This Week in Gaming History: Siskel & Ebert Review Video Game Movies
Monday, 8th April 2013Posted in Gaming History
Tags: siskel and ebert, stories, video game history
Written by: Patrick Scott Patterson
Legendary film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert have now left the world a legacy of what film critics should be. As video gaming has become a larger and larger part of the overall pop culture, many video game movies came to be.
Therefore, it is only natural that the world of video game movies and Siskel and Ebert would cross paths on more than one occasion. Here are some of the best examples, as the iconic pair review and argue over video game/film crossover “classics” such as WarGames, The Wizard and Super Mario Bros.
Here are just a few of our favorite quoatbles you’ll see throughout the video: Continue reading “This Week in Gaming History: Siskel & Ebert Review Video Game Movies” »
This Week in Gaming History: The Undertaker’s Video Game Streak Hits 42
Monday, 1st April 2013Posted in Gaming History
Tags: profressional wrestling, undertaker, video game history, wrestling video game
Written by: Patrick Scott Patterson
It’s that time of year where the WrestleMania streak of the legendary Undertaker is talked about quite a bit. The veteran WWE Superstar has appeared at a record-setting 20 WrestleMania events and come out the victor in all of them.
Continue reading “This Week in Gaming History: The Undertaker’s Video Game Streak Hits 42” »
This Week in Gaming History: The Sims, Paper Mario & Xevious, oh my
Monday, 4th February 2013Posted in History
Tags: gaming facts, sims, video game history
Written by: Patrick Scott Patterson
Can’t get three games any different than the three in this week’s history lesson, but all three of them are big ones.
On February 4, 2000 the Sims came into our lives, allowing us to babble incoherently and make relationships move really, really fast. It was a huge hit that still sees new titles today.
Paper Mario jumped into our world on February 5, 2001 on the Nintendo SixtyyyyFooooooouuuuuuur! An incredibly fun spin on the Mario concept, the game was a critical success that still holds up today. Continue reading “This Week in Gaming History: The Sims, Paper Mario & Xevious, oh my” »
This Week in Gaming History: Little Hockey People, Resident Evil Zombies, and Tales of Ducks
Monday, 21st January 2013Posted in History
Tags: gaming history, history, video game history
Written by: Patrick Scott Patterson
More history lessons to be served as we roll through January. Open your books and let’s roll.
Nintendo’s Ice Hockey hit in Japan on January 21, 1988, bringing the concept of little cute fighting hockey people to the United States later that year.
January 21, 1998 saw Resident Evil 2 blast it’s way onto home consoles, leaving a lasting impact that continues to be felt today. Continue reading “This Week in Gaming History: Little Hockey People, Resident Evil Zombies, and Tales of Ducks” »
This Week in Gaming History: Tennis, Zelda, Rally-X and WCW/NWO Thunder
Monday, 14th January 2013Posted in History
Tags: facts, history, playstation, THQ, video game history, wcw nwo, Zelda
Written by: Patrick Scott Patterson
A mixed bag of gaming history notes this week, with more interesting stories than you might think they have at a glance.
Perhaps not for Tennis, though. This thrill-a-second Nintendo classic was first released for the Famicom on January 14, 1984 and came to America with the first Nintendo Entertainment System push later on. Nobody really cared, though.
They DID care three years later on January 14, 1987 when Zelda II: The Adventure of Link came out. Released on disk in Japan, the U.S. release of the game was delayed almost two years due to a chip shortage. It was the second and final Zelda game for the NES.
New school gaming fans and even some old schoolers might not care about the January 15, 1981 release of Rally-X, but the game has a lot of interesting footnotes. Back when new, industry insiders considered the game the “next big hit” and predicted it would do better than Pac-Man and Defender. They were wrong. However, 2011′s Wreck-It Ralph film pays homage to the game with the “TurboTime” game and Turbo character, which were based on the cabinet art for Rally-X.
January 15, 1999 was the beginning of the end for WCW, and it showed with the release of WCW/NWO Thunder for the PlayStation. Panned by critics, it also looked like the end of wrestling games from THQ, but they’d continue to make them for decades to come. (NOW it looks like the end, though).
Check back every Monday for more video game history lessons. Know your goshdern industry history ya try hards.
This Week in Gaming History: Crappy Holidays Edition
Monday, 3rd December 2012Posted in Gaming History
Tags: facts, gaming history, news, video game history
Written by: Patrick Scott Patterson
The month of December marks the launches of some great games… and some totally terrible ones. Really terrible ones. Just bad. Awful. Wanna see?
How about December 5, 1986 release Transformers: Mystery of Convoy on the Nintendo Famicom? You lead a tiny Ultra Magnus on a side-scrolling adventure where he battles bored boss enemies and hardly identifiable characters from the Transformers universe. Luckily, for North America, this game stayed in the east. Trust me when I say that’s a good thing.
We weren’t so lucky with Continue reading “This Week in Gaming History: Crappy Holidays Edition” »
This Week in Gaming History: The PlayStation, Dreamcast Arrive, Asteroids & Mario Make Impact
Monday, 10th September 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming History, News
Tags: arcade, Asteroids, atari, console history, playstation, video game history
Written by: Patrick Scott Patterson
Follow @originalPSP
Another busy week in the chronicles of gaming history. Here are some of the highlights and milestones we are celebrating this week.
The date of September 9 marks the launches of two consoles:
On September 9, 1995 the Sony PlayStation launched in North America. The first console ever to sell over 100 million units in it’s lifetime, it remains the second best selling console of all time, topped only by it’s follow-up PlayStation 2. Continue reading “This Week in Gaming History: The PlayStation, Dreamcast Arrive, Asteroids & Mario Make Impact” »
This Week in Gaming History: Karts, Mothers, Turbos, Fighters, Burgers and a Bandicoot
Monday, 27th August 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: crash bandicoot, facts, gaming history, gaming news, super mario kart, video, video game history
Written by: Patrick Scott Patterson
There is a lot of history to cram into This Week in Gaming History, including major anniversaries for some iconic game titles.
On August 27, 1992, Japan saw the release of Super Mario Kart for the Super Famicom. A title that is still popular today, it came out in the US just a few days later, on September 1.
Two years later, on August 27, 1994, Mother 2 was released for the Super Famicom. This unique RPG became a cult classic to US gamers under the name of Earthbound.
On August 29, 1989 NEC’s TurboGrafx-16 hit North America. A highly successful system in Japan, where it was known as the PC Engine, it never caught fire on this side of the pond where it became the third wheel in the Nintendo and Sega console wars. Continue reading “This Week in Gaming History: Karts, Mothers, Turbos, Fighters, Burgers and a Bandicoot” »
This Week In Video Game History: Sega Succeeds, Virtual Boy Fails, Steve Wiebe Is King of Kong
Sunday, 12th August 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming, Online Video
Tags: console, history, King of Kong, sega genesis, Sega Genesis released, Steve Wiebe, video, video game history, video game news, virtual boy
Written by: Patrick Scott Patterson
Follow @originalpsp
This Week in Video Game History celebrates the birthday of a highly successful video game console, a horribly unsuccessful video game console and the five year anniversary of a cult classic film.
On August 14, 1989 the Sega Genesis made it’s North American debut, officially ushering in the 16-bit era on this side of the ocean. While Sega’s first ads for the system touted it’s arcade-quality graphics and games, it wouldn’t be long before they began to taunt the previously unbeatable Nintendo, who didn’t counter with the Super NES until two years later. Continue reading “This Week In Video Game History: Sega Succeeds, Virtual Boy Fails, Steve Wiebe Is King of Kong” »
THIS WEEK IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY: Happy Anniversary Midway, Metroid and Donkey Dong
Monday, 6th August 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: anniversary, Donkey Kong, history of video gaming, midway, Mortal Kombat, video game history
Written by: Patrick Scott Patterson
This week in video game history, we celebrate the anniversary of three of the most iconic video game titles of all time.
On August 6, 1986, Nintendo introduced Metroid for the Famicom Disk System. While not the first female protagonist in video game history, the lead character of Samus Aran was certainly the first time we were surprised by it.
U.S. gamers got their hands on the game for the Nintendo Entertainment System almost exactly one year later.
THIS WEEK IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY: ‘Gameboy’, ‘Channel F’, and ‘Earthworm Jim’ Make Historic Debuts
Monday, 30th July 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: beginning, facts, gaming industry, history, stories, video game history
Written by: Patrick Scott Patterson
Follow @originalpsp
Welcome to the first edition of Video Game History Week here on The Jace Hall Show, brought to you exclusively by video game historian and yours truly, Patrick Scott Patterson.
The video game industry has been with us for decades now, yet little of that history is ever noted. I aim to change that with this new regular feature.
This week we celebrate the North American release of Nintendo’s GameBoy, first seeing the light of day on US retail shelves on July 31, 1989. While it battled far more advanced retail rivals for the years to follow, this early Nintendo handheld sat on the throne the entire time, eventually selling more than 118 million units worldwide. Continue reading “THIS WEEK IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY: ‘Gameboy’, ‘Channel F’, and ‘Earthworm Jim’ Make Historic Debuts” »
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