Hey reader(s), None of us at videolamer (that I could get a hold of) recalls the Quantum Link service, although many of you no doubt remember its successor America On-Line with no small amount of fondness. This is a pretty darn cool article about the Quantum Link worthy of attention: https://www.tinytickle.co.uk/quantum-link/ We're not really in a state to reincarnate at the moment, but we do fondly recall the times we would write several articles a week, some of which were worth reading. We'll keep them online as long as we can. Keep on keeping on.

Many, many years ago I was an avid reader of Nintendo Power.  I had already developed a taste for RPGs, although they were a bit less numerous back then.  A bunch of them were bad — and often, even Nintendo Power was willing to admit that. Regardless, I would read each article about an RPG with fascination.  When it was a game I knew, I would enjoy flipping through the various artwork and reading about the tricky parts.  Otherwise, I’d quietly file it away in a hidden corner of my mind, to play later. I’m finally working my way through the last few of those games I filed away — recently Paladin’s Quest and 7th Saga, and ...

While the details are scarce, apparently Insomniac Games did some sort of "study" that came to an interesting conclusion about graphics fidelity.  Apparently, if gamers had to choose between great visuals with a choppy framerate, or smooth framerate and simpler visuals, they would choose the former.  Not only that, but they concluded that games that adopt the  former can even gain better review scores.  They go so far as to say that some study respondents claimed that better visuals made the game more fun to play. As a result, Insomniac will no longer strive for 60 frames per second in future releases, which used to be one of their top priorities. Three thoughts come to ...

Continued from the previous article, this is a set of mini-reviews from stuff I didn't get the chance to actually write about in 2012. Diablo III (PC) Because impressions from the beta were somewhat divided, I held off on picking up Diablo III until early summer, when the hype for the game had died down to “acceptable dungeon-crawler”. Unfortunately, I commit the ultimate sin now by (mini-)reviewing it without having actually beaten it. After the wealth of customization, strategy, and randomness that was in Diablo II, its sequel came as a huge disappointment. Despite more than two hours of gameplay, I had yet to make an actual decision for either character I ...

Since I didn’t get the chance to write about many of these games on videolamer, this is sort of a 2012-as-reviewed. Apologies if it’s a bit much; I’ll try to keep my impressions brief. These are all games that stand out to me, in either a good or a bad way. Some of them were released in 2011, but as a fellow gaming peon (no review copies for videolamer) I didn’t acquire them until this year. Games appear in rough chronological order. Overall, 2012 has been a really great year for video games. Personally, I’ve been trying to limit the growth of my backlog while completing as many new and interesting games as I have the ...

In April of 2007 a man by the name of John Riccitiello began work as the new Chief Operating Officer of Electronic Arts, one of the two largest video game conglomerates on earth. EA had fallen victim to its own massiveness in the years prior. In order to grow it had purchased and then cannibalized smaller, more imaginative game developers, absorbed the talent into their own offices, and centrally ran all operations. As a result, the people and projects they assimilated became infected with the shortcomings of the company entire: there was too much bureaucracy and too many levels of hierarchy. This took decision making and creativity away from the game development teams. As a result ...