VGC | John – Page 29 – Video Game Canon

“The Game Console” Explores the Grisly Innards of 86 Different Consoles in November 2018

No Starch Press has announced that they’re publishing The Game Console: A Photographic History from Atari to Xbox, a new book that depicts the “grisly innards” of all your favorite consoles, on November 6th.

Authored by Evan Amos, and featuring an extensive collection of full-color photos and notes about 86 different consoles, The Game Console might just be the most complete catalog of console hardware ever published:

The Game Console is a tour through the evolution of video game hardware, with gorgeous full-color photos of 86 consoles and their grisly innards. You’ll start your journey with legendary consoles like the Magnavox Odyssey, Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Commodore 64. The visual nostalgia trip continues with systems from the 1990s and 2000s, ending with modern consoles like the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U.

Throughout the book, you’ll also discover many consoles you never knew existed, and get a rare peek at the hardware inside some of history’s most iconic video game systems.

You can find a few preview images from The Game Console at No Starch’s official website, and they certainly do look grisly (and also amazing).

Bite-Sized Game History: The N64’s Analog Stick, Rez’s Prototype, and Early Video Games from 1968

Have you ever wondered how the Nintendo 64’s Analog Stick works? Or what Rez looked like before its wireframe aesthetic was added in? And just what were game developers working on in the early days before Atari?

Have you ever wondered how the Nintendo 64’s Analog Stick works? Or what Rez looked like before its wireframe aesthetic was added in? And just what were game developers working on in the early days before Atari?

Have no fear, we’re able to answer all three of those questions in this edition of Best-Sized Game History…

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Speedruner Completes Nearly Perfect Run of Super Mario Bros. in 4 Minutes and 55.96 Seconds

The speedrunners competing to complete a perfect run in Super Mario Bros. got a little closer this week when KosmicD12 set a new world record of four minutes and 55.96 seconds on Monday.

Thanks to pixel-perfect platforming and a series of glitches (including running through the wall to find the Warp Zone in World 1-2), this “Any Percentage” run is nearly identical to the “Tool Assisted Run” of four minutes and 54.03 seconds.

In a “Tool Assisted Run,” a computer calculates the optimal path through the game using all known glitches, so to see an actual human person nearly match it is rather astounding.

KosmicD12 was rather tongue-tied after his record-setting feat, but he did manage to croak out, “I don’t know what to say.”

A nearly perfect run definitely speaks for itself, so I’m not sure anything else needs to be said. Though I guess congratulations are definitely in order.

The Untold Stories Behind Doom’s Cheat Codes, Splatoon’s Canceled Predecessor, and Creating an E3 Press Conference

Start your weekend off right by diving into a trio of videos highlighting some of the lesser-known stories behind the creation of Doom, Splatoon, and Ubisoft’s annual E3 extravaganza.

Start your weekend off right by diving into a trio of videos highlighting some of the lesser-known stories behind the creation of Doom, Splatoon, and Ubisoft’s annual E3 extravaganza.

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Bite-Sized Game History: Pong on a Plane, The Mother 3 Times, and the Importance of Emulation

This time on Bite-Sized Game History… Pong takes flight, Mother 3’s hype train leaves the station, and Nintendo’s battle with ROM hosting sites is yet another blow to game preservation.

There are a lot of great video game historians on Twitter, and they manage to unearth some amazing artifacts in 280 characters or less. Video Game Canon’s newest column, Bite-Sized Game History, will aim to collect some of the best stuff I find in my timeline.

This time on Best-Sized Game History… Pong takes flight, Mother 3‘s hype train leaves the station, and Nintendo’s battle with ROM hosting sites is yet another blow to game preservation.

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Listology 2.0: What Does the Video Game Canon Look Like Using Only Modern Best Games Lists Published After 2010?

Tetris earned the top spot in the first version of the Video Game Canon, and easily repeated in the Version 2.0 update I put together earlier this year. But what happens if you limited the formula to just Best Games lists that have been published this decade?

Not much, it turns out.

No other game was able to knock Alexy Pajitnov’s puzzle masterpiece off the top of the heap, though Valve’s Half-Life 2 (#2) came very close. The remainder of the Top 10 also looks fairly familiar, with Resident Evil 4 at #3, Super Mario 64 at #4, BioShock at #5, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past at #6, Super Metroid at #7, The Last of Us at #8, World of Warcraft at #9, and Grand Theft Auto V at #10.

However, using only the 27 Best Games lists that were published between 2010 and 2017 does produce a few interesting swings. Some games moved up (like Portal from #19 to #11), while others slid down (Street Fighter II went from #16 to #28).

Other games made bigger leaps, which might lead to some massive changes to the Video Game Canon’s Top 100 in future updates. For example, Nintendo’s EarthBound may have launched to a rocky reception in the mid 90s, but critics in the 2010s are coming around on it as it moved to #62 (it was #119 on the regular Video Game Canon) Likewise, Myst had a strong showing, and landed at #87 versus #137 on the regular ranking.

See where the rest of the 1,041 games from Version 2.0 of the Video Game Canon landed after the break.

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Slant Magazine Updates Their List of “The 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time” for 2018

Slant Magazine recently updated their list of “The 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time” and named Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask as their #1 game. The oft-ignored sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has been undergoing a bit of a reevaluation in recent years, and it’s selection by Slant is the first time it’s earned the top spot on a “Best Games” list.

In addition to old favorites, the editors at Slant gave four games their first exposure on a “Best Games” list… Platinum’s Nier: Automata (#7), Bracket’s Three Fourths Home (#73), Croteam’s The Talos Principle (#82), and Ninja Theory’s Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (#94).

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey have been on a perfect streak since their release in 2017, and Slate kept it alive by slotting Link’s latest adventure at #39 and Mario’s Cappy-tivating quest at #31.

Slant Magazine’s “The 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time” will be added to the Video Game Canon in a future update.

“The 200 Games You Must Play” Have Been Chosen By Australia’s Hyper Magazine

Hyper, Australia’s oldest gaming magazine, has always had a slightly skewed perspective on the industry. Earlier this year, they published their latest “Best Games” list, “The 200 Games You Must Play.”

Hyper, Australia’s oldest gaming magazine, has always had a slightly skewed perspective on the industry. Their previous stabs at “Best Games” lists in 1995 and 2013 often focused on titles that no one else was looking at. And the same is true for “The 200 Games You Must Play,” which was published earlier this year.

“The 200 Games You Must Play” is an unranked list, just like Hyper’s previous lists, so you won’t find a consensus pick for the “Best Game of All Time” from the magazine’s editors. Instead, the 203 games on the list (there were a few ties) cut across a huge spectrum of genres and decades, as well as the inclusion of almost three dozen titles that are brand new to the Video Game Canon.

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Listology 2.0: Exploring the Best Games From the 2010s

We’ve still got 18 months to go, but the 2010s have been a pretty great decade for games. To make sure they stand the test of time, all games released after January 1, 2014 are ineligible for Version 2.0 of the Video Game Canon, but you’ll find several very important games in the decade’s earlier years.

Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo extended the lifespans of the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii beyond the standard five years in 2010, and developers used this extra time to produce software that took full advantage of each platform’s quirks. That was especially true of the 2013 launch of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, which took the top spot on this list. But it was Rockstar Games that might have had the biggest impact on the decade so far. The publisher controlled the rest of the Top 3 thanks to strong showings from Grand Theft Auto V (#2) and Red Dead Redemption (#3).

And while 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is still too new to qualify for the Video Game Canon, I have a feeling this category will get very interesting once its eligible.

Find out where all of your favorite games released between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2013 placed after the break.

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Game Informer Celebrated Their 300th Issue By Naming “The Top 300 Games of All Time”

The good folks at Game Informer published their 300th issue last month, and a big part of the celebration included the unveiling of a brand new “Best Games” list, “The Top 300 Games of All Time.”

The good folks at Game Informer published their 300th issue last month, and a big part of the celebration included the unveiling of a brand new Best Games list, “The Top 300 Games of All Time.”

The editors of Game Informer chose Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past as the #1 game, writing this about Link’s third adventure: “Although many of the series’ conventions debuted on the NES in The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past defined the blueprint Nintendo has used for most sequels, and is still one of the most ambitious entries to date.”

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