How many million-dollar ideas are scrawled on bar napkins only to be thrown away in a drunken stupor? Not here at 8-Bit Central! We savor all of our $3 ideas - who couldn't make use of an extra three bucks? We are committed to finding new ways to analyze and explain video gaming trends and statistics with blatant disregard for truth or fact.
Interpret the Trend Maps by starting in the lover left corner representing "0" or "Less" of the given attributes. As you move up and to the right you move farther toward "100%" or "More" of the specified attribute. Click the full size images for further explanation. Enjoy!
Many retro gamers grew up playing board games before their lives were irreparably altered by the joy of controlling pixels with a joystick. As much revolution as video games bring to gaming of all kinds, board games are most frequently better off as board games. On occasion the digital magic not possible on a cardboard playing field emerges and adds a nice touch. All too often, board games are quickly and poorly replicated when converted to video games.
Eating and gaming are a natural fit, but how many times have you devoured an intense snack only to find gross crud all over your game controller? Wireless or not, having a sticky controller is fucking disgusting. It may be from delicious frosting, but when you grab your buddy's game controller and it sticks to your hands, do you care if he indulged in cake (or believe him, for that matter)?
We ran through some of our favorite snacks to determine which ones are game controller-friendly and which ones will make your controller fucking gross.
Unlike most holidays, Christmas is one of the least irritating. Thanksgiving seems to top the list of family get-togethers gone awry. Christmas spreads holiday cheer like no other and most of us can be civil for the duration. We feel that traditions are to be made and some of the best ones come from impromptu thinking. We hypothesize that Christmas magic is composed of old traditions combined with a super-cool new one.
Everyone knows the Holidays suck. People you'd rather not see descend on your home, by invitation, and glom off your generosity. Despite all the traditional warning signs we all seem to repeat this awful scenario each Thanksgiving, under the guise of being thankful for it.
We hypothesize that adding a new holiday tradition like playing video games for 4 days might make this family nightmare more palatable for one and all. Bliss = 4 days off in which to jam every Atari and Nintendo cart into their respective consoles and game like a madman.
I suppose there must be certain metrics by which manufacturers determine if a video game controller is optimal. From button-layout to design decisions and functionality, a lot goes into creating a "good" controller.
We felt there must be a good test under which we could evaluate the precision of any video game controller. Different sized hands can impact how effective a controller's layout and design will be during game play. It was decided that any controller that is functional while wearing oven mitts, must be a damn good controller.
Upon entering a pet store you're surrounded by creatures desperate to be rescued from retail Hell in which unattended children poke & prod everything from fish and lizards to rabbits and dogs. Game stores don't have that "rescue me" scenario, but wouldn't digital game characters be more fun than a mammal that only eats & poops.
Although Rabbids seem cute and fun but, possess an array of irritating behaviors. Of course the same can be said of many pets. We hypothesize that Rabbids will not be our top pick, but would be preferable to most conventional pets.
Could Iconic Video Game Characters be Successful Porn Stars? looks at the possibility based on their iconic status and how this might effect a career in porn. Bear in mind we are not asking "will they?" or "Should they?".
We believe fame is fleeting, thus iconic or celebrity status has no bearing on a video game character's potential success in porn. We think it has more to do with the individual character rather than fame bestowed on them by others and that great fame will not be a deterrent to a successful career in pornography.
We find Jennifer Love Hewitt undeniably gorgeous and Mario undeniably successful. OK, Jenny's successful too, but for different reasons. We decided to chart both their careers to see if a chubby guy with a plumber's crack could muster more fame and fortune than a sexy Hollywood actress with large breasts.
We tracked some key dates and plotted them accordingly on the grid which is a fucking mess, but both Mario and Jennifer Love Hewitt have had long, impactful and successful careers.
Gnomes are peaceful, but they are steeped in survival and are a very clever breed who learn quickly and see advantages that many of us would miss. You can't bop around in a giant red hat and not have to defend yourself against an array of evils from hideous taunting to Polecat attacks. They are a clever bunch who work together for the good of all Gnomes. Hence, if you fuck with one Gnome, you fuck with them all.
We hypothesize that most video game characters that survive the test of time become more powerful, thus increasing their ability to defeat an army of Gnomes.
Everyone knows that a sequel to a movie will always suck more than the original film - even if the original was brilliant. Star Wars is a classic example even though the films were shot out of order. Star Wars Episode III is so convoluted it's unwatchable. From this one would think it safe to assume that sequels are the kiss of death - but does this apply to arcade video games?
We began thinking about games that were "sequel'd" and made some interesting discoveries. Some sequels improve upon the original while others go in new directions that one may not have expected.
Booth Babes have long been a staple of many different conferences and expos. Technology is fun, but so are breasts and if the slogan, "Sex Sells" has any merit it will certainly rear it's presence at any major gathering of like-minds. Whereas we're sure that tits can motivate all sorts of great achievements, they don't alone (or in multiple sets of two) inspire the quantity or quality of technical reveals saved for release at the major conferences.
As much as scantily clad, bikini'd booth babes enhance the overall experience, a bad game is still a bad game.
Williams Electronics had a huge hit with Defender, and it's successor Stargate, in the arcades of the early 80s. Part of the charm was it's complexity and difficulty as well as the side-scrolling capability and sound. Defender has been re-released several times paying tribute to the original and keeping an arcade classic alive on modern systems.
Timeless as Defender is, we suspect that as it is migrated to new consoles only the true original will truly please gamers. Reboots and upgrades are interesting diversions, but we think the arcade version will always prevail.
Her Cosmo cover got me thinking what sort of "first date" would impress a girl who fronts a Hella-cool band like Paramore? You can't just roll with a dinner and a movie motif and that Pinto won't impress.
Guys suffer the delusion that women are impressed with cars. Short of owning a Ferrari, this is likely untrue, however guys will be guys and we hypothesize that a vehicle with great amenities and visual splendor might make a positive impression on a first date with Paramore's Hayley Williams.
You can argue about 3D depth in which the eye is tricked into thinking there's depth, but if you want shit popping out at your face, there's one solution and it'll cost you.
Cheers to Nintendo for realizing the obvious and coming out with an innovative solution and cool product. And fuck all you 3D TV manufacturers who think you're so cool that we'll all wear goggles in front of our TVs. I'll sit still in a movie theater, but at home you know I'm hitting pause to answer the phone, look up some shit on the net, or get another beer. 3D = good. 3D glasses = bad.
With internet savvy and portability, we fed ourselves as we deduced which restaurant had the best food and best wifi for Nintendo DSI downloading.
Good food attracts too many people to accommodate on limited bandwidth. Thus restaurant owners only defense against clingy customers hanging around too long is to serve good food and drive them away with crappy wifi connectivity and sub-standard transfer speeds.
Porting a classic game to a modern console preserves the game for the future, but does not enhance game-play as that is dependent on the console and it's controllers. Modern controllers do not benefit the game-play of classic games.
Many games require more options on today's controllers, but that doesn't necessarily improve game-play for all games. Atari's 2600 got away with 1 button for a long time!
There must be an optimal porn genre or specific title that causes sexual arousal via pic-in-pic viewing while allowing simultaneous successful Missile Command game-play.
Picture-in picture must have a proper use, but we can't figure out what it is. Suffice to say we decided that pic-in-pic is a tool for superimposing pornography on anything else you may be watching. We play a lot of video games, so the concept came naturally. The problem is it's pretty damn distracting!
Gaming and drinking are fun activities, but a desire to perform makes "ordinarily enjoyed" games suck when you're drunk.
Video games can span from simplistic fluff to engaging interaction. While at seemingly opposite poles of the spectrum, sometimes its fun to play a mindless game while other times we seek the adventure of a challenge. We examined games that we consider mindless, great fun and challenging to see how these descriptors held up when pounding beers.
With the scarcity of Nintendo game reviews in the major publications and the negative coverage they give Nintendo, we believe that video game magazines fucking hate Nintendo.
Understandably all games won't be as good as Super Mario Galaxy, but the bottom-of-the-barrel reviews seem excessive and prejudiced. Nintendo certainly has some duds, but to rail Epic Mickey across the board seemed ridiculous. Too many game reviews stack the deck against Nintendo.
With the diverse lives people lead, it stands to reason that porn stars do more than make dirty movies. We believe some of them are video game enthusiasts and fanatics.
If you follow porn stars on social media sites (like Twitter, Facebook and Myspace) you'll quickly see they do a Hell of a lot more than have sex on camera. These ladies travel A LOT. We tend to forget they also buy groceries, do laundry, hate housework, dine out with friends and have more fun at work than you or I.
