Golden Sun's story follows a band of magic-attuned teenagers called Adepts on a mission to protect the world of Weyard from alchemy, a potentially destructive power that was sealed away long ago. During their quest, the Adepts develop new magic abilities called Psynergy, assist others, and learn more about why alchemy was sealed away. Golden Sun is followed by a sequel, The Lost Age, which together form a complete story.
Golden Sun began as a single planned game for the Nintendo 64, but production shifted to the Game Boy Advance over the course of development. After facing hardware constraints, the developers decided to split the game into two. (Full article...)
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Halo: Reach is a 2010 first-person shootervideo game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios, originally for the Xbox 360. The sixth installment in the Halo series and a direct prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved, Reach was released worldwide in September 2010. The game takes place in the year 2552, where humanity is locked in a war with an alien theocracy known as the Covenant, which seeks to exterminate humanity. Players play as Noble Six, a member of an elite squad of supersoldiers, known as Noble Team, attempting to stage a defense of the human world known as Reach, which falls under Covenant attack.
After releasing Halo 3 in 2007, Bungie split into teams to develop two different games—what would become Halo 3: ODST and Reach. The developers decided to create a prequel to the original Halo game trilogy, freeing themselves from the obligation of addressing old story threads. As the game would take place on a human world doomed to be destroyed, they focused on making the environment a character unto itself. Longtime Halo composers Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori returned to compose Reach's music, aiming for a more somber sound to match the story.
Reach was announced at E3 2009 in Los Angeles, and the first in-engine trailer was shown at the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards. Players who purchased ODST were eligible to participate in a Reach multiplayer beta in May 2010; the beta allowed Bungie to gain player feedback for fixing bugs and making gameplay tweaks before shipping the final version. Microsoft gave Reach its biggest game marketing budget yet and created award-winning live-action commercials, action figures, and interactive media to promote the game. (Full article...)
While it reprises the action role-playing elements of previous Mana games, such as real-time battle sequences, Children of Mana features an increased focus on user-friendliness. Unlike earlier Mana titles, Children is a heavily action-oriented dungeon crawler, in which the player progresses by completing randomly generated levels. Both the main plot and side-quests require the player to fight through dungeons and defeat boss monsters before returning to the central Mana Village. Like many of its predecessors, the game features a local cooperative multiplayer component.
Children of Mana was designed by series creator Koichi Ishii, directed by Yoshiki Ito, and produced by Takashi Orikata and Katsuji Aoyama. The game was a moderate commercial success: it sold 100,000 copies in its first week of release, and more than 280,000 in Japan by the end of 2006. While critics praised the graphics and music as beautiful and unique, they found the combat simplistic and repetitive, and the story insubstantial. (Full article...)
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Final Fantasy VIII is a 1999 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation console. It is the eighth main installment in the Final Fantasy series. Set on an unnamed fantasy world with science fiction elements, the game follows a group of young mercenaries, led by Squall Leonhart, as they are drawn into a conflict sparked by a sorceress named Edea Kramer who seized control of a powerful military state. During the quest to defeat the sorceress and the forces manipulating her, Squall struggles with his role as leader and develops a romance with one of his comrades, Rinoa Heartilly.
Final Fantasy VIII was well received by critics. The game was a commercial success, grossing $151 million in its first day of release in Japan, and more than $50 million during its first 13 weeks in North America, making it the fastest-selling Final Fantasy title until Final Fantasy XIII, a multi-platform release. A Windows port followed in 2000, with the addition of the Chocobo World minigame. Final Fantasy VIII was re-released worldwide as a PSOne Classic on the PlayStation Store in 2009, for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable, with support for PlayStation Vita in 2012. It was re-released via Steam in 2013. By August 2019, it had sold more than 9.6 million copies worldwide. A remastered version was released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in September 2019, and Android and iOS in March 2021. (Full article...)
Having American origins, Sega was founded by Martin Bromley and Richard Stewart as Nihon Goraku Bussan on June 3, 1960. Shortly after, the company acquired the assets of its predecessor, Service Games of Japan. In 1965, it became known as Sega Enterprises, Ltd., after acquiring Rosen Enterprises, an importer of coin-operated games. Sega developed its first coin-operated game, Periscope, in 1966. Sega was sold to Gulf and Western Industries in 1969. Following a downturn in the arcade business in the early 1980s, Sega began to develop video game consoles, starting with the SG-1000 and Master System, but struggled against competitors such as the Nintendo Entertainment System. In 1984, Sega executives David Rosen and Hayao Nakayama led a management buyout, with backing from CSK Corporation.
In 1988, Sega released the Mega Drive, or the Genesis in North America. The Mega Drive struggled against competition in Japan, but the Genesis found success overseas after the release of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991 and briefly outsold its main competitor, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, in the US. In 2001, after several commercial failures such as the 32X, Saturn, and Dreamcast, Sega stopped manufacturing consoles to become a third-party developer and publisher, and was acquired by Sammy Corporation in 2004. Sega Holdings Co. Ltd. was established in 2015; Sega Corporation was renamed to Sega Games Co., Ltd., and its arcade, entertainment, and toy divisions separated into other companies. In 2020, Sega Games and Sega Interactive merged to become Sega Corporation. (Full article...)
Gameplay is presented from the third-person perspective with a primary focus on Spider-Man's traversal and combat abilities. Spider-Man can freely move around New York City, interacting with characters, undertaking missions, and unlocking new gadgets and suits by progressing through the main story or completing tasks. Outside the story, the player is able to complete side missions to unlock additional content and collectible items. Combat focuses on chaining attacks together and using the environment and webs to incapacitate numerous foes while avoiding damage.
Development of Marvel's Spider-Man, the first licensed game by Insomniac in its then-22-year history, began in 2014 and took approximately four years. Insomniac was given the choice of using any character from Marvel's catalog to work on; Spider-Man was chosen both for his appeal to the employees and the similarities in traversal gameplay to their previous game Sunset Overdrive (2014). The game design took inspiration from the history of Spider-Man across all media but Marvel Comics. Insomniac wanted to tell an original story that was not linked to an existing property, creating a unique universe (known as Earth-1048) that has since appeared in novels, merchandise, and comics. (Full article...)
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Knuckles' Chaotix is a 1995 platform game developed by Sega for the 32X. A spin-off from the Sonic the Hedgehog series, it features Knuckles the Echidna and four other characters known as the Chaotix, who must prevent Doctor Robotnik and Metal Sonic from obtaining six magic rings and conquering a mysterious island. The gameplay is similar to previous Sonic games: players complete levels while collecting rings and defeating enemies. Knuckles' Chaotix introduces a partner system whereby the player is connected to another character via a tether; the tether behaves like a rubber band and must be used to maneuver the characters.
While Sonic Team is sometimes credited with creating Knuckles' Chaotix, it was developed by another Sega team. Production began with Sonic Crackers, a 1994 prototype for the Sega Genesis which experimented with the tethering system and featured Sonic and Tails. Knuckles' Chaotix was planned as a Sonic game for the Sega Saturn, but transitioned to the 32X when it could not be completed in time. Sonic and Tails were replaced by Knuckles and a group of mostly pre-existing characters; Mighty the Armadillo first appeared in the arcade game SegaSonic the Hedgehog (1993).
Knuckles' Chaotix was released in North America and Japan in April 1995, and in Europe in June 1995. It received mixed contemporary reviews and failed commercially. Reviewers found the tethering physics cumbersome, although some appreciated it as an attempt to innovate. The level design and low difficulty level were also criticized. Journalists have described Knuckles' Chaotix as the last of the "classic" 2D Sonic games before the series moved to 3D. Some characters and concepts it introduced feature in later Sonic games and media, beginning with Sonic Heroes in 2003. Despite interest from fans, it has not been rereleased beyond a brief period through GameTap in the mid-2000s. (Full article...)
Nuts & Bolts entered production following the completion of Grabbed by the Ghoulies (2003) and was developed by the same team behind the Nintendo 64Banjo games, led by designer Gregg Mayles. It began as a remake of Banjo-Kazooie (1998) but was repurposed as an original game. Rare sought a broad audience and, wanting to evolve the platform genre, introduced vehicular gameplay to take advantage of the Havokphysics engine. The customisation elements originated from the Rare co-founder Tim Stamper's suggestion for a game similar to connecting Lego bricks. The soundtrack was composed by Robin Beanland, Dave Clynick, and Grant Kirkhope in his final work for Rare.
Nuts & Bolts was released in November 2008. It drew criticism from fans for departing from the Banjo-Kazooie gameplay, but received generally positive reviews. Critics considered the vehicle editor robust and praised the visuals, music, and creativity, though they found some challenges tedious, and some questioned the new direction. Nuts & Bolts was a commercial disappointment, selling 140,000 copies in the United States by the end of 2008. Afterwards, Microsoft laid off staff at Rare and restructured them as a Kinect and Avatar-focused developer. (Full article...)
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Final Fantasy IX is a 2000 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation video game console. It is the ninth game in the main Final Fantasy series. The plot focuses on a war between nations in a medieval fantasy world called Gaia. Players follow a thief named Zidane Tribal who kidnaps princess Garnet Til Alexandros XVII as part of a ploy by the neighboring nation of Lindblum. He joins Garnet and a growing cast of characters on a quest to take down her mother, Queen Brahne of Alexandria, who started the war.
Game development occurred in parallel with Final Fantasy VIII. Envisioned by developers as a retrospective for the series, it departed from the futuristic settings of Final Fantasy VI, VII, and VIII by returning to the medieval style of the earlier games. Consequently, it draws heavy influence from the original Final Fantasy and features allusions to the rest of the series. The game introduced new features to the series despite this approach, such as "Active Time Event" cutscenes, "Mognet", and skill systems. Final Fantasy IX was the last game in the main series whose music was composed solely by Nobuo Uematsu.
Final Fantasy IX was released to critical acclaim and commercial success, selling more than 5.5 million copies on PlayStation by March 2016. It was re-released in 2010 as a PS1 Classic on the PlayStation Store—this version was compatible with PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable; PlayStation Vita support arrived in 2012. In 2016 Square Enix released an enhanced port featuring minor gameplay and graphical enhancements, which would be released on several platforms. An animated series adaptation by Square Enix and Cyber Group Studios was announced in 2021. (Full article...)
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Screenshot of gameplay (1977 version)
Colossal Cave Adventure (also known as Adventure or ADVENT) is a text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther for the PDP-10mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don Woods. In the game, the player explores a cave system rumored to be filled with treasure and gold. The game is composed of dozens of locations, and the player moves between these locations and interacts with objects in them by typing one- or two-word commands which are interpreted by the game's natural language input system. The program acts as a narrator, describing the player's location and the results of the player's attempted actions. It is the first well-known example of interactive fiction, as well as the first well-known adventure game, for which it was also the namesake.
The original game, written in 1975 and 1976, was based on Crowther's maps and experiences caving in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, the longest cave system in the world; further, it was intended, in part, to be accessible to non-technical players, such as his two daughters. Woods's version expanded the game in size and increased the number of fantasy elements present in it, such as a dragon and magic spells. Both versions, typically played over teleprinters connected to mainframe computers, were spread around the nascent ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet, which Crowther was involved in developing.
... that Terra Invicta's development company is a group of former volunteer video game modders that decided to release their own game after the success of their mod?
Born in Sonobe, Kyoto, Miyamoto graduated from Kanazawa Municipal College of Industrial Arts. He originally sought a career as a manga artist, until developing an interest in video games. With the help of his father, he joined Nintendo in 1977 after impressing the president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, with his toys. He helped create art for the arcade game Sheriff, and was later tasked with designing a new arcade game, leading to the 1981 game Donkey Kong. (Full article...)
A fan of arcade games in his youth, Tajiri wrote for and edited his own video gaming fanzineGame Freak with Ken Sugimori, before evolving it into a development company of the same name. Tajiri claims that the joining of two Game Boys via a link cable inspired him to create a game which embodied the collection and companionship of his childhood hobby, insect collecting. The game, which became Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green, took six years to complete and went on to spark a multibillion-dollar franchise which reinvigorated Nintendo's handheld gaming scene. Tajiri continued to work as director for the Pokémon series until the development of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, when he changed his role to executive producer, which he holds to this day. (Full article...)
Jun Maeda (麻枝 准, Maeda Jun, born January 3, 1975) is a Japanese writer and composer. He is a co-founder of the visual novel brand Key under Visual Arts. He is considered a pioneer of nakige visual novels, and has mainly contributed as a scenario writer, lyricist, and musical composer for the games the company produces.
After graduating with a degree in psychology from Chukyo University, Maeda contributed to the scripts and scores of games released under the Tactics brand of Nexton: Moon and One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e. He has contributed both to writing music and scripts to most games released under the Key brand, notably writing the majority of Air and Clannad. He also served as a screenwriter and composer for several anime series produced by P.A. Works, such as Angel Beats! and Charlotte. (Full article...)
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Gunpei Yokoi (横井 軍平, Yokoi Gunpei, 10 September 1941 – 4 October 1997), sometimes transliterated as Gumpei Yokoi, was a Japanese toy maker and video game designer. As a long-time Nintendo employee, he was best known as creator of the Game & Watch handheld system, inventor of the cross-shaped Control Pad, the original designer of the Game Boy, and producer of a few long-running and critically acclaimed video game franchises such as Metroid and Kid Icarus. (Full article...)
Steve Ritchie speaks during the Atari panel at California Extreme 2009
Steven Scott Ritchie (born February 13, 1950) is an American pinball and video game designer. His career began in the 1970s. Ritchie holds the record for best-selling pinball designer in history. He has been called "The Master of Flow" due to the emphasis in his designs on ball speed, loops, and long smooth shots. Ritchie was also the original voice of Shao Kahn in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series, serving as the announcer of Mortal Kombat II (1993), Mortal Kombat 3 (1995), and the updates to Mortal Kombat 3. He is the older brother of fellow pinball designer Mark Ritchie. (Full article...)
Following disputes with Carmack, Romero was fired from id in 1996. He co-founded a new studio, Ion Storm, and directed the FPS Daikatana (2000), which was a critical and commercial failure. Romero departed Ion Storm in 2001. In July 2001, he and another former id employee, Tom Hall, founded Monkeystone Games to develop games for mobile devices. (Full article...)
After working at Capcom for thirteen years, he left the company to form his own studio, Whoopee Camp. His latest game was Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection for former employer Capcom. He is notorious for making his titles difficult for the average video game player and strict personality among peers. IGN listed Fujiwara at number 13 in its "Top 100 Game Creators of All Time" list. (Full article...)
Daigo Umehara (Japanese: 梅原 大吾, Hepburn: Umehara Daigo, born 19 May 1981) is a Japanese esports player and author who competes competitively at fightingvideo games. He specializes in 2D arcade fighting games, mainly those released by Capcom. Known as "Daigo" or "The Beast" in the West and "Umehara" (ウメハラ, written in katakana instead of kanji) or "Ume" in Japan, Daigo is one of the world's most famous Street Fighter players and is often considered its greatest. His longevity is seen as an incredibly rare thing in the world of competitive video games. He currently holds a world record of "the most successful player in major tournaments of Street Fighter" in the Guinness World Records and is a six time Evo Championship Series winner.
Before properly being called a pro gamer from signing a sponsorship deal with Mad Catz, Japanese media usually referred to Daigo as "the god of 2D fighting games" (2D格闘ゲームの神, 2D Kakutō Gēmu no Kami). (Full article...)
Ken Kutaragi (久夛良木 健, Kutaragi Ken, born 2 August 1950) is a Japanese engineering technologist and businessman, currently president and CEO of Cyber AI Entertainment. Formerly the chairman and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), the video game division of Sony, Kutaragi is known as "The Father of the PlayStation" having overseen the development of the original console and its successors and spinoffs until departing the company in 2007, shortly after the PlayStation 3 was released.
Hideo Kojima (小島 秀夫, Kojima Hideo, born August 24, 1963) is a Japanese video game designer. Regarded as one of the first auteurs of video games, he developed a strong passion for film and literature during his childhood and adolescence, which in turn has had a significant influence on his games. In 1986, Kojima joined Konami, for which he directed, designed and wrote Metal Gear (1987) for the MSX2, the game that laid the foundations for the stealth genre and the Metal Gear franchise, his best known and most acclaimed work. At Konami, he also produced the Zone of the Enders series, as well as designing and writing Snatcher (1988) and Policenauts (1994), graphic adventure games regarded for their cinematic presentation.
Kojima founded Kojima Productions within Konami in 2005, and he was appointed vice president of Konami Digital Entertainment in 2011. Following his departure from Konami in 2015, he refounded Kojima Productions as an independent studio; his first game outside Konami, Death Stranding, was released in 2019. (Full article...)
Michael Morhaime (born November 3, 1967) is an American video game developer and entrepreneur. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) and founder of Dreamhaven, located in Irvine, California. Morhaime is best known as the co-founder and the former president of Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc., that was founded in 1991 as Silicon & Synapse. He served on the Vivendi Games executive committee from January 1999, when Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. became a subsidiary of Vivendi Games, until July 2008. (Full article...)
In 2013, he resigned from id Software to work full-time at Oculus VR as their CTO. In 2019, he reduced his role to Consulting CTO so he could allocate more time toward artificial general intelligence (AGI). In 2022, he left Oculus to work on his AGI startup, Keen Technologies. (Full article...)
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Bushnell in 2013
Nolan Kay Bushnell (born February 5, 1943) is an American businessman and electrical engineer. He established Atari, Inc. and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre chain. He has been inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame and the Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame, received the BAFTA Fellowship and the Nations Restaurant News "Innovator of the Year" award, and was named one of Newsweek's "50 Men Who Changed America". He has started more than 20 companies and is one of the founding fathers of the video game industry. He is on the board of Anti-Aging Games. In 2012, he founded an educational software company called Brainrush, that is using video game technology in educational software.
He is credited with Bushnell's Law, an aphorism about games that are "easy to learn and difficult to master" being rewarding. (Full article...)
The first computer game Wright designed was Raid on Bungeling Bay in 1984, but it was SimCity that brought him to prominence. The game was published by Maxis, which Wright co-formed with Jeff Braun. Wright continued to innovate on the game's central theme of simulation with numerous other titles including SimEarth and SimAnt. (Full article...)
In 2012, Sarkeesian was targeted by an online harassment campaign following her launch of a Kickstarter project to fund the Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series. The threats and harassment generated widespread media attention, and resulted in the project far exceeding its funding goal. The media coverage placed Sarkeesian at the center of discussions about misogyny in video game culture and online harassment. She has spoken to TEDxWomen, XOXO Festival, and the United Nations' Broadband Working Group on Gender, and appeared on The Colbert Report discussing her experiences of harassment and the challenge of attempting to improve gender inclusivity in gaming culture and the media. (Full article...)
Newell was born in Colorado and grew up in Davis, California. He attended Harvard University in the early 1980s but dropped out to join Microsoft, where he helped create the first versions of the Windows operating system. In 1996, he and Mike Harrington left Microsoft to found Valve and fund the development of their first game, Half-Life (1998). Harrington sold his stake in Valve to Newell and left in 2000. Newell led the development of Valve's digital distribution service, Steam, which launched in 2003 and controlled most of the market for downloaded PC games by 2011. (Full article...)
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Soule in 2010
Jeremy Soule (/soʊl/SOHL; born December 19, 1975) is an American composer of soundtracks for film, television, and video games. He has composed soundtracks for over 60 games and over a dozen other works during his career, including The Elder Scrolls, Guild Wars, Icewind Dale, and the Harry Potter series.
He became an employee of Square in 1994 after several years of private composition studies. After finishing the soundtrack to Secret of Evermore in 1995, he left to join Humongous Entertainment, where he composed for several children's games as well as Total Annihilation, his first award-winning score. In 2000, he left to form his own music production company, Soule Media, later called Artistry Entertainment. In 2005, he founded DirectSong, a record label that published digital versions of his soundtracks as well as those of classical composers. DirectSong remained active until 2019. (Full article...)
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Golden Sun is a role-playing video game developed by Camelot Software Planning and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. It was released in August 2001 in Japan, November 2001 in North America and February 2002 in Europe.
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