By Вen Li
Q*bert is like Speed: They only got it right in its first incarnation. Having fortunately played the upright, LCD, PC and Atari (shudder) versions of the original Q*bert, nothing quite tops frobbing the joystick on an upright to get the orange tube-nosed thing onto a Flying Disk, away from the vicious Coily and his friends.… Continue reading Q*bert (1982)
By Вen Li
Though not the first video game, Pacman (originally named Puck-man, though renamed to discourage obscene graffiti) is the definitive video game in both popular and gaming culture. In movies and on television, Pacman is called upon to be any video game the producers desire, and deservedly so. The story of a little yellow head roaming… Continue reading Pacman (1980)
By Robbie White
Released in arcades in 1970, Asteroids was Atari’s answer to Space Invaders. They must have done something right because Asteroids went on to become Atari’s all-time best seller. Asteroids took the “high score” idea and went a step further, allowing players to enter their initials when they achieved a high enough score. Asteroids was also… Continue reading Asteroids (1979)
I graduate in a month and a half, and I have a plan. Nineteen inches of monitor, an über-video card, latest motherboard, 10-button joystick with throttle and kickback and a host of the latest first person shooters and space fighter sims. It’s a recipe for the greatest of self-imposed exile, and for the first time… Continue reading A last crusade for gaming
By John Leung
Last week, myself (along with some members of the Political Science Association) were fortuitous enough to have had the chance to billet a bunch of university students from Leiden in the Netherlands. In speaking with the Dutch students, I noticed something very fundamentally different between their European attitudes and our increasingly American attitudes.On the day… Continue reading PSA perspectives
Let’s say everyone at the University of Calgary is on a hockey team. In theory, we win as a team and lose as a team. Now, what would we do if we looked sluggish compared to the other teams, failed to show improvement, and cost more than we did last year for the same results?Two… Continue reading Sports and Maclean’s
As we approached the head coach of the women’s basketball team this week, she produced, two shiny, shimmering, satin, crimson coloured lanyards out of her bag. Although they are lovely, we have decided not to accept the bribe and write this story anyways. After an undefeated tournament two weeks ago, the Dinos played two sub-par… Continue reading Imposters lose as Dinos
By Вen Li
Seven falling blocks changed the world forever when Alexy Pajitnov introduced his masterpiece game in Soviet Russia. Genetic Engineering, the first version of the game, required players to move tetramino–pieces made of four connected squares each–around to form shapes. Soon after, in 1984-85, Pajitnov implemented the familiar falling-pieces incarnation of the game on the Electronica… Continue reading The joy of falling blocks
By Jeff Kubik
It’s full of games… We’re gamers, and for the better part of our lives, we’ve sacrificed blood, sweat and other fluids for these games. Though it’s gratifying to see it all on page, there are still so many things we just didn’t have the space to print. Final Fantasy, DragonQuest–they’re names so etched in our… Continue reading Classic Gaming Supplement Introduction
By Sarah Nya Laakkuluk Jessen Williamson
My name is Sarah Nya Laakkuluk Jessen Williamson. It is long, but each part has its own story. I’m an Inuk with Greenlandic and English ancestry. Stories make my world go ’round.I s’pose when most people hear “oral culture” they think of creation stories and the like. What’s more, “Inuit” are people who somehow survive… Continue reading Aboriginal oral tradition