Judging from the comments on the article I wrote mentioning a hiatus for the Arcade Flyer Art Saturday feature, a lot of you have grown to love my little pet project. When I first started this feature over a year ago, I really wanted to put a focus on what I considered to be a highly overlooked portion of arcade history. These flyers, lovingly scanned and cataloged by Dan and friends over at TAFA are something that consumers were never really meant to see. They were meant solely for the purpose of enticing arcade owners into purchasing the games for their respective “stores” in the hopes of cashing in on the huge arcade trend of the 80s and 90s.
Sadly, the American arcade is a dying breed, relegated mostly these days to airports, truck stops and bowling alleys. There are still some good old fashioned arcades out there, but they are few and far between and soon the “arcade flyer” will cease to exist. This makes it doubly important (in my eyes anyway) to make sure that we document and remember some of these games that we may never see again outside of a MAME emulator.
Starting next year, Arcade Flyer Art Saturday will be back in a new format. One of the things I have discovered over the last year is that often there are amazing game flyers that have little to no explanation as to what the actual game is about. In an effort not to leave out some of these gems, the new AFAS articles will be a little bit shorter and more to the point, but still full of as much information on them as I can find. This way, it will be a bit easier for me to bring you some of this great art without pulling out my hair trying to find out what the enemies were in some obscure game no one remembers anymore.
So, today we take a look back at all the AFAS articles of the past year. Some were great, some were ridiculous, but they all did one important thing; they reminded us that gaming is (and was) more than just the latest console and HD game, but an industry with a rich and important history that shouldn’t be lost.
Make the jump for the full list of past flyer features.
The Tales franchise continues with the second installment of the Tales of Symphonia series. Featuring Tales’ custom “Flex Range Linear Motion Battle System” and what looks to be quite a bit of anime cutscenes, Tales of Symphonia will be a Wii exclusive. No release date for the US has been announced yet but the Japanese version is due out in Spring of 08. The video quality isn’t the best, but the in game battle scenes still look pretty great. We’ll cross our fingers for this one.
Yesterday we published our goaties for each platform and the overall game of the year. Today’s your chance to vote for the best game in each platform. Hit the jump to vote for the XBLA’s Game of the Year. We’ll be publishing polls for the rest of the categories throughout the day. On Monday we’ll tabulate the totals and use that to put up a poll for the Reader’s Choice Overall Game of the Year.
Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you’re viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.
With all the focus on SimCity and SimCity2 on the DS, it seems one of my favorite city building games is getting overlooked. Populous, the finger pointing god game is finally making it’s way onto Nintendo’s popular handheld! EA Japan already has a website up for the game that looks to have been up for quite a few months. The site is minimal and all in Japanese, but it does have some small screen shots and such tucked in there for the adventurous clicker. The splash page announces that the game will be released in Japan on Feb. 21, 2008 and something tells me the US version will not be too far behind. At least I hope…
[Thanks, Witzbold]
Yesterday we published our goaties for each platform and the overall game of the year. Today’s your chance to vote for the best game in each platform. Hit the jump to vote for the PSN’s Game of the Year. We’ll be publishing polls for the rest of the categories throughout the day. On Monday we’ll tabulate the totals and use that to put up a poll for the Reader’s Choice Overall Game of the Year.
Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you’re viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.
If you’ve been sitting on a paper that addresses the role of software and related technology in shaping human behavior and attitudes, now is the time to polish it up and submit it for the Persuasive 2008 conference, to be held from 4-6 June in Oulu, Finland. Deadlines have been extended and the new submission date is 1 January. Ian Bogost is going to be one of the keynote speakers, and there’s also going to be a doctoral consortium immediately prior to the conference. Full details and submission requirements after the jump [via Water Cooler Games]
Yesterday we published our goaties for each platform and the overall game of the year. Today’s your chance to vote for the best game in each platform. Hit the jump to vote for the Xbox 360′s Game of the Year. We’ll be publishing polls for the rest of the categories throughout the day. On Monday we’ll tabulate the totals and use that to put up a poll for the Reader’s Choice Overall Game of the Year.
Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you’re viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.
If you weren’t able to get your hands on a Wii this holiday season and you just can’t bear to buy into the whole “rain check” thing, then may I suggest you beat feet down to your local Costco. Kotakuite Thomas K. sends in this pic from his local Costco taken just this very morning. The bundle goes for $US 344.99 and include the Wii, an extra nunchuck and remote and a copy of Brain Age for the Wii. So, fly my faithful readers and grab that Wii that you were so viciously denied.
Yesterday we published our goaties for each platform and the overall game of the year. Today’s your chance to vote for the best game in each platform. Hit the jump to vote for the Wii’s Game of the Year. We’ll be publishing polls for the rest of the categories throughout the day. On Monday we’ll tabulate the totals and use that to put up a poll for the Reader’s Choice Overall Game of the Year.
Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you’re viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.
While browsing my feeds during the inevitable mid-holiday news slump, I was pointed to some fascinating little Japanese point-and-click (or ‘point-and-kick ass,’ as Leigh Alexander described them over at Sexy Videogameland) puzzlers, lumped under the heading of ‘room escape games.’ Guest House is the latest in the series, and I spent quite a while clicking my way through all the frustrating (but not too sadistic) puzzles. It’s a good way to spend a few hours on a lazy weekend. Terminal House [via Sexy Videogameland]
