Activision – Page 2 – Obsolete Gamer

“I would have never predicted the classic gaming movement where people continue to play their favorite games 30 years later and who bring in a new generation by exposing their kids to the classics,” he stated. “Sure, we tweaked the games to a fine point and we felt those games were the best games on the market at the time, but it still surprises me when classic gaming enthusiasts tell me that for pure game play, modern games fail to live up to the standards we set back in the day.”

Blog

Patrick Scott Patterson

The Classic Gaming Birthday Round Up

Capcom introduced this one-on-one fighter to arcades on August 30, 1987 in two different cabinet styles. The first featured two pressure sensitive “punch” pads while another marked what would be the first-ever six button layout on a fighting game. While the original Street Fighter was only a modest success, the impact of the game on video game history cannot be fully stated in a short article. Street Fighter II, first introduced in 1991, became the biggest arcade hit since Pac-Man and spawned an entire generation of fighting games. Today, the Street Fighter franchise is one of the most competitive scenes in all of professional video gaming.

Mobile Games

J.A. Laraque

Activision Classic Anthology available now for mobile devices

Experience the best retro classic games from the 2600 era with the all-new Activision Anthology App for tablets and smartphones! Available for the first time on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android devices, gamers can play the original games that started it all. Activision Anthology gives gamers KABOOM!™ for FREE and access to 45 Activision and Imagic games including: PITFALL!™, RIVER RAID™, THE ACTIVISION® DECATHLON, BARNSTORMING™, STAMPEDE™, PITFALL II, ENDURO™, DEMON ATTACK, and many more!

Sega Master System

Simon Lethbridge

Bomber Raid

As much affection as I have for the Master System, it didn’t really fare too well anywhere except Europe (and Brazil), and its paltry but loyal core of proud and loyal owners were enveloped by the congealing mass of NES owners in Japan and the US. A testament to its failure in the two most important markets is the fact that this very game represented the final official release for the console in Japan, and at a time when the system was only just becoming established here in the UK! Bomber Raid was released exclusively on the Master System too so there’s a good chance a lot of American and Japanese gamers missed out on it altogether, but did they miss much? And perhaps more importantly, was it a fitting farewell for the lovely little console in its native territory?

Atari 2600

Matt McKee

Freeway

Overall, I like the game. The graphics are nice and colorful. The bright, yellow chicken moves its little feet quickly across the road. I say “little”, but it’s about 5 foot long. I like to pretend it’s escaping from KFC ‘s Double Down assembly line. The many cars look different, with unique shapes and sizes. A neat little animation of the chicken getting knocked backwards is a nice touch.

Interviews

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

The Interview: Dr Peter Favaro

Well, Alter Ego was to be followed by a game called Child’s Play -a humorous simulation about raising children, but Activision fell on financial hard times and had to be scrapped. The project manager was someone named Brenda Laurel, whom everyone first referred to as “The Lizard Queen” in the early days of the Internet. Since then I have had some game ideas. One is finally coming to fruition. It’s Internet based and code named K-OS.

Classic Windows Games Computer Games

Dan Epp

Zork: Grand Inquisitor

Zork: Grand Inquisitor received good reviews (PC Gamer Magazine gave it an Editor’s Choice award and scored it at 88% in its May, 1988 issue, while GameSpot scored it as a 8.0 “Great”). The biggest fault that reviewers agreed upon was that it seemed too short, and a longer visit in this archetypical gamer universe was wished for. Now that’s a complaint any developer would like to hear! It was released for both Windowsand Macintosh platforms, and played the same on either one. Also, a DVD version was released in 1998, which also included the full version of Zork: Nemesis as an added bonus.

Classic Windows Games Computer Games

Dan Epp

Zork

Who could forget Zork’s opening: “You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.” The text-based parser would respond to your directions, such as “Open mailbox” or even just “open”. Actually, the parser was quite advanced for the genre, as it was able to handle conjunctions and prepositions, such as “open the mailbox and read the leaflet,” and had a wide array of verbs and nouns that it recognized. Of course, if you tried a command that it didn’t know, the parser would just respond with, “I don’t understand that” or a pre-programmed witty response if you tried something the programmers anticipated you would, like typing in “jump” and getting “Wheeee!!!” as a response. For fun, type in any of the following: zork, win, repent, yell, and see what the parser says back.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

Find Makarov: Operation Kingfish

“Find Makarov: Operation Kingfish” is the seven-minute sequel to the fan-made, original film, Find Makarov. The real life movie reveals a key moment in Modern Warfare history as Soap recalls one of his most memorable Task Force 141 missions. For more information visit findmakarov.com.

Atari 2600

Matt McKee

Keystone Kapers

You can earn a “Billy Club” patch with 35,000 points. Back in the day, you were able to take a photograph of your TV screen, send it toActivision, and they would send you an “achievement” patch for a job well done. Points are earned by time left on the clock after capture, and the occasional bag of money picked up while running. Overall, a very fun game. The officer and convict look cool, and the animation of him running with the billy club is funny.

ColecoVision

Matt McKee

Zenji

At first glance, Zenji seemed to be a simple ‘kiddie’ game, with easy gameplay and cutesy graphics and background music. Then as I played more, I realized it was much more than that.
The screen is filled with yellow and blue hexagons, within them are white pathways. You are a rolling white ball with a smiley face (don’t ask me why). As you roll on the paths from hex to hex, you can rotate the hexes 90 degrees at a time, turning the pathways green and eventually connecting them to make one continuous path. After completion of the pathway, you’ll move on to another level, larger with more dangerous hazards.

Editorials

Glen McNamee

The Whine List

When Valve announced a sequel to the best-selling Left 4 Dead, you would imagine that the fans would be ecstatic. But no, a developer once renowned for being slow was putting out a sequel too quickly, and worst of all was the perception it would be “abandoning” the original and plans to release new content for it. Signing a virtual petition against Left 4 Dead 2 was a daft idea. But the campaign hit new lows when two leading objectors were given the chance to see the game at Valve’s headquarters – suddenly the two in question were “traitors” and Valve was brainwashing them into liking the game.

Editorials

Cyrus Foroughi

Could Blizzard’s Next MMO Titan really be a Halo MMO?

Taken one at a time, these are just mere coincidences. However, combine them all and you have a legitimate conspiracy on your hands! So? Are all of these mere coincidences? Is Blizzard planting these seeds to troll everyone? Or maybe, just maybe, the secret is out and Blizzard’s new MMO is a Halo MMO! All I know is, what my insider friend told me matches all the conspiracies listed and goes hand in hand with a potential Halo MMO. For now, only those in Activision-Blizzard (and maybe Bungie) know the truth, but we are free to speculate.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

Classic Sierra PC Game site will return

With Activision owning the rights to the Sierra, titles and their wanting the option to see App store versions of the popular games in the future, Sarien.net received a cease-and-desist letter from Activision’s lawyers.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

Black Ops Bugs and the action taken by Gamers’ Voice

Gamers’ Voice accepts that bugs do slip through the net as it’s impossible for developers to find every single bug. We do not accept however allowing entire sections of the PS3 and PC gaming community appearing to be used as game testers for an extended period after a game’s release, yet being asked to pay for the privilege. This is not a tenable way to treat consumers of video games.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

GOG unleashes several classic titles from Activision

The classic gaming gurus over at Good old Games have added a number of awesome Activision titles to their line-up with more coming in the next few weeks.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

GAMES COMING OUT FOR CONSOLES: NOV 9TH 2010

On other missions you have the run and gun that Call of Duty is known for, repelling from Helicopters in a hot zone and calling in airstrikes on buildings just across from your position is a staple. Sure, the fighting might not be realistic, but when you breach a building and see the slow motion camera kick in before firing an explosive arrow into the gut of the bad guys you we be glad realism was checked at the door.