by John Michonski | Jun 6, 2026 | 1990s, 2020s, Magazine Preview
Their frustrations are often built on the backs of nostalgia, an aching for a bygone era when they first saw Nidorino and Gengar do battle on their Game Boy. That yearning for a youth long gone is what inspired Satoshi Tajiri, Pokémon’s originator, to come up with the...
by Brian Lesyk | Jun 4, 2026 | 1990s, 2020s, Magazine Preview
As one-half of the aforementioned moniker, the Metroid and Castlevania franchises served as the bedrock upon which all other non-linear, multi-scrolling 2D platformer video games were built. When you play other Metroidvania titles like Guacamelee! (DrinkBox Studios,...
by Ryan Burger | Jun 2, 2026 | 1990s, 2020s, Magazine Preview
It was all about Time Crisis and The House of the Dead. Time Crisis hit me harder overall. This rail shooter takes you through different missions across the series. Each mission typically has three stages, and each stage has four areas you fight through. I have never...
by Matthew Owen | May 29, 2026 | 1990s, 2020s, Magazine Preview
Doom dominated unlike any other PC game before it. Developed by id Software, this seminal first-person shooter defined the genre from that point forward, and any competitors to come in the years after were simply labeled as “Doom clones”. A technical marvel and true...
by Michael Thomasson | May 27, 2026 | 1990s, 2020s, Magazine Preview
Before John Carmack, Tom Hall, and John Romero unleashed the blistering corridors of Wolfenstein, they cut their teeth on smaller 3-D experiments: Hovertank 3-D for DOS and the Apple II’s Catacomb 3-D, the latter running on an embryonic version of the engine that...
by Old School Gamer | May 25, 2026 | 1980s, 2020s, Magazine Preview
Beat-em-ups, also known as belt scroll action games in Japan, were all the rage in the 1980s and 1990s in arcades. Players controlled beefy characters who pummeled their way through thugs of a dubious nature with their fists, or a special weapon if they were lucky,...