video games

Why I Collect Atari Stuff

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In the mid 2000s, my friend Wendy and I ventured out of town to check out an independent video game store. Looking for gift ideas for her friend, we came across two Atari 2600 consoles and a stash of games. She took the original wood-panel 2600 and half of the games, and I took the Atari 2600 Jr. and the other set of games. Since then, I’ve slowly added games to my collection as I’d stumble across games at conventions. While I still don’t consider myself to be a collector, my small Atari set is the one thing I’m collecting primarily for the sake of possessing these items rather than playing them.

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GameCube Week | My Life During the GameCube Era

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Made this one post for GameCube Week, but it kind of morphed into something else. I’m just gonna post it anyway.

On November 18th, 2001, I walked into a Zellers and bought a GameCube. Five years later, I was in line with my friends at that same Zellers, waiting to pick up our Nintendo Wii pre-orders. Between those two sentences, I did a lot of growing up.

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GameCube Week | Playing House in Animal Crossing

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GameCube Week “technically” today on In Third Person! One more official post in the series; this time about Animal Crossing!

Whether I’m cracking skulls with gravity-defying uppercuts, or launching mystical dragons from a bow and arrow, or dropping blocks down a well, I primarily use video games as an escape from the ordinary. Animal Crossing – while maybe not the most dramatic departure from reality, was an escape nonetheless. One that I obsessed over for a solid year.

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Tune in at 7pm EST for the Boss Rush All Game Show Marathon!

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Though I’m somewhere across the pond, the show must go on!

It’s game time! Tune in for every Boss Rush game show game, including all of the mini games from the Extra Life marathon! See you at 7pm EST!

Never miss a stream by following my channel and turning your notifications on! You can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram for stream updates and other cool stuff posted daily!

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GameCube Week | Exploring The Mario Kart: Double Dash Bonus Disc

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GameCube Week continues on In Third Person! Did you know that launch versions of Mario Kart: Double Dash came with a demo disc? Let’s explore its contents!

If you were fortunate enough to put in a pre-order for Mario Kart: Double Dash prior to its release, you got a special edition of the game that came with a Bonus Disc. Despite being a key selling point for me to pre-order in the first place, I would ignore the demo disc for over a decade before finally deciding to give the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles demo a try on stream. The ensuing fallout of that stream and the wonderful friendship that grew out of it is a well-documented tale that we don’t have to go over again (despite how much I’d love to).

At this point, nothing in my heart will be cooler than that Ninja Turtles demo for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the demo itself. But there’s more content on the disc than that. Let’s see what else it has to offer!

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GameCube Week | Did I Misjudge Mario Kart: Double Dash?

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GameCube Week continues on In Third Person! Did I wrongfully dismiss Mario Kart: Double Dash when it first came out in the early 2000s?

From its origins on the Super Nintendo, to the magnum opus that is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch, I’ve been with Nintendo’s kart racer since its inception. Though it’s never had any real competition to its throne, I haven’t always been high on every entry in the series. I bounced off of Mario Kart 7 on the 3DS really quickly for feeling stale. Mario Kart: Super Circuit on the Gameboy Advance was another weak entry in the series, as the hardware simply didn’t have the horsepower to translate the high-speed thrills to the small screen.

And then there’s Mario Kart: Double Dash. I remember really disliking it upon release. My distaste for the game was so strong that I dropped the game out of my rotation almost immediately. When I hooked up the GameCube again in 2019 to stream it, I had totally forgotten why I hated it in the first place. Do I still feel the same way about it now?

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GameCube Week | Going Back to Metroid Prime Almost 20 Years Later

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GameCube Week continues on In Third Person! This time, I morph ball roll my way back to Metroid Prime!

Some games age like fine wine. You can pick up a Gameboy today – or 100 years from now – and still have just as much fun with Tetris as players did when it was first released in the 1980s. Other games lose their sheen faster than you would hope. Have you played Goldeneye 007 on the Nintendo 64 recently? Despite being revolutionary for its time, advents in the shooter genre have rendered it obsolete. It’s only real value now is nostalgia, which it admittedly has in spades.

Going back to Metroid Prime recently proved to be an interest test of its staying power. Revolutionary in its own right, Samus’ debut on the GameCube successfully translated its 2D exploration roots into the third dimension. How much of the experience still stands strong almost 20 years later? I played it for a few hours on stream to find out.

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GameCube Week | The Legend of Zelda Bait-and-Switch

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GameCube Week begins on In Third Person! We start with the curious case of one of gaming’s most notorious bait-and-swich!

Flashback to the year 2000. At Nintendo’s now-defunct Space World show, they revealed the Nintendo GameCube. Though I had concerns with the console’s cutesy looks and its asymmetrical controller, one demo that was shown gave me hope. Little did I know the one thing I clung onto would lead to the ultimate disappointment.

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It’s GameCube Week at In Third Person!

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Nintendo’s cute gaming box gets the spotlight in this week of themed posts! GameCube Week begins tomorrow, with a post-a-day relating to the lunchbox that could. We’ll revisit a few games from my past, one of the biggest swerves in Nintendo history, and a dive into the demo disc that changed my life. There might even be…something different and very personal at the end of this run!

Hope to see you tomorrow and for the rest of the week as we celebrate GameCube Week at In Third Person!

Arcade Week | Pinball is Alive and Well at Tilt Toronto

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Arcade Week concludes at In Third Person! Let’s end the series with a spotlight on one of the coolest gaming spots in Toronto! Maybe I’ll see you there someday!

By the time I started visiting arcades in the late 80s and early 90s, pinball machines were already on the decline. Losing ground to arcade video games and other amusement games, they were basically extinct by the time I was tall enough to see the boards.

Finding a pinball machine in the wild these days is tough, but Tilt in Toronto is doing the world a favour by keeping pinball gaming alive.

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