Warner Bros. Interactive Buys Midway.

It seems that no one else bothered to take the time to bid on it.

Mortal Kombat Vs. DC 2 a certainty now?

Then again, Warner Bros. DOES own Traveler's Tales....

I'm calling it now: LEGO: Mortal Kombat.

Who wants to take bids on this actually happening?

Good-Bye To A Legend.

While I would normally not post celebrity news in this blog, given his relationship to video games, it would almost seem a shame not to.

If you haven't read it by now, pop star Michael Jackson has passed away today. I grew up with him as so many my age did, getting into Thriller, and he was an iconic part of both the '80's, and my childhood.

Given his artistic penchant to make cinematic quality music videos, it seemed natural for him to enter the video game arena. I spent countless hours playing Moonwalker on my Genesis, and also in the arcades. There was rumored to be a sequel made, but Jackson's legal troubles of the time reportedly caused the game to never go past the idea stage. Regardless, Sega brought him back in both Space Channel 5 games, and Midway later had him do mocap for his cameo in Ready 2 Rumble Round 2. While it was never 100% confirmed, it was heavily rumored that he created a lot of the music for Sonic the Hedgehog 3. And of course, two of his songs were found in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, as the time frame of the game was setin the 1980's.

There was even a rumor just four days ago stating that The King of Pop was looking to get back into the gaming scene. Who knows if this project can or even will continue?

Jackson himself was no gaming slouch. I remember salivating over his arcade collection in that estate auction that almost took place a few months back, and apparently that wasn't everything he had, as he held some games back.

There's a lot to say on this subject. My heart goes out to his family and friends, and I hope that his legacy is ultimately remembered for his music, his dancing, his singing, his music videos, and fun projects like these. He truly was a legend.

Rest in peace, Michael Jackson.

Ghostbusters: Post-Script.

There are certain games that come along that remind you as to why you're in this hobby for the first place. For me, it's the challenge, or the option to be something that, under normal reality circumstances, I could never be. While Star Wars: The Force Unleashed brought me pretty close to realizing my Jedi dreams, I'm still waiting for that "perfect" lightsaber game.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game has helped me to realize a dream that I've had since I was 8 years old.

I normally don't do reviews here, and this isn't really one, either. But the game itself should be noted for so many things: Creative level design, excellent writing, generally solid voice acting, cleaver and substantial references to the first two films, as well as the animated series, genuine laugh out loud humor, surprisingly scary and creepy bits, and the ghost catching mechanics themselves....

They're what you hope for. They are what you want them to be, and while you would expect the novelty of catching ghosts to wear off after the first bust or two, I gleefully worked on capturing ghosts until the final end. And wanted more.

Sure there's a few minor quibbles here and there. Some lines are delivered awkwardly, there's some odd facial/body animations, and a random lapse in AI at times, but the negatives are so insubstantial to the overwhelming positives that it almost becomes a moot point. Almost.

Face it: This is the next chapter of Ghostbusters. It looks, feels and acts as such, hitting all the right notes, and providing one Hell of a ride from start to finish. When you anticipate the game, you hope for the best, you pray that you won't be disappointed, and that the developers "get it", and even if they do, will they have the creativity and means to pull it off. I grinned gleefully all the way through this, and completing the game only means another playthrough and building up my online rank on multi-player.

Even the Wii version, with it's more cartoony graphics is "cute" in a good way, and retains the other console's charm, while providing its own unique twists. It's not a "shovelware" title, by any means.

As a gamer and a Ghostbusters fan, you owe it to yourself to check this title out. It's a labor of love, and that pours through every crack like mood slime on Vigo's museum (he's here too, in a hilarious cameo appearance).

Activision royally dropped the ball on ignoring this high-quality title. In retrospect, I'm glad. I want this game to become a series, but it deserves so much more than being run into the ground like Activision enjoys doing with every once fun series.

Bustin' Makes Me Feel Good....

In a few short hours, I'll be heading out to pick up my copy of Ghostbusters, which will result in me being MIA for a few days until I get all of the giddiness out of my system.

I've been looking forward to this game more than most games released. My level of excitement for this would be comparable to Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and probably won't be matched until Beatles: Rock Band.

After Xbox Live gets the update taken care of (why on the day of this game's release? Arrgh!), I'll be forming my ghostbustin' troop and zapping ghosts while belting out sarcastic one-liners to my heart's content. The reviews have been positive, and it's moments like these that remind me as to why I enjoy this hobby so much.

Until then, it's more Left 4 Dead multiplayer with some friends of mine, and then I hop into the Ecto-1 to wrangle some supernatural glory.

Also, I will make a better effort to post future videos in a fashion that won't bleed out of my site's layout. It does suck to not be able to see what's going on the the righthand side without having to click away to the video's actual page. I'll fix it, and thanks for the feedback. My content only improves with you guys (and girls).

But back to subject, am I geeking out this post? Undoubtedly. But for this particular title, I wouldn't have it any other way.

I call "dibs" on Venkman.

Game Room.

While I don't talk a lot about my personal life here (as this blog is reserved for my gaming writings), a recent update actually does warrant an entry here.

I'm in the process of buying a house right now. My first, actually, and I am finally getting the chance to indulge in something I've always wanted to: And that's building a game room.

I'll finally have a place to store and display all of my old legacy systems and software, my gaming art (including a nice autographed photo of Kerri Hoskins from her Mortal Kombat days), my Tron arcade game, and a bunch of other related goods that have sat in storage for quite some time now. Being that I live in Las Vegas, I may even put a little bit of a casino touch in there.

It's one of those things that as a kid, you always have this dream of having an arcade of your very own, and the prospect of doing this now is pretty exciting.

One thing I am trying to decide on right now is carpet choices. While this may sound a little lame, I found a place that does arcade style carpeting. If you guys want to help influence the look of the room, take a look at the samples listed, and I am totally open to feedback.

I figure this will be an ongoing project, but I will post pictures of my "Room of Doom" as it nears completion. I have to admit that this is a project that I am really looking forward to.

What are some "must haves" for a room like this?

Also, Sony's The Last Guardian looks fantastic.

The Death Of Midway.

It doesn't get any more official than this.

I worked for Midway in the Texas office from 1995-1999. Even after I left, I kept close relations with many of my friends until my return to the San Diego branch in 2002. From there, I was off and on with the company until I finally parted ways with them in 2005.

Reading all of the news with Midway's current state saddens me. I won't mince words in saying that I saw this coming a long time ago. It prompted my initial leaving of the company before the new millennium began, and my intent to "start fresh" with the company years later definitely reminded me that the writing I once saw was still on the wall.

When I joined Midway Home Entertainment (then Williams Entertainment), Mortal Kombat 3 had just released to the arcades. Williams/Midway was no longer letting Acclaim do publishing for their titles, as they were choosing to step into that arena themselves by purchasing Tradewest. I grew up at the arcades, and was more than familiar with titles such as Defender, Joust, Robotron, and especially Mortal Kombat. Shortly after I joined the company, they bought part of Atari's library, which meant tiles like Gauntlet, Paperboy, and Marble Madness were now part of the Midway family. As a gamer, I was in heaven.

I look back on my time at the Texas office very fondly. It wasn't always perfect, but the people there were like a second family to me, and I cared about them greatly (still talk to a significant number of them, and occasionally reunite every few years). The San Diego office was another creature altogether. I knew a good number of people by my time in the Texas office, and as much as I tried to be a part of that "family", it was never truly home. Not like I had wanted it to be.

But Midway was changing. The pinball and arcade divisions were gone, and remakes/updates of their classic franchises never quite had the same spark as what made the original games so special. It was my thought that Midway was losing its identity, coupled with some management that promoted on "the buddy system" from within, and very simply, didn't understand or even know (or care) about the products that once defined them. Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks was the last title that I worked on, and it was a very competent and enjoyable brawler (even if the voice acting and attempts at "hip" humor were questionable).

My prediction that Midway had lost its way and would have to answer to that has come more true than I ever thought possible. Any hope that remained that one day Midway would pull themselves out its slump and find their place again never materialized. Did they intentionally want to run themselves into the ground at the end? It's hard to make that call. I wasn't there. But based on my own observations, it certainly didn't seem that far-fetched at the end.

The last game I bought from Midway as a consumer was Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe. While many considered the title and the mere concept of the game a parody of the series former glory, I found it to be the most "true" to the series entry since MK3. But it wasn't enough to save Midway. And there falls a large portion of my childhood/teen/young adult arcade gaming experiences, and an "old friend" that I could do little more than just sit by and watch self-destruct.

It seems the final sales of the Midway properties end July 1. Warner Bros. Interactive has intent to buy Mortal Kombat, which I hope they reboot the franchise, and can repair the mistakes the series made. The rest of the classic titles are going to be broken up and sold off to the highest bidders. Think about it: If you have enough cash on hand, you could own the publishing rights to Spy Hunter. Actually, you could own the entirety of the game lock, stock and barrel.

The most ideal situation is that some company or entity out there recognizes the forgotten value of what defined arcade gaming from the 1980's to the early 2000's, purchases the classic library, and distributes this period of gaming history with more respect. I would like to see the new Atari would purchase back all of their old namesake's titles just to reunite everything, but I'm sure that's more of a "rose-colored glasses" scenario on my part.

The bottom line is that there are games in Midway's back catalog that need and deserve to survive. Midway in its current and final form just could not exist the way it has, and it is simply too late to "reboot" the company. I just hope that when the dust settles and memory starts to dull, Midway is remembered more for its earliest contributions to the gaming industry than the sad form it ultimately devolved into.

*raises glass*

Rest in peace, old friend....

Classic Game Box Art.

Before I get into this article, I'd be remiss in not acknowledging the 25th anniversary of Tetris. So long ago.... Kind of wild to think about that.

That said, I started thinking about classic gaming, and the simple appeal of an era gone by with the advent of motion control of HD gaming. I recently eBayed a copy of The Hobbit for my Apple IIc (how's that for "old-school"?), and one of the most eye-catching things of the entire package was the game's artwork on the box.

When I think about it, one of the things I really look for these days is a game's logo when making my selection. Artwork these days are either a result of Photoshop or some computer rendering. Very few games today use traditional artwork, or photography, or certainly do not looks as "epic" in scale. A prime example would be looking at old Atari 2600 covers. They had lavish illustrations on the cover for Space Invaders or Haunted House or Adventure that bore little to no resemblance of actual gameplay. But who cared? The people running for their lives on the cover of Defender looked pretty cool.

The 1980's were know for their great cover art. With games being so simplistic back then, there had to be some sort of great hook to draw people in. Some great examples of interesting package art are from Epyx, Sir-Tech, Broderbund, Electronic Arts, Imagic, Sierra, Activision, and many, many more that I haven't even listed here. Looking at these covers, would you be compelled to play any of these titles now based off the cover art?

There have also been companies, who kept a "theme" look to their titles. Activision, Nintendo, and Square, Capcom, or Konami did this for a while. You knew exactly what game you were buying from which company based on the art style alone. Now it's more a question of seeing the system its for in big font across the cover.

The best way to see more classic gaming covers is to browse titles in MobyGames, or read classic gaming books such as High Score! The Illustrated History of Electronic Games or Supercade: A Visual History of the Videogame Age 1971-1984. Both books are full of artwork and are highly enjoyable from a visual and historical standpoint. I can recommend both titles to those who are really into the hobby.

I'd like to open this entry for discussion as I've progressively gained a following more and more these days, it seems. Do you like the older style of artwork from examples that I've presented here, or do you like how newer games presented? Are they as creative, less, or moreso? Do you even think about what the cover of a game box looks like, or are you more interested in the actual game itself and could care less? What are some of your favorite game box examples?

Feel free to open up a discussion in comments.

I Have To Post This.

I love Castlevania, but I have to admit that while I like the series, I haven't been overly wildly enthused for it like other franchises right now.

And then I saw this trailer:



Wow. I'm definitely excited. Patrick Stewart? In my Castlevania? Oh yes, please. The other voice acting is just as solid, and the music is fantastic.

A 3D Castlevania that might actually be decent. That's more frightening than the actual vampires and monsters in the game.