Most Recent: Features
Kickstart This! The French Are Coming!
A little while ago in a string of Kickstart This! posts, I teased that I would cover a French game in the future. That future is now. There are not one but two two brilliant games currently seeking donations on Kickstarter from the country that gave us cafetiere coffee and the Etch A Sketch. So let’s give these hard-working developers the kindness and support that this holiday season is meant to be about.
What have you got, France? (more…)
The Games of December 2017
A complete look at the games scheduled to launch in December can be found after the break. (more…)
Interview: Pocket Mana on the Launch of My Uncle Merlin’s Kickstarter Campaign
Today, Pocket Mana launched a Kickstarter campaign for the company’s debut game, My Uncle Merlin, an interactive adventure for the PC about wizards in space. We caught up with Predrag Mladenovic (who composes stuff), Milan Andrejevic (who writes stuff), and Stefan Sladic (who draws stuff), to find out more about the game, and what had led them to crowdfund the project. (more…)
Kickstart This! Ara of the Wanderers
After a trip to Amsterdam and an absence due to tonsillitis, Kickstart This is back with a bang…
OK, so I wrote this on Guy Fawkes Night, and that opener might just be funny to me. I blame the medication. I’ll shut up now…
Due to games being cancelled, there have been a few stalled attempts to write a new installment, and the one I finally chose has not even reached the 10% mark yet, but I’m hoping we can change that. So let’s go meet Ara of the Wanderers. (more…)
The Video Game Canon: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Dig deeper into the Video Game Canon with a look at the creation of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and the massive growth of the Call of Duty franchise. Here’s a teaser…
General William Tecumseh Sherman famously declared that “War is Hell” in a speech in 1880, though I think it’s safe to assume that more people are familiar with the anti-war protestations of a certain green Muppet from 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back. While this sentiment has existed in the public consciousness for hundreds of years, the basic structure of a game as a confrontation that pits the player against the CPU (or another player) makes armed conflict an ideal setting.
War might be Hell, but it has also been very good for Activision’s bottom line thanks to the Call of Duty franchise.
Visit VideoGameCanon.com to continue reading this article and to explore the complete Top 1000.
The Games of November 2017
A complete look at the games scheduled to launch in November can be found after the break. (more…)
The Video Game Canon: Mega Man 2
Dig deeper into the Video Game Canon with a look at the the blockbuster success born out of the simple ambitions of Mega Man 2. Here’s a teaser…
The first Mega Man game is a bit of an odd duck, which has become even more pronounced as the years go by. The graphics are simplistic, the sound is tinny, there’s only six Robot Masters instead of the traditional eight, and there’s even a score counter (a feature that was jettisoned from the dozens of sequels that followed). There’s just a smoothness to subsequent games in the franchise that Capcom had yet to master with the first entry.
But like most Mega Man fans, I only learned all this after the fact. At the time, whatever memories I have of the first game were formed by guide writers who described it as an unfairly difficult game, old episodes of Captain N, and the fact that none of the local rental outlets owned a copy (unsurprisingly, Lee Trevino’s Fighting Golf was always available).
I finally got the chance to see what all the fuss was about with Mega Man 2, which was also the first game in the Mega Man franchise to be spearheaded by Capcom’s Keiji Inafune. With an expanded role in the sequel’s development, Inafune became known as the “Father” of Mega Man to plenty of fans, and codified many of the traditions and patterns the series is known for.
Visit VideoGameCanon.com to continue reading this article and to explore the complete Top 1000.
The Games of October 2017
A complete look at the games scheduled to launch in October can be found after the break. (more…)