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Video Game History Foundation wants to create a digital record of the industry’s past
Frank Cifaldi is a developer who has worked on Mega Man Legacy Collection and IDARB, but he is also the founder of the Video Game History Foundation, a new non-profit that seeks to preserve and digitize the history of video games.
The Video Game History Foundation launched their first “Digital Collection” yesterday, focusing on The NES Launch in 1985. Cifaldi is also seeking donations to expand the scope of the Foundation, as detailed on their “What We’re Doing” page:
The heart of the Foundation is its digital library, an online repository of artifacts related to the history of video games and video game culture. The ultimate goal is to create a searchable, organized, always-online archive of verified, high-quality material that is accessible to researchers and historians as a public education resource.
All donations to the Video Game History Foundation are tax deductible, and I can’t wait to see what collections they come up with next.
First poster from Netflix’s Castlevania series revealed by Producer Adi Shankar
A Castlevania television series will make its way to Netflix this year, and Producer Adi Shankar recently revealed the first poster for the animated adaptation on his Facebook page. We still don’t know when the series will debut, but the gothic vibe that Shankar is going for is certainly evident in this image.
According to Netflix, the first season will be comprised of four half-hour episodes:
Inspired by the classic video game series, Castlevania is a dark medieval fantasy following the last surviving member of the disgraced Belmont clan, trying to save Eastern Europe from extinction at the hand of Vlad Dracula Tepe himself.
Based on Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, the Castlevania series will be written by Warren Ellis, and a second season is said to be in production for release in 2018.
Posted in Etcetera, News, Retro
Tagged Castlevania
Weird Al Yankovic recorded a Pac-Man parody in the 80s… and now we can finally hear it
Weird Al Yankovic’s career has spanned more than 40 years, but in all that time, the geeky icon only rarely delves into doing game-themed parodies. Perhaps that’s because of a bad experience he had early in his career with “Pac-Man,” a parody of “Taxman” by The Beatles.
Speaking to Nerdist, Weird Al believes an overzealous lawyer initially rejected the song without ever listening to it: “I’d like to think that none of the Beatles ever actually heard the song back then. It was just some office [clerk] whose whole job is to litigate and prosecute people for copyright infringement.”
However, Weird Al would later become friends with George Harrison’s son Dhani, and he helped work out a deal to include “Pac-Man” on Squeeze Box: The Complete Recordings of “Weird Al” Yankovic, an upcoming retrospective box set. Squeeze Box will be available this Fall on vinyl and CD, and it’ll include every album from Weird Al’s career housed in a replica accordion (of course). A 15th disc, Medium Rarities, will feature several unreleased songs (like “Pac-Man”), as well as alternate takes on more popular parodies.
But if you can’t wait that long, you can listen to “Pac-Man” at Nerdist right now.
No new Skylanders game in 2017, but multiple “Adventure Packs” coming
As part of their quarterly financial report yesterday, Activision executives confirmed that a new game in the Skylanders franchise won’t be released in 2017. However, fans should still expect plenty of new content to appear this year.
First and foremost, Skylanders Imaginators will make its Nintendo Switch debut on March 3. The “toys-to-life” franchise has been one of the few third party bright spots on the Wii U, so it’s good to see Activision continuing the tradition on the Switch. And with Imaginators in the spotlight for another year, COO Thomas Tippl confirmed that Activision plans to launch “multiple Adventure Packs, new characters, and new in-game content” for it throughout the year.
Tippl revealed that Netflix’s Skylanders Academy has also been well-received by fans. A second season will premiere on the streaming service sometime this year, and a third is already in the works.
Finally, Activision is working on a new mobile game set in the Skylanders universe, but that’s all we know at this point.
Bill Nye is back to talk about video games… and Save the World
Calling all “90s Kids,” Bill Nye the Science Guy is coming back to TV! His upcoming talk show, Bill Nye Saves the World, will makes its Netflix debut on April 21.
Nye’s show will introduce the amazing world of science to a new generation (or rather, the same generation that grew up idolizing him a few decades later), and he’ll be joined by a ragtag team of correspondents including model Karlie Kloss, Xploration Outer Space host Emily Calandrelli, comedian Joanna Hausmann, science reporter Derek Muller, and actor Nazeem Hussain. Celebrity guests such as Zach Braff, Rachel Bloom, Tim Gunn, Wil Wheaton, Joel McHale, and more will also show up to lend their expertise to the show.
Bill Nye Saves the World will cover a wide variety of topics in its first 13-episode run including sex, alternative medicine, global warming, and video games.
Udon will release Bloodborne Official Artworks in May 2017
Udon Entertainment has announced that the bone-chilling and blood-curdling monsters of Bloodborne will get their chance to shine in Bloodborne Official Artworks, an artbook scheduled to be released in May 2017.
Bloodborne Official Artworks will be released as an oversized softcover book, and the game’s gothic inspirations will spread out over 256 pages of “creature designs, location illustrations, character concepts, and weapons, as well as an item and Trophy glossary… and more!” This behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the cursed city of Yharnam will also include material from Bloodborne’s expansion, The Old Hunters.
Bloodborne was developed by From Software and originally released in March 2015. Bloodborne Official Artworks will be available at “finer comic book stores, book retailers, and various online retailers” for $44.99.
Posted in Etcetera, News, PS4
Tagged Bloodborne
8-Bit Cinema reimagines Star Wars: Rogue One as a simplistic 8-bit shooter
You knew it was only a matter of time until Rogue One: A Star Wars Story received the 8-Bit Cinema treatment… and here it is… reimagined as a budget-priced NES shooter by Cinefix.
I’m not going to lie, even though it’s a pretty simplistic-looking adaptation, I teared up again after K-2SO’s death. That droid was definitely a leaf on the wind.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has earned more than $516 million at the US box office since it was released on December 16, and it recently pushed past Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace to capture 7th place on the list of highest-grossing movies of all time. There’s still time to catch it in theaters for a second (or third or fourth) viewing, but Lucasfilm is also expected to release the first “Star Wars Anthology” film as a DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital Download this Spring.
Joe Carnahan has finished the script to the Uncharted movie
After years in development, Final Fantasy XV, The Last Guardian, and No Man’s Sky all launched in 2016. With that trio of games now available in stores, we might have finally reached the point where all the vaporware-adjacent video games have either finally been released or officially canceled. Thankfully, the Uncharted movie is the gift that keeps on giving.
The film adaptation was first announced in 2009, and since then, Naughty Dog has actually said “goodbye” to Nathan Drake with the release of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Before that, but after the Uncharted film was first announced, they managed to produce three sequels to the original game and multiple spinoff titles. Several directors and writers have taken a crack at the franchise over the years, and all of them eventually stepped away. But it looks like director Shawn Levy and screenwriter Joe Carnahan will finally be the ones who bring the franchise to the big screen.
Carnahan got on Instagram this weekend and revealed that the script for Uncharted is finished. This is an accomplishment in itself, but he also seems rather proud of his work. Carnahan referred to the script as “a BEAST” and claimed “[there’s not] a more monstrously cool action script in Hollywood right now.”
The Uncharted movie will begin filming sometime this year, and you can find Carnahan’s Instagram post after the break. (more…)
Posted in Etcetera, News, PS3, PS4
Tagged Uncharted: Drake's Fortune