Library Blogs

We are planning a Smash tournament for Friday, March 16th from 6-9pm. Up to 32 people can sign up, and it will be a double-elimination bracketed tournament encompassing all three versions of Super Smash Bros. Anyone affiliated with the university may sign up. You can do so at the CVGA service desk, by emailing video.games@umich.edu, or by calling 734-763-6533.

In preparation for our upcoming Smash tournament in March (details to follow), the archive has expanded its Super Smash Bros. hours from Friday evenings to all-day on Fridays.This change takes effect starting this Friday. So drag your Smash buddies in earlier on Friday and practice for our upcoming tournament!

Authored by our student worker, Doug Carmichael: Just got the final connection cable we needed to have full-on 4 player Game Boy Advance on GameCube mayhem! So gather your friends and bring them by to play some Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles or Legend of Zelda Four Swords Adventures!

Matt Gilgenbach, an alum of UM as well as the university's game development group Wolverine Soft, has been featured in a guest editorial on Kotaku.In it, he discusses his soon to be released game Retro/Grade, which is designed to be played with a guitar controller, although a game pad will suffice as well.In the editorial, he discusses the lack of new game material designed for the guitar controller, which he believes is a major determinant in its gradual decline in popularity over the past few years.

Here were our top games played in the archive for the month of January. Once again, a board game makes the list, along with the game that no one can seem to agree on how to pronounce, BlazBlue.

This week, the archive received a donation that was a special treat, a glimpse into our local video game industry from almost a decade ago: Alter Echo.Alter Echo was the last game developed by an Ann Arbor-based company called Outrage Entertainment, which developed games in Ann Arbor from about 1997-2004. And the generous donor of said game? None other than one of the testers of Alter Echo, Tod Schlegelmilch.The game isn't yet available for play, but keep searching Mirlyn to stay up to date on its status. I'm sure it will be a game well worth checking out!

After a long wait and many, many inquiries, it's finally here. Look at the cover - even Link is excited! So take some time and check it out this week.

Coming soon to a UM Computer & Video Game Archive near you... The CAVE EVIL Limited Edition board game!

The Great Wikipedia Protest Blackout of 2012 did not result in any particularly significant increase in site searching at the University of Michigan Library. While traffic was up on January 18, 2012, over the same day the previous week (January 11), the increase was about the same as for the day before and the day after -- reflecting the increasing workload of the academic semester more than any Wikipedia-inspired bump.

Our friends at The University of Michigan Press have released Silent Hill: The Terror Engine, the latest volume in their Landmark Video Game series.