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• Fix It: Alone in the Dark, Tiger Woods, and the Death of the Glitch

  Today was an interesting day for getting a keen look at what happens when games come to the public in less than perfect shape. For starters, Atari and developer Eden took the middling reception of Alone in the Dark to heart. They’re showing off the Playstation 3 version of the game in Leipzig at the moment featuring in-progress fixes to the game’s unmanageable, glitchy camera as well as the iffy driving and inventory control in the game. They will also be releasing these fixes as a patch for the Xbox 360 edition of the game. Of course, Eden didn’t have to do this. They could have just gone the EA route, and (hilariously) said that those aren’t glitches! That’s just the way the game’s meant to be played. Chances are though, EA will go ahead and patch Tiger Woods ’09 regardless of the funny marketing. This is the way of it with games in the age of net-enabled consoles; ship the game as soon as you possibly can, fix it later if you have to. PC games have enjoyed patching for well over a decade at this point but it’s still a new phenomenon in the world of devoted gaming machines. It’s a good thing, ultimately. If NES games with crippling slow down could have been patched, they would have been. The romantic in me, though, can’t help but be sad to see console games lose their permanent state. Glitches in classic games have a rich, memorable history. Take, for example, this classic. Read More... Posted Aug 21 2008, 07:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, ea, mega man, atari, alone in the dark, super mario bros, speedrun, tiger woods

• You're a Filthy Cheater! ...Right?

  It's like yin and yang, light and darkness, vanilla and chocolate: wherever there are rules directing life, there is a means of going against those rules. Since video games' conception, enthusiasts have proved themselves champions of cheating and game-breaking. But it's not as if cheating at video games is as simple as being cheap about tag-backs or peeking during hide-and-seek. I wrote an article for 1UP that looks at the long, twisted history behind game breaking. I'm putting the link up here because I'm a pimp, but also because I find the subject matter pretty fascinating. It's very difficult to draw a line between "Cheating" and "Okey-Dokey" with video games because there are so many variables to consider. Is it "cheating" if you use an in-game trick like the exhalted Konami Code? Or is the term reserved for third-party peripherals like the Game Genie and Gameshark? How about the exploitation of game mechanics? Put Mario Kart DS and "snaking" in the same sentence on any game-related message board to launch a war. Read More... Posted Jul 08 2008, 09:01 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, 1up, atari, retro, game genie, adventure, zelda ii the adventure of link, gameshark, cheating in games

• Chiptune Friday: Crystal Castles

  Derek said I could hijack his 'Chiptune Friday' feature on the condition that we brand this very special double-dose edition, "IndepenDANCE Day", so that's what I'ma do. Crystal Castles hate videogames, and roll their eyes at journalists who attempt to lump them in with other bands who make either video game music, or music with game electronics. They use a keyboard equipped with an Atari 5200 sound chip to create their relentless sound. They have acheived notoriety in the chiptune world not so much for their music, but for a well documented plagiarism controversy. Read More... Posted Jul 04 2008, 12:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: chiptune friday, atari, cole stryker, independence day, crystal castles, glastonbury

• Games to Film: Leo DiCaprio to Play Nolan Bushnell in Upcoming "Atari" Flick

  According to Slash Film, screenwriters Brian Hecker and Craig Sherman hope to incorporate elements from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Tucker. Bushnell was responsible for Pong, often credited as the first video game ever (untrue, but it was the first game to acheive widespread popularity among the general public). Bushnell went on to found Atari and Chuck E. Cheese. Now he's working on a restaurant franchise called uWink, a sort of Chuck E. Cheese for grown ups, where you place your order and play games on your table's touchscreen. Read More... Posted Jun 09 2008, 10:00 AM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: games to film, atari, uwink, leonardo di caprio, nolan bushnell, king of kong, movies

• Personal Firsts: My Gaming Scrapbook, From A to Wii

  Written by Amber Ahlborn At some point in the 1980s, the year nebulous in my memory, my mom bowled with her team every Thursday night. I loved Thursday nights because dad let me stay up late to watch M.A.S.H. and Benny Hill. Sometimes he and I would hop in the car and go visit mom at the alley, and that was the best. Dad would sit and watch mom bowl. Me? I would squeeze every last quarter I could get out of him. With a fist full of change and dollars soon to be converted into change, I’d walk down to the alley’s hamburger bar, snag a stool, and drag it through the glass doors into the arcade. Without deviation, I’d position my stool in front of the “Ostrich Game” and stay planted there until I ran out of money. I’m speaking of Joust of course, but at that age I could neither reach the controls without a stool to sit on nor read very well. Read More... Posted Jun 02 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: pac-man, metroid, wii, legend of zelda, snes, nes, ico, mega man, atari, gamecube, amber ahlborn, kaboom, katamari damacy, chrono trigger, firsts, pikmin, Playstation, joust, pitfall, star fox, ps2, frogger, super mario bros, ds

• Screen Test: Alone in the Dark

  As a youth, conceptual horror was enough to scare me into insomnia. Violence was one thing - I could process that as fantasy - but lurking terror was too much. If someone said that they were going to watch a horror movie or tell a scary story, I would freak out. It was right around pubescence, when my capacity for abstraction was growing exponentially, that I developed a taste for fear. Like any other extreme emotion, fear can be delightfully narcotic. After watching It (yes, it scared me. You look at Tim Curry in a clown suit without shitting yourself, I dare you,) I was finally clued into what everyone else seemed to know: being scared is fun. It wasn’t until the late ‘90s, with early Resident Evil and Silent Hill entries, that I started getting my fix from videogames. So those games’ shared ancestor, Alone in the Dark, is an unknown quantity for me outside of reputation. The new Alone in the Dark from Atari, after a couple of years of development purgatory (not quite hell), is looking like it will live up to that reputation. Read More... Posted May 29 2008, 10:00 AM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, resident evil, silent hill, screen test, atari, alone in the dark