VGC | John – Page 10 – Video Game Canon

Masters of Doom’s David Kushner is Back With “Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master: Pong, Atari, and the Dawn of the Video Game”

After battling imps and cacodemons on the surface of Mars and confronting gangsters on the streets of Liberty City, David Kushner is ready for his greatest challenge… two paddles and a small dot that represents the ball.

That’s right, the latest book from the author of Masters of Doom and Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto is all about Pong.

Unlike those earlier stories, Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master: Pong, Atari, and the Dawn of the Video Game is presented as a graphic history as it details the epic feud that flared up between Ralph Baer, the creator of the Magnavox Odyssey and the “Father of the Video Game,” and Nolan Bushnell, the co-founder of Atari:

A deep, nostalgic dive into the advent of gaming, Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master returns us to the emerging culture of Silicon Valley. At the center of this graphic history, dynamically drawn in colors inspired by old computer screens, is the epic feud that raged between Atari founder Nolan Bushnell and inventor Ralph Baer for the title of “Father of the Video Game.”

While Baer, a Jewish immigrant whose family fled Germany for America, developed the first TV video-game console and ping-pong game in the 1960s, Bushnell, a self-taught whiz kid from Utah, put out Atari’s pioneering table-tennis arcade game, Pong, in 1972. Thus, a prolonged battle began over who truly spearheaded the multibillion-dollar gaming industry, and around it a sweeping narrative about invention, inspiration, and the seeds of digital revolution.

Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master: Pong, Atari, and the Dawn of the Video Game was illustrated by Kushner’s constant collaborator, Koren Shadmi, and the graphic history was published by Bold Type Books. It’s now available in stores as a paperback or an ebook.

USA Today’s For The Win Ranks “The 100 Best Video Games of All Time”

USA Today launched their irreverent sports blog, For The Win, in 2013. But in the last few years, the imprint has branched out to also offer coverage of video games with the editorial assistance of Good Luck Have Fun (GLHF), a media group headquartered in Sweden.

It’s an interesting arrangement, and earlier this month, several of GLHF’s editors got together to produce “The 100 Best Video Games of All Time, Ranked” for For The Win. That means that what we have here is essentially a European-centric list published under the masthead of a US-centric publication.

Yup, very interesting.

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Bite-Sized Game History: Religion in The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo Power’s Game Boy Design Contest, and Super Punch-Out’s Secret 2-Player Mode

Even though Sega launched the Genesis in 1989 (a year after the console debuted in Japan as the Mega Drive), Nintendo spent the early part of the 1990s without a true rival in the “Console Wars.” Their dominance of the living room was so complete, most people just referred to any video game as “a Nintendo.”

This lack of competition (and its sudden appearance after the release of Sonic the Hedgehog) informed almost every move Nintendo made throughout the decade, including the three items in this edition of Bite-Sized Game History.

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Bite-Sized Game History: The Strange Saga of Doom 3DO’s Scrapped FMV Scenes

Thanks to its flexible system requirements, id Software’s Doom has become a popular piece of software to use to test the processing power of some rather unorthodox devices. A group of dedicated modders have managed to install the classic shooter on a wide range of hardware over the years, including an ATM, a home pregnancy test, a piano, and a whole lot more. But before all that, not every console platform could contain the awesome power contained within the game’s Martian corridors.

Believe it or not, one consolemaker even tried to inject a little live-action into the franchise long before The Rock starred in 2006’s Doom…

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Video Game or Videogame? An Answer to the Most Important Question of Our Time

Don’t think of this as a spelling test, but do you like to play video games? Or do you like to play videogames?

I pondered this question in a piece for Warp Zoned back in 2012, and a lightly edited version of that article has been reprinted here.

Walk over to your media shelf and pick up a copy of Wii Sports or Halo 3 or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Odds are at least one of these titles will be in your collection. What do you call the item in your hand? Some people consider these items part of the “interactive entertainment” medium, but most of us just call them something else.

Though they’ve existed for over forty years, no one has ever definitively answered the question… are they video games or videogames?

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Speedrunner Niftski Sets New “Any Percentage” World Record of 4:54.798 for Super Mario Bros.

The speedrunners attempting to bend Super Mario Bros. to their will continue to inch closer to completing a perfect run. Niftski, the current recordholder for an “Any Percentage” completion of the game, bested his own mark yesterday.

The speedrunner shaved a few frames off his previous time to set a new World Record of four minutes and 54.798 seconds. You can watch the entire thing, which includes a variety of nigh-impossible glitches and warps to save time, right here:

Niftski’s main competition for the Super Mario Bros. crown is Miniland, and the two speedrunners have been locked in a back-and-forth battle for the right to claim the World Record for the better part of two years.

Miniland set the initial pace in February 2021 with an “Any Percentage” completion time of four minutes and 55.23 seconds. Niftski answered two months later with his own time of four minutes and 54.948 seconds.

Miniland roared back in November by completing Super Mario Bros. in just four minutes and 54.914 seconds, but Niftski has been in control of the World Record in the months since after posting a time of four minutes and 54.881 seconds in December.

Both speedrunners are chasing the chance to complete a perfect run of Super Mario Bros., which is currently pegged at four minutes and 54.265 seconds. Known within the speedrunning community as a Tool Assisted Speedrun (TAS), this time is generated by a program that stitches together the individual frames that comprise the optimal path through the game.

Niftski and Miniland post updates on their progress to YouTube, so be sure to follow them to see who will improve upon the record (and get closer to perfection) in the future.

Bite-Sized Game History: Michael Jackson’s Music for Sonic 3, Maximo’s 20th Anniversary, and Naughty Dog’s First Logo

The joyous sights and sounds of San Diego Comic-Con are still in the air, so now’s a great time to reminisce about another round of the secret origins behind some of your favorite games.

In this edition of Bite-Sized Game History, we’ll explore the team-up you always suspected from Sonic the Hedgehog 3, as well as a few early sketches from Maximo: Ghosts To Glory, and the animated antics of the very first Naughty Dog.

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VG247’s “The Best Games Ever Podcast” Answers the Important Questions

You’ve got plenty of options if you’re looking for a panel discussion about the answer to simple queries like “The Best PS2 Game” or “The Best Horror Game.” So that’s why VG247 decided to answer the truly important questions in The Best Games Ever Podcast, their brand new podcast.

Hosted by Jim Trinca (who also declares a winner at the end of each episode), three members of the VG247 team are given an absolutely ridiculous prompt (my current favorite is “The Best Game Someone Not in the Know Would Think You’d Made Up“) and then they have to justify their selection:

“What is this new podcast?” you ask, with the child-like glee usually reserved for when you spot a new type of M&M or an ice cream version of a favourite childhood sweet. Well, it’s quite simple, really. Each week three of us must present our choice for the best game ever that meets certain criteria. Then our host/judge, Jim Trinca, will decide who has made the best case and declare a winner.

A few other gems include “The Best Game With a Minigame Better Than the Main Game” and “The Best Game That Journos Love But Most People Think is a Bit Naff” (it probably doesn’t need to be said, but VG247 is a very British publication).

Eight episodes of The Best Games Ever Podcast have been produced so far, and a new episode will appear every Friday.

343 Industries Will Work With Modding Community to Restore Cut Content to Halo and Halo 2

One of the most interesting chapters from the annals of video game history is the story behind the development of Halo: Combat Evolved. The groundbreaking first person shooter first sprang to life in the late 1990s as an extension of Bungie’s popular Marathon franchise. Over time those connections were severed, and the game was reborn as an RTS similar to the Myth series.

A year later, the development team dropped the strategy elements and the still-untitled game became a third-person shooter starring a mysterious “cyborg” character. It was this version of the title, now known as Halo, that would be introduced on stage by Steve Jobs at Macworld 1999.

However, Halo’s life as a marquee title for the Mac would be short-lived, and the game would jump to Microsoft’s upcoming Xbox console after Bungie was acquired by the tech giant in 2000.

While it had a colorful trip from the drawing board to store shelves, history has been kind to Halo: Combat Evolved. Xbox fans considered it the console’s killer app at launch, and a string of sequels eventually gave way to an ever-growing multimedia empire that now includes comic books, novels, toys, and multiple live-action adaptations. But what happened to all those earlier prototypes?

Enter the Digsite Project.

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GoldenEye 007 Documentary “GoldenEra” is Now Available to Stream in UK (and Worldwide Later in 2022)

It’s a great time to be a fan of GoldenEye 007. The famed first person shooter is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and even after being the subject of interactive retrospectives and the next release from Boss Fight Books, there’s still plenty to discuss about Rare’s brush with Bond.

GoldenEra, a new documentary about the game, is now available to stream throughout the United Kingdom via Google Play, iTunes, Prime Video, Rakuten TV, and Sky. Directed by Drew Roller, GoldenEra features new interviews with the development team (including David Doak, Grant Kirkhope, and Graeme Norgate), as well as Giant Bomb’s Dan Ryckert, IGN’s Peer Schneider, and a host of others:

GoldenEra tells the incredible inside story of the creation and legacy of GoldenEye 007, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

One of the greatest video games ever made, GoldenEye 007 was released for the Nintendo 64 in the summer of 1997 after two and a half years of grueling hours, missed deadlines, and an unwavering commitment to perfection. Developed in a farmhouse in Warwickshire by a small ragtag team of university graduates, most of whom had never worked on a game before, this iconic first-person shooter surpassed all expectations and went on to change gaming forever.

Told through interviews with the very people who created the revolutionary game, along with leading game journalists and industry professionals, GoldenEra captures an unmissable moment in the history of gaming.

GoldenEra will be available to stream throughout the rest of the world later in 2022. In the meantime, a teaser trailer for the documentary has been embedded above.

UPDATE (8/12/22): Collider is reporting that Cinedigm has acquired the North American distribution rights to GoldenEra. The documentary will be available through Digital and On Demand streaming services on August 23.