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Does One Award Warrant a Game of the Year Edition for Dead Island?
by Chris Pereira
22 May 2012 at 5:19pm

Dead Island is set to be re-released in a Game of the Year Edition package next month, a fact that is the source of some complaints. It's not so much that the game is being bundled with its DLC that is the problem; it's the labeling of the game as Game of the Year, a title which many feel it is not deserving of.

It is completely understandable why a publisher would want a game re-release to be positioned as a "Game of the Year Edition." That title carries with it a certain connotation of quality, that it was among the very best, if not the best, games released during the year it originally came out. Game of the Year Editions are commonly associated with the likes of Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Red Dead Redemption, and other critically acclaimed games. There is a certain expectation that a GotY Edition consists of a terrific game and bonus content (be it downloadable content or expansion packs) that early adopters had to pay extra for, with all of this often coming at a sub-$60 price.

What If the Cost of Games Continued to Rise Since the '80s?
by Marty Sliva
22 May 2012 at 5:07pm

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1UP COVER STORY

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

What If the Cost of Games Continued to Rise Since the '80s? Cover Story: A sad look at a hobby that became too damn expensive.

December 12, 1985

You'll never guess what I got for my birthday! I woke up this morning, walked into the living room, and saw Dad playing Nintendo in front of the TV! He was having trouble with the first level of Mario, so I sat down and helped him jump over the pits until we got to the flagpole at the end. After that, we brought out the Zapper and played Duck Hunt until dinner time. Mom got kinda mad at Dad for buying something so expensive, but he told her that my birthday only comes once a year.

What If the 1993 Video Game Violence Hearings Resulted in Government Censorship?
by 1UP Staff
22 May 2012 at 3:30pm

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1UP COVER STORY

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

What If the 1993 Video Game Violence Hearings Resulted in Government Censorship? Cover Story: Peer into a dark and twisted present we'll (thankfully) never know.

n late 1993, state senators and certified oldsters Joseph Lieberman and Herb Khol got a whiff of this whole "video games" thing and decided to use their unholy powers to investigate the issue. While our friends in Germany and Australia often find amazing games banned outright or plagued with hilariously conspicuous censorship, we Americans escaped with a barely perceptible slap on the wrists thanks to the efforts of testifying industry vets who actually knew the subject at hand. But one can only wonder what the '90s gaming landscape (and beyond) would have looked like if the iron fist of government oppression punched the living daylights out of our beloved hobby...

Book Review: Exploring Video Gaming's Near-Death with "1983"
by Jeremy Parish
22 May 2012 at 2:18pm

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1UP COVER STORY

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

Book Review: Exploring Video Gaming's Near-Death with "1983" Cover Story: Thirty years ago, video games almost died. We examine the possibilities.

ith his latest book, 1983, game journalist and historian Chris Kohler has chosen to take a slightly different tack then he employed for his massive treatise Power Up: How America Gave Video Games an Extra Life a few years back. Rather than approaching the topic of video games from a wide-ranging, all-inclusive perspective, Kohler instead drills down here into a single crucial moment in time for the young medium: The near-crash of the industry in year 1983.

Despite the Orwellian overtones of the title Kohler has selected for his work, there's nothing ominous about the story contained herein -- perhaps, except, the idea that video gaming could have been snuffed out entirely a mere decade after Pong's debut. A combination of gold-rush greed, incompetence, and '80s corporate culture nearly suffocated the fledging entertainment medium just as it was hitting its stride. The Warner corporation's eagerness to cash in on their purchase of Atari, combined with the influx of low-quality, externally developed 2600 games after Activision broke away to become the first third-party developer, nearly buried the industry beneath a deluge of self-cannibalizing mediocrity.

Breaking the Illusion: Not Playing by the Rules
by Chris Pereira
21 May 2012 at 7:07pm

I like to play games in what I imagine is an unusual manner, or at least I thought this to be the case until 1UP members revealed they share some of my habits. One of these things, my propensity for systematically exploring an area before moving on, has reared its head in particularly noticeable fashion as I make my way through Max Payne 3. Playing in this way was clearly something the game's designers accounted for, as evidenced by the collectables scattered throughout, and yet it feels almost as if I'm being punished for deciding to be a completionist.

My process for approaching each area in Max Payne 3 follows the same pattern, only being altered if I'm low on health and out of painkillers (health packs in Max Payne's world). I kill everyone and then proceed to sweep over the entire room, seeking out any hidden spots or areas which do not appear to lead to the next area. As I make my way from one combat area to the next, I'm mindful of my surroundings and am sure to double back to check behind staircases and to see which doors can be opened. I do this all while searching for golden gun components, painkillers, and clues which can be examined. The latter can fill in the backstory but is hardly needed to get the gist of the narrative. I'm able to comfortably do this because there is no ticking clock, even if what Max is doing at any given time suggests there should be, and because enemies come in limited numbers and only in certain areas.

What If?: Gaming's Alternate Realities
by 1UP Staff
21 May 2012 at 6:27pm

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1UP COVER STORY

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

What If?: Gaming's Alternate Realities 1UP explores what might have happened had video game history gone differently.

People love to look back at the past and ask, "What if things had gone differently?" Navel-gazing at history spans cultures and races. Whether it's author Harry Turtledove making a fortune by contemplating how differently the American Civil War would have gone if someone had time-traveled to give the Confederate Army machine guns, or the manga Konpeki No Kantai in which the Japanese navy beats up America in World War II before teaming up to kill Hitler, second-guessing ourselves seems to be human nature.

Maybe it's the competitive nature of the medium, but video gamers seem especially fond of revisiting the past and wondering about alternate outcomes. As the Three Fates in the image above suggest, games have woven a rich and complex tapestry in their mere half-century of existence -- a tapestry whose design and nature could have changed radically had things turned out differently.

What If Video Games Never Came Home?
by 1UP Staff
21 May 2012 at 6:25pm

1UP COVER STORY

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

What if Video Games Never Came Home? Cover Story: A chilling glimpse into a world where the arcade still rules supreme.

UP's cover story this week revolves around the question, "What if?" In keeping with that theme, we'd like to offer this glimpse into one of many alternate realities of video gaming: A world where video games never came home. A world where the arcade still dominates gaming. How would a site like 1UP be different in such a place? We talk to our mirror universe counterparts about the state of gaming and their thoughts on the medium.

What If Third-Party Development Didn't Exist?
by Nadia Oxford
21 May 2012 at 6:24pm

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1UP COVER STORY

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

What If Third-Party Development Didn't Exist? Cover Story: How Activision's 1982 win in court changed the industry.

et's be honest, when we think about Activision-Blizzard as a company, at least a few of us get a mental image of a dark overlord with hooked fingers looming over a burning landscape. This image is usually accompanied by a deep-voiced demand for sacrificial virgins. Given Activision-Blizzard's status as The Biggest Thing That Has Ever Existed in Gaming, it's easy to forget that prehistoric Activision fought for the right to develop third-party games on the Atari 2600 -- a battle that it eventually won in court.

Activision's victory essentially made it possible for third-party game designers to ply their trade on home game consoles.

Activision's drive for justice wasn't exclusively about being paid its deserved royalties, either. During the 2600 era, Atari had a nasty habit of not crediting its game developers (or even letting developers bring attention to themselves, which convinced Adventure developer Warren Robinett to bury his name in the game, possibly creating the first digital Easter Egg). When Activision won the right to make its own games for the 2600 in 1982, credit was no longer a problem.

What If Square Never Left Nintendo?
by 1UP Staff
21 May 2012 at 6:22pm

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1UP COVER STORY

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

What If Square Never Left Nintendo? Cover Story: We look at how the RPG powerhouse would've fared without the PlayStation.

or RPG fans of the early 1990s, Square practically had their own branch on the Nintendo family tree. This held especially true on the Super NES, where Square came into its own with Final Fantasy IV and VI, Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, and wealth of Japan-only releases that loomed just out of reach for Americans. By the end of 1995, the union seemed solid. Nintendo's long-awaited Nintendo 64 system was on its way, and would be home to Square's next Final Fantasy.

There seemed no reason to worry until the spring of 1996, when those same RPG fans opened game magazines and learned that Final Fantasy VII wouldn't release in the form of a Nintendo 64 cartridge. It was now headed for the Sony PlayStation, as with every other game Square planned to make for the latest generation of consoles. By the end of the year, Square sewed up a publishing agreement with Sony, and their first PlayStation release, the fighter Tobal No. 1, sat on store shelves. It came as quite a surprise to players who'd effectively grown up with RPGs on Nintendo systems.

Final Fantasy VII didn't just amount to a critical PlayStation success; it was also instrumental in establishing the Japanese RPG in North America's mainstream game industry.

What If Steam Hadn't Recovered From Its Shaky Launch?
by 1UP Staff
21 May 2012 at 6:21pm

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1UP COVER STORY

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

What If Steam Hadn't Recovered From Its Shaky Launch? Cover Story: Without Steam in a central role, the last decade of PC gaming would have been remarkably different.

hen Steam first appeared in 2002, its success was far from a sure thing. Bugs and network problems outnumbered the available games on Valve's digital distribution platform by a wide margin. Users who disliked having to launch an extra application before playing their games doubted the necessity of the program itself. It took years for Steam's library to grow, for Valve to smooth over the rough spots, and for the public to embrace the concept of digital distribution. Today, Steam is synonymous with PC gaming, putting Valve in a unique position from which they can influence the industry in a number of ways.

What if the initial stumble had resulted in a full-on faceplant? How far would the ripples of that failure have spread? I don't claim to know exactly how things would have played out differently, but a lifetime of regret and PC gaming -- which occasionally go hand in hand -- has sharpened my hindsight enough to make a few educated guesses.

Junior Gaming Chairs

Donald Ray Wallace Jr.

Donald Ray Wallace Jr. is the 953rd convicted inmate executed in the United States since 1976.

Donald Ray Wallace Jr., a 47-year-old white male, was executed by lethal injection at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Indiana on March 10, 2005. Wallace was found guilty of the 1980 murder of Patrick Gilligan, a 30-year-old white male, Teresa Gilligan, a 30-year-old white female, Gregory Gilligan, a 5-year-old white male, and Lisa Gilligan, a 4-year-old white female. Wallace, who was 22-years-old when he committed the capital crime, was sentenced to death on October 21, 1982.

On January 14, 1980, Indiana State Trooper Thomas Snyder was called to the Evansville home of Ralph Hendricks as it had been reportedly burglarized. Snyder went to the home of Patrick and Teresa Gilligan, which was next door to Hendricks's house, to inquire whether the Gilligans might have seen or heard anything unusual. Synder, discovering that the window to the Gilligans' back door was broken, checked inside the house and discovered four dead bodies in the family room-Patrick and Teresa and their two children, Gregory and Lisa. Teresa had her hands tied behind her, and the two children were tied together. Dr. David Wilson, the coroner, testified that the cause of all four deaths was brain damage from gunshot wounds.

The evidence also showed that on the 14th Wallace was seen driving a blue Plymouth automobile that belonged to Richard Milligan. And while Milligan and Milligan's girlfriend, Debbie Durham, were known to have committed several prior burglaries using this same automobile, Milligan was in jail on burglary charges this particular night. Witnesses recalled seeing the Plymouth in the Evansville neighborhood about the time the murders occurred.

Donna Madison was at the home of her sister, Debbie Durham, the night of the 14th when earlier that evening she witnessed Wallace driving the blue Plymouth. Between 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. Wallace returned to Durham's home, and Madison heard him ask for matches. He found a cigarette lighter, and Madison saw him in the backyard burning the jacket he had been carrying over his shoulder upon arrival.

Neighbor Sherry Grayson saw a fire at the same time and saw a man with shoulder length hair that was characteristic of Wallace, standing by it. Officer John Crosser recovered the remains of the jacket and other items found on the ground. Among these items was a set of wedding rings without stones in them and some fragments of glass. State Police Specialist Oliver examined the glass and found the pieces fit into a pattern matching the hole in Gilligans' window.

On the evening of the 14th Wallace and Durham had a Carl Durham take pictures of them with many of the items taken from the Gilligan and Hendrick residences. The pictures also showed money and pistols connected with these burglaries, and were later admitted into evidence.

Durham gave William Kune, a serologist, the blue jeans worn by Wallace the night of the crime, upon which Kune found type AB blood. Wallace had blood type O, but Teresa Gilligan and one of the children had blood type AB. Kune also found type B blood on a brown cotton glove, identified as one of a set Wallace wore while burglarizing homes. Patrick Gilligan had type B blood.

William Madison, the brother of Durham and Madison, came to the Durham's home the evening of the 14th and saw Wallace come in wearing a gun in a holster to show William a briefcase with a couple of guns in it. Wallace also had in his possession a CB, a police scanner, and some rings. That same night Wallace attempted to sell to Randy Rhinehart some guns, a CB, and a scanner. Several witnesses testified that Durham displayed to them pieces of jewelry that were later traced to the Gilligans. Durham gave one of the rings to Officer O'Risky that was identified by Dorothy Sahm, Teresa's mother, as belonging to Teresa. A jeweler that had sized the ring and kept pictures of it also identified it as belonging to Teresa.

Friends of Wallace, Mark Boyles and Anita Hoeche, testified they received a phone call on January 15 from Wallace who said he was in trouble and in need of a ride. While riding in the car, Wallace told them he had gotten too greedy the night before. He said he had broken into one house and never should have gone to the next house because he got caught there and that after he got caught a man in the house was giving him trouble, and he had to tie up the entire family. He said the little girl was crying and screaming, and it was bothering him. He felt he could not let the children grow up with the trauma of not having parents, and he did not "want to see the kids went through the tragedy of seeing their parents being killed, " so he killed them also. He said the woman was screaming, and he had to shut her up. Later that night Wallace, while hiding in the attic of Hoeche's house, was arrested.

Durham testified that when Wallace visited her around 9:30 p.m on January 14 he immediately took his clothes off and gave them to her so he could change. On his blue jeans there was a piece of fleshy-whitish-red matter. Durham asked what it was, and Wallace stated it had to be a piece of brain because he had shot the residents, who had caught him, in the head. He told her a man had come in from the garage and surprised him. They struggled, and Wallace made him bring in the rest of the family. He said he tied up the man, made the woman tie up the children, and then Wallace tied her up. He shot the man in the head after possibly breaking the man's neck in the struggle. He said he then shot the woman twice and because the children were crying for the mother, he shot each one of them once. Wallace, who was out on parole for a prior felony, said he shot the adults because they could identify him.

Wallace raised several issues concerning his mental competency to stand trial and four hearings were held before the trial judge found Wallace was competent to understand the proceedings and assist his counsel in his defense. Following trial the jury recommended the death penalty (Wallace v. State (1985) 486 N.E.2d 445).

Source

Delfino, Michelangelo and Mary E. Day, Death Penalty USA: 2005 - 2006. MoBeta Publishing, Tampa, Fla.

[[ct]]: Junior Gaming Chairs