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.

Three Mini-Documentaries for Mario Day

It’s March 10th, which can also be written as MAR-10, which means that it’s Mario Day, an annual celebration of Nintendo’s mustachioed plumber.

Like Disney and Star Wars Day, the consolemaker has embraced this fan-driven holiday, and it’s likely that some kind of major announcement will happen later today (the smart money is on the first trailer for the upcoming Super Bros. Mario movie).

But you need to get into the proper headspace to truly enjoy the holiday, so sit back and enjoy this trio of mini-documentaries about the man they call Mario.

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Comedians Ask… Why Don’t They Make Advergames Anymore? Are Games Just for Boys? And Are Games Too Violent?

It’s easy to assume that a comedian wouldn’t be the best good source to go to for some random bit of game history, but in some cases, they’re actually pretty pretty good.

So come along as a few funny folks tell us what’s the deal with advergames, video game violence, and why some people think games are just for boys…

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National Videogame Museum Launches “The Animal Crossing Diaries” Podcast

The unique world that players inhabit in Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons has helped a lot of people cope with the events of the last two years, and the curators at the National Videogame Museum have embedded themselves within this welcoming community, collecting stories from the public for their excellent Animal Crossing Diaries online exhibition.

Recently, the UK-based museum expanded their oral history project with the launch of The Animal Crossing Diaries podcast on Spotify.

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Celebrate 20 Years of Xbox With the Microsoft-Produced “Power On: The Story of Xbox” Documentary Series

Microsoft’s anniversary celebration for the Xbox has reached its final form with the release of Power On: The Story of Xbox, a new six-part documentary series.

Power On was produced in-house by Microsoft and it promises to tell the full story (“glitches and all”) behind the creation of the original Xbox. Bungie’s Halo: Combat Evolved gets the spotlight in the fourth episode, and viewers who stick with the series to the end will be able to dive into the fallout from some of Microsoft’s costly mistakes, with two final episodes devoted to the Xbox 360’s Red Ring of Death and the Xbox One’s TV-centric debut.

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Wata Games, Heritage Auctions, and the Suspected Fraud at the Center of the Graded Games Market

The market for retro games has exploded exponentially in the last few years, with the record for the price paid for a single game rising steadily from just over $30,000 in July 2017 to $114,000 in July 2020, $660,000 in April 2021, and $1,560,000 in July 2021. Earlier this month the record climbed again to $2,000,000.

It would be easy to chalk this phenomenon up to an aging base of collectors ready to spend their hard-earned dollars on something they could never obtain as children. After all, you saw the same thing with comic books and baseball cards in the 1980s and 1990s.

But something else might be going on here…

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Someone Found a Director’s Cut of 1993’s Super Mario Bros. Movie on an Old VHS Tape

That headline might sound like some kind of bizarre April Fool’s Day hoax, but I promise, every word of it is true. Someone (two someones, actually) found an extended director’s cut of the Super Mario Bros. movie adaptation from 1993 on an old VHS tape.

So who managed to sniff out such an odd piece of cinematic history? That would be Ryan Hoss and Steven Applebaum, the operators of Super Mario Bros.: The Movie Archive and the caretakers of an extensive collection of production material related to the film.

Trust the fungus and read on to learn more about Super Mario Bros.‘s almost-mythic place in the video game movie canon and how this extended cut will give fans a glimpse at a version of the movie that’s even crazier than what we got in 1993…

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Gold-Plated “Royal Wii” Created for Queen Elizabeth II is Being Sold on eBay

Like Acclaim and Sega before it, no marketing stunt was ever considered too outlandish for the original incarnation of THQ.

Before the publisher went bankrupt in 2012, it used its marketing budget to hire expensive Hollywood talent like Guillermo Del Toro (who consulted on the story for the never-released Insane), while also doling out a few bucks to hire an army of porn stars to promote Saints Row 2 and Saints Row: The Third. But THQ’s marketing department had to get extra creative when promoting the company’s more family-oriented titles.

Sticking with the “family” theme, THQ tried to recruit Queen Elizabeth II and the rest of the Royal Family in the marketing effort for 2009’s Big Family Games, a budget title that was similar to Wii Sports. While they were likely hoping for a slew of “Royal Wii” headlines, it was not to be, as Her Royal Highness was obviously not going to just stop off at the studio for a commercial shoot. So THQ went to her…

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“Playing With Power: The Nintendo Story” Debuts on Crackle Today

Jeremy Snead, the director of 2014’s Video Games: The Movie and 2016’s Unlocked: The World of Games, Revealed, has returned with another behind-the-scenes look at one of the industry’s biggest players. Playing With Power: The Nintendo Story was released today on Crackle.

Featuring narration from Sean Astin, Playing With Power also includes commentary from Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime, Microsoft’s’s Phil Spencer, Sega’s Tom Kalinske, and Atari’s Nolan Bushnell, as well as Wil Wheaton, Alison Haislip, Cliff Bleszinski, and more:

How did Nintendo go from niche playing card company to global juggernaut of gaming? This Crackle Original series brings together the creators of Video Games: The Movie and Executive Producer Sean Astin to pull back the curtain on the famously secretive company. The electrifying story is presented by an ensemble of Nintendo personnel, celebrity icons and industry veterans, including Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Alison Haislip (Robot Chicken), Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime, and Xbox’s Phil Spencer.

All five episodes of Playing With Power: The Nintendo Story are now available to stream, and a trailer has been embedded above.

Reyan Ali’s “NBA Jam” to Become a Feature-Length Documentary

Variety is reporting that Reyan Ali’s NBA Jam, a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of one of the greatest sports games of all time, will soon be adapted into a feature-length documentary.

BestCrosses Studios will produce the film alongside veteran documentarian Sean Menard, who previously directed 2016’s Fight Mom and 2017’s The Carter Effect.

As part of the announcement, Menard shared a few words about what NBA Jam meant to him as a basketball fan back in the early 90s:

“When ‘NBA Jam’ hit the arcade, I was barely tall enough to reach the joystick and view the screen at the same time,” says Menard. “But while literally standing on my toes, I was completely immersed in a game that allowed me the creative freedom to perform out-of-this world feats of athleticism. This was during a tipping point for the NBA as the league was bursting with excitement and culture that was appealing to a younger fan base.

“Our film is more than just an original story about the most successful sports game of all time. There are various sub-plots that detail how gaming was transitioning from arcades to home entertainment and how it would eventually lead to the demise of Midway,” adds Menard.

Reyan Ali’s NBA Jam was originally published by Boss Fight Books in 2019 and features interviews with many of the game’s developers (including Mark Turmell and Sal DiVita), announcer Tim Kitzrow, and NBA greats such as Shaquille O’Neal. In a perfect world, all of these larger-than-life personalities should get a call to appear in the documentary.

It’s unknown when (or where) we’ll be able to see the film, but I know my anticipation for its debut is certainly heating up.