Aside from gaming, my other passion is baseball—wherever I can find it and in whatever form. Since my youth I have struggled to fill the void between the final game of the World Series and the return of baseball on opening day each spring. To get through the offseason months I have developed a large number of coping mechanisms, including reading individual player and team histories, replaying great games from past seasons, and taking a yearly winter trip to the […]
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We Extend Our Deepest Condolences
We at NCHEG extend our deepest condolences to the family and colleagues of Mark Beaumont, who suffered a fatal heart attack during the early hours of February 23. Mark was an industry veteran and visionary who began his career at Atari in 1982 and at the time of his death served as Capcom’s COO for North America and Europe. Previously he held various positions with Activision, Time Warner Interactive, Data East, Mindscape, and Psygnois.
A 1987 interview in Compute! Magazine demonstrates […]
Bode’s Wild Play: Skiing in a Whirlwind
Watching the Winter games in Vancouver has me thinking about that cowboy Bode Miller, America’s best and most versatile skier ever, and what his riotous style says about play and competition at the highest levels.
Miller has chalked up an unmatched list of victories in each of the different alpine events— 32 World Cup trophies at latest count and bronze, silver, and gold medals at this winter Olympics. His record is especially remarkable because the skills that slalom requires (technique) and […]
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CHEGheads Find World Championship Cartridge
The CHEGheads have found and acquired a rare and unique Nintendo World Championships 1990 gray cartridge!
Collectors, in general, love that which is rare. Sports memorabilia aficionados covet the T206 Honus Wagner baseball card, comic book fanatics seek out Superman’s first appearance in Action Comics #1, and stamp collectors covet a chance to lay their eyes on an Inverted Jenny. Few collectors witness, much less acquire, such uncommon gems.
Those of us who prize electronic games have our treasured pieces as well. […]
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Sugar Buzz Your Sweetie
Is there a box of chocolates in your Valentine’s Day plans? If you’re going to give (or are expecting to receive) candy as a token of love, you’re part of a romantic tradition that began more than a century ago. In the 1890s, candy makers finally glommed onto Valentine’s Day as an occasion to promote their products, even though they’d already managed to integrate confectionery into other holidays, such as Christmas and Easter. Since that time, we’ve definitely taken their […]
Four Decades on the Oregon Trail
If one sign of a great game is staying power, then The Oregon Trail stands out for over forty years of enduring popularity. The game has also outlasted many different platforms.
If, like me, you played it growing up, you remember that the game challenges players to guide their wagon party across the great American West in 1848. To successfully traverse the continent, you must choose supplies, set your travel speed, cross rivers, trade with Native Americans, hunt for animals, survive […]
Welcome to Farmville–Please Have Your I.D. Ready
Happy Aquarium
Recently, I reluctantly signed up for Facebook. The site’s grown too large for me to ignore it any longer—and Lord knows I have tried. Part of the reason I joined is because Facebook has become a huge platform for the delivery of games. Several people I know don’t consider themselves gamers, yet they play Facebook games on a regular basis, mostly to maintain their farms in Zynga’s FarmVille and aquariums in CrowdStar’s Happy Aquarium.
These real-time simulation games’ immense popularity […]
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Have a Horrid Valentine’s Day
What does Valentine’s Day make you think of? Boxes of chocolates? Bouquets of roses? Pledges of undying love? Sure, those are all part of the most romantic holiday on the calendar. On the other hand, from the 1840s into the early twentieth century, Valentine’s Day was also THE occasion to send insulting and downright nasty cards to your circle of acquaintances.
Somehow those proper Victorians took the tradition of sending sweet, heartfelt Valentine cards and turned it on its head. […]
I Have Pac-Man Fever Again
My fellow CHEGhead Marc Check began his last blog talking about some of the great Pac-Man artifacts in the NCHEG collection and how this character evokes in him a sense of early 80’s nostalgia. Like Marc, I too, caught Pac-Man Fever when it struck in epidemic proportion in 1981. My heart still holds a special place for Pac-Man and his family. Yes, family. Such a global phenomenon was bound to inspire spin-offs, and in this case it included a wife […]