Tag Archives | Gaming

Happy Birthday, NES

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 18, 2010 at 7:25 am

On October 18th, 1985, the Nintendo Entertainment System made its US debut. By any measure, it was a gigantic success–so much so that it brought the entire video game business out of the doldrums it had been mired in since Atari and other early titans had crashed and burned.

As is our wont, we’re celebrating this anniversary with a guided tour of the console’s history by our favorite technology archaeologist, Benj Edwards.  He spotlights some of the surprising stuff that the NES has inspired–from oddball controllers to some mighty peculiar (but entertaining) do-it-yoursef projects.

View Nintendo Entertainment System Oddities slideshow.

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Nintendo Entertainment System Oddities

Posted by Benj Edwards on October 18, 2010 at 7:25 am

25 years ago today, Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in the US. The iconic console broke sales records, revived the video game industry from the brink of death, and influenced a generation of US kids. It also gave us classic franchises like Mario, Zelda, and Metroid.

You may have read plaudits and platitudes from other publications on this notable anniversary, but we here at Technologizer have decided to forgo dry historical analysis in favor of a look at all things odd in the world of NES. So without further ado, let’s pull back the curtain on our gallery of NES oddities.

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Please Explain Why Angry Birds is Addictive

Posted by Jared Newman on October 15, 2010 at 4:11 pm

Angry Birds is often described as an addictive game, which helps explain why the full version’s launch for Android phones is big news. Starting today, the game can be downloaded for free through GetJar, a third-party app store, and it’s coming to the Android Market over the weekend.

If you’re one of the folks who’s hooked on Angry Birds — and please don’t take this the wrong way — I don’t understand why. Angry Birds is a clever game, for sure. It has cute characters, elegant design and simple goals. But addictive? I just don’t see it.

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Redbox Gaming is Expanding

Posted by Jared Newman on October 13, 2010 at 3:24 pm

Video games seem like a natural way for Redbox to grow, so I wasn’t surprised when the kiosk operator started testing video game rentals last year. According to Variety, Redbox will soon expand video game rentals to “a few thousand” of its 24,000 kiosks, across 40 markets.

But Redbox isn’t going all in just yet. The company is still deliberating whether to take video game rentals nationwide, and hopes to get a better sense of customer interest by adding games to more kiosks.

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Should Single-Player Be Safe Haven for StarCraft 2 Cheaters?

Posted by Jared Newman on October 12, 2010 at 1:12 pm

Back when Game Genie gave unskilled gamers a way to cheat, Nintendo could do nothing but unsuccessfully sue the maker, Galoob, for copyright infringement. With the rise of online connectivity, game makers finally have a workaround to third-party cheats: They can punish the players instead.

Blizzard’s anti-cheat enforcement in StarCraft 2 is the most extreme I’ve seen. Even in the single-player campaign, players who cheat are subject to suspensions or lifetime bans from Battle.net. Enforcement is well underway, according Cheat Happens, a company that sells cheat programs for PC games. Because Battle.net is a necessary step for initial activation and updates, players who are banned for life could be locked out of StarCraft 2 forever if they move to a new computer, even if they never intend to play online.

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X-Men and the Lost Appeal of Arcade Beat-Em-Ups

Posted by Jared Newman on October 11, 2010 at 9:52 am

A few years ago, my old man and I built an arcade cabinet. On slow weekends in Manhattan, I’d drive to my parents’ house in Connecticut, and we’d chip away at the project, cutting the plywood, fitting the plexiglass, installing the joystick and buttons. The “Arcadium Newmanium” was (and is) a beautiful monstrosity, and with the help of an emulator on an old PC, it can play more than 100 classic arcade games.

But it was the kind of project where the journey was more exciting than the destination. Once I started playing the arcade games from my childhood — primarily, beat-em-ups like X-Men and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — I quickly understood how little appeal these games had beyond cheap nostalgia.

So forgive me if I’m not excited about X-Men Arcade coming to Xbox Live and the Playstation Network.

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OutRun Meets the Real World

Posted by Jared Newman on October 10, 2010 at 2:40 pm

As Garnet Hertz sped towards the road in his OutRun concept car, I momentarily feared that he might get splattered by oncoming traffic. After all, gauging your surroundings can be difficult when your windshield is replaced with a video game.

Hertz describes the OutRun car as the “de-simulation of driving.” It’s the arcade cabinet from Sega’s 1986 racing game, fitted around a golf cart, with the game’s steering wheel and pedals hooked up to the drivetrain. More importantly, it’s a modified version of the OutRun software, blocking the view to the road. A pair of hood-mounted cameras are supposed to detect the road and feed the information back to the game, but this was impossible in the dark. Hertz was driving blind.

Of course, Hertz made it back to the crowd at Indiecade in one piece, but he wouldn’t let anyone else drive, so I made a video of him driving the Outrun car instead.

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3 Indie Games to Watch For

Posted by Jared Newman on October 10, 2010 at 10:06 am

Over the weekend, little pockets of downtown Culver City., Calif., became the venue of Indiecade, a festival for independent video games. I wouldn’t quite call it gaming’s Sundance — the impact of this festival still feels tiny in the greater scheme of the games industry — but it’s still a cool way to celebrate the side of gaming isn’t dominated by endless sequels and multi-million-dollar budgets.

Read on for a few upcoming indie games that you might not know about, but should.

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OnLive Needs to Embrace Its Streaming Ways

Posted by Jared Newman on October 7, 2010 at 8:09 am

Streaming is not just a delivery method for media, it’s a business model, but I don’t think OnLive realizes that.

Earlier this week, OnLive announced that it dropped subscription fees from its cloud gaming service, which handles all the intensive processing of modern video games on its own servers and sends back compressed video that runs on pretty much any computer. OnLive launched in June and was already giving away free 12-month subscriptions, normally $5 per month, as an introductory offer.

By dropping subscriptions, OnLive can bring in curious users without demanding credit card information. With free membership, people can still play game demos and eavesdrop on other gaming sessions. Rentals are available in three- and five-day increments, but if players want full access, prices are on par with retail, and guaranteed to run for at least three years. That’s where the offer gets icky.

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