Video Essays

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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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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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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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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It’s National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) again, and everyone is looking for ideas to increase their writing speed. One trick that’s recently become popular is to write your first draft …
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What was the streaking fad of the ’70s? What was the first ’80 arcade game to feature a playable female character? What was Mystique Presents Swedish Erotica?
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What was the first Easter Egg in an arcade game? What was the first Easter Egg in a cartridge game? What was the first Easter Egg in a computer game?
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What is Video Dames? What video games were the first to feature playable human sprites? What video games were the first to feature playable female characters?
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Why was SEGA selling Nintendo games? How could a live action arcade game exist before digital video? And what movie did it appear in?
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The term “gamer” predates video games by over six centuries.

The first known record of the word was found in the English town of Walsall and dates back to …
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