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The red-headed step-blog of Retromags.com

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Areala's "what If..." Game Design: The Tomb Of Horrors (Part Two)

Areala's "What If..." Game Design series is a partially-serious, partially-tongue-in-cheek, completely-hyphen-laden look at what would happen if things that are not currently video games were turned into video games under her supervision. Part Two In Part One of this series, we talked about the history of the Tomb of Horrors adventure and we picked our perspective choice. If you haven't read it, please start there. All others, ignore that "Abandon All Hope..." sign hanging in front of
Areala

Areala

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Areala's "what If..." Game Design: Tomb Of Horrors (Part Three)

Areala's "What If..." Game Design series is a partially-serious, partially-tongue-in-cheek, completely-hyphen-laden look at what would happen if things that are not currently video games were turned into video games under her supervision. Part Three In part two of this series, we looked at the problem of difficulty, and the pros and cons of a straight-up room-for-room conversion of the original Tomb of Horrors module. This part will look at the persona that the player will take on when he
Areala

Areala

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Areala Goes Up A Level!

On my PS3, that is. It's been a long, hard battle, but I have finally achieved Level 7 in terms of my trophy score. I've put a lot of hours into getting those suckers, and I'm quite happy to see that it is paying off. My proudest achievement is still earning the Platinum trophy for Dead Space; beating that game on Impossible mode was hell on earth, but I slogged through it and earned my just reward. So far, it's the only game I have managed to get a Platinum for, though I am close with Fall
Areala

Areala

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Be Excellent to Each Other 2009

As the saying goes, better late than never. In this case, it's just because I found out about it, it's on Friday the 23rd, and thus I have way, way less than 24 hours to write this post about why you wish that you lived in Minnesota right now. "Be excellent to each other." It was good advice when Bill S. Preson, Esq. & Ted Theodore Logan gave it to us back in 1989, and it's especially good advice today. Because in this case, being excellent means kicking out the jams and pulling out all
Areala

Areala

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Come Get Some! - Duke Nukem 3D (PC)

"It's time to kick ass and chew bubblegum. And I'm all outta gum." -- Duke Nukem Laugh if you must, but I was one of the gamers who was utterly heartbroken to hear the long-time-coming announcement that Duke Nukem Forever was to be no more. I had long ago accepted the fact that I had been jilted, and that Duke was long gone, probably too busy off kicking alien pseudopods to bother with the likes of starring in another video game. But still inside me, there was a part, a tiny little pa
Areala

Areala

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[Let's Read] - GamePro #1

Let's Read : GamePro #1 Phillyman requested that I do this one next, so that's where I'm going. If this isn't where you wanted me to go, then you've only yourself to blame as nobody else spoke up. So tell me what you want me to do next with a PM or a comment, otherwise I'll start picking things myself and you'll just have to suffer anyway. Make it easy on yourselves. GamePro #1, May/June 1989 - 60 pages - $3.50 So it's been roughly a year since Nintendo Power launched, and some
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Areala

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[Let's Read] - Nintendo Power #2

Let's Read: Nintendo Power #2 Powering on (bad pun, bad pun) from our last [Let's Read] brings us to Nintendo Power #2, which has probably the most infamous cover art of any Nintendo-produced magazine in the company's history. Yes, that is Simon Belmont of Castlevania fame holding Dracula's severed head by the hair. A closer inspection of the image reveals Dracula's heart, ring, fingernail, and eyeball laid out on the cloak where the evil one has fallen, and a bloody hand reaching
Areala

Areala

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[Let's Read] - Nintendo Power #3

Let's Read: Nintendo Power #3 I've always thought that every so often Nintendo chose some odd titles to give cover treatment to with their magazine, and this issue's focus on Track & Field II is probably the first time I thought this. Granted, I've never been into sports games, so that probably explains some of it. But did they really think that anybody in their right mind would list this game alongside the likes of classics such as Super Mario Bros., Metroid, or Legend of Zelda?
Areala

Areala

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The Stones Beckon... - Barrow Hill

Picture this: it's the middle of the night, you're driving through the countryside by yourself, your only company is the voice of the local radio station's DJ talking at you via your stereo system. You notice you're getting low on gas, so you make a diversion to a service station for a fill-up, and that's when it happens. Everything just stops working. You get out of the car to find out what's going on, and a mysterious energy field blocks your passage back the way you came. Now there's noth
Areala

Areala

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Hanwell Mental Institute Fires Back

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
Areala

Areala

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Senscape's "Asylum" Now Accepting New Patient Applications

I'm sure you've watched the videos from Leonard Huntings by now (and if you haven't, shame on you - they can be found right here). Four simple little messages to showcase the happenings at Hanwell Mental Institute. If they didn't whet your appetite for more, then you may want to check your pulse and confirm that you are, in fact, still breathing. For a few weeks now, Senscape's website has contained those four videos, a link to an interactive teaser preview which raises far more questions tha
Areala

Areala

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More Music Picks From Areala

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
Areala

Areala

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Having Fun With Hindsight - GamePro #136

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.
Areala

Areala

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Sound Trackin' - Cliff Martinez's "Contagion"

Whether it's for a film, a television show or a video game, I'm a sucker for a great soundtrack. I'm even more of a sucker for soundtracks that don't have lyrics, where it feels more like an organic, singular entity than something that a dozen artists threw one track apiece at and called it a day. And Cliff Martinez reeled me in completely with his absolutely enthralling score for this year's viral outbreak disaster film "Contagion." Contagion, as a film, isn't a particularly tradition
Areala

Areala

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Why Grammar Is Important - Fighting Force

Today on Retrochick Retroblog, we're going to remind everyone why grammar is important, even when you're dealing with video games. To wit: please open the image on your left. This is the second page of a two-page-spread ad for the PS1 game Fighting Force, developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive. It comes from the Sept. 1997 issue of GamePro. I'm sure it ran in other magazines, I just happened to be reading this one when I spotted it. The first page contains an image of a
Areala

Areala

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Teased By An Asylum

Are you crazy? Well, whether you are or not, you should consider the research. For example, did you know that ten out of every ten people polled by Hanwell Mental Institute's top-rated researchers tested positive for at least one mental illness, and eight out of those ten tested positive for two or more? And that three of those remaining eight were found to have a staggering five or more mental illnesses according to the soon-to-be-released DSM-V? Are you sure you're not crazy? Remember: a
Areala

Areala

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Eleven Cover Songs That Are Better Than The Originals

"Hooo boy, Areala, do you really want to go here?" Yes, yes, I think I do. Because it's my blog, and it's my opinion, and you're all entitled to it. Besides, what's better than potentially starting a gigantic flame war over music and personal preferences? OK, besides sex. Right, nothing! So here's the deal. I'm going to list some covers that are better than the originals and explain why. You're all going to tell me how correct I am or that I'm going to burn in hell for blasphemy, and eit
Areala

Areala

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So Close, Yet So Far - Drac's Night Out

"It's Gotta Be The Shoes." With that five-word tagline, Reebok launched a sneaker fad for the 90's over which people went absolutely apeshit. And just as with every other great product innovation, there had to be cross-promotion. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ate Pizza Hut pizza, Modern Warfare soldiers drank Pepsi, Alan Wake used Energizer batteries in his flashlight, and vampires wore Pumps in that classic NES title, Drac's Night Out. What's that? You've never played Drac's Night Out?
Areala

Areala

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Gunpei Yokoi: September 10, 1941 - October 4, 1997

Today marks the fifteenth anniversary of Gunpei Yokoi's death. Many things we take for granted in the gaming world today can be tracked back to this man, including the cross-shaped directional pad (NES), portable gaming systems (Game Boy), and Metroid (every freakin' Nintendo system except the N64). Not bad for a janitor. Yokoi was a simple custodial worker and maintenance man at one of Nintendo's hanafuda (playing card) manufacturing plants, where he amused himself in his spare time by tinke
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Areala

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So Close, Yet So Far - Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill

Remember Socks? He was the black and white feline counterpart to former US President Bill Clinton. Children everywhere used to write letters to Socks (and his canine bro, Buddy); the best of these got collected and published in a book entitled, "Dear Socks, Dear Buddy." Everybody loved the First Pets, so what better way to show your appreciation for all their trials and tribulations around the White House than to immortalize one in a video game? Er...right. So somebody at Kaneko has this br
Areala

Areala

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EGM - A Day In The Life

Every so often, the magazines from back in the day would give us a peek behind the scenes so that the rest of us would know (or at least have a vaguely better idea) what those weirdos whose names all appeared on the masthead at the front of the magazine did for the magazine besides the obvious. So for their 50th issue, EGM treated us to a four-page spread of insider information, Photoshopped antics, personal photos, and other goodies. In case it's not obvious, this is one of the best reasons t
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Areala

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So Close, Yet So Far - Fireteam Rogue

Digging through the collection, I unearthed this gem discussing a really awesome-looking game being developed by Accolade for the Genesis and Super Nintendo. I'm pretty familiar with the bulk of the Super Nintendo library, but I didn't remember ever seeing this title on the market. Was it yet another unreleased game previewed by EGM, this time in their January, 1994 issue? A quick trip to GameFaqs confirmed my suspicions: Fireteam Rogue was in development in the mid-90s and then axed before c
Areala

Areala

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Gaiares - Can You Say 'Mullet'?

One of the best things about flipping through old magazines is, of course, the ads. Doesn't matter whether you're looking at EGM or National Geographic, the ads always hold up a mirror to the culture of the time period. Advertisers know that twenty years later, neither anyone's going to care about the way an ad looks, nor will they be mocked for it by future-dwelling homo sapiens. Because of the internet, they're also wrong. Video game ads don't often approach this level of hilarity, but my
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Areala

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Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider Remastered: Happy Birthday, Lara Croft!

All Croft-aholics know that Valentine's Day is the birthday of Our Lady and Savior, the Divine Ponytail. So what better way to say "I Love You" than to pick up the brand new Tomb Raider I - III Remastered collection from Aspyr and Crystal Dynamics? Yes, for most of us, it was love at first polygon when we caught our first glimpse of The Great One, whether it was that ever-so-alluring pyramid-shaped box or one of the many, many, many magazines whose covers she graced. And today, for a
Areala

Areala in Tomb Raider

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