Gaming off the Beaten Path

  As I come to the end of year 4 of GOTBP, I've come to realize that some genres are less conducive to innovation than others. I feel like RPGs, first person shooters and 3D platformers are all genres where innovation is relatively common. Whenever I write about those kinds of games, I always feel like I have a lot to say about each individual game. Other genres, however, just don't seem to have as much innovation from title to title. Whether that's due to lack of opportunity or lack of desire, it just seems to be the case. Of all the genres I've played, it feels like beat 'em ups are always lacking in innovation. I will admit some bias, as it isn't my favorite genre, but I think even fans would admit that a lot of these games start to feel very same-y after a while. However, this can have advantages as well. Sometimes, small innovations in these genres can make games stand out in a big way, which was sort of the case with this week's entry. Released for the...

  I always felt like the 6th generation was where gaming really started to take off as a mainstream hobby. It's not that a there weren't a lot of people playing video games during the previous two generations, because there were. But it always felt like it was predominately a medium targeted at boys age seven to 17. I didn't realize it at the time, I fit right into that group after all, but games were almost exclusively made for that demographic. It was around the 6th gen where I feel like that began to change. My guess would be that some gaming execs realized there was money being left on the table. "Hey, maybe girls like video games too?" "Our user base is getting older, maybe we should make more titles aimed at adults?" "If we made educational or child friendly games that don't suck, maybe parents will buy them for their kids?" Anyone that's ever sat in a marketing meeting knows exactly what I'm talking about. In this case, it wa...

  It's come to my attention that last week was the 30th anniversary of one of gaming's most iconic franchises: Mortal Kombat. I can't believe it's been 30 years since the bone crunching, blood gushing debut of MK, a franchise that's now a household name even outside of gaming circles. It may not have always given us the best games, but few IPs have had as much impact on media as a whole as Mortal Kombat. Not going to lie, I wasn't quite there from the beginning. I was only 4 in 1992 when the original game hit the arcade, I was dabbling in video games at the time but it's not like I could get in the car and drive myself to an arcade. It wasn't really the next year, when MKII hit the arcades where I got found the franchise for the first time. I will never forget walking into the arcade at the now-defunct Bowcraft, seeing the cabinet with Raiden calling down thunderbolts and thinking to myself "I have to play that." Of course my parents let me, th...

  Hey wait, didn't you already play that? Nah, you guys aren't crazy, I already played Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers for the SNES, quite a while ago at this point. This time, I'm previewing the Genesis version. But remember, the gaming industry wasn't always like it is now, where every game that gets released across different consoles is essentially the same. It's not that that never happened during the bit wars, because it did. Street Fighter II Turbo and Champion Edition are essentially the same and I could think of tons of examples like that. But in a lot of cases, especially during the 4th generation, every console got different versions of a game. And we aren't just talking slightly different, we are talking a completely different game entirely. I actually kind of like the way it is now, where each console gets the same version. Because back in the day, there was a lot of contention over which version of which game was better, especially between SNES a...