Sonic the Hedgehog is the MC Hammer of gaming. In the mid-1990s, the blazing blue hedgehog blasted onto the scene and dared Mario to keep up. After fumbling for years, Sega finally captured lightning in a bottle, producing a star character they could send toe-to-toe with Mario and crafting a game that measured up to…

A few weeks back, I reviewed Alpha Protocol, which marked developer Obsidian’s venture into new IP after a successful career of stepping into other RPG franchises to deliver sophomore efforts. There seems to be a few developers out there who have mined that niche, and while Obsidian might be the go-to developer for RPG sequels,…

Over the last several years, veteran game developer Obsidian has built a strange niche for itself – becoming the go-to developer for the sequels to popular role playing games. In the past, they’ve pinch hit in the Dungeons & Dragons realm with Neverwinter Nights II, picked up BioWare’s baton for the Knights of the Old…

If ever there was a video game console crying out for the E! True Hollywood Story treatment, it’s arguably the Sega Dreamcast. Released in 1999 – poised to get the next-gen jump on the successor systems from Sony and Nintendo – the Dreamcast burned brightly before flaming out in unspectacular fashion. Boasting a launch day…

Adventure gamers who thought their treasures were lost to the ether of time owe Telltale Games a heaping helping of praise. During the last six years or so, the developer has resurrected many beloved properties that vexed our membranes way back in the mid-1990s, with rock stars such as Guybrush Threepwood and, of course, Sam…

As a child of the Eighties, one who saw the world move on from tabletop entertainment to games we could play on our big screens, I feel I have a decent enough vantage point to declare: Board Games Are Dead! Well, maybe not buried, but certainly a niche product pulled out purely for parties and…

YouTube was seemingly invented for times like these. With so many music-rhythm games on the market, it’s inevitable that grown game critics like myself are going to find their aspirations toward higher office dashed when leaked footage of our best Taylor Swift imitation goes viral. That said, there is a huge market for these karaoke…

What hath Pokemon wrought? Ever since Nintendo’s vast menagerie of collectible critters hit the retail space, game and toy developers have worked overtime to pair collectible figures with the trading card craze. It seems everyone is looking to capitalize on the pre-teen appetite for destruction which can only be met by collecting as many critters…

You know gaming has aged nicely when a large subset of enthusiasts wax rhapsodically for the return to yesteryear. In this age of digital distribution channels, we find we can take that trip to the good old days with more frequency as developers mine the past to give niche gamers their continued fix. The last…

I remember the first time I ever laid eyes on a first-person shooter. It was in the early 1990s at University of Massachusetts/Amherst when a departing senior tossed me a diskette containing the shareware code for Doom. Somehow Wolfenstein 3D had escaped my gaze, so it was Doom that showed me the brave new world…