The gameplay of Resident Evil 5 is similar to that of the previous installment, though it is the first in the series designed for two-player cooperative gameplay. It has also been considered the first game in the main series to depart from the survival horror genre, with critics saying it bore more resemblance to an action game. Motion capture was used for the cutscenes, and it was the first video game to use a virtual camera system. Several staff members from the original Resident Evil worked on Resident Evil 5. The Windows version was developed by Mercenary Technology.
Resident Evil 5 received a positive reception, despite some criticism for its control scheme. The game received divided opinions on whether aspects of it were racist; an investigation by the British Board of Film Classification found the complaints were unsubstantiated. It is the best-selling game of the Resident Evil franchise when not including remakes, and the original version remained the best-selling individual Capcom release until March 2018, when it was outsold by Monster Hunter: World. A sequel, Resident Evil 6, was released in 2012. (Full article...)
The original Paper Mario began as a sequel to Super Mario RPG (1996), developed by Square for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Changes in development resulted in the game becoming a standalone game titled Mario Story in Japan. Although the early games in the series were well-received, Kensuke Tanabe wanted each one to have different genre and core gameplay elements. This led the series to slowly move genres from role-playing to action-adventure, though some role-playing elements are still present later in the series.
The first two games in the series, Paper Mario and The Thousand-Year Door, received critical acclaim, and were praised for their story, characters, and unique gameplay. When Paper Mario: Sticker Star was released in 2012, the series began to receive many complaints about its change in genre, removal of original fictional races, and less unique character designs, but continued to garner praise for its writing, characters, music, and enhanced paper-inspired visuals. Super Paper Mario is the best-selling game in the series, with 4.3 million sales as of 2019. The series has collectively sold 12.54 million copies. (Full article...)
Underground is built upon the skateboarding formula of previous Tony Hawk's games: the player explores levels and completes goals while performing tricks. It features a new focus on customization; the player, instead of selecting a professional skater, creates a custom character. Underground adds the ability for players to dismount their boards and explore on foot. The plot follows the player character and their friend Eric Sparrow as the two become professionals and grow apart.
Underground was developed with a theme of individuality which was manifested in the extensive character customization options, the presence of a narrative, and the product's characterization as an adventure game. Real world professional skateboarders contributed their experiences to the plot. Underground was a major critical and commercial success, with reviewers praising its wide appeal, soundtrack, customization, multiplayer, and storyline. The graphics and the controls for driving vehicles and walking were less well received. Underground's PlayStation 2 version had sold 2.11 million copies in the United States by December 2007. A sequel, Tony Hawk's Underground 2, followed in 2004. (Full article...)
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Diary of a Camper is an American short film released in October 1996 that was made using id Software's first-person shootervideo gameQuake. The film was created by the Rangers, a clan or group of video game players, and first released over the Internet as a non-interactive game demo file. The minute and a half-long video is commonly considered the first example of machinima—the art of using real-time, virtual 3D environments, often game engines, to create animated films. The story centers on five members of the Rangers clan fighting against a lone camper in a multiplayerdeathmatch.
Machinima had its roots in the demoscene of the 1980s, helping to inspire the demo recording modes of the video games Doom and Quake. Although players had previously recorded segments of gameplay, these were usually deathmatches or speedruns. Diary of a Camper was the first demo to contain a narrative with text-based dialogue, instead of merely showing gameplay. Commentators have called Diary of a Camper primitive, but acknowledge its importance in establishing video games as a medium for filmmaking; the film inspired machinima filmmakers and spurred more complex machinima works in Quake and other games. (Full article...)
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Super Mario World, known in Japan as Super Mario World: Super Mario Bros. 4, is a 1990 platform game developed by Nintendo EAD and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). The player controls Mario on his quest to save Princess Peach and Dinosaur Land from the series' antagonist Bowser and the Koopalings. The gameplay is similar to that of earlier Super Mario games; players control Mario through a series of levels in which the goal is to reach the goalpost at the end. Super Mario World introduces Yoshi, a ridable dinosaur who can eat enemies and spit some of them out as projectiles.
Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development developed the game, led by director Takashi Tezuka and producer and series creator Shigeru Miyamoto. It is the first Mario game for the SNES and was designed to make the most of the console's technical features. The development team had more freedom compared to the series installments for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Yoshi was conceptualised during the development of the NES games but was not used until Super Mario World due to hardware limitations.
Aquaria is a side-scrollingaction-adventure game designed by Alec Holowka and Derek Yu, who published the game in 2007 as an independent game company Bit Blot. The game follows Naija, an aquatic humanoid woman, as she explores the underwater world of Aquaria. Along her journey, she learns about the history of the world she inhabits as well as her own past. The gameplay focuses on a combination of swimming, singing, and combat, through which Naija can interact with the world. Her songs can move items, affect plants and animals, and change her physical appearance into other forms that have different abilities, like firing projectiles at hostile creatures, or passing through barriers inaccessible to her in her natural form.
After more than two years of development, the game was released in late 2007 for Windows. A port of the game to Mac OS X was released in 2008 by Ambrosia Software, and an updated version of the game was released on the Steam service that same year. A Linux version of the game was released as part of the first Humble Indie Bundle collection in 2010, a version for the iPad was released in 2011, and an Android version debuted in 2013 alongside another Humble Bundle collection. In 2009, an album with the Aquaria soundtrack was released. It includes all of the music in the game, as well as a new nine-minute vocal track and a few remixes.
Reviews of the game were generally positive. Critics focused primarily on the visuals, music, and atmosphere as being particularly praiseworthy. The controls and gameplay were also lauded, while negative critiques more often centered on the map system and limited variety of objectives. The game won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival in March 2007. (Full article...)
Starting his online career in 2007, Amofah created his main YouTube channel, "EWNetwork" (Etika World Network), in 2012. His fanbase was dubbed the "JOYCONBOYZ" in reference to the Nintendo Switch controller, the Joy-Con. He garnered popularity following the release of Super Smash Bros. 4, primarily stemming from his reaction videos of news surrounding the game. His content consisted of playthroughs of various video games, reaction videos, and pre-recorded material. Across his multiple YouTube channels, he amassed over 1 million subscribers and 146 million views.
Between October 2018 and May 2019, Amofah demonstrated signs of mental distress, threatening to commit suicide on multiple occasions, and was hospitalized several times. During this period, Amofah uploaded pornography to the EWNetwork channel, resulting in its termination; he then posted statements on social media alluding to suicide. After apologizing, Amofah created another channel, "EtikaFRFX", which was terminated for identical reasons. He proceeded to display erratic behavior publicly, including posting cryptic messages online and streaming himself being detained by the police. (Full article...)
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Rare Replay is a 2015 compilation of 30 video games from the 30-year history of developers Rare and its predecessor, Ultimate Play the Game. The emulated games span multiple genres and consoles—from the ZX Spectrum in 1983 to the Xbox 360 in 2008—and retain the features and errors of their original releases with minimal edits. The compilation adds cheats to make the older games easier and a Snapshots mode of specific challenges culled from parts of the games. Player progress is rewarded with behind-the-scenes footage and interviews about Rare's major and unreleased games.
The compilation was one of several ideas Rare considered to celebrate its 30th anniversary. Inspired by fans, upcoming Xbox Onebackward compatibility features, and a desire to link Rare's past and future, the company sorted through 120 games to choose those that best represented its oeuvre. It prioritized games with characters and environments original to the company. Rare incorporated four hardware emulators in the package, and worked with its parent company, Microsoft, to use its then-unannounced Xbox 360 emulation. Rare Replay released worldwide as an Xbox One exclusive on August 4, 2015.
Rare Replay's reviews were generally favorable. Critics appreciated the package's design and craft and called the release a new pinnacle for compilation releases. They commended its "rewind" and Snapshot features, but criticized technical issues in the Xbox 360 emulation and game installation. Among its games, reviewers preferred Rare's Nintendo 64 games, especially Blast Corps, and disliked Perfect Dark Zero, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, and the Spectrum games. Some outlets lamented the absence, due to licensing issues, of the Donkey Kong Country series and GoldenEye 007, while others thought the package was fine without them. Critics deemed the archival game content and developer interviews as among the compilation's best features, but were upset to see the content hidden behind time-consuming in-game challenges. Rare Replay became Rare's first United Kingdom all-formats charts bestseller since Banjo-Kazooie in 1998. (Full article...)
Betrayal is the only installment in the series to originally be released on a non-PlayStation platform and presented as a two-dimensional (2D) side-scrolling game. Despite the limitations of the mobile platform, in comparison to its home console counterparts, it retains the action-oriented approach of its predecessors, with the same combination of combo-based combat, platforming, and puzzle game elements. Although God of War is primarily a home console series, Betrayal was praised for its fidelity to the series in terms of gameplay, art style, and graphics: "the real deal third game in the killer franchise". It received awards for "Wireless Game of the Month" (June 2007) and "Best Platform Game" (wireless) of 2007. (Full article...)
... that the video game Manor Lords was wishlisted more than three million times on Steam after its developer had estimated it would receive around 14,000?
... that the video game mode Ultimate Team has been criticized for its reliance on loot box packs, considered to be a controversial form of gambling?
... that fighting video game Panza Kick Boxing was endorsed by a French kickboxing champion who also supplied technical advice?
... that the 1987 video game Oriental Hero was panned as "so incredibly bad it's almost worth a look"?
... that Elena from the video game series Street Fighter uses a capoeira fighting style, for which the development team used travel videos as reference material as they had no experience with the style?
... that Rockstar Vienna was the largest video game developer in Austria when it closed in 2006?
... that the team developing the action video game Knights Contract researched European folklore on witches and witch hunts?
... that, near the ending of the 2005 interactive storytelling video game Façade, two characters portrayed through AI chatbots ask the player for relationship advice?
Hironobu Sakaguchi (坂口 博信, Sakaguchi Hironobu; born November 25, 1962) is a Japanese game designer, director, producer, and writer. Originally working for Square (later Square Enix) from 1983 to 2003, he departed the company and founded independent studio Mistwalker in 2004. He is known as the creator of the Final Fantasy franchise, in addition to other titles during his time at Square. At Mistwalker, he is known for creating the Blue Dragon and Terra Battle series among several standalone titles, moving away from home consoles and creating titles for mobile platforms.
Originally intending to become a musician, he briefly studied electronics and programming, joining Square as a part-time employee, then later a full-time employee when Square became an independent company in 1986. He led the development of several titles before helping to create the original Final Fantasy, which proved highly successful and cemented his status within the company. Following the financial failure of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, his debut as a film director, Sakaguchi withdrew from Square's management and eventually resigned in 2003. He continued his game career through Mistwalker, first co-developing projects through external partners and then smaller in-studio mobile projects. (Full article...)
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Jun Maeda (麻枝 准, Maeda Jun; born January 3, 1975) is a Japanese writer and composer. He is a co-founder of the visual novel brand Key under Visual Arts. He is considered a pioneer of nakige visual novels, and has mainly contributed as a scenario writer, lyricist, and musical composer for the games the company produces.
After graduating with a degree in psychology from Chukyo University, Maeda contributed to the scripts and scores of games released under the Tactics brand of Nexton: Moon and One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e. He has contributed both to writing music and scripts to most games released under the Key brand, notably writing the majority of Air and Clannad. He also served as a screenwriter and composer for several anime series produced by P.A. Works, such as Angel Beats! and Charlotte. (Full article...)
Garriott, who is the son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, was originally a game designer and programmer, and is now involved in a number of aspects of computer-game development. On October 12, 2008, Garriott flew aboard the Soyuz TMA-13 mission to the International Space Station as a private astronaut, returning 12 days later aboard Soyuz TMA-12. He became the second space traveler, and first from the United States, to have a parent who was also a space traveler. During his ISS flight, he filmed a science fiction movie Apogee of Fear. (Full article...)
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Fischbach in 2018
Mark Edward Fischbach (/ˈfɪʃˌbɑːk/FISH-bahk; born June 28, 1989), known online as Markiplier, is an American YouTuber, filmmaker, and actor. One of the most popular YouTubers on the platform, he is known for his "Let's Play" videos of indiehorror games. He was listed by Forbes as the third-highest-paid content creator on the platform in 2022, and has won four Streamy Awards and a Golden Joystick Award. He has spun off his YouTube fame into a media career, venturing into acting and filmmaking.
After joining YouTube in 2012, Fischbach became popular on the platform with Let's Plays of Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010) and the Five Nights at Freddy's series; as of 2024, his channel had over 37 million subscribers. He signed with talent agency William Morris Endeavor in 2016. While with the agency, he released a clothing line, wrote and directed the YouTube Original series A Heist with Markiplier (2019) and In Space with Markiplier (2022), and hosted or co-hosted two podcasts which reached No. 1 on Spotify. (Full article...)
He became an employee of Square in 1994 after several years of private composition studies. After finishing the soundtrack to Secret of Evermore in 1995, he left to join Humongous Entertainment, where he composed for several children's games as well as Total Annihilation, his first award-winning score. In 2000, he left to form his own music production company, Soule Media, later called Artistry Entertainment. In 2005, he founded DirectSong, a record label that published digital versions of his soundtracks as well as those of classical composers. DirectSong remained active until 2019. (Full article...)
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Daigo Umehara in 2018
Daigo Umehara (Japanese: 梅原 大吾, Hepburn: Umehara Daigo; born 19 May 1981) is a Japanese esports player and author who competes competitively at fightingvideo games. He specializes in 2D arcade fighting games, mainly those released by Capcom. Known as "Daigo" or "The Beast" in the West and "Umehara" (ウメハラ; written in katakana instead of kanji) or "Ume" in Japan, Daigo is one of the world's most famous Street Fighter players and is often considered its greatest. His longevity is seen as an incredibly rare thing in the world of competitive video games. He currently holds a world record of "the most successful player in major tournaments of Street Fighter" in the Guinness World Records and is a six time Evo Championship Series winner.
Before properly being called a pro gamer from signing a sponsorship deal with Mad Catz, Japanese media usually referred to Daigo as "the god of 2D fighting games" (2D格闘ゲームの神, 2D Kakutō Gēmu no Kami). (Full article...)
Following disputes with Carmack, Romero was fired from id in 1996. He co-founded a new studio, Ion Storm, and directed the FPS Daikatana (2000), which was a critical and commercial failure. Romero departed Ion Storm in 2001. In July 2001, he and another former id employee, Tom Hall, founded Monkeystone Games to develop games for mobile devices. (Full article...)
A fan of arcade games in his youth, Tajiri wrote for and edited his own video gaming fanzineGame Freak with Ken Sugimori, before evolving it into a development company of the same name. Tajiri claims that the joining of two Game Boys via a link cable inspired him to create a game which embodied the collection and companionship of his childhood hobby, insect collecting. The game, which became Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green, took six years to complete and went on to spark a multibillion-dollar franchise which reinvigorated Nintendo's handheld gaming scene. Tajiri continued to work as director for the Pokémon series until the development of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, when he changed his role to executive producer, which he holds to this day. (Full article...)
Satoru Iwata (Japanese: 岩田 聡; December6, 1959 – July11, 2015) was a Japanese businessman, video game programmer and producer. Beginning in 2002, he was the fourth president of Nintendo, as well as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Nintendo of America from 2013 until his death in 2015. Iwata was a major contributor in broadening the appeal of video games by focusing on novel and entertaining games rather than top-of-the-line hardware.
Born in Sapporo, Iwata expressed interest in video games from an early age and created his first simple game while in high school. He majored in computer science at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 1980, he joined the game developer HAL Laboratory while attending the university. At HAL, he worked as a programmer and closely collaborated with Nintendo, producing his first commercial game in 1983. Games to which he contributed include EarthBound and many games in the Kirby series. Following a downturn and near-bankruptcy, Iwata became the president of HAL in 1993 at the insistence of Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi and brought financial stability. In the following years, he worked in the development of the Pokémon and Super Smash Bros. series. Iwata joined Nintendo as the head of its corporate planning division in 2000. (Full article...)
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Thompson in 2007
John Bruce Thompson (born July 25, 1951) is an American activist and disbarred attorney. As an attorney, Thompson focused his legal efforts against what he perceives as obscenity in modern culture. Thompson gained recognition as an anti-video game activist, criticizing the content of video games and their alleged effects on children. He also targeted rap music and radio personality Howard Stern.
Thompson's legal career was further recognized for his actions against the Florida Bar, including challenging its constitutionality in 1993. In 2008, he was permanently disbarred by the Supreme Court of Florida for inappropriate conduct, including making false statements to tribunals and disparaging and humiliating litigants. (Full article...)
Toriyama first achieved mainstream recognition for creating the manga series Dr. Slump, for which he earned the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen/shōjo. Dr. Slump went on to sell over 35 million copies in Japan. It was adapted into an anime, with a second series created in 1997, 13 years after the manga ended. (Full article...)
William James Mitchell Jr. (born July 16, 1965) is an American video game player. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he was recognized for numerous records on classic video games before disputes arose over their legitimacy beginning in 2018. Mitchell has also appeared in several documentaries on competitive gaming and retrogaming.
Sierra was acquired by CUC International in 1996, leading to layoffs and management changes. Williams took a brief sabbatical, and returned to the company in a game design role, but grew increasingly frustrated with CUC's creative and business decisions. After the release of King's Quest: Mask of Eternity in 1998, she left the game industry in 1999 and focused her retirement on traveling and writing historical fiction. In 2021 she released her historical novel, Farewell to Tara. Soon after, she returned to game development with the 3D remake of the classic adventure game Colossal Cave Adventure, released in January 2023 as Colossal Cave. (Full article...)
Michael Morhaime (born November 3, 1967) is an American video game developer and entrepreneur. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) and founder of Dreamhaven, located in Irvine, California. Morhaime is best known as the co-founder and the former president of Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc., that was founded in 1991 as Silicon & Synapse. He served on the Vivendi Games executive committee from January 1999, when Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. became a subsidiary of Vivendi Games, until July 2008. (Full article...)
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Bushnell in 2013
Nolan Kay Bushnell (born February 5, 1943) is an American businessman and electrical engineer. He established Atari, Inc. and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre chain. He has been inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame and the Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame, received the BAFTA Fellowship and the Nations Restaurant News "Innovator of the Year" award, and was named one of Newsweek's "50 Men Who Changed America". He has started more than 20 companies and is one of the founding fathers of the video game industry. He is on the board of Anti-Aging Games. In 2012, he founded an educational software company called Brainrush, that is using video game technology in educational software.
He is credited with Bushnell's Law, an aphorism about games that are "easy to learn and difficult to master" being rewarding. (Full article...)
Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg (born 24 October 1989), better known as PewDiePie, is a Swedish YouTuber, best known for his gaming videos. Kjellberg's popularity on YouTube and extensive media coverage have made him one of the most noted online personalities and content creators. Media coverage of him has cited him as a figurehead for YouTube, especially in the gaming genre.
Born and raised in Gothenburg, Kjellberg registered his YouTube channel "PewDiePie" in 2010, primarily posting Let's Play videos of horror and action video games. His channel gained a substantial following and was one of the fastest growing channels in 2012 and 2013, before becoming the most-subscribed on YouTube on 15 August 2013. From 29 December 2014 to 14 February 2017, Kjellberg's channel was also the most-viewed on the platform. During this period, his content shifted focus from Let's Plays and diversified to include vlogs, comedy shorts, formatted shows, and music videos. (Full article...)
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Steve Ritchie speaks during the Atari panel at California Extreme 2009
Steven Scott Ritchie (born February 13, 1950) is an American pinball and video game designer. His career began in the 1970s. Ritchie holds the record for best-selling pinball designer in history. He has been called "The Master of Flow" due to the emphasis in his designs on ball speed, loops, and long smooth shots. Ritchie was also the original voice of Shao Kahn in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series, serving as the announcer of Mortal Kombat II (1993), Mortal Kombat 3 (1995), and the updates to Mortal Kombat 3. He is the older brother of fellow pinball designer Mark Ritchie. (Full article...)