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[img width=480 height=520]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/Game-Boy-FL.jpg/800px-Game-Boy-FL.jpg[/img]
While not the first portable gaming systems, Nintendo's Game Boy was one of the first to reach massive audiences. It's library consists of hundreds of games, many of which are quick, simplistic but fun experiences designed both around the system's limitations and its purpose of gaming on the go.
So it's interesting that for this Top 20, there were several games that came in as "must owns" as out of 7 voters, four games made every voter's list, and eight made at least five lists.
And yet, the final results also showed the variety of the Game Boy, as only 14 games were on three or more lists.
Continue reading RFGen Top 20 Games- Game Boy Edition
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*pic from Vintagegaming.com*
Nostalgia can be a tricky beast. We all have warm, fuzzy feelings about one thing, or another, from our childhood. A favorite toy, a cartoon we watched after school, or on Saturday mornings; perhaps even a place we used to play. Many of us have a lot of fond memories of video games we played, whether with family and friends, or even solo gaming sessions, totally engrossed in whatever electronic entertainment happened to be captivating us at that time in our lives. But what about a system, and its launch games? Most of us would say, with a few exceptions, that launch titles are quite often weaker than most of the library. I would argue, nostalgia aside, that at least a portion of the Game Boy library transcends that trend. Let's examine the launch lineup, 30 years after the fact, and see if that theory holds water.
Continue reading Reflecting On The Game Boy Launch - 30 Years Later
[img width=550 height=760]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-132/bf/U-132-S-05320-A.jpg[/img]
From the beginning, the conceptual design behind many if not the majority of video games involves some form of simulation. The original sports game of Tennis for Two and Pong led to our annual Madden and FIFA releases, each reflecting some abstract interpretation of an "IRL" game. It is this facet of virtual gameplay that brought some critics to declare games like Battlezone and Death Race as kid-targeted military training and violent "murder simulators" long before yellow-pajama-wearing ninjas were permanently curing back pain exclusively on Sega consoles.
Continue reading Simulating Simulations
[img width=550 height=690]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-016/bf/U-016-S-05640-A.jpg[/img]
This game taught me far more than urban planning.
When I first played Sim City, I wasn't much older than my first-born is now. I was an even more genre-blind gamer back then, playing anything I came across. The concept of a city-builder wasn't the most immediately appealing game concept to my pre-teen mind. Still, I'd already played through text-based adventures, CRPGs, dungeon-crawlers, and other complex time sinks, so it wasn't an intimidating idea. It was a video game and therefore by definition I'd give it a shot.
I will always remember it as the game that taught me a self-awareness of my addictive personality.
Continue reading Discussing Respective Gaming Philosophies With My Eleven Year Old
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Pic from advancehappynewyear2017.com
For many of us, to say the year 2016 has been difficult would be an understatement on par with mentioning the N-Gage never quite surpassed the Game Boy Advance. It seems everyone I know had a tough year for several reasons, and I spent quite a bit of it with family members in hospitals or medical appointments. Many good things happened, but it seemed every week the idea of a return to some 'normal' got pushed further and further out. I think I see some disadvantages to this whole 'being the adult' thing that never got spelled out alongside the whole cookies-and-bedtime-whenever-I-want setup. Or maybe it was spelled out and I was too busy drawing plans for my future home, complete with helipad and shopping mall in the backyard. (Was I the only kid who drew that up?)
Oh, and I guess some famous family is moving out of a nice house near Virginia and the new family moving in is making the neighbors nervous or something? We live in a strange country. And it's not even Canada! (Although I hear they have some nifty retro-stocked video game stores up there.) And apparently some Brexfast thing happened and now importing games is all confusing and/or tasty? Crazy world.
Most folks on this site likely play games to unwind, unless you play games to get mad, in which case I recommend Carrier Command for Xbox 360. For the rest of us, it's good to have our go-to games for decompression.* You know what I mean; those games you aren't necessarily playing to complete, but rather to mentally unfurl and let the stresses of the day process somewhere in the back of your mind.
Continue reading On Video Games as a Processing Tool During Tough Times
[img width=315 height=320]http://img.gamefaqs.net/box/2/8/3/22283_front.jpg[/img] Image shamelessly linked from GameFAQs.
This was a game even your grandmother could love.
Every video game console has at least one game that defines it. One title that, above any other, people associate with it. For modern consoles, it's often a launch title that soars above the rest in quality, or a later game that is exclusive to that system. Usually, it's a great game that is universally hailed as something special. For early consoles, that game often happened to be the pack-in title, i.e. the game that came with the system when you bought it. In the case of the Game Boy, that game was Tetris.
Continue reading Tetris, 1989
 25 years ago, on June 6, 1984, the US was in the height of the Cold War with Russia and a Russian by the name of Alexey Pajitnov completed the first version of a time-sucking weapon known as Tetris, arguably the most successful puzzle game of all-time, and one of the best video games ever created.
Almost everything that can play games has received a version of Tetris: ranging from common systems like the NES, Game Boy, and Nintendo DS, to more obscure systems such as the Nuon and Virtual Boy. Of course, there are many ports to devices not normally intended for gaming, such as TI-83 calculators (Ztris got me through so many boring study hall sessions in high school) and just about every cell phone ever made (EA's iPhone version of Tetris is one of the best selling games in the Apple App Store).
So, I ask everyone, to spend some time today and celebrate the legacy of Tetris by playing a few rounds. Whether you play it on your NES, iPhone, or simply in your browser, just play it and remember why it's one of the greatest games ever.
Leave some of your memories of Tetris in the comments. Did it suck up your life? Do you remember playing it when it first came out? Do you think it sucks? Let us know!
In closing, here's a little tribute song to Tetris:
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