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• Comparison of Wiki Articles Proves Geeks Inherited The Earth

  When teachers and talk show radio hosts moan about the decline of America's youth, they point out how so few kids can name all 50 American States yet can identify all twelve billion of Nintendo's Pokemon with seemingly no effort. (The secret here is that Pokemon are fun and exciting where as geography is not. Oh wait, that's not a secret.) For all the lamentations of our teacher-women (and teacher-men), it seems as if the generation that grew up with Ash Ketchum is ahead of the old fuddy-duddies. This GamesRadar feature indicates that the geeks control Wikipedia and they who control Wikipedia, control the Earth. So what matters are given the most attention in the digital tome of knowledge that will soon be passed on to our children? Is it religion? Is it the rich history of the forefathers who founded the free world? No, fool. Knuckles the Echidna takes precedence over all. Get your priorities straight. Read More... Posted Jul 01 2008, 03:07 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: pokemon, gamesradar, sonic the hedgehog, mega man x, wikipedia, ash ketchum, feature, knuckles, mavericks

• Going Back in There: My Very First Hour With Pokemon, part 2

  In the second part of my journey, I discover the joy of making small animals kick the crap out of birds for me and I meet my very best friend in the world. 2:05 – Interestingly enough, Pokémon let’s me name not only myself, but also my best friend. My best friend is TheHoff. Complete strangers in the game know me and TheHoff “are tight”. He just invited me to the lake. His theme song is rad. 2:09 – No balls. No monsters. No monsters in balls. I would like to do something. 2:10 – We’re going to Lake Verity: The Lake of Emotions. This is getting awful racy. 2:12 – This is definitely more of an RPG than I remember Blue being. Is there more of an emphasis on story here? 2:13 – BIRDS! 2:14 – I found an old man’s briefcase and it happened to be filled with balls containing beasts so now I’m fending off birds with a flaming monkey. One of my available commands is “Leer” which is really kind of creepy. The battle system doesn’t give any indication as to what an attack might do, though. Is that part of strategy, not knowing what the hell you’re doing? Read More... Posted Jun 30 2008, 12:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, nintendo ds, pokemon

• Going Back in There: My Very First Hour With Pokemon, part 1

  My relationship with Pokémon has always been focused on the phenomenon, not the game. Watching the cartoon, cards, games, and films descend on Western culture between September of 1998 and December of 1999 was not unlike witnessing a natural disaster from a reinforced safe-house; I was scared but secure in other games, fascinated but not brave enough to go outside to try and document the event. I was sixteen when Pokémon Blue and Red came out, slightly too old to be caught in the flood. I got around to trying out Blue in July ’99, just to see what all the fuss was about. It was horrible. Too slow, too simple, too oblique. I put it down and never went back. Over the past decade, Pokémon has refused to die, maintaining a stranglehold on gamers of all ages, and I’ve started to wonder, yet again, if I’m missing out on something. There has to be a reason people return to these games. The brand is strong enough to survive without proper handheld entries from Nintendo, why do people keep going back for more. At twenty-six, now a bold videogame journalist, and it’s time for me to weather the storm. Join me, dear reader, as I plunge into the world of Pokémon Diamond searching for unholy knowledge of gaming’s darkest secrets. Read More... Posted Jun 30 2008, 11:00 AM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, nintendo ds, pokemon

• The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial, Part 3

  Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! We cite Punch-Out!! here not for starring Mike Tyson (a controversial figure, even before his rape conviction), but for the degree to which it epitomizes a trend that would dominate gaming in the late-'80s and early-'90s: the "beat up stereotypes from around the world" gameplay model. Granted, most of Punch-Out!!'s characters are too ludicrous to really offend; it's hard to imagine Pacific Islanders getting all up in arms about King Hippo being kind of a jackass. That said, the sight of cross-eyed Piston Honda babbling "Sushi, Kamikaze, Fujiyama, Nipponichi!" as a mid-match battle cry is a little unsettling. — PS Read More... Posted Jun 20 2008, 01:13 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, peter smith, metroid, nintendo, derrick sanskrit, xbox 360, final fantasy, top ten, call of duty, pokemon, Playstation, tomb raider, punch out, mcdonalds, heavenly sword, fable, mike Tyson, narc, dead or alive, persona

• The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial, Part 2

  Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Call of Duty 4 is a game obsessed with realism, its depiction of combat situations and the tools of war meticulous to an almost terrifying degree. Early in the game, you are placed in the gunner’s seat of an AC-130 Spectre over a Ukrainian field, the night vision view of an aerial assault looking no different than an Iraq war newscast, the radio confirmation of kills unsettlingly casual; a game so realistic that it mimics a soldier’s detachment from killing. It’s strange then that the game, for all its incessant specificity, sends the player to kill Arab soldiers in “the Middle East”, and not an actual nation. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has sold over seven million copies in a war-weary United States in under a year. Am I the only one who finds this sort of depersonalization unsettling? — JC Read More... Posted Jun 20 2008, 01:12 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, peter smith, metroid, nintendo, derrick sanskrit, xbox 360, final fantasy, top ten, call of duty, pokemon, Playstation, tomb raider, punch out, mcdonalds, heavenly sword, fable, mike Tyson, narc, dead or alive, persona

• The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial, Part 1

  Games have been raising hackles since their inception. Howell Ivy kick-started gaming and controversy’s relationship when he designed Death Race in 1976, a simple black and white game that was, well, about running people over for points. That was enough to get America riled up, prompting 60 Minutes to run the first of many, many televised news stories about the psychological effects of gaming. But public outrage is unpredictable. Politicians and parent groups have been shocked by d-list titles like Manhunt and Night Trap while more popular, widely played games with far more inflammatory content have passed by unnoted. Today, 61 Frames Per Second presents The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial. A number of these are games that we are surprised did not cause uproar in a number of communities. The rest are games that we ourselves find seriously questionable in content. How do you feel about these videogames? Indifferent? Appalled? Leave a comment and let us know. — John Constantine NARC I don't know about you, but I have at least a couple of friends who have occasionally sold drugs. They're pretty lucky they grew up in the relatively permissive '90s, and not in the merciless, Reaganite '80s presented in NARC. Sure, NARC gives you bonus points for arresting dealers instead of killing them, but that's because it's almost impossible to do. Far easier is just perforating them on the spot. As my fellow blogger Cole notes, "I guess dismembering hundreds is okay if they're pushin'." In fact, there was some parental outrage over NARC's unprecedented level of gore, but its moral assumptions went pretty much unchallenged. — Peter Smith Read More... Posted Jun 20 2008, 01:11 PM by John Constantine with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, peter smith, metroid, nintendo, derrick sanskrit, xbox 360, final fantasy, top ten, call of duty, pokemon, Playstation, tomb raider, punch out, mcdonalds, heavenly sword, fable, mike Tyson, narc, dead or alive, persona

• NPD Wrap: The Times Are a Changin’

  April’s come to a close and now, under the cold, hard light of math, three things are becoming clear. First, people freaking love Nintendo games. Sure, we already knew that, but over a million people bought Mario Kart for Wii in less than a week. Second, people freaking love Grand Theft Auto. Nearly two million people bought that in even less time. Third, our access to new videogames is going to change dramatically in the very near future. While these numbers may just look like numbers to us, to the people who publish videogames, the people who control when we get to engage these creations, the math is saying that 2008 is different. Tradition dictates that high profile, big hype games are held in reserve for the holiday push from late September through December and the rest of the year is just a slow trickle of quality goods. The math of March and April 2008 says that people will buy many, many games throughout the year, not just around Christmas. What happens now? Going forward, we’re going to see more games, more often. At least, until digital distribution destroys physical media and the whole issue becomes moot. Come get some hard analysis and delicious numbers after the jump. Read More... Posted May 16 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, nintendo, nintendo ds, ea, microsoft, npd, xbox 360, wii, psp, mario kart, ubisoft, sony, call of duty, pokemon, gran turismo, army of two, super smash bros, guitar hero, rainbow six, Grand theft auto 4