Pixels Perfect

Scott Hardie | July 2, 2015
The World Video Game Hall of Fame just announced its first six inductees: Pong, Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, Doom, and World of Warcraft. What do you think? What important games were overlooked in this highest echelon on gaming history?

Scott Hardie | July 3, 2015
Speaking of Mario, I came across an argument that cartoon characters like Mario don't look right in more realistic environments, and I have to say, that video does not prove its point to me at all. I think Mario looks fine in those Unreal environments, thanks to the lighting and shading and echoing that make him seem like he's there, even if his art design clashes a little bit. Put him in a truly realistic setting, like footage from real life, and I might be convinced then. Am I wrong?

Scott Hardie | August 8, 2015
The one major exception from the list that I can think of is Angry Birds, with a possible substitution of Candy Crush Saga. It ushered in a boom era for mobile games (which are the only video games that millions of people play), and it has forced huge companies like Nintendo to play catch-up. Tetris was arguably the first big mobile game thanks to its ubiquity on the Game Boy, but it wasn't until people played games on their phones that mobile gaming really mattered.