Eaten by a Grue

Here are the top ten games played in the archive last week.

A paper was recently published in the March 2010 issue of the Psychological Bulletin documenting a study done on the effects of violent video games on children. One of the contributors was Prof. Bushman of UM. Some of the conclusions reached in the paper are as follows: "We believe that debates can and should finally move beyond the simple question of whether violent video game play is a causal risk factor for aggressive behavior..."

Authored by Sarah Raezler: On our shelves we have around 1400 titles available for your gaming pleasure. And having worked at the CVGA since we opened in August 2008 I feel confident enough to say that if we took out Halo, Call of Duty, Smash, Fifa and NCAA Football people would have no idea what to play. I intend to use this space to introduce (and hopefully sell you on) some of the very awesome games we have in our collection that rarely get any play time.

For example, House of the Dead: Overkill, a Wii-exclusive rail shooter, and surprise hit of last year. It’s an over-the-top, gore- fest balanced with humor and style done very much in the spirit of Robert Rodriquez’s Grindhouse. SEGA rebooted the House of the Dead franchise in an attempt to introduce a 'hardcore' gaming title for the Wii and to that end I think they succeeded. The game is hilarious, as in I've honestly never laughed so hard at a game in my life (and I'll tell you that working here I've seen a lot of games). So if you play this game, please, please watch the cut scenes! Recognized both by Yahtzee (of Zero Punctuation fame at http://tinyurl.com/yc9rz5u) as being one of the best games of 2009 and by the Guinness Book of World Records for dubious honor of breaking the record for most swearing in a video game (http://tinyurl.com/ybuna8j) it’s a game you don’t want to miss if you’re a fan of the zombie genre, shooters, or are just looking for something more interesting than Mario or Smash on the Wii.

Here are the top ten games played in the archive last week.

Authored by Doug Carmichael: In addition to Val's post, I thought I'd post a more head on of our wall.

It's been almost 2 years since the archive first opened, when our game selection was a little limited. Now we have a few more games, and our shelves look a little less barren. It's amazing how quickly collections can grow.

Now is the time to register for next week's Retro Gaming Tournament.

Wired.com has images from this weekend's Game Over 3 art show in San Francisco: "Classic Videogames Mutate in Game Over Art Show."

Today I welcome three new contributors to Eaten by a Grue. Val Waldron is the manager of the Computer & Video Game Archive, and Doug Carmichael & Sarah Raezler are our two student workers. Val, Doug & Sarah will be posting on topics relating to the archive, offering their unique perspectives on what it is like to work in one of the few academic game archives in the world.

As a reminder, further information about the CVGA can be found at the following links.