Gaming History You Should Know – The History of Runaway Brain: Disney’s Forgotten Mickey Mouse Short December 22, 2024

Welcome back to Gaming History You Should Know. Today, we’re not going to be talking about a video game event in the strictest sense of the word, but it is one of the first pieces of media I can remember that clearly WAS impacted by the influence of the video game craze of the early to mid 90s, a short film called Runaway Brain starring Mickey Mouse!

In 1995, my sister, father and myself went to the theater to go see a mostly forgotten movie called “A Kid in King Arthur’s Court”. I was interested in seeing it because I had seen a brief look behind the scenes at Disney’s Animation Studios on television (either Disney Channel or ABC) and they were hard at work on the aforementioned Runaway Brain. It would be a horror short where Mickey Mouse found himself in an experiment where he switches brains with a gigantic monster. What interested me was the incredible animation style clearly inspired by the 90s video game aesthetic. In fact, the behind-the-scenes video released back in the day mentioned guy in charge of animating Mickey Mouse for the short had been responsible for animating characters such as Jafar in Aladdin and Gaston in Beauty and the Beast.

Sadly due to massive delays me and my family only caught the latter half of the short, but I definitely remember catching the entire short when it broadcasted on the Disney Channel late one night with little fanfare. I greatly enjoyed it.

Since the late 90s, Disney has refused to acknowledge the existence of the short, and refused to release it attached to any recent home video collections of animated short films or Disney+! While you can’t find the short through legit means anymore, its legacy does live on to this day. Mortal Kombat games are still being made to this day, so the fighting game genre highlighted at the beginning of the short is still going strong. In fact, Warren Spector does credit the short as an inspiration for Disney’s Epic Mickey.

We like to highlight some of the best independently made documentaries on gaming history for this series and today is no different. YouTube channel CutScene did a fantastic look into the history of its short and its enduring legacy. He actually was able to get interviews with the short’s director and editor for this featurette! You can give it a full watch below:

Gaming History You Should Know – Sony’s Metreon December 8, 2024

Welcome back to another Gaming History You Should Know, where we highlight the great work of independent channels that are dedicated to chronicling the history of gaming. Brick and mortar retailers, once the lifeblood of the gaming space, are fading fast in the era of online shopping and same day delivery. But when I was growing up, the act of going shopping was an event in and of itself, and nothing beats being able to tangibly hold something you’re interested in purchasing and taking it home with you.

Did you know Sony actually owned and operated retail spaces in the United States? No joke, I remember visiting a Sony store at JFK Airport in the mid-90s to pick up a badly needed pack of batteries! However, that was not their only retail establishment! This was more than just a store, this was a high-tech retail establishment on the cutting edge, it was called Sony’s Metreon!

Today, we want to highlight the work of the YouTube Channel Wrestling with Gaming. They did a fantastic look at this venue! Let’s take a look inside!

Incredible venues like this closing or me not being fortunate enough to live anywhere remotely near me is one of the biggest reasons I’ve become so grateful for Virtual Reality’s advancements over the last year.

Gaming History You Should Know – History of Splatterhouse December 1, 2024

It’s Sunday, and that means it’s time for a new Gaming History You Should Know! Ready for a blast from the past? We’re taking once again about Splatterhouse!

That’s right, the controversial arcade classic that went on to become a controversial console remake is back in the spotlight this week. YouTuber Trent Achy produced an incredible retrospective on the Splatterhouse franchise this week and was nice enough to grant us permission to feature his video here today. It includes new behind the scenes information on the making of the game, and a pretty in-depth look at each of the 2010 game’s levels. In short, a great retrospective. Check it out below:

Personally I liked the 2010 game and would be happy to see it (and any of the other games from the franchise) ported to current platforms. Special thanks to Trent for letting me feature his video on the site, I hope you all enjoyed it!

Gaming History You Should Know – What Happens When Normal People Try VR Films For the First Time May 12, 2024

Happy Mother’s Day everyone! Normally we’d focus our Sunday on featuring some great independently produced content on gaming history, but given it’s a special day, we decided to highlight this great video was recently released on gaming’s present, Virtual Reality!

Since becoming a VR Enthusiast, there have been few channels out there more useful to follow than BMFVR. His insight into recent tech releases, games, and hardware news has been a great asset for someone interested in learning quickly about the medium.

Recently, BMFVR posted a video where he demoed the Meta Quest 3 for a bunch of regular people with no VR experience. The results have to be seen to be believed. To someone who hasn’t decided to get a VR headset, let me remind you regardless of what platform you use, this is all possible in VR RIGHT NOW.

As someone who hasn’t stopped using the IMAX and Apple TV applications on their Vision Pro since getting the device, I can totally understand this is just the beginning of what is possible, the future is EVEN MORE exciting.

Gaming History You Should Know – The History of The Oregon Trail May 5, 2024

Like most of my generation, my elementary school offered a computer lab full of Apple II and Mac computers. This would give me my first exposure to edutainment games like Super Solvers Outnumbered and Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego. However, the school offered one more edutainment title only a few of us may remember, and it was called The Oregon Trail.

Named after the famous historical migration, The Oregon Trail was an early life simulator which put the player in control of a group of settlers eager to cross the untamed United States in search of a better life on the West Coast. The game was a lot different than others of the time, but the functions were easy enough to follow that my peers and I were able to pick up and play. We may have died…a lot, but we left irrecoverable landmarks of our progress for future players to find in the form of our player-scripted trail side tombstones.

How did such a strange game get made? Why do we remember it so many years later? In what may very well be the final episode of The Gaming Historian, they highlighted the history of this groundbreaking game. Take a look!

Did you make it to the end of the trail? Post a comment below with your memories.

The Oregon Trail is out on multiple platforms.

Gaming History You Should Know – History of The Five Nights at Freddy’s (Unbuilt) Theme Park Ride October 30, 2023

Since the first game was released, Five Nights at Freddy’s has bloomed from an PC cult classic to a well-known phenomenon. Millions of people have played its games, read its books, and purchased its toys. The next logical step for a franchise this popular is to go to Hollywood. This past weekend, the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was released to theaters (and Peacock) and became one of its production studio’s highest grossing new films. We were actually able to watch the film on Friday, and our group, ranging from die-hard long time fans, to a merely curious attendee all found it quite enjoyable.

With Hollywood success for the franchise all but assured, the next logical step would be produce a Five Nights at Freddy’s theme park attraction. Sadly, as of the time this is being published no theme parks have announced they’re planning to build a ride based on Five Nights at Freddy’s. However, if you did some digging around you would be surprised to learn that the franchise’s theme park rights are currently owned by one of the biggest ride developers in the world, Sally Corporation!

Sally is known for making some great theme park rides across the world, including the Justice League: Battle for Metropolis ride at Six Flags we reviewed a few years ago. Sally actually has an official Five Nights ride fully designed, and has shopped their ride concept around to theme parks all over the world. However, it doesn’t appear that anyone has taken them up on the order just yet.

YouTube Channel AwesomeGamerDude did a fantastic video about the history of Sallys plans for the attraction, and we wanted to share his video with all of you. We understand this is a day late, but we still wanted to share this great video about it with all of you, enjoy.