I was tuned into NYC’s Hot 97 the night that Funkmaster Flex unveiled “Glaciers of Ice” over the radio airwaves. The collective hip hop populace lost it. Not only was the track absolute fire, but we were throughly convinced that RZA sampled Castlevania to create what sounded like an organ from hell. RZA is known for digging through the crates, grabbing obscure samples, chopping them up, and sometimes distorting them. This is crew that referenced anime and martial arts flicks, so this had to be a Castlevania sample, right?
Madonna’s The Immaculate Collection is the singer’s first greatest hits compilation. Released in November 1990, the album culled together The Material Girl’s most popular tracks from the early stage of her lengthy career, 1983-1990.
Capcom’s Street Fighter II is the game that put one-on-one versus fighting on the map and staved the arcade’s inevitable death by a decade. Released months after The Immaculate Collection in March 1991, Street Fighter II forever changed the video game industry.
What’s odd is that I discovered both the record and the game in the same place: Coney Island’s legendary Faber’s Fascination arcade.
Capcom’s Street Fighter II is the game that put one-on-one versus fighting on the map and staved the arcade’s inevitable death by a decade. Released months after The Immaculate Collection in March 1991, Street Fighter II forever changed the video game industry.
What’s odd is that I discovered both the record and the game in the same place: Coney Island’s legendary Faber’s Fascination arcade.
There are two men, hands bound by rope. One has stolen water, a scarce commodity, which makes his theft one that’s much more punishable. The other man killed the thief’s family. I have the option to kill both, walk away, or save them. I calculate the situation: my team’s beaten and battered, and can’t sustain another firefight. I walk away and leave them to the snipers. This is but one choice in Spec Ops: The Line, a game that has a narrative that’s as compelling as the gruesome violence.
Rockstar Games.
The company revolutionized the video game industry with innovative sandbox titles and writing style. Grand Theft Auto is a gaming staple that will go down as one of the top-tier, industry-defining franchises. And Red Dead Redemption re-re-defined what the sandbox genre can do, creating a new standard for story, character development, and gameplay. Numerous games have copied Rockstar’s style and will be playing catch up for years to come. So who better to pave the way for more female leads than one of the gaming’s greatest developers?
The internet is filled with overzealous vocal minorities, defenders, fanboys, and haters who sometimes mask valid complaints beneath an idiocy layer, but I have to begrudgingly admit that I’m somewhat impressed with the sheer voracity of their Xbox One attacks. The internet is as the internet does.
Many of the attacks focus on the Xbox One’s potentially revolutionary/infamous place in home video game history, even if that position isn’t publicly promoted in such a manner: Xbox One may be the world’s first mainstream, all-digital home console.
Think about that for a moment.
Video games? Pah, have some bells, whistles, and TV programming.
Yes, we’ve come to the point when video games are no longer about video games, but about dogs, used games practices, and multimedia tie-ins. It was disappointing to see few new game announcements at Microsoft’s Xbox One unveiling — and there are many, many more worrying things about the new console — but the prospect of a TV series based on the Halo mythology, and one produced by Steven Spielberg, was interesting. And to have it air only on Xbox Live? Well, that’s just par for the course these days and Microsoft is just now joining the ranks of Netflix and Amazon, who already carved away a comfortable niche of TV programming from traditional platforms like dusty old NBC and FOX. You don’t need to watch TV on a TV anymore. But anyone who’s used Hulu or Crackle or a smartphone for the past several years has known that.
If it weren’t for the crayon-colored face-buttons on its controller, the Xbox One could easily pass for a set top box.
The aesthetics, a mix of slick blackness and metallic linings, look more like a futuristic laser disc player than a home video game console. It’s a calculated design made to seamlessly blend the console into home multimedia setups. It’s where Microsoft wants its upcoming console to live.
Who remembers the 16-bit era? I do quite fondly. SEGA and Nintendo were the big players then and the bad blood between the two ran deep. Here’s a little known fact that people quickly forget: At one point Nintendo blackballed any developer who worked with SEGA. The rivalry was bitter and featured classic mudslinging commercials rivaled only by today’s political campaigns today. Yet the games were great, SEGA had a stellar line up led by its blue hedgehog, and Nintendo had its Italian brothers running the show.
Most of us know by now that Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon’s a good-natured parody of ’80s silliness. But… the ’80s were 30 years ago. Think about that, as grody and un-cool as that sounds! There are people walking around going about their totally bogus everyday lives who don’t know what makes the ’80s so ’80s! Even though most of today’s culture is just recycled stuff from the ’80s! Hello, Transformers and G.I. Joe!
To help alleviate the cultural disconnect, here are some of the shout-outs and familiar tropes Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon exhumes from the ’80s, the decade that never dies, that you ’90s and ’00s babies may not recognize. Put on your acid jeans and turn up the Wang Chung. Things are about to get radical. Radical to the MAX.
A few days ago I took a trip to Forbidden Planet, a popular comic book store situated in New York City’s Union Square. I’m not really a comic book guy these days, but I do find joy in perusing the aisles and keeping tabs on my favorite titles/franchises such as Batman, X-Men, and Captain America. While I dig any comic with an excellent story and solid art, Daredevil in particular always demands extra attention. I became a fan during the ’80s when Frank Miller took the flagging series to new heights with gritty ninja-laced urban tales.
