Tech-Gaming Technology, Gaming, and Culture

In the fall of 2001, the Game Boy Color was facing its waning months due to the release of the technologically superior Game Boy Advance three months prior. While Nintendo’s new system was fully backwards compatible, gamers were understandably enamored ...

Two decades ago, platformers were the genre du jour, fueled by the escapes of plumbers, hedgehogs, opossums as well as a plethora of corporate spokescharacters. But as pixels gave way to polygons, layers of glorious parallax-scrolling playfields become misshaped into ...

It’s often said that the early years of gaming were propelled by imitation rather than innovation. Just as Space Invaders’ assailants spouted wings and evolved into the kamikaze-like adversaries of Galaxian (and later, Galaga) or how Pac-Man roused a generation ...

Although the term katabasis may not be in every player’s lexicon, they’re likely well acquainted with the concept. Used to describe the motivation for a hero’s decent into the underworld and the subsequent return to the mortal realm, it’s the ...

Eleven years ago, Sonic Adventure 2 was a divisive game. It was a turning point in the series, when a lot of fans started to write the series off. It’s often considered the beginning of the end for the Sonic ...

SeanNOLA’s Take: Hey Sean, we got Hell Yeah in for review. I remembered you were interested at E3 – do you want to review it?” DEagle’s statement is entirely true. I was in fact very interested in Hell Yeah when ...

What is the concept? Whereas both Castlevania: Lords of Shadows and Metroid: Other M offered serviceable adaptions of their respective franchises, many agreed that both series’ best entries were delivered during the ‘90s. Published before polygons became the dominating rendering ...

What is the concept? As the 2006 film Pan’s Labyrinth demonstrated, delving into the psyche of a traumatized child can present a remarkably poignant experience. Like Guillermo del Toro’s film, recent PlayStation Network release Papo & Yo delivers a similar ...

What is the concept? For better or worse, recent PC release (and forthcoming Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 title) Quantum Conundrum is fated for comparison with Portal. Apart from both games showcasing the talents of Kim Swift- the DigiPen prodigy ...

What is the concept? Although the Xbox Live Arcade has served up a share of challenging games- from the control-clenching platforming of ‘Splosion Man and Super Meat Boy to the maniac dodge-and-shoot action of Bangai-O HD Missile Fury and Ikaruga, ...