Gaming Briefs

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

A Space Invaders tutorial
2007-08-11 21:12:00
A recording of a tutorial on how to play the Atari console version of one of the most classic and influential games of all time:Space Invader s was so popular that at the time of its release in 1978, so many people piled on to play it in Japan that it practically caused a Yen shortage! Most amazing about the Atari console version was how there was a bug in the system you could take advantage of that could give you double firepower, enabling you to shoot down at least two aliens at a time. Man, I remember those times, when I would play it on the home version, and it was the game that could never be beaten no matter how hard some people tried. Nevertheless, there are those who've succeeded in garnering tons of points on it in competitions.
More About: Tutorial , Space Invaders , Space Invader

Hasbro and EA will make computerized versions of their board games
2007-08-10 17:21:00
Hasbro has reached a deal with Electronic Arts to make some computer takes on some of my favorite board games:NEW YORK (Reuters) - Electronic Arts Inc. and Hasbro, Inc. on Friday said they have made a licensing agreement to create electronic versions of some of Hasbro's most popular games including Monopoly, Scrabble and Yahtzee.Under the agreement, which runs through 2013, Redwood City, California-based Electronic Arts will hold worldwide rights to create the digital games for electronic devices including mobile telephones and over the Internet."Our toy and game brands have been family-favorites for decades, and aligning ourselves with EA will result in broadening the reach of our brands," said Brian Goldner, Hasbro's chief operating officer, in a joint company statement.The first games are to be launched in 2008. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.If you ask me though, I think the board games are still the best around, since that's the best way for the whole fa...
More About: Games , Board , Hasbro , Make

Space Harrier: great adventure in the galaxy
2007-08-10 12:43:00
Designed by Sega's prominent game designer Yu Suzuki, Space Harrier is an amazing game set in the "Fantasy Zone" where you're racing and shooting "into" the screen. Quite a lot of interesting targets come your way here, and you also have to be careful not to be struck down by incoming targets and objects such as trees and pillars, some of which cannot be destroyed. Your racing adventurer uses both a hand-held cannon and special jetpacks that help him to fly a certain height.It was made the same year as Hang-On, and may use a similar program. And it's certainly quite a masterpiece.
More About: Adventure , Great , Galaxy , Advent

Domino Man recording
2007-08-09 23:22:00
Domino Man features an artist going around trying to set up rows of dominoes to knock over after accomplishing a certain amount. Naturally, there are a couple problems that try to hinder his efforts, such as a neighborhood bully who tries to knock everything over, and even a bag lady and an aimless boy who can accidentally bump into things and knock them over the wrong way as well. Your player can try to hit them and slow them down or get them to go in another direction (in the case of the bully, his pants can drop!). Not bad for a game of its time, and I like that old-time music too.
More About: Recording , Domino , Domin , Cord

Smile for the console!
2007-08-09 18:52:00
Ha ha, here's a small story about the Wii's latest venture: a kind of game that helps to excercise facial expressions!TOKYO (AP) - Nintendo DS players in Japan can now exercise their facial muscles to have nicer smiles and livelier expressions.A digital camera that comes with the new "Face Training" game fits into the dual-screen, handheld machine to show live video of the player's own face on the right screen while an animation of a woman's face illustrates exercises on the left screen.The 16 types of exercises called "facening," designed by beauty expert Fumiko Inudo, take about two to 10 minutes each to complete. Nintendo Co., the Kyoto-based maker of Pokemon and Super Mario games, recommends playing "Face Training" no longer than 15 minutes at a time to avoid overexerting face muscles or getting them "out of balance."Besides the animation that serves as a model for players, an electronic voice resembling an aerobics instructor guides you to twist your mouth, drop your jaw, w...
More About: Console , Smile , Cons , Sole

Short recording of Super Zaxxon
2007-07-30 23:33:00
Developed by Sega shortly after their success with the first Zaxxon, this game has the player, amusingly enough, dealing with a giant cybernetic reptilian boss when you get to the showdown lot. Isn't that funny? And it looks like the dreaded missile is fired from - you guessed it - the mouth!
More About: Recording , Super , Short , Cord

Cyber-Lip tape
2007-07-23 23:30:00
An action game in which you're a commando who's sent on a mission to battle a super-computer gone insane on an earth colony in orbit, Cyber -Lip is one of the harder games produced for the Neo-Geo system in its time, given how you have to make many dangerous jumps here. Quite a challenging game overall, and whoa, check out that surprising ending. Wonder what the guy giving the assignments meant when he grinned evilly at the end before fading out?

One groovy Alien Storm
2007-07-22 17:06:00
Boy, this is one of the funniest games I've ever seen! You play as a trio of commandos vaguely similar to Ghostbusters (and in this recording, all fused together so they can be managed by the same player), and the mission is to battle an army of invading aliens, some of whom are disguised as trash cans and telephone booths (and some of them even look like alien snails)! And I guess it ain't over till the fat alien sings! Ha ha!The design team here may have included also some of the staff from other Sega classics like Altered Beast and Golden Axe, seeing how Gilius the dwarf is one of the guys judging the players' statistics at the end on how good they did during the game. This is one of the coolest games in Sega's output, and I'd strongly recommend it anytime.
More About: Storm , Alien , Groovy

Mercs multimedia
2007-07-22 05:11:00
A three-player followup to Commando, Merc s is about a trio of troubleshooters who are sent on a mission to rescue a former president who's been taken hostage by terrorists while on a diplomatic mission. Plenty more stuff to shoot up, mainly the terrorists themselves, and, you can also pilot a couple of vehicles like jeeps, boats and tanks to deal with the enemies as well.
More About: Multimedia , Capcom

Commando cassette
2007-07-21 20:55:00
One of Capcom 's earliest games (the only one they licensed to Data East for US distribution), this is a simple shooter in which you're a commando battling against an evil dictator. The game's objective is to reach the main enemy installation and knock it out. Then the game continues with more difficulty.One oddity about this recording is how it shows the game played inside a special cabinet-style frame, as if this were literally being played in an arcade, even though it's just on the PC, and no doubt used something only similar to the spinner joystick games like this usually employed in their time.
More About: Cassette , Command , Asset

Nancy Drew's got her own PC games!
2007-07-21 20:19:00
Who would've known that the girl sleuth of the classic mystery novels for the girl crowd, published by the same Stratameyer company that put out the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift and the Bobbsey Twins, could've gotten her own mystery game as well? But it's so, and I figure that it's gotta be even more engaging than the movie that was put out recently.
More About: Games , Ames , Drew

Sly Spy: a cool suspense game
2007-07-20 15:03:00
Inspired obviously by the James Bond franchise, Sly Spy, which is also called Secret Agent outside the US, is a one-player game where you guide a special US agent as he battles against terrorists who've invaded Washington to stop their evil deeds, and especially to stop them from launching a nuclear missile of destruction.Some of the details here are a little reminiscient of what could be seen in Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja, such as the soda cans for restoring energy. And an idea here most definitely inspired from the Bond movies would have to be the Golden Gun, which fires powerful shots of energy at the villains. Man, is that cool indeed.
More About: Cool , Game , Suspense

Cabal taping
2007-07-20 10:03:00
This was a popular shoot-em-up back in the day. The game may have first used a trackball to control the players' movements, but is also quite compatible with a joystick as well. So much to blast on screen! Buildings, rocks, enemy soldiers and tanks, and of course, plenty of weapons to obtain as well.
More About: Ping

Metal Black Multimedia
2007-07-19 17:20:00
Quite an amazing game where the powering up comes via all these atoms floating around in the screen. It's meant to be a followup to an earlier game called Gun & Frontier, but may be set in an earlier time in the distant future. The organic-looking bosses here are quite amazing.
More About: Multimedia , Metal , Black , Al B , Lack

Moo-Mesa multimedia
2007-07-19 17:19:00
This is based on a cartoon series, Wild West C.O.W.boys of Moo-Mesa , that I saw a few episodes of back in the early 1990s, starring some cattle-based cast, among other animals. It's almost like a parodic version of Sunset Riders. As they say, let's rodeo! Yeah!
More About: Multimedia

Asterix and the arcade game
2007-07-19 17:18:00
I remember this game fondly. One of the most amusing items I'd seen years ago, that takes its cue from a few of Asterix's and Obelix's comic book adventures. The recording here just shows the first two stages played as well as the bonus stage, but it's pretty good. The final stage in the game is pretty hard, and while it's possible to fell the two bosses featured in the Roman arena with the spinning uppercut, it can still be pretty tricky. But it's still a fun game, and I'm glad Konami made it years ago.
More About: Arcade , Game , Teri , The A , Cade

China limits internet gaming for teenagers
2007-07-19 17:17:00
Some news from China , which is still run by the commies today:HONG KONG (AP) - The Chinese government has launched a campaign to limit the number of hours teenagers spend online playing games.Under new rules that took effect Monday, Chinese Internet gaming companies must install a program that requires users to enter their ID card numbers. After three hours, players under 18 are prompted to stop and "do suitable physical exercise."If they continue, the software slashes by half any points earned in the game. All points are wiped out if players stay on more than five hours.The program is part of a government campaign to combat Internet gaming addiction, "clean up the Internet environment" and "promote civilized Internet use," according to guidelines issued by China's General Administration of Press and Publication.About 10 percent of China's more than 30 million Internet gamers were underage as of the end of 2006, according to the Chinese newspaper National Business Daily.The govern...
More About: Gaming , Limits , Teenager

UbiSoft sells its stake in Gameloft
2007-07-18 18:43:00
They're selling it to the French Calyon bank:PARIS (Reuters) - French video games group Ubisoft said it had sold its 18.89 percent stake in Gameloft , Europe's biggest provider of games for cell phones, to French bank Calyon for 81.3 million euros ($112.2 million).The sale price was 6.08 euros per share, based on Gameloft's closing share price on July 12, 2007, the statement said.Ubisoft also entered into an equity swap agreement with Calyon under which Calyon has 24 months to sell the 13.4 million shares it bought on the market."All changes in the Gameloft share price compared with Calyon's purchase price of 6.08 euros will be recorded in full by Ubisoft," it said.The transaction will thus affect Ubisoft's income statement and generate cash inflows only when Calyon sells the Gameloft shares.Let's just hope it doesn't affect them in a bad way, shall we?
More About: Loft

Four times as long, but now they've gotten there
2007-07-18 18:37:00
Sony's sales of the PS3 in Japan have now passed the million console mark, plenty of time after Nintendo did with the Wii:TOKYO (Reuters) - Sales of Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 game console surpassed one million units in Japan in about eight months after its launch, more than four times as long as it took Nintendo's hot-selling Wii to reach the same mark.According to game magazine publisher Enterbrain, Sony has sold 1.01 million units of the PS3 as of July 15 while Wii sales totaled 2.9 million units as of July 8 and sales of Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 have came to 420,705 units.Sony's PlayStation 3 hit shelves in Japan on November 11, while the Wii made its debut on December 2. The Xbox 360 has been on sale in Japan since December 2005.Sony, which dominated the $30 billion global game industry over the past decade, has seen a slow start for the PS3 due to its high price and scarcity of strong game titles.The Xbox 360, although popular in the United States, has been struggling t...
More About: Times , Long , There , Gott

Yo Joe! It's the GI Joe arcade game!
2007-07-18 08:12:00
Here's a video of one of my personal favorites, the game based on GI Joe!GI Joe's origins first came around in a comic strip by David Breger published in 1942 for US army magazines. This subsequently inspired the movie, The Story of G.I. Joe, and later on, it also inspired Hasbro, the world's largest toy company, to create their legendary action figures in about 1964. The terrorist angle represented by Cobra probably came up in the late 70s-early 80s. It was certainly an excellent idea, as it helped make for some of the best comic books published by Marvel for about a decade, and it certainly helped reflect the times.As you can see here, you're heading in a straightforward direction, and you can fire in a straight up and down angle. One oddity here is that Snake Eyes talks! Those familiar with the franchise know that Snake Eyes lost his voice in an accident back in the day, and since then became a mute ninja-style fighter. But his having a voice here is easily overlooked, as thi...
More About: Arcade , Game , Cade , Arcade Game , The G

Will the price be right for this adaptation?
2007-07-17 22:53:00
A game show is coming to vidgames soon:TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) - Canadian new-media producer Ludia Inc. will soon come down the aisle with a video game based on TV game show "The Price Is Right," to be developed in partnership with TV producer FremantleMedia.As FremantleMedia searches for Bob Barker's replacement as host of the show, Montreal-based Ludia on Monday said it has been tapped to produce a "Price Is Right" game that will bow on a host of PC platforms in December.The video game, to be developed as part of a multiyear, exclusive agreement between Ludia and FremantleMedia, will include elements from the long-running TV game show, including the opening, "Come on Down," the spinning of the wheel and the final Showcase Showdown.Prices and prizes in the video game will be based on real-world merchandise, enabling product placement opportunities.No kidding. And what happens when inflation, god forbid, starts upping the prices of the real-life merchandise we speak of? Let's...

Operation Taito!
2007-07-17 06:15:00
Taito's shooting games that began with Operation Wolf and led to at least three sequels are some of my favorite games of all time. Let's start with the aforementioned Operation Wolf right here:You play as Roy Adams, a Green Beret commando (this was after all around the time that Vietnam was still an notable topic) sent on a daring mission to rescue hostages of an enemy terrorist gang in South America. You can select your path among six areas. You need to be careful not to shoot innocent people, which includes the nurses with a stretcher, and you need to rescue hostages to take back with you on the plane at the end. By the way, those terrorists with bulletproof vests and chaingun rifles do indeed require that you shoot them in the head if you're to finish them off quickly, or else it'll be very hard to gun them down unless you use a bomb to do the job. The game starts again with more difficulty after you finish a round.The game was so successful that a sequel was produced the fol...

Cable TV network looks to do some cashing in
2007-07-16 06:33:00
DirecTV is hoping to capitalize on computer games:LOS ANGELES (AP) - Four race cars barrel down a virtual track, jostling for position. Announcers shout their commentary over growling engines until a winner speeds past a checkered flag.The frenetic race televised on DirecTV wasn't a NASCAR event. It was staged as part of a new video game league that aims to turn gaming into a full-fledged sport, as compelling to watch as the National Basketball Association or Major League Baseball.The Championship Gaming Series debuted last week in the U.S. and has franchises around the world that pay top players base salaries of $30,000 plus bonuses.Organizers hope to attract an audience of the same young gamers who pushed computer and video game software sales to $7.4 billion in 2006 - a 6 percent increase from 2005, according to the Entertainment Software Association.Advertisers are eager to reach those 18 to 24 year-old consumers.The challenge for the league is making the on-screen action compe...
More About: Network , Look , Shin , Cable , To Do

Sky Shark multimedia
2007-07-16 06:00:00
A fun one-player plane game produced in 1987, Sky Shark is all shoot-em-up with plenty of bonus points to go.
More About: Multimedia

Microsoft and Sony seem to want to copy Nintendo's success now
2007-07-14 23:19:00
Which is quite pleasing for Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario and Luigi, to hear:SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) - Legendary Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto knows when his grand vision of video games for the masses has arrived."When my relatives start talking to me about video games, then I'll know that I have succeeded," the brainchild behind "Donkey Kong" and other hits said at this week's E3 Media and Business Summit.For Miyamoto and Nintendo Co., making games more appealing to a broader audience has been a core strategy in recent years. And it appears to be working.Eight months since the Japanese company launched the Wii, the $250 console has been the top-selling system over far more expensive and technologically sophisticated machines from Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp.Though their focus still seems more centered on the traditional hardcore gaming market, Microsoft and Sony both seem intent on trying to use Nintendo's success to their advantage.Microsoft this week introduc...
More About: Success , Copy

What's up at the E3 summit
2007-07-14 23:12:00
Here's a couple of things that seem to have been featured at the E3 Media and Business Summit :SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) - The focus of this year's E3 Media and Business Summit was the hundreds of video games that will be debuting in the coming months and years.It was a decidedly different theme than last year's event, when questions about the still-unreleased PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii were all anyone could talk about.A sampling of the hundreds of games that were on display at the show this year:Assassin's Creed - Ubisoft Corp.'s newest action franchise drops a stealthy killing machine named Altair into the middle of the Third Crusade in medieval Jerusalem. Altair's main power is his incredible athleticism: he can scamper up walls and fling himself across rooftops. Of course, he has some lethal fighting moves when needed. This one's due in November for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Windows PCs.Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Infinity Ward, which was responsible for the original ...

Konami's X-Men side scroller
2007-07-14 14:56:00
Produced just two years before Capcom produced their popular fighting game that's subtitled Children of the Atom, and which led to a couple of other Marvel-themed fighting games as well. The game is available in formats for two, four, or even SIX players! Yes, that's right, and it's a rare effort I know of where they made it for as many as six. It looks a little bit like Komani's earlier efforts for Ninja Turtles, and the music sounds almost similar in some ways, but not tongue-in-cheek like it is for the Turtles.(Speaking of Capcom, you could say that they pretty much took over from where Konami left off that year in making licensed games, as they continued to make quite a few for arcades whereas Konami otherwise stopped doing it for arcades after 1992.)
More About: Side , Roller , Nami , Scroller

Shinobi and Shadow Dancer
2007-07-13 07:55:00
Shinobi was one of Sega's most successful platform games of its time when published in 1987. Here's a recording of that right here:You play the role of Joe Musashi, a Shinobi ninja on a mission to rescue the kidnapped children of the Iga clan, and to defeat the terrorist overlord behind the whole plot. It was a very popular game in its time that led to a couple of sequels over the years, such as Shadow Dancer , seen in the recording below:Set 20 years after the first Shinobi, this stars Hayate, the son of the original protagonist, who together with his mascot Yamato, are on a mission to defeat a terrorist organization that's been planting bombs that need to be defused. By pulling the joystick downwards and pressing the attack button, the dog will rush to attack the nearest enemy. It's possible though for the dog to be struck and momentarily stunned, which causes it to "shrink" momentarily for a few seconds before returning to regular size. Shadow Dancer's is on a harder difficul...
More About: Shin , Shinobi

Capcom says PS3 price could be cut again
2007-07-13 05:20:00
Hey, maybe people will strike it even more lucky when buying the console:SANTA MONICA, California (Reuters) - Sony Corp. is likely to cut its PlayStation 3 price again by year-end following this week's $100 cut, a senior executive at Japanese game software maker Capcom Co. Ltd. said."The number of PS2 users is still growing and a shift to the PS3 is on the back burner," Capcom Chief Financial Officer Kazuhiko Abe told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday."But, the price has been cut once and it is likely to be cut again towards the end of the year. I expect the (PS3's) installed base to grow gradually."Sony on Monday cut the price of the PS3 to $500 in the United States in a move to breathe life into sluggish demand.Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 and Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s Wii have outsold the PS3 by several times in the crucial U.S. market, leaving Sony, which has dominated the game industry over the past decade, in the unfamiliar position of playing catch up.The new price, however, i...
More About: Price

Centipede: first game designed by a woman
2007-07-11 21:00:00
A tutorial recording of how to play Centipede:Centipede was the first game whose main designer was a woman, Dona Bailey. Like Pac-Man (and also of course, Ms. Pac-Man), this too was a popular game with many women, and till today, the quarters keep rolling in.
More About: Atari , Game , Woman , Game Design , A Woman