There's no way I can keep myself from writing about the most awesomely bad film I've seen in years. And given that there are actually people who read this blog on occasion, hopefully this means that one or two of you will take the time to find a copy and watch it too, because I swear that you won't believe a word I write until you too have witnessed it for yourself.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...Roller Blade Warriors: Taken By Force!
OK. Tell me, honestly: you walked into a video
Following up on my previous blog entry, I decided I would make this concept more than a one-time deal. So this time, instead of NES titles, we'll look at my top 10 casual SNES games. Remember, this isn't about long, drawn-out games that take hours of levelling or days of practice to complete. This is about games you can pick up, play for a little while, and then put down again when you don't have very long to sit in front of your TV.
10 - Super Tennis
As noted in the previous blog, there ar
Sometimes you just can't be as hardcore a gamer as you want to be. Sure, there's nothing like sitting down and marathoning through a game like Dragon Warrior in a 20-hour stretch of levelling madness, but as you get older and summer vacations become a thing of the past, most of us don't get that kind of quality time in any longer unless you wind up both independantly wealthy and without a significant (or dependant) other.
So what do you do when you want to game, but you only have an hour or le
Even if you played the daylights out of Resident Evil, even if you can beat the game handily with an S-ranking and one hand tied behind your back, you've never seen Resident Evil quite like this...
EGM previewed the original Resident Evil for the Playstation back in issue #75 in their "Next Wave" column. This was over two years before the game made it to the US, and still very much in its beta stage. And wow, what a difference a couple of years makes! Click that picture to your left and chec
In the past four months, I've completely destroyed more than fifty of my own books for the purpose of digitizing and sharing them with the rest of the world.
This, I must admit, was something that past Areala had never imagined future Areala would do. After all, I spent years collecting these books, paging through them, enjoying the memories and worlds they unlocked. As a gamer, they were a part of my identity. I fell in love with them because they were books about a hobby I greatly enjoyed
No, seriously, ignore the hype Sony and Microsoft have been dumping into the press about their new motion controller Wii-toos for a minute, and think. Do you care about this? Do you know anybody who does? The answers you come up with, after careful consideration, are more than likely, "No," and "No," respectively. I'm not hating on either Sony or Microsoft (I own a PS3), and I'm no Nintendo fangirl (I don't own a Wii). I'm simply asking the question that nobody else in the gaming media seem
Over our vacation last week, I gave my girlfriend something that I wasn't sure she would like. Now, normally I'm pretty conservative when getting gifts for her. I know what she likes and doesn't care for, since we've been together for over 10 years now. But this year, I decided to go with something that was a bit of a gamble. See, my girlfriend isn't very much of a gamer at all. Sure, she'll sit and watch me vapourize Necromorphs in Dead Space or whack Daedra in Oblivion or explore ancient ruins
I'm awakened by the sound
Of rain against my window
It's getting harder to ignore
But these tired eyes need rest.
-- "Flourescent Skies", Assemblage 23
I read a lot. I know this will make some of you wonder "when?" given the amount of time I spend going on and on about games, either playing them or writing about them, but despite the fun of interactive entertainment, there's nothing quite like a good book. Also, I make my living working in a used bookstore,
So, I'm sick and tired of politics. I have had it up to here with stupid people making stupid statements that they have no intention of honouring once they get into office. We're now involved in three different military actions directly, God only knows how many indirectly, and it's just getting ridiculous. How zarking hard it is for any of you bozos in politics to just tell the freaking truth?
Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, Green, Tea Partier, Blue Dog, Conservative, Liberal
Another one of my favorite Easter Eggs.
Boot up Diablo (the original) and use Print Screen to grab a copy of the title screen where you can start a new game and whatnot. Now, close the game, open up your favorite image editor program, and use the Paste command to dump the screen image into the program. You should get something that looks like this:
Looks innocuous so far, right? Big red demon, some title screen junk, and nothing at all about Natalie Portman. As a wise Jedi once note
Spoiler Alert: This blog entry describes the plot and final battle of Super Metroid on the SNES. If you haven't played this game to completion and do not want the ending spoiled, you shouldn't read any further.
I grew up gaming. One of my earliest memories, in fact, is of my father holding me up in front of a pinball machine (the Gorgar table) and helping me hit the buttons on the flippers so that I could bounce the silver ball around. I think I lasted all of about twenty seconds, but wow, w
Flipping through my ample CD collection for something new, I found something I bought several months ago but hadn't listened to yet. It's a sampler record from Silber Records entitled "drones, loves, honesties, sounds". I'd never heard of Silber Records before. It came in a simple cardboard sleeve, and I got it for a buck as I recall. One of those things I bought on a lark because I was curious, then forgot that I even had it until tonight. Well, I was gonna change that, so I popped it into
Often when a game is ported from one region of the world to another, significant changes are made, not least of which is usually an attempt to translate and localize the game for a new audience. Sometimes things are removed or altered for sociological reasons; a rather famous example is the graphical changes that accompanied Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VI for the Super NES thanks to Nintendo of America's stricter policy on drinking and sexual themes in their games as compared to Nintendo
Released in 2003 to very little fanfare by a company that was known only for producing driving simulators, Kya: Dark Lineage came out of nowhere as a 3D platformer that was ambitious to make itself heard in a world that was already overcrowded to the point of bursting. No doubt, many gamers looked at the simple cover art and the fact that it was developed by Eden Games (who?), and dismissed it outright as being unworthy of their attention without even the respect of a rental.
This is a
Fair warning: Spoilers abound from here on out. If you haven't played the game, leave now or suffer the indignity of having one of the best Game Boy games ruined for you without playing through it yourself.
The appearance of the beloved "Legend of Zelda" series on the Game Boy was a reason to rejoice for many series fans, giving gamers hours of entertainment while they explored the little island of Koholint, a place that was but a dot on the Hyrulian map, and yet seemed to contain far more secr
Akira Yamaoka, for the Silent Hill 3 soundtrack, composed a song entitled "Letter - from the lost days". Sung by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, it's the narration of the present-day protagonist directed to herself some years in the future, expressing her hopes, dreams, and fears. It's a hauntingly beautiful track:
But while flipping through a book of inspirational writing ideas yesterday, one in particular caught my eye. The suggestion was to write a letter to yourself in the past. Amidst
I will level with you by starting this blog with the caveat that I am in an incredibly foul mood at the moment. But rather than doing something constructive with my rage, like tossing small children into deep wells or drugging really ugly men at the bar and leaving them in my neighbor's front yard without their clothing again, I decided I might be better served (and avoid inconveniences like court dates and prison sentences) to compile a list of horrible Star Wars games. I'm aware that this is
Yes, yet another blog on the Internet.
Why? Because I can. 'Nuff said. Everybody say hello to the new redheaded step-blog at Retromags, written by a real, live redhead.
*huggles*
Areala
I've spent most of my free time today watching the news. Story after story, report after report, picture after picture, of the aftermath of one of the worst tragedies to hit Japan since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And while the tragedy may seem remote and half a world away to somebody who lives in Indiana, there's still a part of me that is shaken, awed, and ultimately humbled by what is happening right now.
This blog is usually reserved for my thoughts on video games and gaming-r
I've attempted to introduce a few real-life friends to Retromags, both through visits to the site in general and trips to my blog in particular. Several of them were quite excited by the prospect of leafing through old Nintendo Powers, especially those who are, like me, now in their early to mid thirties and remember trading cheats out of the Classified Information column on the playground or trying to figure out a way to beat Warmech in Final Fantasy. Others, though, scoffed at the idea of a
Continuing our look at magazine editors' predictions for the future, we're going back to the year 2000 and seeing what the GamePro gang saw in their gazing ball for the years to come. Some of them are serious, some of them are silly, and some of them really want to be accurate but just fall short. Let's see what all the fuss was about back when the clocks rolled over and nothing at all came of the Y2K scare!
Since this magazine is from 2000, we don't have it archived here on Retromags.
You're familiar with the cliche "Hindsight is 20/20" right? Of course you are, that's why it's a cliche. But that doesn't mean that we can't have some fun with it anyway. So to get this party started, I'm going to pick on Flux Magazine for a little while.
Flux was a magazine from the mid-90s devoted to comic books, music and video games. It didn't last for very long (a mere 7 issues) but it attempted to brand itself as the more "mature" alternative to EGM and the like. What this mea
Dear Daddy,
I hope it's OK that I call you 'Daddy' because it's all you ever heard me call you when I was a little girl. I suck at buying cards, so this letter will have to suffice. Basically, I just wanted to let you know that I love you, I hope everything is well, and that I've been trying my best to be the sort of kid you'd be proud to claim as your own.
A huge part of who you are influenced my formative years. Whether it was a quick trip into town to pick up a bite to eat at McDonalds,
I received the following message from an individual who identified himself as Leonard Huntings (though this is possibly a pseudonym). It was apparently reconstructed from an analog source and remastered for internet distribution. It's a little creepy...
Appended to this message was the video itself, which I am presenting here:
It's currently impossible to know where this video orginated, as I don't know anybody named Leonard Huntings. An educated guess would be that it somehow ti
Readers of the previous entry on Hanwell here on Retrochick are no doubt still wondering just what is going on. Today, I can report that a new chapter has been opened, as it seems that the Institute itself has become aware of the videos being leaked by "Leonard Huntings" and have now issued a statement. I received the following e-mail, which originated from a real person at Hanwell (I check all my sources before reporting), and have their permission to reproduce it in full here.
You can chec
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