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• I Only Took Piano Lessons as a Kid.

  I love video game music. I already post the occasional remix here on 61FPS but I also love listening and watching enthusiasts play classic game tunes straight. I am a science buff and enjoy digging up all manner of interesting and often esoteric facts and scientific oddities. Finally, YouTube is a strange and wonderful place. Add these seemingly unrelated statements together and you get... Read More... Posted Dec 03 2008, 10:00 AM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: legend of zelda, amber ahlborn, game music, tetris, super mario

• The Day Ocarina of Time Got Me Kicked Out of History Class

  The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time hit ten years of age last month, and I am so proud of it. The day I got the game, I skipped half a day of school, brought it home and forgot school even existed until my mother made me go back there the next morning. Once in class, I couldn't stop talking about Link's first 3D adventure. I bounced off the walls so hard that the teacher sent me out. Why this story is magical: I was eighteen at the time and attending grade 13, a "preparation" year for college. And I had been exiled to the hallway for disturbing the class like an eight-year-old with a pocket full of fart bombs. Ocarina of Time hasn't aged well in ten years. If I encountered a hermit scratching moss from behind his ears and blinking at the sunglight for the first time in two decades, I'd direct him in his video game education thusly: skip Ocarina of Time and go straight for Twilight Princess or even Majora's Mask. Link's first N64 outing was lacking in swordplay, no thanks to a barren overworld bristling with a few fences and peahats, maybe a leever or two. But if this hermit told me some manner of centipede god had told him to emerge into the world strictly to study game history, I'd tell him, "Oh shit dude, Ocarina of Time all the way." Ocarina of Time is a pioneer. Bare fields were a small tradeoff for playing the Zelda series' classic puzzles in 3D for the first time. Light a torch with a lantern? Yeah, if you're a sissy. Light a torch by shooting an arrow through a living flame and sparking the cold sconce on the other side of a pit? Awesome. Read More... Posted Dec 02 2008, 08:00 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, legend of zelda, ocarina of time, n64, nostalgia, anniversary, nadia oxford

• I've Decided on a Game Tattoo

  If I ever gather up the metaphorical balls to get a tattoo, that is. If you carefully cast your eyes to the right, you'll see the design I have in mind. Now I'm going to make you sit and listen as I slowly explain my choice. You may be tempted to flee, but pretend I'm an intimidating prison inmate showing off his tapestry. You wouldn't run from your cellmate, right? He makes you happy at night. See, I think there is a very fine line between classy and trashy video game tattoos. When I say "fine" I mean this line is as thin as the silk belched out of a spider's bum. Personally, I believe that if you're going to get the summation of your beliefs and feelings scratched onto your skin, you may as well have something to say that both you and the whole world can appreciate. You can get away with tattooing Super Mario on your forehead because pretty much everyone in the civilised world knows who Mario is and understands his contributions to modern culture. Chances are good--though by no means secure--that Mario will endure for a while longer. On the other hand, there was a time when Sonic the Hedgehog was the coolest mascot ever and it was inconceivable that he would become the fantasy husband of 12-year-old fangirls. The people who got Sonic tattoos in the '90s have some 'splainin' to do (or some big-ass gauze bandages to buy). Flynn DeMarco over at Kotaku got Jack's chains from Bioshock drawn on his wrists. This, in my opinion, is an example of an awesome game tattoo. Fans of the game recognise it immediately and everyone else can apply their own meaning to it. Nice conversation starter. Read More... Posted Oct 22 2008, 05:36 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 10 comment(s) Filed under: bioshock, legend of zelda, mother 3, tattoos, nadia oxford, dragons, vanity

• Linearity is Not a Dirty Word

  With the dawn of 3-D games on home consoles, new buzz words and selling points like draw distance, open worlds, and free roaming worlds were birthed. Games grew in size and linearity become a negative point on many reviews. Bigger, however, is not always better, and great games should never be docked points because they proceed in a linear fashion. Content is king! It has always been an enigma to me why linearity has developed this stigma. Why it should ever be considered a negative while wide open, sandbox, free roaming aspects are typically considered a good thing. Let's ignore the entire history of gaming greatness that existed in the linear majority of 2-D games and just look at some samples from my 3-D library. Some of the most enjoyable games I've ever played have been knocked in reviews for their linearity, while other games have actually used their wide open dead space as a selling point. Read More... Posted Oct 14 2008, 10:00 AM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: legend of zelda, prince of persia, amber ahlborn, ratchet & clank, sly cooper, game design, jak 2

• 16-bit Morals: Sonic Warns You About Uncle Ernie

  I watched video game-based cartoons for two reasons. First, it was something to fan my buzz when my parents made me turn off the Nintendo. Second, to feed the fanfic writer gestating inside me. I hoped that game cartoons would expand on the meagre stories games offered back then. I probably don't need to tell you that I was often disappointed. In the beginning, I actually believed that these cartoons were written by highly-paid enthusiasts who were bursting with their own ideas. I didn't think of them as desperate writers who recruited their nephews and nieces for crash courses in Mario lore (obvious exception: Bob Forward, who wrote the Legend of Zelda and Beast Wars). It didn't take long for the truth to hit me, and it wasn't the bad writing that betrayed these ladies and gentlemen. It was the kindergarten-level morals that got crammed into most episodes of most everything. Read More... Posted Aug 27 2008, 05:20 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: legend of zelda, sonic the hedgehog, super mario world, sonic the hedgehog cartoon, nadia oxford, 16-bit morals, sexual harassment, psa

• Where is Joe Madureira?

  If you read mainstream American comics in the 1990s, odds are you have an opinion on Joe Madureira. Controversially named by Wizard magazine as one of the ten most influential comic artists of all time (others on the list included Jack Kirby, Osamu Tezuka and Will Eisner), Joe's work on Marvel's Uncanny X-Men and his creator-owned Battle Chasers single-handedly launched the American manga craze that is still being felt today. He abruptly quit comics in 2001 to follow his dream of working in the video game industry. Not a whole lot has been seen of him since. Joe contributed to the all-around meh Playstation brawler Gekido, then worked on Tri-Lunar's Dragonkind, which vanished when the company went out of business. After several years of delays, Joe finally saw the release of a game with his direct influence in the 2007 PC MMORPG Dungeon Runners. Ever heard of any of those games? No, I didn't think so. Read More... Posted Jul 18 2008, 07:30 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with no comments Filed under: derrick sanskrit, legend of zelda, where is, gears of war, x-men, thq, e3, comics, darksiders, joe madureira

• Personal Firsts: My Gaming Scrapbook, From A to Wii

  Written by Amber Ahlborn At some point in the 1980s, the year nebulous in my memory, my mom bowled with her team every Thursday night. I loved Thursday nights because dad let me stay up late to watch M.A.S.H. and Benny Hill. Sometimes he and I would hop in the car and go visit mom at the alley, and that was the best. Dad would sit and watch mom bowl. Me? I would squeeze every last quarter I could get out of him. With a fist full of change and dollars soon to be converted into change, I’d walk down to the alley’s hamburger bar, snag a stool, and drag it through the glass doors into the arcade. Without deviation, I’d position my stool in front of the “Ostrich Game” and stay planted there until I ran out of money. I’m speaking of Joust of course, but at that age I could neither reach the controls without a stool to sit on nor read very well. Read More... Posted Jun 02 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: pac-man, metroid, wii, legend of zelda, snes, nes, ico, mega man, atari, gamecube, amber ahlborn, kaboom, katamari damacy, chrono trigger, firsts, pikmin, Playstation, joust, pitfall, star fox, ps2, frogger, super mario bros, ds

• Raised on the Stuff

  As I listened to this past Friday’s 1up Yours podcast, lazily typing away and sipping coffee, I perked up when the crew got on the topic of how they planned to introduce their children to videogames. While What They Play’s John Davison is already raising two very young gamers of his own, the other three gents still aren’t fathers but they all mentioned that they definitely want to see their kids weaned on classics from a young age. This is interesting to me because I’ve given the subject quite a lot of thought. My plan? Bed time stories. Read More... Posted May 13 2008, 03:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, 1up Yours, john davison, garnett lee, mega man 2, 1up, legend of zelda, shane bettenhausen, what they play, shawn elliot