Really fun interview here with Randy Linden, whose claims to fame include the ambitious Super Nintendo version of Doom, an authentic version of the Laserdisc classic Dragon’s Lair on the lowly Amiga, and perhaps biggest of all, Bleem—the world’s first major commercial emulation platform. Linden confirmed a heretofore unknown story…
I wrote this for The Stranger in Seattle, ahead of what I assume will be a bazillion-dollar box office gross. Super Mario Bros. film review (thestranger.com)
I had a blast chronicling the creation of The Simpsons Colonoscopy Party, a bizarre arcade cabinet that resides at Seattle’s Time Warp bar in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Turns out, it’s a “butt-shaped iceberg” that hints to a larger tech-arts scene in the city. My latest for Seattle newspaper The…
Hi from the 2023 Game Developers Conference! I’m contributing to GameDeveloper.com’s coverage of the annual event in San Francisco this week, which means I’m attending panels and playing video games. Some highlights: If you’ve gotten all the way to the end of this list, I’d love to hear your thoughts…
Thanks to the team at Digital Foundry for having me on once again to talk about the business of gaming and the art of higher-fidelity technology. This is my third time guesting on the YouTube channel’s weekly talk show (other Sam cameos can be found here and here), and this…
My latest game-history retrospective at Game Developer tells the story of World of Goo, which turns 15 years old this year… or maybe 18 years old… or even further than that, if you account for the engineering puzzles and contraptions that its co-creator Kyle Gabler built out of real-world trash…
Head to gamedeveloper.com to learn, among other things, how John Madden Football ’93 changed the future of the “immersive sim” genre (yes, really). Thanks to Ultima Underworld director Paul Neurath for taking some time to chat with me on the eve of that PC classic’s 30th anniversary. Madden ’93 and…
When Yoshi’s Island hit stores in 1995, mainstream 3D gaming was already wowing shoppers with brand-new “graphics”–that ever-important buzz word through the ’90s. Along came this weird Mario spin-off, though, and 2D crayon strokes ruled the day. It was possibly the first video game to set atmosphere and theme with…