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 clatter of dice on my bedroom floor still echoes in my head sometimes, which probably sounds daft until you realize I'm talking about the sound effects in Shining in the Darkness. That metallic rattle when you'd roll for initiative—pure digital dice music that somehow felt more authentic than the actual plastic cubes scattered around my Dungeons & Dragons books.I stumbled into this gem completely by accident, the way most of the best gaming discoveries…
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…
Every Monkey Island Game Ranked: The Complete Guybrush Threepwood Legacy Ranking every Monkey Island game has ended very poorly. What we didn’t expect was Joe to threaten to quit the group chat after Samuel said that Escape from Monkey Island wasn’t the worst thing he’s ever played. MARCUS attempted to play peacemaker while simultaneously defending Telltale’s episodic format, which only made Joe madder. Samuel wanted to assess each game’s puzzle design based solely on technical…
You know that weird thing where a smell can transport you instantly? Well, the other day I caught a whiff of something—maybe it was the ozone from an old CRT warming up, or that particular plastic scent of a cartridge slot—and suddenly I was twelve again, sprawled on my mate's living room carpet, arguing about whether Sonic was faster than the Road Runner. That's the magic of the Mega Drive, isn't it? It doesn't just…
Standing in my mate Dave's living room in late 2000, gripping that familiar three-pronged controller with sweaty palms, I had no idea I was about to experience one of gaming's most underrated Bond adventures. Dave had just unwrapped The World Is Not Enough for his N64, and honestly? We were skeptical. GoldenEye 007 had set the bar stratospherically high three years earlier, and Perfect Dark had raised it even further. Another Bond game felt risky—like…
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…
I remember the exact moment my childhood died. Not in some dramatic, tear-jerking way—more like watching your favorite teddy bear get caught in a washing machine and come out looking… different. I was nineteen, home from university for the weekend, and my mate Dave had brought round this game he'd bought from some bloke at a car boot sale. "It's got a squirrel," he said, like that explained everything.Conker's Bad Fur Day wasn't supposed to…
I am Samuel, and I need to put an end to a debate that has bothered me since the last time we spoke on team calls. Tim is saying that Marvel vs Capcom games are better now due to their “improved balance” and “more accessible controls”. Tim, you are missing the whole point. While the original Marvel vs Capcom may be the core of the franchise, it is also the most direct example of how…
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…