Documentary; “Order of Ecstasy” Drops, gets great reviews.
“I have no hesitance in saying Ecstasy of Order is one of the best videogame films of all time.”
Allistair Pinsof of AFF Flixist Review
“you don’t have to love Tetris to love this movie.”
Jackie Stone of Austin Post
“”Ecstasy of Order” will delight fans of the highly addictive game”
Dennis Harvey of Variety
“I know it made me want to fire up Tetris again”
Patrick Scott Harrison – Arcade Game Examiner
King of Capcom: Robin Mihara’s Victory in One of Gaming’s Forgotten Tournaments
Erik Ackerlund – Reblogged from our friend Patrick Scott Patterson regarding Losthammer’s own Robin Mihara.
Classic video gaming accomplishments and records have been all across the mainstream media for the past few years.
From the battle for the top spot in Donkey Kong to new champs on games like Frogger or Pac-Man, films such as The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade, and the upcoming Doctor Kong have helped the champions of the 1980s classics gain much mainstream attention in the modern day media.
Champions from the 1990s, however, are not yet the media darlings that many of the classic 1980s gamers have been. Outside of the 1990 Nintendo World Championships and a few later Nintendo contests, very little history from the last decade of last century has been passed along to historians of the gaming industry today.
Q&A: Nintendo World Championship Car
A reader of Lost Hammer, Matt Weber wrote to us with some inquires regarding the Nintendo World Championships.
Matt: Hi! I’m a big fan of competitive video games, I’ve been spending some time trying to dig up info about the 1990 championships but everything seems to link to a few sources that have conflicting details. I’m hoping your crew of experts can clear up some things, or point me in the right direction.
Erik: “Will do our best”
Matt : Specifically, I’m confused about this:
“There was no official competition round to crown a single winner. However, after the competition ended there was an informal face-off between the three winners, with Thor Aackerlund taking first place, Jeff Hansen taking second, and Robert Whiteman finishing third.”
Erik: “Confirmed”
Matt: Jeff Hansen went on as America’s representative to Japan to win the World Championship title again in Tokyo, Japan, and again in Las Vegas at a rematch with the Japanese champion, Yuichi Suyama.”
Do you happen to know where I could find information about the Tokyo competition? Everything I’ve been able to dig up points back to that same passage in Wikipedia, which doesn’t cite a source so I’m not even confident the Japan competition existed. If it did, do you have any idea why Jeff Hansen (11 at the time from what I can tell) went to represent?
Thor: “No idea on why Nintendo choose Jeff Hansen.”
Erik: “There was very very little in the media when it was happening, I think Nintendo wanted to control it, and keep it close to the belt, we did not even know about it until well after it had taken place, it was not on the scale of the massively publicised 1990 Nintendo World Championships were.”
Matt: Wikipedia also claims the winner won a car and a TV in addition to the savings bond. The savings bond I’ve found other evidence of, but again no source on the car/tv thing and no mentions of it aside from this wiki article that everything seems to copy. People are fond of citing the time Carmack gave away his Ferrari as the first instance of a car being won in video games, which makes me wonder if that is true also.
Thor: “The winners also recieved a 1990 Geo Metro Convertible, this would predate Carmack giving away his Ferarri. They had a GeoMetro convertible in yellow for all of the contestants to ooh and ahh at, just out side the StarTrek Theater at Universal Studios, A bunch of the contestants at one point decided to lift the car off the ground!”
Erik: “If I remember right the savings bond was for $10,000, which had a pretty low cash value, the TV was a Panasonic 42″ it replaced Thor’s 13″ Color TV of the time. There were some other things the winners got, A Mario trophy, and a Panasonic Boombox. “
Matt: I know these are weird and specific questions, and appreciate any insight you can give. Hope the gaming blog goes well, I love reading about all kinds of game competition and retro gaming.
Thor: “Thanks for your great questions, keep them coming”
Nintendo 3DS Will Revolutionize Handheld Gaming
Video Cowboy – The various versions of the Nintendo DS have been losing their luster in recent years. The Nintendo DSi XL was the fourth revision of the system.
Nintendo has sold over 132 million units of all versions of the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo 3DS is poised to help Nintendo sell millions more.
The Nintendo 3DS is the fifth version of the system. With the advent of the Apple iPod Touch and Apple iPhone the Nintendo DSi lost some of its luster in the eyes of gamers and the public.
I am here to tell you that the Nintendo 3DS will help gamers get their gaming and 3D fix. The 3DS is the coolest and most thought out gaming system created to date.
The problem with the system isn’t that it might make younger gamers puke if they lie down when they are playing it or if you play for too long you will get a headache. Doing almost every activity on the planet will give you those symptoms.
The Nintendo 3DS is revolutionary and it comes with a way to turn the 3D off if you are straining your eyes. The buttons are easy to use and the system is very functional. It allows you to do more than just play games.
I give the Nintendo 3DS a rating of 4 Hammers!
The Nintendo 3DS drops on March 26th in the US, It is already “was” on the shelves in Japan.
What Spock does on the ship’s computer!
By Thor Aackerlund – Mark Zuckerberg! What have you done?
Hank Chien does it again!
by Thor Aackerlund – Patrick Scott Patterson aka. PSP has the details in a new brief spotlight he’s written, this is shaping up to be quite an interesting year in the Kong Wars.
Check it out here : http://www.examiner.com/arcade-game-in-dallas/donkey-kong-world-champion-beats-own-score
Congrats to Mr. Chien!
