Part of a continuing series of images. Click on photo to view full-size.
The things you find in New York alleys. Actually, this garbage depository on the side of my apartment building has been bearing some interesting fruit lately: About a month ago I found a stack of gently-read Edge magazines, and shortly after, a broken set of Rock Band drums (and they were in fact destroyed, no doubt in the wrong place at the wrong session). I shouldn’t be too surprised, considering the density of my neighborhood and how gaming is all but mainstream now, but still…I can’t help feeling a little less alone around here.
Of course I peeked.
Breath of Fire image source: VGMuseum
Image Sources: Protector-one and calyxa.
Inspired by Ryland Walker Knight’s Convergence series at Vinyl is Heavy.
Dynamite Headdy screenshot courtesy of VGMuseum.
And then there is a game like Soul Blazer (1992), which encapsulates the fragile and tenuous balance between man and universe through roughly translated language that seems hewn from some half-completed philosophic masterwork by an author long forgotten before they could ever be remembered in the first place, illuminating moments of humanity that are probably spun at every minute of every day yet never quite brought to light in such a plain and beautiful way, and makes one wonder if a video game developer can indeed be unashamedly altruistic, wanting nothing more than to use their games as a means to impart simple existential wisdom through lines of code and patterns of colored squares, too small to be counted individually but all equally essential for the glowing tapestry that we can sometimes actually take to heart, if we are willing.
Related Links:
Hardcore Gaming 101 Retrospective on Soul Blazer developer Quintet
Gamespite forum thread on Soul Blazer (EXTENSIVE WALKTHROUGH)
TerraEarth, a site dedicated to Quintet’s “post-Actraiser” titles
Part of a continuing series of images. Click on photo to see full size.
At 8 Mott Street, near the outskirts of New York City’s Chinatown, innocuously folded away between anonymous trinket shops and musty restaurants, a cavalcade of excitement awaits those who savor the thrill of arcade fighting competition. There, I’ve had my ass handed to me at Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs. Capcom 2, gotten a quick orientation/tutorial on Arcana Hearts 2 from someone who was just happy to have a human opponent, witnessed fanatical Puzzle Fighter matches on screens tinted yellow with caked on dust and cigarette smoke, and clapped hands with fellow competitors, not due to any particular victory (those are far and few between for me), but just because a match was well played, an exciting narrative completed. Believe it or not, vieogams are still being played the way that they were 30 years ago: elbow to elbow, with friends and strangers alike, amidst the warm glow of cabinet screens, a movie theater for your hands, a communal experience unlike any other.
I hear that the dancing and tic-tac-toe is excellent too.
Part of a continuing series of images. Click on photo to see full size.
Maybe it’s the precise sense of space that this ad for Spore achieves by being split up into two banners, or maybe it’s the indirect social commentary that it exudes (tons of microorganisms crammed into a limited area, much like the population of the city itself), or heck, it may even be the ironically sparse and oblivious pedestrians on the street below, but this is one of the best game advertisements that I’ve seen around my neighborhood.
Some Banjo-Tooie Picking
Collision Detection
Games/New York
Yorda’s Elbow
Collision Detection
My Summer Conundrum
Pipelines, Spirals, and Betweeness
Collision Detection
Prelude to Pixelation: Norman McLaren and Early Video Games
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