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The ultimate history of fighting games Fighting games have always been around. The first one on this list landed in arcades in 1976!
The Street Fighter games are arguably the best-known fighting titles ever released (only Mortal Kombat comes close), and the series has sold a staggering 37 million copies. Fighting games, though, have been around since the very beginning of the medium. The first one we hit on this list landed in arcades in 1976 – a full 40 years ago! Lace up your gloves, charge up your ki, and let’s write the book on the history of fighting games. I tried to play, either on original machines or through emulation, every single game that could be considered a “fighting game” in the history of video games. I’m going to try and talk…
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The weirdest fighting games of all time Most fighting games have some degree of strangeness to them, but there are those who are downright bizarre.
The fighting game genre is one of the biggest in the industry, but even the most die-hard fan will admit that it can often times be somewhat… odd. Serious fighting games like Street Fighter feature characters that can launch projectiles from their hands, emit electricity, or stretch their limbs to unnatural lengths. The Virtua Fighter series, which is praised for its realism, also has its fair share of goofy characters. Most fighting games have some degree of strangeness to them, but there are those who are downright bizarre. We’ve rounded up some of the most outlandish, eccentric, and unconventional fighting games to ever be released. We’ve only picked games that…
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69 things you need to do in GTA before you die So you think you’re done with Liberty City? Think again.
No Man’s Sky versus the actual universe: a scientific inquiry Time for some mind-blowing space facts.
The games that dare to sail the dark seas The humbling grandeur of the ocean: a place eternally unknowable, and indifferent to the fortunes of the seafarers it both sustains and destroys.
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The Legend of Zelda was an explicitly Christian game—until Nintendo of America desecrated it Link, a devout Christian warrior? Believe it.
Before The Legend of Zelda became known for its somewhat complicated lore and disconnected story lines, the popular Nintendo series had real-world religious influences with Link originally written as a devout Christian warrior. I wouldn’t blame you if you missed the references to Christianity in the first three Zelda games because the hints were always subtle (especially for children) and it was never explicitly stated by characters in-game. One of the biggest in-game hints of religious imagery was found in the Japanese version of The Legend of Zelda. If you played the English version of the game, you’re probably familiar with the Book of Magic, which had a cross on…
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Video game journalism is killing itself Game journalists are killing themselves through political peacocking and attacking consumers.
From EA QA to Pokémon Go and beyond: the incredible career of E. Daniel Arey He's helped design some of gaming's greatest successes, and is just getting started.
The world of video game vinyl Down the video game record collection hole.
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Under the thumb: the evolution of buttons How the buttons we press daily were formed over many decades.
I’ve been delighted with Nintendo Switch, not just because Breath of the Wild is probably now my favorite game ever, but because the Joy-Cons really make the hardware feel special. Even more so if you were fortunate to get hold of the neon red and blue version. It may be because no other controller has ever had so much versatility, either for a single player or for the instant sideways turn into two stand-alone controllers. It shakes up a lot of other controller preconceptions, too, and in doing so made me think about all the controllers I have used. How over time that knowledge of where to move your thumb is accumulated,…
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Why video game movies fail as adaptations What are movie makers doing wrong?
What’s so scary about the 90s? The best horror games look to the nineties not as a rough draft to be improved upon, but something terrifying in and of itself.
17 years ago today, a wild Pikachu virus appeared! W32.Pokey.Worm was not very effective...
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The making of Virtual Springfield: a journey through the Simpsons at its peak Remember when The Simpsons was good and VR was futuristic?
Here’s a pitch for you: an interactive experience in which players are free to explore Springfield, the bustling hometown of The Simpsons, in virtual reality. In spite of the series’ steady decline over the past 15 years or so, I’d wager that more than a few of you would be queuing up to buy such a game were it launched tomorrow. Just imagine, then, how tantalizing a prospect this would have been back in the series’ mid-90s peak – with classic episodes such as Homer Badman, Who Shot Mr. Burns?, and The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show still fresh in the memory. This was effectively what Fox Interactive served…
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Don’t share Watch Dogs 2’s (very real) vaginas or Sony will ban you (NSFW!) Turns out there are vaginas in Watch Dogs 2, but if you share a picture of them then Sony will ban you.
Ventrilo Harassment: Arnold ruins a clan meeting Mission objective: Infiltrate and harass.
Satoru Iwata’s noble Nintendo legacy Even if you thought his decisions were misguided or wrongheaded, they still came from a place of love for video games.
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The Mission: the most bizarre soccer game ever made "Once you have acquired the ball it is used as your main weapon against the Ninjas."
Of all the ways a British child could have their Christmas ruined in the late ’90s — sherry-fueled arguments after dinner, a sibling raging because they didn’t get what they wanted, a burned turkey — there is a special place in yuletide hell reserved for crappy soccer games bought by well-meaning family members. For the contemporary gamer, soccer more or less means the slugfest between FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer. But before this heavyweight title card came to dominate, back in the era of the original PlayStation, the soccer games jostling for position more closely resembled a royal rumble. And much like in the WWE’s yearly 30-man brawl, the majority…
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The largest ever MMO battle—3000 players!—was an accident Someone forgot to pay rent, resulting in a space battle involving over 3000 players and $300k worth of the game's currency gone forever.
Kotaku is killing video game journalism When Kotaku introduced ‘social justice’ to gaming coverage, it all went to hell. Why can't we just play?
Under the thumb: the evolution of buttons How the buttons we press daily were formed over many decades.
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Swearing at the screen: a history of rudeness in text adventures Much effort went into providing responses to inputs quite removed from an adventurer's staple activities of bashing heads and examining stuff.
“Don’t be ridiculous” the invisible narrator snapped, dismissing some long-forgotten typed request, and several decades later I still remember it. It was the first computer game I’d ever played, an early 80s text adventure titled Madness and the Minotaur on my swanky new Dragon 32, and my uncle had joined dad and I to marvel at the shiny new toy and help us with the intricacies of English prose. He had to explain what it meant to be ridiculous. I’m being ridiculous? Even at a tender age I could sense some grand unfairness at work, even more so after the line started dumbly repeating itself, our textual flailings going unrecognized…
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Under the thumb: the evolution of buttons How the buttons we press daily were formed over many decades.
Metroid Prime like you’ve never seen it before An extract from the new issue of Heterotopias.
Mario and Sonic: a tale of two mascots Super Mario Odyssey and Sonic Mania reflect the histories of their star characters almost too well.
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10 beautiful 2D games exclusive to the PlayStation (PS1/PSX) The future of gaming was 3D, but the PlayStation had several beautiful 2D exclusives.
When the original PlayStation hit store shelves in 1995, it unlocked new possibilities in 3D gaming, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t a ton of beautiful 2D games on the PS1. The fifth generation of video games includes the PlayStation as well as the Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64. Out of those three consoles, it’s often assumed that the Sega Saturn had the best 2D games, considering its limitations with 3D. But the PlayStation had a giant library with a ton of great exclusives. Here are 10 great 2D games that you can only play on the original PlayStation in no particular order. 1. Alundra Watch this video on YouTube…
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Making a living in Minecraft We speak to James Delaney, who's trying to turn Blockworks' work into a sustainable business.
When nightmare mode isn’t enough: 5 ways to add difficulty to your game If you haven't sent a controller hurtling through the air straight into the middle of your flat screen TV, you aren't being challenged enough.
The real reason LEGO Universe shut down: it didn’t anticipate the ‘penis cost’ The challenge of keeping a family-friendly MMO penis-free was too much for Warner Brothers.
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10 anti-gravity racing games like WipEout and F-Zero While futuristic anti-gravity racing games aren't extremely popular these days, there are still a few good titles that you might have overlooked.
In the 1990s, games like Wipeout and F-Zero ushered in a new genre of racing games that aren’t confined to the realm of wheels and normal gravity. They’re known as anti-gravity racing games. While futuristic anti-gravity racing games like Wipeout and F-Zero aren’t extremely popular these days, there are still a few good titles that you might have overlooked. I’ve picked out a mix of retro and new anti-gravity racing games that you should check out if you enjoy games like Wipeout and F-Zero. 1. BallisticNG – PC Watch this video on YouTube If you’re a fan of the original Wipeout trilogy, then you’ll fall in love with BallisticNG. BallisticNG…
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The untold story of PlayStation Home, Sony’s most successful disaster Plagued by problems from the start, PlayStation Home never officially made it out of beta before it was shut down. But it was also very profitable. This is its story.
“You will suffer beyond imagination!” WoW Classic player fights girlfriend while streaming Annoy this WoW nerd and you will suffer beyond imagination, you will see the punishment.
Playing with the human side of history Games traditionally present history as monolithic spectacle, but this new breed focuses on the individual experience of simply existing alongside great events.
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Why Super Mario Bros. 3 is still a masterpiece Before Mario had a World, he had the biggest stage on Earth – and played the part to perfection.
Talking about Super Mario Bros. 3 risks devolving into a numbers game. It sold over eighteen million copies worldwide, another million on its Virtual Console re-release, who knows how many if you include pack-ins/re-releases, and still stands as one of the biggest sellers ever twenty-seven years later. Released in Japan on October 23, 1988, it wouldn’t see America till 1990 or Europe till 1991, but Super Mario Bros. 3 was always white-hot. In Nintendo’s western television advert, thousands of children chant ‘Mario, Mario, Mario’ as the camera pans back, the figures morphing into Mario’s face and then the North American continent. Such was the anticipation and profile for this 8-bit…
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The artists and paintings that bleed through Bloodborne The aesthetic roots of a masterpiece.
Before Old Kratos, there was PSP Kratos How Ready at Dawn humanized Kratos a decade before the recent God of War did.
Eight things that just don’t make sense in the Pokemon universe Twenty years of backtracking and flip flopping until there are more contradictions than a M. Night Shyamalan movie about time travel.
