Yes, I said it! Games that you play on your own are dead. You are witnessing a switch in the gaming world to everything becoming multi-player. Muti-player games add such a new experience to gaming that soon nobody will want to play games by themselves anymore.

When games like Pac-Man first came out, they were mainly 1 player. You could play 2 players and switch off when you lose a man, but hardly anybody did this. Then later games like Double Dragon and Rampage came out where you could play with multiple players simultaneously. Arcades later made a comeback based on the competition of mutliplayer games in the mid 1990’s such as Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter 2.

With the Internet, you can play with thousands of other players. The dynamic that Halo 3 and World of Warcraft bring to your PC is unmatched by any single player game. The Wii is popular because it is mainly a party system that involves multiple players in your living room. This is the future. Soon games like Metal Gear will need to have some type of multi-player capability added to future releases or franchises like this will simply die.

While the arcade itself may be dead, arcade games seem to be making a comeback lately. Classic games like Pac-Man and Galaga are available on the XBox 360 and Wii. People of all ages are loving these games, and it seems to be feeding the need these days for a game that you don’t have to sit in front of for hours on end to enjoy. Long 20 hour epics such as Zelda sprung up long ago when it was realized that video gaming in the home was different from that in the arcades. People desired a deeper story with their games, and it was exciting to play into the night trying to find that magic sword or hidden room.

As gamers are growing older, they have less time to devote to gaming. I myself don’t have the time to devote to games like World of Warcraft or Zelda. I spend a lot of my time on a train, bus or plane. This feeds my need for the 5 minute burst of entertainment that I get with an arcade type of game. I think many others share the need for these games so they can play for 5 minutes and just put it down and be done. Many cell phones have arcade type games available on them so that a player can play for a bit, put it down and be done while they are on the go.

I think in the coming years, we are going to find many more arcade “shoot-em-up” style cames making their way to consoles. We will be taken back to the years when games like Contra and 1943 was big in the arcade. Long live the arcade game!

Electronic Arts is the Microsoft of the gaming world. I can’t stand them and I refuse to buy their games because they truly do not care about their employees or customers. Here are 6 reasons why we should boycott EA.

They ruined SimCity

Electronic Arts bought Maxis back in 1997, acquiring the rights to the SimCity franchise. Ever since that moment, SimCity has sucked. What once was one of the best strategic simulation games was turned into a dumbed down game with SimCity 4. Then it was remade into a game that just plain sucks with SimSocieties.

They resell the same sports game to us year after year

Madden 06, 07, 08, NBA Live 06, 07, 08. They sell us the same game every year with slight modifications and updated rosters. The gameplay for Madden hasn’t really changed in years, and as a result the sales of Madden are starting to drop off. The same thing can be said for all of the EA Sports games. We haven’t truly seen and mind-blowing innovation with these games for over 8 years. Why buy them?

They shut out competition

In 2004, ESPN NFL2k5 hit store shelves at $29.99. Not only was it lower priced than Madden, it was a better game. Threatened by this, EA threw their assload of cash at the NFL and NBA for exclusive rights to make games based on those leagues. Now we are stuck with Madden with no chance of other companies to grow their own better NFL or NBA games.

Luckily another company got the MLB licensing. MLB08: The Show and Major League Maseball 2K8 are really good games. Much better than the MVP line of games were.

Their overseas technical support sucks

Have you ever had problems getting your EA game to work? Try speaking English to their support team. Better yet, try understanding them. Even if it’s something as simple as a problem with a CD key, you probably won’t be successful in getting EA Tech Support to help you at all. Gone are the days where they would actually troubleshoot issues between the game and your video card. Now when you call they just advise you to uninstall and reinstall the game. If that doesn’t work they tell you to get new drivers for one of your multimedia devices.

They treat their employees poorly

After the Enron debacle, we are in an age where ethics matter more than dollars. Back in 2004, EA settled a lawsuit with its employees over unpaid overtime. The suit, filed in 2004 stemmed from employees’ allegations that they were required to work long hours and weekends with no overtime compensation.

EA has made billions and billions of dollars yet they avoid rewarding their employees with the money legally owed to them for overtime. I’m sure for EA employees, this is just a needle in a haystack regarding employee/employer relations.

They fail to manage most of their web pages

EA sells a certain game, then they make a pretty web site to go along with it. After they have taken all your cash, they have no interest in supporting you anymore and they let the web sites go without maintenance or support. A perfect example of this is the Sim Theme Park page. It’s been titled Untitled Document at the top for years. You can’t find a patch for the original SimCity anywhere and if you’re still into the last good version of SimCity which is SimCity 3000, good luck finding any support or patches for that. They also shut down The Sims Online, which sucked but many people bought the game and might still want to play.

It would cost EA virtually nothing to still provide information and patches for these games, but they choose not to. Want add-on’s or patches for your game that’s 7 years old? Screw you! We already have your money!

I was thrilled to be able to pick up MLB 08: The Show for the PS2. I don’t own a PS3 to be able to enjoy this title. The PS3 has been out for 2 years and the PS2 aisle is getting smaller and smaller. I couldn’t even find a USB headset for a PS2 when I went looking for one a few weeks ago. Madden 09 is said to be released for the PS2. Will it be the last? Usually these types of big titles cease being produced by the 3rd year the next generation console is out. But with over 120,000,000 PS2’s in households, and the PS2 outselling the PS3, that trend might be erased.

These things are still attached to TV sets everywhere. Game publishers can still easily reach a large audience by continuing to publish games for the PS2. We might see games published well into the 2010’s. I’m glad. The PS2 is an amazing system and I’m not ready to let it along with all the stuff I’ve bought for it go yet.

So you want to play arcade games on your PC? Getting started with MAME is not easy for the average Joe. There is a lot to learn. Where do you put the game files? What commands do you use? How do you get the joystick working? Here’s a mini guide for those that just want to quickly get up and running with MAME for Windows.

1. Download MAME Binaries.

2. Extract the files. When prompted for a directory, provide a folder you wish to extract the files to. In this example, we use C:\mame.

3. You will want to download roms to use with MAME. You can search roms for almost any arcade game, however it may not be legal for you to use many of them. You can always get legal roms like we did.

4. When you download MAME Roms, they come in ZIP format. You do not need to extract them. Leave them zipped and place them in the C:\mame\roms folder.

5. Bring up a DOS command prompt. To do so click Start > Run and type CMD.

6. Type cd\ to go to the root directory.

7. Type cd mame to go into the C:\mame folder.

8. Now to start mame, you type mame, then a space, then the game file you want to use:
Example: mame robby

If you have a joystick or gamepad you wish to use, you have to use the -joystick switch:
Example: mame robby -joystick

9. Now the game rom should run. To insert a quarter, press 5.

For 1 player, press 1. For 2 players, press 2.

P pauses the rom.

You can press Tab to access the options in MAME

It started with the original Pac-Man. Nothing fancy here, just the same board on every level and the same objective. Eat all the dots. Then Ms. Pac-Man gave us more mazes and faster action. For years I have thought that Ms. Pac-Man was the best version of Pac-Man ever. Some may argue that Pac-Man Plus is the best. However, I have recently discovered Jr. Pac-Man and I have to say that it is without a doubt the best Pac-Man game ever. Scrolling screens, more power pellets, and slightly better sound. I have to say that I’m hooked on playing it. Unfortunately my arcade never carried this game.

Jr. Pac-Man is regularly overlooked because it is not a part of the Namco family. The reason? Namco had a deal with Bally/Midway to release the original Pac-Man game, then Bally/Midway just did whatever they wanted with the title by making their own versions of the game. These are the versions we all know. Namco didn’t like that Bally/Midway was making and releasing their own versions of the game. They made a deal with Ms. Pac-Man, but when Jr. Pac-Man was released, that was the end. Therefore you don’t see Jr. Pac-Man ported on any home consoles.

All of Namco’s Pac-Man sequel attempts sucked. Super Pac-Man was lame and hard to control, as was Pac & Pal. Pac Land sucked, and all of the 3D attempts at the classic game sucked as well. Bally/Midway succeeded with Pac-Man because they were smart enough not to change the original game play. They simply made slight improvements to the original game. This is something I wish Namco would learn since they are the ones in control of the Pac-Man license. I would love to see more modifications to this original arcade classic on my home console. For now, I’m trying to make it to the 4th level in Jr. Pac-Man.

I’ve still been pondering how arcades can evolve back to where they used to be as far as popularity. It blows my mind that arcades in Japan are even going under now. What do confused teens do on Friday night now besides the movies? It hit me as I passed a local Internet arcade. The place was packed with teens playing games like Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, and Quake 4. This is definitely not the same type of crowd you’d get at your typical classic arcade though. No, these kids are more computer savvy. I also didn’t find but a couple of females in the bunch.

These Internet arcades still don’t appeal to those that aren’t as computer savvy, or just plain prefer a joystick instead. The return of the classic arcade is bound for a return. I’ve put together my own plan for how true arcades can evolve and make a comeback.

Make cheaper coin-ops - Use LCD screens and build the cabinets smaller. Do anything it takes to make the machines more affordable to arcade owners so they can actually make a profit on them.

Make each machine play multiple games - Remember the old Neo-Geo machines where you could play up to 8 games on one machine? All arcade machines should be like this. I think it would be beneficial for a customer to be able to walk into an arcade and sit down at his own personal arcade machine for a night of gaming and be able to play what he wants.

All games should be linkable to other players in the arcade - You should have the option when you start a game of accepting challengers from other players in the arcade, or even in other arcades via the Internet. Another player from his personal machine can find you and challenge you to a game.

Internet ranking system - Like they figured out in Japan and with Golden Tee, people like to be ranked. All players should be ranked on every game.

General Admission - Arcades should follow the model of Internet arcades and have general admission. I can imagine a gym club type of membership working out where you pay a monthly fee for access to the arcade.

Prizes - Give out prizes for top performers. Hold tournaments. Make the arcade a social place for competition.

There you have it. My business plan for the classic arcade comeback. Joysticks, social interaction and no chance of somebody taking over your game with cheats or a bot. If you have the money to accomplish all of this, feel free to steal it. I am sure kids everywhere would flock to your establishment. I would too.

I’ve been nostalgic lately about arcades. It just kills me that they are disappearing left and right. All of my childhood hangouts are gone. After searching for stories on the subject, I located this video that is pretty cool called Arcade ‘84. The CinemArcade Web site describes it below:

Arcade ‘84 is my attempt at recreating the atmosphere of the classic arcades. It’s a 3-minute+ trip through an imaginary arcade circa

1984 entirely rendered in 3D computer graphics. The arcade is filled with more than 30 unique games presented in their original cabinets and decorated with their original artwork and animated game graphics. Video games, laser disc games, pinball games, crane games and even change machines are all included. A video wall in the rear of the room displays actual clips of music videos from Van Halen, Michael Jackson, Blondie, Devo and more. Actual game sound effects can be heard from all corners of the room while Journey’s “Stone in Love” is playing on the radio over the arcade’s audio system. Across the hall from the arcade is a record store displaying popular album covers in the window and a movie theater is showing “The Empire Strikes Back” and the first popular movie to feature computer graphics, “Tron.”

I enjoyed this video very much as it was very accurate to the average arcade you’d find in a mall in the ’80s. You can check out the video here.

I recently took a drive through my old stomping grounds in Chicago. I looked for places familiar to me. I got a little misty eyed as I drove looking for a place I could walk into that I used to frequent as a kid. It soon became evident though, that all of them have closed. Victims of the real estate boom and the fact that nobody plays arcade games anymore.

Each place I thought of brings a smile to my face. I have many memories of my mom trying to get me to leave places while I’d be stuck playing on the same quarter. Oh the many memories I have. Here are the places I remember that now only exist in my memories.

Chicago Game Company - Located previously on Western avenue, right across the street from where Riverview amusement park used to be was a small arcade in an old building. It was the first video arcade I ever went to. It had all the classics. Pac-Man, Galaga, Defender. Everybody gathered around the Tron machine there, but I didn’t want anything to do with that as the kids were much older than me. I was too busy playing Mappy. The smell of burgers, fries and cigarette smoke always filled the place. Yes, you could actually smoke in this place! They even had ash trays attached to some of the games. My mother would try to force me to eat sometimes when we were there, but I always wanted to get back to playing games.

This place was located across the street from Lane Tech High School, so many of the older kids from that school took it over. They later started playing loud rock music inside the place. The crowd of older teens with long hair and mullets was way too intimidating for me, so I stopped going there and started going to Fun Zone down the street. Chicago Game Company closed in the late 80’s to make way for an auto parts store.

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I’ve been really into classic gaming lately and through my searches, I came across the documentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. It’s about the fight between Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell for the highest recorded score on Donkey Kong. What started out for me as a trip down memory lane to my childhood of playing in arcades turned into something more in this film. It’s a great “Charlie Brown” like story. You know, the good guy always comes in second and never wins. The bad guys always win, and for all those second placers to get by, they just have to be content with the fact that they gave it their best shot.

The movie also delves into a world where people do nothing but compete in classic video games all day long. I was shocked to see people that play Pac-Man and Frogger all day long still exist. I thought I was a big geek, but these people top me and anybody I’ve met in my techie/geeky world.

This is not only a good video gaming movie, it’s a good movie PERIOD. A definite must see. If you are interested in seeing it as well, you might have a hard time finding it at your local stores. I couldn’t locate it at Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart or Target. Instead I ordered it on Amazon Unbox and watched it on my TiVo.