7 hours ago
MetroidMania #-2: Is Dynamite Dan II (1986) A Metroidvania?
Released in the UK by Mirrorsoft one month before Metroid, Dynamite Dan II was a sequel to a platform collect-em-up inspired by Jet Set Willy. The original Dynamite Dan …
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1 month ago
MetroidMania #-1: Is Vampire (1986) A Metroidvania?
Released in Spain by Dinamic one month before Metroid, Phantomas 2 was renamed upon its release in the UK by Codemasters three months later. Vampire placed you in the role …
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2 months ago
Exploring Metroidvania: The History Of A Word
“Metroidvania” is a portmanteau of Nintendo’s Metroid and Konami’s Castlevania. But how has its meaning changed over time?
What got its Wikipedia page deleted for almost a decade?
And why …
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2 years 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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2 years 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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2 years 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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2 years 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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2 years 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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2 years 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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2 years 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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Infographic: Wii U Has More Metroid Games Than Any Other Console
To mark my Patreon reaching its first 50 patrons, I decided to create another infographic! This time the subject is “Which Platform Has The Most Metroid?,” a backwards compatibility comparison. …
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Metroid’s Justin Bailey Is A Real Person; Here’s Why He Hasn’t Spoken Up
“Justin Bailey” is one of the most famous secret codes in the history of gaming.
Sure, it’s not as well-known as the Konami Code, but for anyone who becomes interested …
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Make Love Not War: Talking With The Creator Of The First Software Easter Egg
William Weiher created the first software Easter Egg circa 1968, but didn’t realize it until I told him.
Last month, I revealed the previously forgotten oldest Easter Egg in a …
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Moonlander: One Giant Leap For Game Design
Everyone knows Neil Armstrong was the first man on the Moon, but who was the first man in a video game?
Early video game history is littered with “firsts” — …
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Box Art History #3: Fairchild Channel F Wanted You To Collect ‘Em All
Before the NES, before the Atari 2600…
Fairchild’s Channel F was the first video game console to run games directly from a cartridge. While Magnavox’s Odyssey had game cards that …
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