Blog

The first video game console was the Magnavox Odyssey. The follow up to that system was a series of consoles that appended a number after the word Odyssey. This was just good business sense. Why confuse customers by changing the name of your product? Atari saw the wisdom in maintaining a name and followed the 2600 with the 5200, publicly declaring it twice as good. There are other generational products beyond consoles but my mind jumps to the automobile as a template for how to treat new models. It would be bizarre to rebrand the Honda Accord next year with a new name (the Honda Discord, obviously) and then continue to do so with each significant rehaul. It would just be bad business.

Unique console names ended when giant corporations Sony and Microsoft moved into the video game space, but where did they start? As with most things, I believe we have Sega to thank. [In full disclosure, I began working on this post when I was struck by non-branded curiosity – I actually didn’t know where unique major console names came from. →  Some say the world will end in fire, some say in read more

In the long years without videolamer updates, I passed time staring at walls, counting the seconds until death would release me from my meaningless existence, and watching TV. I also did a little bit of traveling. Whenever possible, I coerced, tricked, or bamboozled my girlfriend/fiance/wife/ex-wife into doing something at least video game adjacent on these trips. And so I present you with my research and recommendations for places to visit that were likely closed years ago due to the pernicious whims of capitalism. With pictures!

Galloping Ghost Arcade: Illinois

A family vacation to South Bend put me within (multiple hour) striking distance of this arcade I had read good things about. Knowing fellow videolamer contributor and all-round site admin Chris was from this region of Earth, I asked if he would like to meet and play some games. I think he drove for 4 hours to reach the Galloping Ghost, so hopefully I paid for breakfast. Depending on when you read your internet, this arcade has the most or close to the most game cabinets in North America, including a few prototypes that are either unique or exceptionally rare. →  It might come in handy if you, the master of reading, take it with you.

Many gamers were sad to see the recently released Switch OLED was not a hardware update that came with a spec boost. Those gamers should take solace, though, as rumors from Japan suggest the Switch follow up will be something of a beast. It will reportedly be so powerful it will run the eShop smoothly and rarely even fail to load while browsing the deals section of the store.

An anonymous source from Kyoto says, “The original Switch model had trouble loading the eShop due to an internal decision to focus resources on the second, highly complex “black” theme that came built-in on all consoles.” Sources also say shopping technology that would enable users to add games to a cart without losing their current place on the storefront is unlikely to be possible on a portable device.

These more technologically advanced issues will need to wait until the next generation of Nintendo systems. The new Switch, rumored to be known as the New Switch, is expected to be available bundled with launch title Metroid Prime 3 no sooner than November, 2028.

Triangle Strategy employs a design technique I named “branching linearity” when I was pretending I was a game designer in the halcyon days of college. Instead of many choices with usually subtle or no effects on game flow, this design focuses on fewer but more dramatic choices that can significantly and (hopefully) irrevocably change the path the player takes.

It is true that Triangle Strategy also tries to weave subtler effects into its design, asking you to choose between the three virtues of thriftiness, relaxation, and stick-to-it-ivness, but the larger choices put you on distinct tracks; for example, early on in the game (and playable in the demo), you choose to visit country A or B. You cannot then go visit the other country – your choice is binary and it affects the plot and characters you may recruit. Branching linearity has an added benefit – mediocre stories become significantly more engaging. 

Triangle Strategy seems inspired by A Song of Ice and Fire (that’s right, I have read a book) but fails to reach even Matsuno levels of quality. →  OutRun 2006: Post to Post

To celebrate the return of videolamer we will be offering site relevant NFTs to our diehard readers and general fans. Images such as our logo, logo with inverted colors, old logo, and the old “lamer” character made in 2 minutes using MS Paint will be available on a first come first served basis.

Because I don’t understand NFTs, I will be emailing the relevant gif or jpg to the address you provide for the price of $1,000 per file. I ask our readers to not save any of our proprietary, definitely copyrighted images in the meantime. We have a large team of high powered lawyers standing beside our GoDaddy server listening closely to the site for right clicks.

All of us at videolamer are excited to pull up our sleeves, strike while the iron is hot, and get in on the ground floor of what will inevitably prove to be the new foundation of the video game industry, the NFT. We believe what we have to offer can act as the cornerstones of that foundation and are proud to have this opportunity to sell these landmarks to you. →  It was the best of games, it was the worst of games

Step aside Web 2.0, here comes videolamer 2.lame. Or lame.0. Whichever is stupider. We have returned to offer articles, reviews, complaints, and jokes about video games to the new generation. A lot has changed since we stopped regularly updating the site nearly a dozen years ago. Back then we didn’t even call them video games, but moving interactables. Also, we could pretend we had enough time left to do something about climate change.

To fill new readers in, this is a site where each contributor can write mostly whatever they want, though we generally share a passion for older and Japanese games. What we lose in unity and coherence, we gain in distinct perspectives. And what perspectives! We are all straight, white men, but one of us doesn’t even live in America. Unlike poser websites and podcasts full of games journalists and developers who use unfair tricks like access and the ability to write well, we are elder millennials from disparate walks of life. →  PaReader the Reader

We’ve managed to bring the site back with https support, removed some older shared content (what even is gamegrep?) and cleaned other things up a bit.

If you happen to actually read this… let us know if anything seems to be broken!

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.