VGC | John – Page 13 – Video Game Canon

John Romero Will Tell His Life Story in 2023 in “Doom Guy: Life in First Person”

John Romero’s about to make you… listen to his life story.

One of gaming’s most flamboyant personalities emerged in the early 1990s as one of the first “rock star” game developers after co-creating Doom with John Carmack and id Software. He’ll explore those early adventures in a new autobiography, which will be published in 2023 by Abrams Books.

Doom Guy: Life in First Person will trace the course of Romero’s entire life, starting with his childhood in Colorado through his partnership with Carmark to his days after id Software:

Doom Guy: Life in First Person is the long-awaited autobiography of John Romero, gaming’s original rock star and the cocreator of Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein—some of the most recognizable and important titles in video game history. Credited with the invention of the first-person shooter, a genre that continues to dominate the market today, he is gaming royalty.

Told in remarkable detail, a byproduct of his hyperthymesia, Romero recounts his storied career—from his early days submitting Apple II code to computer magazines and sneaking computers out of the back door of his day job to do programming projects at night in his garage to a high-profile falling out with his id Software cofounder John Carmack, as well as his continued role in the gaming industry today as the managing director of Romero Games.

His story is truly one of a self-made man, founding multiple companies after a childhood filled with violence and abuse drove him to video game design, where he could create new worlds and places to escape to. An alcoholic father, a racist grandfather who did not approve of Romero’s parents’ mixed-race coupling, and a grandmother who once ran a brothel in Mexico combine for an illuminating story of his youth—a story that has never before been revealed.

After years in the gaming spotlight, Romero is now telling his story—THE WHOLE STORY—in his own words.

John Romero has always had a way with words, so it’ll be interesting to see how his autobiography expands upon David Kushner’s excellent Masters of Doom

Doom Guy: Life in First Person will be available on January 10, 2023.

UPDATE (7/20/23): After a short delay, Doom Guy: A Life in First Person is now available on stores shelves. John Romero has marked the occasion by sharing an excerpt of his book with The Verge, all about the first time he played John Carmack and Tom Hall’s unauthorized PC conversion of Super Mario Bros. 3.

World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2022 Includes Civilization, Dance Dance Revolution, Ms. Pac-Man, and Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Put on your dancing shoes, the Strong Museum has announced the four inductees for the World Video Game Hall of Fame‘s Class of 2022.

After coming up empty in two previous years (2018 and 2019), Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution finally boogied its way into the Hall of Fame. It was joined on the virtual stage by Sid Meier’s Civilization (2016) and Bandai Namco’s Ms. Pac-Man (2018), two other titles that fell short in previous years.

For the fourth inductee, the Hall of Fame’s International Selection Advisory Committee chose Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in its first year as a finalist.

Historians and curators from the World Video Game Hall of Fame put together a short presentation video highlighting this year’s inductees, as well as shared some of their thoughts.

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The Hosts of The MinnMax Show Talk About “The Greatest Games of All Time (That Nobody Talks About)”

A quick perusal of the Video Game Canon’s Top 1000 will give you a good idea about the games that are always in the discussion for the Best Games of All Time. There’s Tetris and Resident Evil 4 and Half-Life 2 and Mario, but also your Zeldas and your Marios, and a handful of other familiar titles.

But what if you wanted to go beyond that list? What if you wanted to talk about the greatest games of all time that nobody talks about? That’s where The MinnMaxx Show comes in.

The hosts of the popular podcast recently uploaded an episode all about “The Greatest Games of All Time (That Nobody Talks About).” Each host was given the chance to pick three games that go unmentioned whenever a publication puts together a Best Games list. And at the end of the segment, they also each added a few rapid fire picks to the discussion, bringing the total to 26 titles. How’d they do? Well…

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2021 GOTY Scoreboard: It Takes Two, Returnal, and More

There have been years where the “Game of the Year” honors were spread far and wide amongst several big titles… but 2021 went even further than that.

Four games shared in the five major year-end awards, a nearly unprecedented outcome that last occurred during the 2007-2008 awards season. This time around, Square Enix’s resurgent MMO (Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker), Daniel Mullins’s visually-impressive card battler (Inscryption), and Housemarque’s action-packed roguelike (Returnal) all collected a single award. But that’s only three, and the tie was broken by Hazelight’s It Takes Two, which managed to capture a second statuette.

Moving beyond the major awards, many publications were equally split on their “Game of the Year” choice, though a few titles stood out from the pack. That list includes Bethesda’s Deathloop, Playground’s Forza Horizon 5, Nintendo’s Metroid Dread, Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Capcom’s Resident Evil Village.

And it didn’t stop there. You can see more of last year’s most-acclaimed titles in the 2021 GOTY Scoreboard after the break.

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Bite-Sized Game History: Revisiting Journey’s Development Journey, the Origins of Scorpion’s Spear, and Making Mario’s Red Hat

When you’re developing a video game, you have to be ready for inspiration to strike at any time.

For this edition of Bite-Sized Game History, let’s look back at how some of the most iconic moments from Journey, Mortal Kombat, and Super Mario 64 went from the drawing board to the screen…

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Returnal Breaks the Loop and Wins “Best Game” at the 2021-2022 BAFTA Games Awards

Housemarque has been caught in a familiar loop throughout their attendance at The Game Awards, the DICE Awards, the SXSW Gaming Awards, and the GDC Awards. Their acclaimed third-person shooter, Returnal, was nominated in multiple categories at each show, but the developers came away emptyhanded almost every time.

That pattern certainly changed at the 2021-2022 BAFTA Games Awards, as Returnal was honored with the “Best Game” award and three other statuettes (“Audio Achievement,” “Music,” and “Performer in a Leading Role” for Jane Perry).

A handful of other games also took home multiple awards during the ceremony, including Hazelight’s It Takes Two (“Multiplayer” and “Original Property”), Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (“Technical Achievement” and “Animation”), and Witch Beam’s Unpacking (“Narrative” and the fan-voted “EE Game of the Year”).

The BAFTA Games Awards are headquartered in London, and the organizers also annually hand out an award for “Best British Game.” This year, that honor went to Playground’s Forza Horizon 5.

You can find the complete list of nominees and all the other winners (including Chicory: A Colorful Tale, Inscryption, Psychonauts 2, and more), as well as a replay of the ceremony (which was hosted by Elle Osili-Wood), after the break.

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Listology 5.0: See the Video Game Canon Using Only Modern Best Games Lists Published Between 2016 and 2020

You may want to sit down, because what I’m about to say might shock you… video games have changed and evolved tremendously since the 1990s.

Version 5.0 of the Video Game Canon was built using Best Games lists published between 1995 through 2020, and that 25-year span gives us a nice overview of the titles that game writers have loved over the years. But what if you wanted to zero in on the more recent games that benefited from all that change and evolution?

Thankfully, we can do just that. Say hello to a “Modern” filter for Version 5.0 of the Video Game Canon (V5-M from here on out).

Created using the 17 Best Games lists published between 2016 and 2020 (Version 5.0 didn’t include any lists from 2021), this remixed ranking includes many of the classics you’re used to, as well as a big focus on the groundbreaking titles of the PS4, Xbox One, and Switch.

Ultimately, V5-M produced an aggregated list that looks very different from the full-length Version 5.0 (or any other Version of the Video Game Canon that came before it).

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David Craddock’s “Long Live Mortal Kombat Round 1” Will Fight Its Way Onto Shelves in October 2022

Get over here… and learn more about the release of the next book from David L. Craddock.

The author of Monsters in the Dark: The Making of X-COM: UFO Defense, Shovel Knight, and many more will dive into another mostly unexplored corner of video game history this October with Long Live Mortal Kombat Round 1: The Fatalities and Fandom of the Arcade Era.

As you might have guessed from the title, Long Live Mortal Kombat Round 1 will focus on the early days of the franchise (specifically Mortal Kombat through Mortal Kombat 4), and will be the first volume in a trilogy of books:

Long Live MK Round 1 is divided into four sections, organized according to material that concerns MK1, MKII, MK3 and Ultimate MK3, and MK4. You’ll discover the obstacles co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias faced as they made each game, the ways Midway’s culture influenced MK’s creative and technical directions, how Acclaim revolutionized video game advertising by going all-in on the multi-million-dollar “Mortal Monday” campaign, learn how actors from the games and films landed their roles, and other crucial events in MK history.

If you’d like to get an early look at Long Live Mortal Kombat Round 1, the author was generous enough to share excerpts from the book with a quartet of outlets:

Game Informer – Read An Exclusive Excerpt From Long Live Mortal Kombat: Round 1, A Novel On The Early History Of MK

Nintendo Life – How Mortal Kombat Led To The Birth Of E3 And The ESRB

PC Gamer – Why do Mortal Kombat 3 players still insist on keyboard controls 27 years later?

Shacknews – How Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3’s Tier List Determined the Best Fighters

Craddock is currently seeking funding through Kickstarter to publish Long Live Mortal Kombat Round 1. If the campaign is successful, the book will be available in a Standard Edition (in your choice of hardcover, paperback, or ebook) and an oversized Ultimate Edition with dozens of photographs and a stylized layout.

UPDATE (4/12/22): It’s your lucky day as the author has returned with three additional excerpts for Long Live Mortal Kombat Round 1, bringing the total to seven:

Ars Technica – The punch that changed Mortal Kombat history

Game Developer – Crushed: Inside Capcom’s Marketing Feud with Acclaim and Mortal Kombat

Medium – How Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat Divided Arcades

And congratulations are also in order, as Craddock’s project is now fully-funded on Kickstarter.

UPDATE (10/4/22): It’s release week for Long Live Mortal Kombat Round 1 and author David Craddock is back with one more excerpt. This time, he shared a story with IGN (Mortal Kombat Nitro Developer Remembers the Faster, Bloodier SNES Version That Never Was) about Sculptured Software’s plan to release a bloodier upgrade of Mortal Kombat for the Super NES.

UPDATE (10/8/22): Happy 30th Anniversary to Mortal Kombat! To celebrate, David Craddock shared yet another excerpt with Ars Technica. This time he delves into the story behind the fight over the actor who claims he co-created Mortal Kombat.

Bite-Sized Game History: The Final Footage of Star Wars 1313, Sony Acquires Bungie, and Ninendo Announces End of 3DS/Wii U eShop

Get a bunch of video game fans in a room, and they’ll gladly talk your ear off about all the ones that got away. Games that hooked us right from the first announcement and then just withered away in development hell. I know it’ll never happen, but I still hold out hope that Capcom will revive Maximo 3 someday. I mean the first two were so fun…

Anyway, for this edition of Bite-Sized Game History, let’s talk about a few games, developers, and online storefronts that got away…

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Inscryption Wins “Game of the Year” at the 2021-2022 GDC Awards

A new player got dealt into the game at this year’s Game Developers Conference. Just an hour after claiming the “Seumas McNally Grand Prize” at the Independent Games Festival, Daniel Mullins Games’s Inscrpytion also took home “Game of the Year” honors at the 2021-2022 Game Developers Choice Awards.

Even though we’re more than a decade removed from the rise of the indie movement, this is the first time a game has won both awards in the same year.

While Inscrpytion made history, Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart continued to do what it’s done at nearly every ceremony this year, collecting statuettes for “Best Visual Art” and “Best Technology.”

But the GDC Awards usually gives the spotlight over to a lot of unique games, and that certainly happened this year. Other winners from last night’s ceremony include Iron Gate’s Valheim (“Best Debut” and the “Audience Award”), Witch Beam’s Unpacking (“Best Audio” and the “Innovation Award”), Double Fine’s Psychonauts 2 (“Best Narrative”), Kitfox’s Boyfriend Dungeon (the “Social Impact Award”), and Hazelight’s It Takes Two (“Best Design”).

A full list of all the nominees at the 2021-2022 GDC Awards can be found after the break, along with a replay of the ceremony.

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