I get all hot and bothered when I see a crisp clean Pac-Man shirt breaking through the dark and dreary human landscape. It makes my heart leap to see, “Missile Command”, proudly displayed on a t-shirt.  I love retro games and I adore vintage video game merchandise.  But I am old and I have to find things about which to complain, right? Let us start with my complaints and end with something positive, shall w ...

Ready to play "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" by Warner Brothers Interactive, set to release around the movie premiere? Before you lay down your hard earned cash, maybe you need to ask yourself . . . Hey, did you see Iron Man 2?  Of course you did.  Did you play the super awful Iron Man 2 videogame?  Let us hope not, or let us at least hope that you got it on Gamefly and returned the game with no vomit ...

WWE 13: Dissected, Weighed, and Heated in the Microwave for Dinner The WWE13 Roster – 3 Leaping Lanny Poffos out of 5 by Jumpman The players in WWE 13 have been graphically improved.  That much is good.  Now overall, the WWE rosters aren’t that bad, but I guess I wasn’t overly impressed with the depth of the playables.  It would be impossible to include everybody, but you don’t have Hardcore Holly?  He’s no ...

Video Game Movies As the film Wreck It Ralph hits theaters November 2, talk is again circulating the interwebs about video games making the jump to film.  Yay?  With very, very few exceptions, movies based on video games just do not make money.  Good grief! Did anybody see Doom?  Ugh!  The saving grace of Wreck It Ralph is that the film is based on an “80’s style” game.  The artwork in the trailers almost l ...

  It never fails.  A fun RPG is created and within two weeks, the game universe is filled with farm accounts, bots, cheat macros, and hacks.  The normal player wanting to play the game as designed has no chance of achieving a high ranking unless he chooses to join the ranks of the lowlife cheaters.  Eventually, he loses interest in the game and quits.  Eventually, the game becomes so clogged with cheat ...

  If you grew up in the 70s or 80s, chances are really high that you spent some quality time in an arcade.  You see, kids.  Long ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth, we used to spend time outside our homes at a place called “the mall.”  At the mall (whether indoors or outdoor strip mall) we could roam around aimlessly –OR– assuming we had some cash, we could spend an afternoon basking in the glow of ou ...

  In which game did you first encounter Samus?  The original Metroid, Metroid Prime series, Super Metroid, Other M, or maybe some of the cameos Samus has had?  Samus Aran is a character known not only to retro gamers but to current gen gamers as well.  In fact, ask the experts on gamer web sites, television programs and magazines and you’ll be reminded that Samus and the Metroid series are one of the b ...

  You don’t have to be a retro gamer to recognize the mug of that smiling Italian plumber.  Mario has become the most recognizable name in video game history, selling his face on all sorts of video games (and board games – yes, there is an awful chess game as well) across varied game genres.  You would be hard pressed to find any dirt on him, especially if you were born after the 1990s and the decline ...

  As a child of the 70s, I have encountered role-playing games of all sorts, beginning with Dungeons and Dragons to the various spin-offs (oh, how I miss Marvel Super Heroes).  With the advent of home computers, some of the first games created for the PC were RPGs.  They were text based for a while, but that was not too unlike D&D, though missing the fun social component.  As technology increased, ...

  “Yaaa-hoo!  You’re all clear, kid!” Who doesn’t love the 1983 Atari classic “Star Wars” arcade Game.  An X/Y control yoke with triggers, vector graphics, and digitized audio from the movie.  This game was years ahead of its time, and if your arcade had the cockpit cabinet instead of the upright, you really felt like you were in the movie.  Of course, when I look back at those days and compare that to ...