10 Reasons Why Short Circuit 2 is Vastly Superior to the First

It's a generally accepted myth that sequels are always inferior to their predecessors. Looking at the long history of movie sequels, it's easy to see why this is the case.

RetroGrade Episode 1: A Question of Time - Part 5

Magic of Scheherazade, The (NES - 1987)

Video games, for many years, were an industry that heavily revolved around firsts. Retrospective articles about the apex games of yesteryear often cite examples of their greatness by saying “It was one of the first games that…” And while these statements may vary greatly in reliability from author to author depending on their level of experience and knowledge, this is nonetheless a testament to the importance of relative novelty in determining the gaming zeniths of our lives. Final Fantasy IV was, for a lot of people, the first game with a progressively developing plot. Street Fighter II, for a lot of people, was the first fighting game with any level of sophistication. Tomb Raider and Super Mario 64 were, for a lot of people, the first true 3D gaming experience of their lives. These games will always maintain a powerful hold on their longtime fans primarily because of their convenient timing and innovation.

RetroGrade Episode 1: A Question of Time - Part 4

Chrono Trigger (SNES, Playstation, Nintendo DS - 1995)

When gamers talk about the best years of their lives, they’re usually talking about the mid-90s. It was an exciting time to be alive. It was the junction of everything good and right in the world of gaming. The arcades had lost prevalence, but they were still there, and while platformers definitely reigned at the seat of the 16-bit empire, their dominance was not so complete that RPGs, fighters, adventure games and other genres were not given their shares of celebration and fandom. Each of us has our own personal set of milestone games that chronicled our adolescence during this era, and few games resonate quite as universally as Chrono Trigger.

RetroGrade Episode 1: A Question of Time - Part 3

Legend of Zelda, The: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo 64, GameCube, 3DS - 1998)

The irony of this is that Ocarina of Time is probably my least favorite Zelda game. While it is the most celebrated game of all time amongst the general gaming populace, just about every game in the series, from the console-launching Twilight Princess to the handheld off-shoot Link’s Awakening, had a bigger impact on me than Ocarina of Time. And yet it’s impossible for me to even begin to imagine a better example of a use of time in its respective generation.

RetroGrade Episode 1: A Question of Time - Part 2

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Playstation 2, GameCube, XBox, PC - 2003)

When Prince of Persia first landed on the Apple II in 1989, it was a revolution. No one had ever seen anything like it. While a few geniuses like Eric Chahi (Another World) and Paul Cuisset (Flashback) were able to not only recapture that magic, but also expand upon it, Prince of Persia itself wasn’t terribly adept at continuing its own success. After years of tiresome ports and an abysmal venture into 3D on PC and Dreamcast in 1999, many thought the Prince of Persia franchise was a dead horse.

RetroGrade Episode 1: A Question of Time - Part 1

Welcome to RetroGrade, a feature wherein we track a particular concept through the annals of gaming history, visiting one prominent example of the said concept per console generation from today all the way back to the 8-bit era (that’s five if Wikipedia is to be believed).

In short, this is an excuse for me to talk about games I want to talk about across multiple hardware generations using a gimmicky theme to loosely tie them all together. But I digress…