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If you’re of a certain age, owned an NES, and were really into RPG’s, chances are you probably owned- or at least knew someone who owned- the Nintendo Power Strategy Guide for Final Fantasy. Full of “play to win strategies straight from the pros”, the guide provided intrepid explorers ofContinue Reading

In my previous installment, I argued that one could look at the re-release of Netrunner by Fantasy Flight Games and compare it to the original Wizards of the Coast version, released sixteen years ago, in order to take a zeitgeist measurement of the social and technological milieu’s that spawned eachContinue Reading

One of the most anticipated games of 2012 to be reworked from it’s original design was Netrunner: Android, released by Fantasy Flight Games.  Based on the critically acclaimed 1996 original game by Richard Garfield, known to many as the designer behind the collectible-card-game behemoth Magic: The Gathering, Netrunner: Android broughtContinue Reading

For my birthday this past October, my girlfriend bought me a copy of Skyrim for XBox.  For those not familiar, Skyrim is the latest installment of the ‘Elder Scrolls’ series of open-world role playing games set in a Dungeons and Dragons-informed mythic backdrop.  It’s a standard RPG, where the playerContinue Reading

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure to attend and present at the Connections conference held at the National Defense University in Washington D.C.  You may remember that Matt Kirschenbaum wrote a summary of his experience at the 2011 Connections conference, and I hope to add to that venerableContinue Reading

In October of 1989, the then German Democratic Republic (better known to many as ‘East Germany’) celebrated its 40th Anniversary amidst the growing presence and pressure of popular protests calling for wide-scale reform of the often harsh and repressive regime led by the aged, though still able, General Secretary ErichContinue Reading

Rob Zacny, a freelance writer who often specializes in computer games, recently wrote a piece for the new GameSpy series ‘Command Lines’ titled ‘Quick-Loading Kills Strategy Games‘.  Detailing the practice of using save games and constant re-loads to overcome obstacles found in many strategy games, Zacny states that not onlyContinue Reading

In my previous post examining religious elements in Minecraft, I looked at the presence of pilgrimage in the Minecraft Middle Earth project.  Today I want to continue this line of thought and now look at video game recreations utilizing the Minecraft game system and how these recreations take on characteristicsContinue Reading

Before beginning, I ask a moment of your time to view the short video below: For anyone who played the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), the above depiction should be instantly recognizable as the very popular boxing game, ‘Punch-Out!!’.  What might not be so obvious, at least until the videoContinue Reading