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For many, Mario is the embodiment of great gaming. In the vast majority of video games featuring the bouncing plumber, the game-play has been life absorbing and the graphics have often pushed the boundaries of technology in their time. They have been the beating heart of the continuing success of Nintendo consoles and dominate the [...]

When people talk about Japanese role-playing games, certain images pop into mind: scrawny and under-dressed teens saving the world, ridiculously complex story lines, and ground-breaking graphics.  While it’s true that these stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason, the world of JRPGs is one of the richest and most fascinatingly diverse in all of gaming.  They [...]

The video game industry has pumped out countless accessories over the years. Most are functional but forgettable, the Ray Romanos of the video game world. Some, like the NES Zapper, are iconic. And then there are these ten, which make absolutely no sense. Maybe they were good ideas that went awry, or maybe they’re shameless [...]

Video games are a big part of the modern entertainment industry, even surpassing the movie industry in profits. But where would we be without video game information websites? They help us decide what games to buy, which ones to look forward to, and even how to get through difficult spots in the games we already [...]

J-pop, short for Japanese pop, is, according to Wikipedia, a loosely-defined musical genre that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1990s. Modern J-pop has its roots in 1960s music such as The Beatles and replaced kayokyoku (“Lyric Singing Music”, a term for Japanese pop music from the 1920s to the 1980s) in the Japanese music scene. [...]

By this point in life we’re all well aware that Japan is the source of crazy, crazy things, so to create a list of their weirdest video games seems like it would be old hat. But Japan never ceases to amaze us; even in this day and age, when just hearing the word “Japan” conjures [...]

This list encompasses the top 10 hot Christmas toys of all time. When I say ‘hot,’ I mean the ones flying off the shelves, that every kid just HAS to have, the kind of toy that brings out the best in everyone. Kids (and some adults) spend their time feverishly begging and pleading for the [...]

Music has come a long way since its humble inception many thousands of years ago. With new genres of music constantly being created, recombined, or spliced together, by the time this article is published the ten genres within it could be completely irrelevant! Just in the past decade we have seen an extremely rapid proliferation [...]

It’s accepted as a universal truth among gamers: if a game is based on a movie, it’s probably going to be terrible.  There are several reasons for this: the game is rushed as a merchandising tie-in, the studio hired does a hack job in the first place, and so on.  But the net result is [...]

It comes as little surprise that there are certain foreign-made cars that aren’t sold in the United States. From the Nissan Skyline to certain special editions of the BMW M3, there are plenty of high performance machines that the Germans and the Japanese don’t market to Americans. But what’s not as well known are the [...]