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The Hooksexup Insider
A daily pick of what's new and hot at Hooksexup.
Scanner
Your daily cup of WTF?
Hooksexup@SXSW 2006.
Blogging the Roman Orgy of Indie-music Festivals.
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The Daily Siege
An intimate and provocative look at Siege's life, work and loves.
Kate & Camilla
two best friends pursue business and pleasure in NYC.
Naughty James
The lustful, frantic diary of a young London photographer.
The Hooksexup Blog-a-log: kid_play
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A bundle of sass who's trying to stop the same mistakes.
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Our newest Blog-a-logger.
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Gay man in the Big Apple, full of apt metaphors and dry wit.
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Naughty and philosophical dispatches from the life of a writer-comedian who loves bathtubs and hates wearing underpants.
The Hooksexup Video Blog
Deep, deep inside the world of online video.
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A Demi in search of her Ashton.
The Prowl, with Ryan Pfluger
Hooksexup @ Cannes Film Festival
May 16 - May 25
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The Hooksexup Film Blog
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A fashionable L.A. photo editor exploring all manner of hyper-sexual girls down south.
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Almost everything you want.
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A sassy Canadian who will school you at Tetris.
Rose & Olive
Houston neighbors pull back the curtains and expose each other's lives.
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The name says it all.
merkley???
A former Mormon goes wild, and shoots nudes, in San Francisco.
chase
The creator of Supercult.com poses his pretty posse.
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Hooksexup's TV blog.
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A California boy capturing beach parties, sunsets and plenty of skin.
61 Frames Per Second
Smarter gaming.
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A Demi in search of her Ashton.
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A Manhattan pip in search of his pipette.
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  • The Videogame Ages, part 2

    In part one of The Videogame Ages, I discussed the inadequacy of “generation” language in gaming, and laid out The Golden Age of gaming. In part two, I look at the Silver and Bronze ages before taking a look at the modern era and the future.

    The Silver Age – 1983 to 1996 8-Bit, 16-Bit, Early Handheld, Early 3D, Advanced PC and Arcade

    The silver age of games is defined by expansion, in not just playability but breadth of experience. When home computers became affordable and home consoles began diversifying, games started transforming from immediate, single-mechanic experiences into more lasting forms. Silver age games were still about escalating challenge, but high scores ceased being the goal, replaced by definitive endings. Games started becoming more explicitly narrative-driven, as aesthetic justification on consoles and as the focus of many PC games (see the entire adventure game genre.) Portable gaming also started to rise to prominence during this period, early single-screen LCD games replaced by multi-game consoles like the Game Boy and Atari Lynx. Arcade and PC game technology pulled far away from home consoles, but all games were shifted from the rough visual abstraction of golden age games, into more aesthetically recognizable presentations – albeit still cartoonish impressionistic rather than realistic. The rise of polygonal 3D graphics, both real-time full 3D (Yu Suzuki’s Virtua series) and pre-rendered (Myst, etc.), at the end of the silver age marks the transition to bronze. In 1996, with the release of Mario 64, Tomb Raider, and Quake, the silver age comes to a close.

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  • The Videogame Ages, part 1



    This past Friday, I tried to slip a little piece of language into a discussion about game emulation that I was wary about using at all. At this point, the go-to boundaries for discussing videogames’ admittedly small history is console-technology generations. We say 8-Bit or 16-Bit because these are easy identifiers based on competing, contemporary technologies. But the language “The 8-Bit Generation” doesn’t account for arcade technology, PC games, or portable gaming. Now that Bob Dvorak’s Tennis for Two is officially fifty years-old, I think we can finally start applying broader terms to gaming’s evolutionary eras. Obviously history is fluid, and chances are these classifications won’t hold true in 2050, but for now they work. The Hesiodic ages, as laid out here, consider games on every platform; the rigid parameters of home consoles, the advanced nature of PC and Mac gaming throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, the fast strides made by arcade technology throughout that same period, and the predominantly inferior technology available in handheld gaming. Unlike Hesiod’s Ages of Man, however, the videogame ages are (mostly) a positive progression. Please note: these are not strict definitions. This is a discussion, and I want everyone to make their opinions heard in the comments section. Now then, onward to the Golden Age.

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  • Star Wars, Lucasarts, Bioware: You’re Doing It Wrong.



    Come October 21st, the inevitable will finally happen. After years of hemming, hawing, clamoring, and speculating, Bioware and Lucasarts are going to announce an MMO based on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. This is not a guess. Bioware’s leash-holder, EA, already spoiled the surprise in July when chief executive John Riccitello flat-out admitted it existed. I couldn’t be more disappointed.

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  • MMO Predicts Life in 10 Years

    Wonder what the world will be like in a decade?

    A new MMO hopes to evaluate the effects of five different "Superthreats" on mankind, and assess humanity's ability to cope with different sorts of impending doom.

    The human species has a long history of overcoming tremendous obstacles, often coming out stronger than before. Indeed, some anthropologists argue that human intelligence emerged as the consequence of the last major ice age, a period of enormous environmental stress demanding flexibility, foresight and creativity on the part of the small numbers of early Homo sapiens. Historically, those who have prophesied doom for human civilization have been proven wrong, time and again, by the capacity of our species to both adapt to and transform our conditions.

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  • DC Universe Online and the Console MMO Conundrum



    You’d think that people would be more excited about the reveal of Sony Online’s DC Universe given that it premiered a mere three days before The Dark Knight, but reactions have been decidedly mixed. It not too surprising to me. SOE doesn’t exactly have the best track record. The Untold Legends series is crap, they’ve been unable to recapture Everquest’s initial success, and Star Wars Galaxies was a complete nightmare. But even beyond SOE’s reputation and the wonky looking DC Universe trailer, there’s never been a truly successful MMO on home consoles.

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about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Hooksexup, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia's prized possession is a certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.


CONTRIBUTORS

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

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