Gaming History You Should Know: The Sega Channel November 18, 2016

Nowadays we take our digital broadcasts for granted when it comes to entertainment content. Those coaxial cables currently running throughout our houses can provide us all sorts of entertainment content ranging from HD Cable, High-Speed Internet or Satelite TV, provided we use the proper decoder or modem to make use of it.  However, it didn’t always used to be that way.

As recently as two decades ago, those same coaxial lines could only carry analog video signals. While they typically didn’t need decoder boxes to function, there wasn’t a lot you could actually do with them. The original cable services were limited in a lot of ways.  It couldn’t provide internet access just yet, so users who wanted internet would have to get it through their phone line at exceptionally slow speeds or have to pay for an expensive fiber service.  Finally, analog picture quality could easily become distorted with interference and there were a lot of factors that could cause it.

In the early to mid 90s, Nintendo and Sega were fighting the 16-bit gaming war to a near standstill. However, both companies provided great products with quality exclusive games, making both companies successful.  Then, riding the enormous success of the Genesis console, Sega announced the Sega Channel, a games-on-demand service offered through your cable provider!  I’m not kidding, here’s the actual infomercial cable providers would broadcast to promote the service. I remember seeing it twenty years ago while I was cycling through TV channels and it blew my mind!

So that was just a tease for was offered to gamers through the Sega Channel in the mid-90s. Meanwhile, we’ve only had digital games-on-demand rental services for modern games within the past five years.  I never used the Sega Channel service back in the day but I had a good friend at the time who did and I can attest that the service worked exactly as advertised.  How was Sega able to do it?

If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering how the hell analog cable companies with so many technical limitations could offer such a robust service two decades ago!  Heck, my local cable provider couldn’t even offer me high-speed internet until nearly half a decade after everyone else did, and yet my area had the Sega Channel in the 1990s!  How was that possible?

I have been waiting quite a while for someone to produce an in-depth video about this service and the great guys over at Retro Game On finally answered that question. I hope you all enjoy this video as much as I did!

Gaming History You Should Know – Wing Commander 3 September 19, 2016

I know I recently spent an entire recent editorial talking about the PC flight simulator Starfleet Academy but I don’t think I mentioned the fact that it was not my first PC flight sim game. No, that honor goes to Origin’s PC-DOS flight sim game Privateer 2: The Darkening.

The year was 1996, I had just got my first real PC and was loving every second I was using it. A coworker of my father’s had picked up a new game for his PC called Privateer 2, but he found himself unable to play it on his computer. Since he knew my PC was top of the line he gave the game to me and the rest is history.

While most people, including The Spoony One, hated Privateer 2 due to its extreme departure from the Wing Commander games that came before it, I thought it had a great story with amazing direction, and a fantastic cast of actors. But Privateer 2 wasn’t the first PC game by Origin to present a PC flight sim in this way, that honor actually goes to the PC game Wing Commander 3.

Veteran online critic Charles Sonnenburg, better known to the Internet by his online name SF Debris, took some time off between delivering his legendary weekly reviews of old Star Trek episodes to give a review of Wing Commander 3. Not only is the review thorough and hilarious, Chuck (can I call you Chuck?) did a great job researching the history behind the game’s development, making this a great review to watch for both veteran pilots and cadets fresh out of the academy. You can watch it here.

If you liked the review and want to give Wing Commander 3 a try for yourselves the game was available to purchase on EA’s (aptly named) Origin digital online service.  Give it a look if you’re interested in checking it out, just make sure to get a good joystick first.

Gaming History You Should Know: Driv3rGate July 10, 2016

There is no doubt that the Grand Theft Auto 3 games were some of the highest rated and best selling titles of the mid-2000s. A decade ago, the Driver series was the closest competitor to Grand Theft Auto and its publisher, Atari, wanted to take advantage of that fact. They pumped millions of dollars into developing Driver 3 (Driv3r) with the intention to release it on the PS2, PC and original Xbox before the release of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. The problem was Driv3r was just not ready.

Atari had a plan. Knowing the popularity of the Driver franchise and the heavy anticipation for Driv3r in particular, Atari shopped around early review access to magazines in exchange for guaranteed 9.0 scores. Then the game was released and the rest was history.

Game journalist Larry Bundy Jr, better known to the Internet as Guru Larry, was able to go back and find the story behind Driv3rgate.  So take a look and watch the story of gaming’s first true media scandal.

Sadly, Atari and Future saw fit to delete most of the complaints on their forums and references to the scandal aren’t even included on the game’s Wikipedia page.  Thankfully gamers have a long memory.  Good job Larry!