VGC | John – Page 12 – Video Game Canon

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.

Boss Fight Books Will Publish “GoldenEye 007” as a Paperback and Expanded Hardcover in 2022

Boss Fight Books will return.

The publisher isn’t quite ready to unveil the titles from the sixth season of their long-running series, but we did recently get our first look at an upcoming one-off… GoldenEye 007 by Alyse Knorr.

Boss Fight Books is currently seeking funding for GoldenEye 007 through Kickstarter, though they’ve already surpassed their initial goal at the time of this writing. Similar in structure to the books for NBA Jam and Shovel Knight before it, this entry in the series will explore the full scope of GoldenEye 007‘s creation through extensive interviews with the development team at Rare, as well as additional commentary from experts and fans:

Bond—James Bond. In the 80s and 90s, the debonair superspy’s games failed to live up to the giddy thrills of his films. That all changed when British studio Rare unleashed GoldenEye 007 in 1997. In basements and college dorms across the world, friends bumped shoulders while shooting, knifing, exploding, and slapping each other’s digital faces in the Nintendo 64 game that would redefine the modern first-person shooter genre and become the most badass party game of its generation.

But GoldenEye’s success was far from a sure thing. For years of development, GoldenEye’s team of rookie developers were shooting in the dark with no sense of what the N64 or its controller would be like, and the game’s relentless violence horrified higher-ups at squeaky clean Nintendo. As development lagged far behind the debut of the tie-in film GoldenEye, the game nearly came out an entire Bond movie too late.

Through extensive interviews with GoldenEye’s creators, writer and scholar Alyse Knorr traces the story of how this unlikely licensed game reinvigorated a franchise and a genre. Learn all the stories behind how this iconic title was developed, and why GoldenEye 007 has continued to kick the living daylights out of every other Bond game since.

In a first for the publisher, GoldenEye 007 will be released as an ebook, a paperback, and a deluxe hardcover. The deluxe hardcover will include a redesigned cover, an extra chapter about the game’s sound effects and music, and additional pages dedicated to design documents and photos from the developers.

The ebook edition of GoldenEye 007 will be available in July 2022, shortly after the conclusion of the Kickstarter campaign. Paperback copies will follow in September and the deluxe hardcover edition will arrive in December.

UPDATE (7/7/22): Ars Technica has published an excerpt from GoldenEye 007 that focuses on the game design philosophy of the development team and the unlikely inspiration for the objective-based missions.

Bite-Sized Game History: Long Lost Footage of Sega’s Heavyweight Champ, Playing GoldenEye 007 on Four TVs, and the Nintendo Seal of Quality

“Not all who wander are lost.”

You don’t see it much anymore, but this quote, from JRR Tolkien, was a popular sentiment to plaster on your bumper from the 1970s all the way up to the 2000s. While they may not be lost, like any art form, the video game world has its share of wandering artifacts that are certainly hard to find.

We’ll look at some of them (including Sega’s Heavyweight Champ, GoldenEye 007‘s legacy of screencheating, and the Nintendo Seal of Quality) in this edition of Bite-Sized Game History.

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Aidan Moher’s “Fight, Magic, Items” Will Tell the Story of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Other JRPGs in October 2022

The global recognition of the Japanese RPG can be placed squarely at the feet of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, which launched outside of Japan within 12 months of each other in 1989-1990. But interestingly, the genre itself goes back much further than you might realize, and you’d need to take a detour that goes through Sir-Tech’s Wizardry, Koei’s Dragon and Princess, and Tetris to get the full picture.

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that Aidan Moher, a freelance writer with bylines across the Internet, is quite familiar with how the latter three add spice to the story, but we know for sure that The Big Two will be a major focus of Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West, his upcoming history of the genre.

In addition to behind-the-scenes details about the development of those two franchises (as well as Phantasy Star, Chrono Trigger, and Kingdom Hearts), Moher has also conducted new interviews with some of the biggest players in the JRPG space:

The Japanese roleplaying game (JRPG) genre is one that is known for bold, unforgettable characters; rich stories, and some of the most iconic and beloved games in the industry. Inspired by early western RPGs and introducing technology and artistic styles that pushed the boundaries of what video games could be, this genre is responsible for creating some of the most complex, bold, and beloved games in history—and it has the fanbase to prove it. In Fight, Magic, Items, Aidan Moher guides readers through the fascinating history of JRPGs, exploring the technical challenges, distinct narrative and artistic visions, and creative rivalries that fueled the creation of countless iconic games and their quest to become the best, not only in Japan, but in North America, too.

Moher starts with the origin stories of two classic Nintendo titles, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, and immerses readers in the world of JRPGs, following the interconnected history from through the lens of their creators and their stories full of hope, risk, and pixels, from the tiny teams and almost impossible schedules that built the foundations of the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest franchises; Reiko Kodama pushing the narrative and genre boundaries with Phantasy Star; the unexpected team up between Horii and Sakaguchi to create Chrono Trigger; or the unique mashup of classic Disney with Final Fantasy coolness in Kingdom Hearts. Filled with firsthand interviews and behind-the-scenes looks into the development, reception, and influence of JRPGs, Fight, Magic, Items captures the evolution of the genre and why it continues to grab us, decades after those first iconic pixelated games released.

Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West will be released by Running Press on October 4.

UPDATE (9/10/22): An excerpt from Fight, Magic, Items all about the shadow that Final Fantasy VII continues to cast across the entire gaming landscape can be found at Gizmodo.

UPDATE (11/9/22): Just ahead of the launch of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, a new excerpt from Fight, Magic, Items about the rise of “Pokemania” was recently published by Engadget.

Daniel Dockery’s “Monster Kids” Could be the Definitive History of Pokemon When its Released in October 2022

Even though the franchise has flourished for more than 20 years, there’s never been a definitive history written about Pokemon. Daniel Dockery, an entertainment writer who got his start at Cracked, is hoping to change that this October with the release of Monster Kids: How Pokemon Taught a Generation to Catch Them All.

In addition to delivering an electrifying portrait of Pikachu, Dockery will examine the developers behind Pokemon, the fans who grew up playing it, and the slew of imitators (including Digimon, Cardcaptors, and Yu-Gi-Oh!) that popped up in its wake:

More than just a simple journey through the history of Pokémon, Daniel Dockery offers an in-depth look at the franchise’s many branches of impact and influence. With dozens of firsthand interviews, Monster Kids covers its beginnings as a Japanese video game created to recapture one man’s love of bug-collecting as a child before diving into the decisions and conditions that would ultimately lead to that game’s global domination. With its continued growth as television shows, spin-off video games, blockbuster movies, trading cards, and toys, Pokémon is a unique and special brand that manages to continue to capture the attention and adoration of its eager fanbase 25 years after its initial release.

Monster Kids: How Pokemon Taught a Generation to Catch Them All will be released by Running Press on October 4.

UPDATE (10/22/22): Monster Kids is now available in stores, and Dockery recently shared an excerpt with Polygon about Pokemon‘s American debut to celebrate.

Bite-Sized Game History: Tracking Down the Origin of Miyamoto’s Most Famous Quote and Kirby’s Very First Appearance in a Game

“A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.”

This well-worn saying is trotted out every single time a major game is delayed and has long been attributed to Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, supposedly said as a response to the protracted development of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. But with the recent delay of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2, fans began to wonder, did Miyamoto ever actually share that famous bit of wisdom with an interviewer?

The answer might surprise you…

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