I remember opening my Christmas presents in 1998. I was 21 years old, driving home from Arizona State University for winter break and wondering what games I’d be getting. Little did I know that my parents had bought me a PlayStation and Spyro the Dragon. “You’ve been talking about that purple dragon game,” my mom informed me. I don’t think I had outright said I wanted it to anyone, but I suppose my sighing in…
This is the story of how GoldenEye conquered my university experience and why everything that happened was absolutely fantastic. It all started back in October 1997, when I finally got myself an N64 (a ludicrously expensive bit of technology at the time – I had to save up roughly two and half months wages from my part time job). My purchase included the N64 bundle game GoldenEye 007. Honestly I wasn’t that bothered about it.…
Shhh… don’t tell anyone but I still have my Gateway 2000 mouse pad at my workplace. I’m not sitting here at my desk trying to make some kind of retro gamer statement with it. I simply liked the mouse pad and it was the right dimensions to fit my mouse and well it must have been the right dimensions to withstand moving THREE times and every other mouse pad getting lost along the way. But…
I am a history teacher from Phoenix, Arizona and I’ve watched people write off the Sega Genesis for nearly 30 years now. They say the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) had better games. They say Nintendo dominated the 16-bit era. They say the Genesis was technically inferior. None of that is true. The Genesis was not inferior; it was simply different. While the market was moving toward home-developed games, the Genesis focused on arcade-style gameplay.…
How the Super Nintendo Proved Specs Aren’t Everything I’ve been playing video games since the Atari 2600. I keep stacks of CRTs running on dusty shelves in my basement in Minneapolis. I have an accounting degree, so I think in systems. If someone tries to sell me on some wide sweeping philosophy without understanding the technical mechanics behind it, I get very irritated. That’s why when people try to tell me that the Genesis was…
Why the Computer That Sold Millions in Europe Was Purposely Deleted From Gaming History I work as a librarian in Dublin. I know every freakin’ obscure European computer game there is that English language gaming sites will never cover. I’m biased towards the underdogs, systems that almost didn’t get book entries because companies went belly up. Atari ST is Exhibit A for why we need European game libraries. The Atari ST was wildly successful in…
I am a Phoenix area high school history teacher who has been a Sega fan my whole life. I have spent many years saying that Sega got taken down by poor timing in the market and that the Genesis was better than the SNES. I have also spent a lot of time writing about how the Dreamcast was robbed and should have done much better. I continue to fight to keep using the term “blast…
The Commodore 64 was released in January 1982, although it was in production since Spring 1982. It was released into the market in late August 1982. It utilised a MOS 6510 CPU (a 6502 derivative) operating at 0.985 MHz PAL or 1.023 MHz NTSC frequencies with 64 KB of RAM (38 KB usable for BASIC programs). The Commodore 64’s VIC-II graphics processor supported a 320×200 maximum resolution with 16 colours and 8 sprites. The Commodore…
Got it, makes sense. Here’s the merged version with all the original HTML elements dropped back in: — The Console That Invented Home Gaming and the Arcade Aesthetic That Never Gets Old I own a pub in Bristol. The back room is a shrine to arcade cabinets and ancient home systems that actually still work. By day I work in IT. By night I write about arcade gaming and why original hardware authenticity is important…
Why the Best Console of its Generation Lost To Market Momentum I own a pub in Bristol with a back room full of arcade cabinets and old school home systems. I operate on original hardware. I know the difference between original arcade cabinets and emulation. I know what it means to keep vintage hardware alive. Sega’s Dreamcast blows my mind. I get what Sega was going for: technical excellence, architectural mastery. Dreamcast was easily the…