This week’s surprisingly video-heavy highlights include a great mini-doc about the history of the Punch-Out franchise, a review (& compendium of
[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from video game industry ‘watcher’ Simon Carless (GDC, Gamasutra co-runner), rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week’s surprisingly video-heavy highlights include a great mini-doc about the history of the Punch-Out franchise, a review (& compendium of reviews) for the latest acclaimed Smash Bros. game, & a multitude of other neatness.
Thanks for tagging along for Issue #118 of Video Game Deep Cuts! A little busy overseas, so sorry, this is as erudite an intro as you’re getting this week! Salut! Until next time…
– Simon, curator.]
—————— What the Popularity of ‘Fortnite’ Has in Common With the 20th Century Pinball Craze (Clive Thompson / Smithsonian Magazine – ARTICLE)
“As with violence, these fears are probably overblown, as psychologists like Powell-Lunder note. The great majority of kids learn to self-regulate, and appreciate when parents help set limits, she says. Plus, Fortnite has many benefits, she notes: “It’s enormously social—it’s a really good connector,” attracting many girls and other kids who normally don’t play games.” The 13 biggest announcements from The Game Awards 2018 (Nick Statt & Andrew Webster / The Verge – ARTICLE)
“The Game Awards is ostensibly the equivalent of the Oscars for the video game industry, but the biggest names in interactive entertainment have never been known to turn down a good marketing opportunity. So The Game Awards have also evolved into a jam-packed news event, with new trailers, game announcements, and other surprises packed in between the night’s slate of prizes. [SIMON’S NOTE: a useful compendium here.]” Move over AlphaGo: AlphaZero taught itself to play three different games (Jennifer Ouellette / Ars Technica – ARTICLE)
“Google’s DeepMind—the group that brought you the champion game-playing AIs AlphaGo and AlphaGoZero—is back with a new, improved, and more-generalized version. Dubbed AlphaZero, this program taught itself to play three different board games (chess, Go, and shogi, a Japanese form of chess) in just three days, with no human intervention.” The Story of Punch-Out!! (Gaming Historian / YouTube – VIDEO)
“A documentary detailing the complete history of Nintendo’s Punch-Out!! video game series. In 1983, Nintendo had a problem: They had too many arcade monitors. Rather than toss them, they made a new game that could use 2 monitors. That game was Punch-Out!!, one of Nintendo’s most beloved franchises.” The 30 Best Videogames of 2018 (The Paste Games Writers / Paste – ARTICLE)
“You can say a lot a things about 2018, but you can’t say that it didn’t have a large and diverse batch of really good videogames. The constant churn of this job makes it hard for me to remember what I played last week, much less years ago, but I can’t recall a recent year with such a wide-ranging assortment of games worth playing and crowing over.” Smash Bros. Ultimate review: The best fighting game on any Nintendo system (Sam Machkovech / Ars Technica – ARTICLE)
“Super Smash Bros.
