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  • Ten Steps to Making a Successful FPS

    old-wizard.com
    Written by Zeromage 31 Comments
    Last Updated:: November 23, 2008

    With the release of “Left 4 Dead” for the Xbox 360, First Person Shooter (FPS) fans have come crawling out of their closets in as great of numbers as the zombies that attack you in these games. What’s the appeal of the first person shooter that makes these gamers keep coming back for more? In this list we’ll go through the ten steps needed to make a FPS that some gamers call “amazing” with sheepish predictability. The steps are fairly simple and are used in most, if not all the FPS games that have been released since Doom 1. Once the awareness of the predictability becomes more conscious, then maybe gamers will expect more out of these types of games.

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    • Video Game Review: Left 4 Dead

      old-wizard.com
      Written by Zeromage 32 Comments
      Last Updated:: November 18, 2008

      Valve releases Left 4 Dead with as much fanfare as any game before it. For the past couple of weeks all we keep hearing from our readers is “Review Left 4 Dead, review Left 4 Dead”. Well, we have played it, and we’re reviewing it now. Unfortunately for this game though, there wasn’t much to review as it replicated most of the modern day first person shooter video games that we’ve played so many times before. You’ve got guns, you’ve got zombies, and you’ve got dark rooms. Snore Fest even after playing through the first scenario.

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      • Top 10 Video Game Clichés

        old-wizard.com
        Written by Zeromage 123 Comments
        Last Updated:: November 16, 2008

        Clichés are found in everything from music to movies to anything where creativity finds a home. This is no different with the video game medium, which mimics past ideas to no end. Why tamper with a formula for success? Repetition has been the basis of our great civilization, and so it comes as no surprise that there are numerous clichés in the video game medium. Some of the clichés we can do with. Some of them actually make us happy when we see them all the time. Others however are just plain annoying and we will go through these in this list. Here then are the top 10 most used clichés in video game history.

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        • Top 11 Video Game Endings

          old-wizard.com
          Written by Zeromage 104 Comments
          Last Updated:: November 13, 2008

          The Video Game Ending. It’s what every gamer seeks when playing the game. Gamers spend hours trying to conquer a game just to be able to see the resolution of their whole adventure or lack thereof. Sometimes tragedy strikes in the ending of the game, alluding to a subsequent game in the series. Sometimes the ending of a game just plain sucks like the end of Ghost’s n’ Goblins. Bad endings can ruin the experience of a whole game, which we will cover in a future list. For now though, we’ll go through the games with the best endings video game history. Making the choices were hard, and objectivity in these cases is always treading the line of subjectivity. Nevertheless, these are the endings that stood out the most for us.

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          • Top 10 Ways to Know If You’re a “Hardcore Gamer”

            sage137
            Written by Sage 136 Comments
            Last Updated:: November 11, 2008

            We here at OW get a lot of flack from a group of people who refer to themselves as “hardcore gamers.” Despite the fact that we have never claimed to cater to anyone, other than ourselves, these people feel they are owed something. They are an interesting lot. They have a lot to say when they are anonymous, and they find fault in everything. No game or system is perfect, and what little time they don’t spend playing games is spent complaining about them. Their most hated enemy is the “casual gamer” often blamed for the fall of gaming, whose peak was in the ’90s (around the time of SNES). In an interesting twist of fate, in the gaming world these people are gods but in real life they are nothing. If you’re ever confronted by a hardcore gamer fear not, their only strength is in their wrists and fingers (from gaming and juggling their naughty bits); the rest of their bodies are doughy and atrophied from poor diets and lack of exercise. But if you’re worried you may have found one, or wondering if you might be one, here is a list that helps.

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            • The Top 10 Reasons the Wii Has Dominated the PS3

              old-wizard.com
              Written by Zeromage 233 Comments
              Last Updated:: November 9, 2008

              After Nintendo’s utter domination of Sega in every single platform generation, a new console war was started between Sony and Nintendo.  Sony thought it would try to take on the Nintendo franchise and learn from the mistakes of Sega. Sony succeeded in large part by beating out Nintendo with the Playstation 1 and 2. But a debate now occurs between what the better system is between the Wii and the PS3 in this most modern generation of platform gaming. Nintendo fan boys or not, the Wii is the clear winner over the PS3 for plenty of different reasons. In this list, we will go through these reasons to make clear why the Wii clearly dominates the PS3.

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              • Top 10 Video Game Quotes

                old-wizard.com
                Written by Zeromage 47 Comments
                Last Updated:: November 7, 2008

                Its a well known fact that nerds love quotes, whether they’re video game quotes, movie quotes or almost anything else from pop culture. Most people who know a nerd personally will tell you that its hard to have a conversation with him or her without hearing a quote from Star Wars or Indiana Jones at some point in the discussion. Whether the conversation is about politics, religion or even what’s for dinner tonight, you’re likely to hear “I find your lack of faith disturbing” or some other random quote from the nerd’s favorite movie. All the staff members here at Old-Wizard.com are guilty of this behavior, and are able to quote all of the original Star Wars movies, Monty Python episodes or Lord of the Rings books on command (and our wives and girlfriends will tell you that we do it all the time). With that in mind, here are our top 10 video game quotes of all time:

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                • Top 5 Zelda Games

                  old-wizard.com
                  Written by Zeromage 92 Comments
                  Last Updated:: November 5, 2008

                  Has there ever been a better video game series than the Zelda series? Maybe the Super Mario, Castlevania, Metroid or Mega Man series, but after those, Zelda has no competition. The single factor that contributes towards a great gaming series is the amount of great games in the series. The same cannot be said for the Double Dragon series, for example, where it fell drastically in quality after Double Dragon 2. In the Zelda series though, as the games seemed to get better with each subsequent addition. This is rare for a video game series, and the Zelda series has been able to accomplish this with flying colors. Controversy will be heard in the sequencing of this list, but that only goes to show how strong each game in the series was.

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                  • Top 10 Easiest Video Games of All Time

                    old-wizard.com
                    Written by Zeromage 146 Comments
                    Last Updated:: November 2, 2008

                    What makes a game easy? How about an unlimited amount of lives? How about an unlimited amount of continues after you’ve  lost all your lives? How about a seemingly never ending amount of energy? There is something noticeable about all these traits that make a video game easy. All these traits are embodied in most new video games that are released. Gone are the days of working hard to beat a game. Sure, you could beat Contra in ½ an hour, but achieving the skill level of mastering the game took months, if not years. Today’s games are long, and require no mastery to accomplish. With what seems like an unlimited amount of life for the protagonists of new games, comes a gaming disposition that is ubiquitously lazy and lacking in patience. Fight your way to the end of the game without focusing on anything specifically. In this list then, we will go through the top 10 easiest games of all time with the central theme being that new games in the video game medium define what it is to be an easy game. Oh yeah, we will include one old game, but at #10.

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                    • Top 10 Video Games From the 80’s

                      old-wizard.com
                      Written by Zeromage 16 Comments
                      Last Updated:: October 25, 2008

                      Oh the 80’s. Bad haircuts, moderately entertaining family sitcoms, and the first glimpses of the technology boom. What else were the 80’s known for? How about the emergence of the home video game platform that entertained an entire generation of people with great games? All that blowing on cartridges could do nothing to stop the 80’s gamer from getting a game going. It took some great games for people to lose all their oxygen trying to get them to work. In this list, we will go through these excellent games that defined the 80’s and led to the emergence of the video game market as one of the most powerful in the entertainment industry. Without these, games, who knows how video games would’ve developed.

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