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About "Critical Kate" Willaert

Born on the same day as the Famicom, "Critical Kate" has been playing videogames since the NES days. She enjoys a good story, prefers arcade-style to simulators, and doesn't understand the appeal of recreational frustration. You don't want to run into her in the Facility with Remote Mines.
Latest Posts | By "Critical Kate" Willaert
Carmen Sandiego And The Case Of The Sham Creator
5 months ago

Carmen Sandiego And The Case Of The Sham Creator

While doing a revision on my long-in-development video on the origin of Carmen Sandiego, I noticed something on the Wikipedia page for “Carmen Sandiego (character)” that I hadn’t noticed before. …
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A Critical Look At The Interactive Artbook “The Making Of Karateka”
5 months ago

A Critical Look At The Interactive Artbook “The Making Of Karateka”

Last Summer, game developer Digital Eclipse released The Making Of Karateka, a cross between a documentary, an artbook, a museum gallery, and a game collection, that details the story of …
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How The X-Men Logo Got Fixed
7 months ago

How The X-Men Logo Got Fixed

The X-Men ‘97 logo has a more complex history than you might expect. Although immediately recognizable to longtime fans, this particular variation on the iconic logo wasn’t introduced until 1994 …
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Were TRON’s “Grid Bugs” A Tie-In For The Arcade Game?
8 months ago

Were TRON’s “Grid Bugs” A Tie-In For The Arcade Game?

“This isn’t gonna be easy. If those Grid Bugs get us, we’ve had it.”

As the heroes of TRON ride in their Solar Sailer toward the film’s final act, they …
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Mario Origins: How A Popeye Game Became Donkey Kong
10 months ago

Mario Origins: How A Popeye Game Became Donkey Kong

The year is 1990. Nintendo has just received the latest “Q Ratings” report — a long-running popularity poll that ranks celebrities and fictional characters by weighing their popularity against their …
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Solved: If Miyamoto Never Said His Most Famous Quote, Who Did?
11 months ago

Solved: If Miyamoto Never Said His Most Famous Quote, Who Did?

In a Half-Life 25th anniversary documentary that launched this weekend, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell paraphrases a decades-old bit of gaming industry wisdom, saying, “Late is just for a little while, …
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A Brief Tour Of Nintendo Of America’s Early HQ Locations
1 year ago

A Brief Tour Of Nintendo Of America’s Early HQ Locations

Nintendo Of America made its home Redmond, Washington just a little over 40 years ago, but not until after its first big hit. So where were they located when they …
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Samus Aran Origins Revisited: The Metroid Creature
2 years ago

Samus Aran Origins Revisited: The Metroid Creature

The reaction to my “Metroid Hidden Influences” video has been amazing. If you haven’t seen it yet, go watch that one first, then come back here. Because this…is the Bonus …
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How TV Tropes Changed The Meaning Of “Trope”
3 years ago

How TV Tropes Changed The Meaning Of “Trope”

In the mid-2000s, a website called TV Tropes began to spread across the internet via word of mouth. Few of us knew what a “trope” was, but the way the …
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Samus Aran Origins: Metroid’s Influences Beyond Alien
3 years ago

Samus Aran Origins: Metroid’s Influences Beyond Alien

Who was the first character with an arm cannon? What was the first game to use weapons to unlock doors? And why can’t metroid crawl?

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