Retro Gaming: News

In case you haven't noticed, I absolutely adore video games. Most of my friends don't, so to get my fix of knowledgable video game conversation I have turned to podcasts. They're free, they feature the smartest people in games journalism, and can be enjoyed while doing just about anything. Working. Walking the dog. Crying yourself to sleep. Whatever you're into.

Guiding internet users to useful content is one of the most lucrative businesses in the world. This process is called aggregation. Google and other search engines form the top of the food chain, aggregating all of the content on the web in response to queries. There are all sorts of other important aggregators though, and you probably use at least one every day: Fark and Reddit for web content, Rotten Tomatoes for movie reviews, and Metacritic for a variety of media, but most importantly, video...

Two new and radically different ARGs (Alternate Reality Games) have burst into the news in the last week, and illustrate the very best of an innovative phenomenon: the commercial tie-in ARG, and the public service ARG.

Today we pay homage to a phenomenon. One as diffuse and amusing as the internet itself, and as pointless as dog Halloween costumes. I'm speaking, of course, of giant games.

Mario in Tetris! Pixel art-style! While the two blocky Nintendo properties are obviously a natural fit, it's hard not to boggle at the audacity of it all. The time lapse below condenses an hour and a half of playing—1,112 lines—into roughly 2 minutes. The cap doesn't quite come off, which is to say it never really goes on, but, just the same, it's a remarkable feat.

My God, she is a living, breathing, rapid-fire arcade basketball MACHINE. I'd like to see her on a real court.

Arcade gaming just got about a million times cooler. VirtuSphere offers an interface that captures the players movements in 360 degrees, and then translates these movements into a video game. Rumors of the technology first emerged back in 2006, but the real life application has only recently just surfaced.

An iPhone-controlled drone unveiled at the recently held CES is expected to revolutionize the world of video gaming. Called the AR.Drone (AR stands for augmented reality), this new product will literally bring video games to the streets.