by Kuriakose Saju

8 am: Morning finds me with a headache, whereas last night had found me molesting mushrooms with Luigi. I think at some point we wandered over to Peach’s palace as well, thanks to Yoshi and his fetish for midnight walks. Luigi, as usual, told me to head on home after we were done squeezing out fireballs from the roof (Yeah. Fireballs, baby! It’s like having firework guns stuck into our arms! On account of being videogame characters and all that).

I think he’s seeing one of the palace maids, might even be dating her. I, on the other hand, need to get over to a client’s place and fix his pipes… pipes at his place as well… ermm. Click here to continue reading ‘A day in the life of … MARIO!’

by Nike Okami

There comes a time in a game’s existence when it enters the big business phase. It’s the strategy behind products like movies, novels, television shows — give the consumer more of what he wants real quick, while his interest in the game is still ripe. The popularity and sales figures supply brand recognition to each new product arising from it’s progenitor, which translates into a license to print money on behalf of the parent company distributing the rights.

Thus begins the franchise. Several brands like Mario, Dot Hack, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Pokemon are considered franchises as they have movies, anime and toys bearing their brand, besides continuous sequels to their gaming legacies.

However, not everything is all Pikachus and fanfics in the realm of franchises. Even the most hallowed companies have been found guilty of sub-par products made in the name of profit. Some companies like Squaresoft have suffered immense losses due to over-ambitious planning (more below) for their franchises. Let’s take a look at some other titles that paralysed die-hards and collectors with their magnanimous mediocrity. Click here to continue reading ‘The dark side of gaming franchises (Part 1)’

by gSathe

One of the big issues that knocked about every now and then is the “mature” content in video games these days. Even now, to many non-gamers, particularly here in India, the image of video games still remains Mario jumping around in a world made up of smiley faces and bright primary colours. So it’s not really all that strange to realise that when the mainstream does pick up on games, and notices the blood and gore, or the sex and boobs, they get sort of fixated by the idea. Click here to continue reading ‘The meaning of maturity’