

 
10 Comments

Posted in Games, GameSpite

 
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