Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Tron Legacy (2010)

Umm....what else can I say? It's Tron. It's coming in 2010. Time can not move fast enough.

Electric Playground Holiday Card - 100th Episode

Back around 2002/3, Victor Lucas sent out holiday cards to his industry friends in the form of a DVD. This DVD contained about 90 minutes of footage from his TV show, Electric Playground. One of the best videogame shows ever on television.

First rising to popularity in the US on G4TV when it was a 24 hour video game channel, EP was hosted by Tommy Tallarico and Vic. What made their show different from any other show is that they employed real scripts and funny bits into the review segments. This gave the show a flavor that has not been matched by any other video game show, IMO.

I asked Vic if I could put some of the clips up on YouTube to share, he said go for it, and here are a few choice bits from that awesome holiday card.



You can check out more videos and regular game news at http://www.elecplay.com

Monday, July 27, 2009

Break from Chrono Trigger to post...

So, one of the interesting side effects of having a portable game machine with a full browser built in is the costant balance between the need to game and the need to be on the web. Of course, blogging from my DSi :)

Ok, back to CT. It seriously rocks!

Friday, July 24, 2009

Protect The Children!!! From Chuck E. Cheese games?

By way of my friends over at GamePolitics.com comes this lovely article about the town supervisors in Amherst, New York who failed to approve the game room license for a local Chuck E Cheese establishment. Guess why. COME on....take a wild guess...

Council Member Shelly Schratz said she was disturbed by several “action-packed shoot-and-kill games” that were accessible to children as young as 4.

“When I see 6-year-olds, 8-year-olds playing those games, when all the time we’re opening the paper and seeing those stories on youth violence, do we need those games to make money?” she said.


Really? Seriously Shelly?

I'm more concerned about the parents who take their kids there and let them run around fighting, pushing and swearing in the tube slides while the parents sit in the corner stuffing their faces. Instead of stopping Mr. Cheese from running a business, perhaps you can issue some fines for stupid parenting.

Full story here: Buffalo News

Retro Gamer Magazine - One of the Finest

While there has been a lot of discussion recently regarding the rise in value of print materials. Understanding that we may have written them off way too soon and, I would imagine, many people don't want to take their $400 Kindles or $500 iPhones into the john with them just to have an invisible layer of ABFM (Airborne Fecal Matter...eeewww) on their digital conduits, there are several efforts to resurrect some magazines that have gone under in recent times.

There have been other mags that had a rocky road but finally established itself and is, in my opinion, one of the finest print publications on the market in regard to the video games industry. Retro Gamer magazine, published by Imagine Publishing Ltd. in the UK, is an extraordinary piece of monthly video gaming material. Check out the look!


Retro Gamer is, quite obviously, focused on retro video games and is packed with interviews with some of the top people that created this industry. As usual with UK published mags, the publication is oversized, printed on heavy glossy stock, and is meant for collecting, not reading and discarding.

Aside from the focus on casual games, there is a tons on info on independent gaming, classic remakes, system purchasing guides, etc. Being a UK publication, it is rather pricey at $11.99 on store shelves from Barnes and Nobel and Borders. But you can find a shit-ton of wedding and home magazines for the same price in the same racks and who the hell wants those? For $12 a month, it is well worth the price of admission.

Right now, Imagine Shop is also selling the Retro Gamer DVD (2nd disk) that contains 25 digital versions of the magazine. Snap it up.

And, for the record, Retro Gamer never enters my bathroom. Leave that for US Magazine.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

AVGN - Transformers

I know it's not the latest of the Nerd's videos, but fantastic as always. Also, can't believe the cassette tape for the C64 still works!

About Damn Time! - Secret of Monkey Island on iPhone

For those of us who grew up in the real dawn of computer games, the mid-80's to mid-90's was one of the most magical periods EVER in the video game industry thus far. During that period, LucasArts published some of the best adventure games, well, ever. Chief among them were the Monkey Island series.

Well, you can now download this classic remake for the iPhone. Cool thing is that you can switch between the new artwork and the original on the fly. Damn, damn, DAMN! Stop what you are doing and buy this now.

What's going on here?

So, I'm starting this blog space back up as a place for me to discuss my personal views on technology, the games industry and so on. Corporate blogs are fine, but I find myself having to be very careful and particular with regard to what I write about and choose to discuss. I think having my own chunk of the web, here, will allow me to vent a whole hell of a lot and can share my reall thoughts on a variety of subjects.

As for site design, I am currently playing around with it and having fun. I love the Tron/CRT glow aesthetic and will continue to mess about with it. So there you go.

Twitter feeds, YouTube uploads, favorite links; all here on this spot.

Back shortly!

Monday, July 13, 2009

Personal blog reboot....

After, well, 2+ years of neglect, I am going to be restarting this blog space. More to come soon!