Two Kinds of Older Gaming Brands

Coming up with this thumbnail was harder than you would thought.

One of the subjects related to gaming industry that kind of bothered me recently is the matter of developers, publishers and their "legitimacy". What do I mean by that? Well, often you can see various arguments about this that studio "X" isn't the same anymore or "Y" is just a pretended to the name they're carrying. In the meantime, there're cases where a new company uses an older brand and some people believing that "old guard is back".

Sometimes it gets as confusing as a usage of terms like "remaster" in gaming media and general conversations. Similarly to re-releases, not everyone seems to really bother with terminology all that much. Although I think that getting it right can be as (if not even more) important than doing the same for aforementioned newer version of older games. That is the topic I decided to explore this time around.

Callback to Blizzard Classic "Arcade"

Blizzard Classic Arcade logo. Taken from Warcraft Wiki.

It's been a couple of days since this blog reached its first anniversary. Back then I started everything by talking about Blizzard's pre-Warcraft titles that suddenly disappeared from their "Download" page. As it later turned out, this is a result of some type of error that's yet to be fixed. For now, you need to either have a direct link to download DOS versions The Lost Vikings and Blackthorne or simply be a resident of the United States: works fine for them. Not to mention that Blizzard Arcade Collection was announced and released a few days after that, which I find hilarious after guessing that they would move those games to GOG.

That's when I decided that it would be great to kick off Hall's second year by talking about the earlier iteration of Blizzard's Classic Games initiative. I've done that before in "A Tale of Warcraft Remasters that Almost Happened", but I missed out on important part in that story of them bringing their older titles to modern platform at the time. Because Blizzard started to inappropriately use the term Arcade for their console titles from the 90s before aforementioned re-releases. Okay, I get the idea of calling them "arcade games", but I don't know why they didn't go for "retro" or something else instead.

February 2022 Update

Improvised "Hall Update" Thumbnail.

Well, would you look at that? I did it. I actually did it. That wasn't a perfect ride, but, all things considered, I guess we have something to celebrate today. Exactly one year ago, I opened Ilko's Hall and published its first "article". Despite various obstacles that appeared on my way, forcing me to take a break from it one way or the other, I managed to keep this blog running somewhat consistently and that feels great.

At first, I considered to writing a separate post about it, but some good & bad things grabbed my attention away from an idea I didn't knew how to realize anyway. Consider this an "Anniversary Edition" of basic update post as I'll take some time to reflect on such a mildstone while discussing where all of this might be heading into the future.

Pondering about Neat Hardware

Nvidia Shield Tablet, Asus ROG Flow Z13 and Nintendo Switch OLED.

It's been a while since I expressed my interest in talking about other topics related to gaming. For a while I just didn't have a specific topic in mind and also didn't come up with something  truly nothing, so I guess I can talk about nothing this time around. After all, this is a personal blog. Even though I've been making a slow progress this year so far, there's much more to be done. In my frequent episodes of self-reflection, I've realized that I lack a "new hardware goal". You see, my current smartphone & laptop are old, outdated and I'm surprised they're still working. Although I can't say the same about my tablet that I stopped using anyway.

While my long-term wish is to make through all the odds, I'm struggling to be selfish. It's hard to think about getting a new computer and whatnot when you have a menacing elephant in the room. How about dealing with low income and family debts instead of daydreaming about some laptop? While I agree with it since that's my actual thoughts, I started to realized that this could be problematic. I'm too fixated on a larger ultimate goal I just can't deal with at the moment, which results in obvious personal issues. There's a need for some middle point and that's what I wanted to waste my free time on. Because I actually have no idea what I would like to get for myself.

Finding a New Little Big Adventure

Little Big Adventure Promo Screenshot. Taken from MobyGames.

A very good friend of mine kind of introduced me to Little Big Adventure, and recommended me to play it after I expressed my interest in two game since they just seem pretty comfy. Even though my game list keeps growing as I go through more titles I either got recently or hold off for a long time, this series is still one of those few I want to visit at some point. I enjoyed reviewing the current status of multiple older games & franchises, so I would like to keep doing that. This time, by recapping the latest developments in Twinsen's story.