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Multiplayer Magic or Madness?: Nintendo’s E3 Surprises

I remember playing The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition on my 3DS back in 2011 and simultaneously texting some friends eagerly looking for a time to get together so we could tackle the game together as it was truly meant to be played.  I remember even more vividly my disappointment when I saw that …

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‘Super Metroid’: Mother Brain translates intensity and emotion into a wordless finale

There’s a moment in the Super Metroid finale, somewhere in between being brain-blasted by a creature that looks like it escaped from Attack on Titan and being saved by a flying alien parasite, that the whole nature of the battle is suddenly revealed to be entirely scripted. The idea of scripted battles, an idea that was still incredibly new back in the 16-bit era of the SNES, made for something of a rarity in the mid-90’s.

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How ‘Super Metroid’ channeled ‘Aliens’ and became the first feminist video game

In his not-quite seminal but still very good 1998 essay “F/X Porn,” David Foster Wallace dissects the lasting legacy of James Cameron’s mega-blockbuster Terminator 2: Judgment Day. (Well, more accurately, he examines the enduring stain left by Cameron’s film on the modern action movie, but whatever.) The essay doesn’t offer much in the way of …

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Games That Changed Everything: ‘Super Metroid’

It is something of a crime that the Metroid series has long been akin to the forgotten middle child of Nintendo’s family, the one that is oft ignored in favor of its too more prolific and popular siblings: Mario and Zelda. With several top tier games under its belt, and the many iconic moments it’s contributed to the gaming world, the Metroid series is more than deserving of its due among the Nintendo Big 3.

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