My first attempt at a REAL intro for all future MaximumRD videos. Hope you like it (Be gentle, I am no expert at this stuff LOL!)

My latest video in support of my friend TER who runs the ZAP online Classic Gaming website and forums and who was the creator of the ZAP! Fanzine back in the early 90's.

It took a week and an extra day to produce, but here it is -- Matt Chat #6: Dungeon Master! I'm sure you're familiar with this game from my book Dungeons & Desktops, but it's a totally different experience to see it in action. Check out my video and let me know if you have requests for future episodes!

Will this remake "unmake" Rockstar?Just heard on the radio that, of all things, Mystique's 1982 game Custer's Revenge is being remade for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC, by none other than Rockstar! Apparently, the company acquired Mystique's IP way back in 2003 and has been sitting on it ever since, and news of their 3D remake has only recently surfaced. The game will obviously arouse great controversy, but it's unclear if even spectacular audiovisuals can make this wretched game playable. For those unaware of the original, the game is "a crude simulation" of one of the most disgusting acts imaginable. It was bad enough even with the highly abstract graphics of the 2600; seeing this game in next gen will be downright horrific.

I, for one, am flabbergasted over this and really wish Rockstar would cool it with the controversy. What next, a remake of Chiller?

Welcome to the weekend with Matt Chat #4: M.U.L.E.! So, leave those multiple-use labor elements alone for awhile and check out my new YouTube video!

Remember back in the late 1970s and early 1980s when games used to come on cassette, publishers such as Avalon Hill would pack on as many as a half dozen or more different platform versions of one game onto the front and back of one cassette? And how in the age of the 5.25" disk, the front and back of a disk were sometimes sold with, for instance, an Atari 8-bit version on one side and a Commodore 64 version on another? This became a lost art with the rise of the 3.5" disk, as there was only one side and no way to split formats; it wouldn't be until optical media rose to prominence that we would again see multiple platforms on one disc (usually Windows and Mac). Or was it a lost art on 3.5" disk? I was unaware until about a year or so ago that multiple platforms on a 3.5" was not only possible, but was actually used in a commercial product by at least one company, Rainbird, who developed a seemingly impossible dual format Atari ST/Commodore Amiga disk for their game, Starglider II. As luck would have it, I recently won a dual format Starglider II to go along with the standard, single platform releases I already have in the series. Of course, according to its Wikipedia entry, releasing Starglider II in this format made the game extremely unreliable so the technique was abandoned, but it's still of significant historical interest as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps some time after it comes I'll attempt to load it on each of the systems and see what happens!

First off, I outdid myself with the title of this chapter. I'm not going to spoil the surprise, but I really had an inspiration. ;)

My latest MaximumRD video lol!

Shaky cam, my thumb in the way at first, and horrible sound levels but that is the price for throwing togehter a video so quickly lol! My Quick and Dirty look at the unboxing of the SEARS VIDEO ARCADE II.........

A MaximumRD video on YOUTUBE.

Hey guys! I'll be working on the Pong chapter while I'm working on the Spacewar! chapter, as their historical lead-ups kind of run in parallel. In any case, Pong needs no introduction, from its first conceptual appearance on Ralph Baer's Brown Box that "inspired" Nolan Bushnell to ask Al Alcorn to create the original arcade game, to the precursor to it all from 1958, William Higginbotham's "Tennis for Two". Of course I'll also be discussing the various home Pong systems and clones and a few ways that the game influenced future games. As always, your thoughts are much appreciated for this truly iconic game.