Written by Smokey McTrees | 21 May 2009

Most of us here at the AC offices enjoy playing video games.  Yeah, that may be somewhat of an understatement.  Thrillho, Kindogg and I have been playing video games since we were swimming in our's mother's womb.  We are both sons of former jocks, and in my case, my dear old Pappy is a jock-turned-nerdy MMORPG player.  Seriously, it's a good thing my dad is seven foot tall and has a large gun collection, because I could see him getting sand kicked in his face...

Anyway, I digress somewhat.  As is my usual fucking custom.  My stupid point is I am quite a video gamer.  I have wasted a lot of my life playing video games.  TIme I could have spent, I don't know, maybe practicing sports or making better music or paying attention to the wife and kids.  I have enjoyed so many awesome games over so many wasted years.  Some of them made such an impact on my burnt-out psyche that I would love to see them remade using today's rapidly advancing technology.  With every stupid Hollywood producer remaking every movie they can, the time seems somewhat ripe to remake a much more imaginative and viable medium.  Here's some choices for my list:

Written by THRILLHO | 12 May 2009

This summer two new boxing games are hitting shelves.  While boxing games are often hit or miss, it's a sport that can make for a really fun game.  Some boxing games (Ring King, Facebreaker, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing) didn't fare too well, but the 2 most successful boxing franchises are each releasing their latest installments in the next month.

We all remember the world's greatest sports disaster, Mike Tyson, and his role in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out.  Nintendo wiped the slate of Iron Mike and released a less successful Super Punch Out for the SNES.  Since then, we haven't seen anything from this franchise.  Next week, Punch-Out for the Wii comes out.  It looks to take a lot from the NES version, including many of the original boxers, and Little Mac.  The game is extremely cartoony, but looks great.  There are two control schemes, the (potentially gimmicky) motion controlled Wii-Boxing-esque controls, and the classic style by turning the Wiimote on its side mimicking an NES controller.  In the 80s, when video game standards were MUCH lower, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out thrived.  However, I am concerned that the same pattern recognition gameplay will become stale really fast in today's market.  There is a multiplayer mode that hasn't been elaborated on yet, but I'm sure its mainly a gimmicky add on like most Wii games.  Still, this game should bring a nice nostalgic kick to the system.  I will reserve my judgement until after I give it a shot.

Written by THRILLHO | 22 April 2009

In my unending search to procrastinate, I have stumbled across a true Internet treasure.  In middle school, my friends and I would play the classic Sierra "Quest" games during school.  These games are classics.  Notables were the Kings Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, etc series.

I have found a website that has several of these games playable within your browser, making it easy to covertly play at work.  The First 2 Space Quests (as well as a Police Quest, a Leisure Suit Larry, and The Black Cauldron) are available to play now at Sarien.net.

Written by THRILLHO | 14 April 2009

The PS2 is the best selling console of all time.  When you have a user base of around 150 million, you better have good games.  The PS2 did, in fact, have some fantastic games from all genres.  It took cues from all of its predecessors, including the failed ones, like Dreamcast.  It had some truly original bizarre titles like Katamari Demacry, and some realistic gems like Gran Turismo and the EA Sports series.

Its hard to narrow it down to just 10, but here is my list.  Again, only one game per franchise, and some games were omitted since they are mainly ports from other consoles (Resident Evil 4).

Written by THRILLHO | 07 April 2009

The original Playstation is where video games "grew up".  Sega was barely hanging on, and Nintendo was thriving off its first party franchises.  The consumers were growing up, and Sony took advantage by releasing the Playstation.  Its library went in stark contrast to Nintendo's.  Enter realism and violence.

A ton of now extremely popular franchises were started on the PSOne.  While the originals were great, the sequels often took the games to a new level.  Using only one game per franchise, here are my top 10 original Playstation games: