gdp's Comments

Twitterrati : How Did Twitter Misjudge the World Cup?

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 10:59:39 +0000

I've noticed a huge number of people spamming World Cup hashtags like there's no tomorrow to get their Twitter username and/or product appearing on the World Cup live tweets page. There are so many people doing it, it makes the whole feature relatively useless. And, bizarrely, even the worst offenders haven't been banned yet.

Retroblique : The ZX Spectrum Did Not Exist

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:58:26 +0000

First of all, many thanks for taking the time to offer your perspective on this topic. It was perhaps a little unfair to drag your book into this debate, given that it's primarily about very specific, influential games rather than a comprehensive acknowledgement of every hardware platform since the year dot. If I were to draft up my own list of the most influential games of all time then the Spectrum and BBC wouldn't get much of a look in (perhaps with the exception of Knight Lore and Elite respectively). Your book just so happened to be one of the closest I could find by way of an example, mainly because it does take pride of place on my most accessible book shelf and isn't languishing in a box in the attic. I'm a big fan of Vintage Games and never fail to recommend it whenever someone asks me about decent video game books. (I'll also be doing an article on video game books some time in the near future.) Like you say, when it comes to painting the broadest strokes on the canvas of video game history, some systems will have to fall by the wayside. There simply is far too much out there for any one book (or documentary) to cover in any significant detail. Thankfully there are numerous bloggers out there with the ability to explore these niches, so these minor systems are unlikely to be forgotten, even if it seems like the heavyweight tomes in book stores may be neglecting them. Thanks again for the comments, Bill. Your input is always welcome on this blog.

Retroblique : The ZX Spectrum Did Not Exist

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:58:01 +0000

I'll forgive Loguidice and Barton, given that their book is largely anecdotal (and Barton's given the Speccy fair dues on his blog), but I expected more of Kent, who presents his book as more of an objective history. Then again, he spent so much time on the history of Atari that everything else ended up as a mere footnote. I was surprised that Populous got a mention, although only in a throwaway sentence that referred to it as a Sega Genesis game from EA. Perhaps most startling was that there was no mention of Tomb Raider. How anyone can claim to have written the Ultimate Guide to Video Games and not even make a passing reference to it simply boggles the mind.

Retroblique : The ZX Spectrum Did Not Exist

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:57:19 +0000

I definitely agree. The fact that the likes of Frontier Developments, Rare & Codemasters are still around today is a monumental achievement in an industry where developers come and go in the blink of an eye. But it would still be nice if that achievement was acknowledged somewhere by those people who claim to write the definitive historical texts of our industry. These books are being read by tomorrow's gaming journalists. It's bad enough that today's gaming journalists barely acknowledge anything that happened in the 20th century, but there's something not quite right about video game history being written in which the ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro are notoriously absent. Thankfully there's enough of us preserving and blogging about this aspect of gaming history that things will course correct themselves eventually. And long may the success of the stalwart British developers continue!

Retroblique : My Gaming Life (Preamble)

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:25:52 +0000

I've always been disappointed by the lack of anecdotal retro gaming coverage. Like you, I enjoy reading about individual gaming histories, but there doesn't appear to be many people taking the time to record them. Sure, there's plenty of people out there writing retrospective reviews of classic games, but very few people offering an insight into what it meant to play those games when they were originally released. No one's writing first hand accounts of the sights and sounds that assailed them the first time they walked into a smoke-filled amusement arcade. No one's writing about those long summer holidays spent organizing tournaments of Summer Games I & II with your mates and the inevitable blisters, calluses and cramp you acquired while playing them. No one's writing about the joy of discovering a shrink-wrapped Infocom import hidden on a dusty shelf in your local independent software store. Those are the stories I want to read about. On a related note, one thing I feel is missing from contemporary gaming journalism is a general awareness of gaming history. That's not to say that every review and critique of a modern title needs to make reference to some obscure ZX Spectrum game, but over time you get a sense that, collectively, a web site's writers have very little gaming nous outside of this current decade. I'd wager that your average video game journalist is in their mid-20s and only started getting into the gaming at the dawn of the Xbox/PlayStation 2/GameCube era. Critics of art, film and literature are steeped in the lore of their respective areas of expertise. When you see a film critic write up a piece on the latest Spielberg or Scorsese movie, you intrinsically know they've also seen The Searchers, Citizen Kane and Chinatown. When it comes to contemporary video game reviewers, you get a nagging sense that anything that happened before 1999 remains outside their experience. Of course, I'm generalizing, but I think there's more than just a grain of truth to all of this.

Retroblique : My Gaming Life (Part 1): Life Before Gaming

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:10:00 +0000

Oh yes, I forgot to mention Scalextric and TCR (the latter being particularly cool because the cars had headlights and you had the ability to overtake on certain straights). I opted to focus on pursuits that had some parallels with video games: sports management (dice league), city construction (Lego) and role-playing games (gamebooks). Truth be told, I was very much an outdoors type, even once video games entered the picture. My friends and I grew up in a rather new neighborhood in the south of England, so our surroundings were constantly altering. It made for some interesting urban exploration (which goes some way to explaining why some of favorite game series—STALKER, GTA, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Zelda and Metroid—have some open-ended ability to explore your environment). We also had access to a field that enabled us to play football on a regular basis. There were enough kids around that we were able to arrange knockout competitions. Street tennis was also a favorite during the warmer summer months. On top of all that we were rarely separated from our BMX bikes, which as well as aiding us in our urban exploration would also double up as our street racing vehicles. We were occasionally conscientious enough to put spotters on the course to ensure we didn't find ourselves racing into the path of incoming cars. In short, we all enjoyed a pretty healthy balance of indoor and outdoor pursuits.

Twitterrati : The Fascination With Teens Not Using Twitter

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:23:57 +0000

I think it's because most new internet fads, traditionally, tend to grow fastest when the teen market jumps on board. As others have pointed out, there's numerous reasons why Twitter has yet to find mainstream appeal with that demographic, hence the concern about Twitter's potential for growth. The way I see it at the moment, Twitter is something that people grow into. It's a medium that rewards people for being informative and bringing value to a conversation. While there are teens out there capable of using Twitter in this fashion, it's probably true to say that the vast majority of teens are more concerned with ephemera and triviality. They probably expect more of a "reaction" to whatever they have to say (even if it's just hundreds of friends posting "LOL!" to their latest Facebook status update), so when their few dozen followers on Twitter (probably all bots/spammers) completely ignore their latest "what I had for breakfast" update, they see no perceived value in the service and move on.

Retroblique : Retro vs Modern (MSNBC Lays Down the Smack II: Smack Harder)

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:28:33 +0000

You hit the nail on the head there, Michelle. We have just emerged from a period in which the video game industry, as a whole, has turned a blind eye to its very own past. Publishers were so consumed with a forward-looking vision that they never stopped to consider preserving their very own history. Thankfully fans were on hand to ensure huge chunks of video game history weren't lost forever, which is why the hundreds of thousands of titles released on 8-bit and 16-bit systems have been preserved in some form, regardless of the legalities involved. The explosion of cellphones, Blackberries and other handheld devices has given publishers new avenues to explore and their existing back catalogues are chock full of games that can run on these lower spec devices. In short, it's nice to finally emerge from that dark age where video game history was verboten, into an age where a kid can pick up an iPhone, enjoy a game of Doom or Pac-Man and even rave about the experience.

Retroblique : Retro vs Modern (MSNBC Lays Down the Smack II: Smack Harder)

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:47:13 +0000

Everyone seems to have their own cut-off point at which visual fidelity becomes a significant obstacle to enjoying a game. I often wonder if we'll ever reach some sort of threshold at which visual fidelity becomes irrelevant. I can understand a kid brought up on Xbox 360 games finding 8-bit games too visually abstract to relate to, but in 20 years time will the likes of Resident Evil 5 and Crysis look too old to be playable? I think the biggest divide is actually the 2D/3D barrier. In terms of basic design, it's a much bigger gap. I remember a few friends who considered themselves hardcore gamers back in the 8-bit days really struggling to get to grips with the spatial awareness required in some 3D games. Some first-person games would just leave them feeling disoriented and confused. Unless our core 3D game design principles change radically over the next decade or two -- possibly in response to full body motion sensor controllers -- then it's difficult to imagine something like Crysis being impenetrable to a gamer from 2029. Unless the whole concept of having to use a mouse/keyboard or a gamepad you hold in two hands is completely foreign to them.

Retroblique : Modern vs Retro (MSNBC Lays Down the Smack)

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:50:10 +0000

As soon as I saw that Shadow of the Colossus screenshot roll up, I was ready to unleash a counterattack, until I noticed he was using it to champion modern games. Still, I guess it just goes to show that everyone draws a different dividing line (if any) between modern and retro -- be it technological, chronological or based purely on aesthetics. Either way it never fails to inspire some interesting debates.

Retroblique : Links to the Past for March 8th, 2009

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 15:55:53 +0000

Oh, and don't forget the Pac-Man scratch-card games that came with a slab of bubblegum. They, alongside Eagle, Scream, 2000 AD and a huge bag of penny sweets, were always an essential purchase at the local newsagent.

Retroblique : Links to the Past for March 8th, 2009

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 15:46:36 +0000

Yeah, the guy kind of relegates the Gabriel Knight series to a mere "also published" list. It's a bit like writing up a guide to Spielberg movies and leaving off Jurassic Park. I must admit I never really played many Sierra adventures back in the day. I had a brief flirtation with some games in the Space Quest and Police Quest series, but I found them to be a little slow-paced and home to too many instant death scenarios. I did buy Gabriel Knight though and it's one of my all-time faves. Glad you noticed the Atari joystick inspiration in the new logo too!

Retroblique : Links to the Past for March 8th, 2009

Thu, 9 Apr 2009 00:55:13 +0000

Our family spent many a summer holiday in Newquay. The hotel we'd regularly stay in had a couple of tabletop Space Invaders machines. After dinner, all the kids would invariably congregate around them for two-player marathons, scrounging ten pen pieces off our parents for the next blippity-neon fix, knocking back glass after glass of iced Coca-Cola. Happy days! Such was our fixation with Pac-Man, our grandparents bought my brother and I our own handheld Pac-Man games. My brother drew the short straw with TomyTronic Pac-Man, which you can see here: http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Tomy/PacMan.htm It had a small maze, Pac-Man always faced in the same direction and could only eat dots while moving from right to left! Actually, I see the Puck-Man branded version of it on the same page, so you probably had the same thing. I was a bit luckier with Futuretronics Pac-Man (also branded Puck Monster), which looked like this: http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Misc/FuturetronicsP... This one played a little more authentically, much to my brother's envy. A brief flirtation with the Pac-Man bubblegame card game aside, my interest in Pac-Man eventually subsided, once I had a ZX Spectrum and C64 to keep me occupied. On later visits to video game arcades, I'd enjoy playing Pacmania and was pleasantly surprised by the near arcade-perfect Amiga port that turned up a few years later. Dammit, now I'm firing up MAME for a quick blast of Pac-Man and Pacmania!