Gyruss

Gyruss (ジャイラス, Jairasu) is a shoot 'em up arcade game designed by Yoshiki Okamoto and released by Konami in 1983. Gyruss was licensed to Centuri in the United States, and was ported to contemporary home systems.

The gameplay is similar to that of Galaga but presented in a forced 3D perspective, with the player's ship facing 'into' the screen and able to move around the perimeter of an implicit circle. The scrolling starfield of earlier space shooter games is arranged to fit the 3D perspective, with the stars coming into view at the centre of the screen and flying outward, giving the impression of the player's ship moving through space.

Gyruss is the second and last game Yoshiki Okamoto designed for Konami, after Time Pilot. Due to pay disputes, he was fired after the release of this game, and soon joined Capcom, where he would write 1942 and the first Street Fighter game.

The game's background music is an electronic, uptempo arrangement of J. S. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565; this particular track is similar to "Toccata", a rock arrangement by the UK-based instrumentalist group Sky. Gyruss is notable for using stereo sound, which according to the bonus material for Konami Arcade Classics, was achieved by utilizing discrete audio circuits.

Classic Game Room

Classic Game Room (commonly abbreviated CGR) is a video game review show produced, directed, edited and hosted by Mark Bussler (b. 1975) of Inecom, LLC. The show reviews both retro and modern video games along with gaming accessories, pinball machines, and minutiae such as gaming mousepads and food products. The show broadcast its reviews via video-sharing website YouTube under the screen name 'Lord Karnage' until late 2013, when they moved to Dailymotion, citing issues with YouTube. On May 8, 2014, via the Classic Game Room's Facebook Page and YouTube channel, it was announced that the show would again be posting episodes on YouTube. Usage of their own website, which has its own rating and comments system, is encouraged.

History

Originally titled The Game Room and presented by Mark Bussler and David Crosson, it was the first professional video game review show on the internet. Founded by Bussler, it launched on November 7, 1999 on the internet startup website FromUSAlive.

Atari 2600

The Atari 2600, (or Atari VCS before 1982) is a home video game console released on September 11, 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and ROM cartridges containing game code, a format first used with the Fairchild Channel F video game console in 1976. This format contrasts with the older model of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware, which could only play the games which were physically built into the unit.

The console was originally sold as the Atari VCS, an abbreviation for Video Computer System. Following the release of the Atari 5200 in 1982, the VCS was renamed to the "Atari 2600", after the unit's Atari part number, CX2600. The 2600 was typically bundled with two joystick controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a game cartridge, initially Combat, and later Pac-Man.

History

Ted Dabney and Nolan Bushnell developed the Atari gaming system in the 1970s. Originally operating under the name "Syzygy", Bushnell and Dabney changed the name of their company to "Atari" in 1972. In 1973, Atari Inc. had purchased an engineering think tank called Cyan Engineering to research next-generation video game systems, and had been working on a prototype known as "Stella" (named after one of the engineers' bicycles) for some time. Unlike prior generations of machines that use custom logic to play a small number of games, its core is a complete CPU, the famous MOS Technology 6502 in a cost-reduced version known as the 6507. It was combined with a RAM-and-I/O chip, the MOS Technology 6532, and a display and sound chip known as the Television Interface Adaptor (TIA). The first two versions of the machine contain a fourth chip, a standard CMOS logic buffer IC, making Stella cost-effective. Some later versions of the console eliminated the buffer chip.

Yoshiki Okamoto

Yoshiki Okamoto (岡本 吉起 Okamoto Yoshiki) (born June 10, 1961, in Ehime Prefecture, Japan), sometimes credited as Kihaji Okamoto, is a video game designer credited with producing popular titles for Konami, including Gyruss and Time Pilot, and Capcom, including Final Fight and Street Fighter II. He later founded the company Game Republic. In recent years, he created the hit mobile games Dragon Hunter and Monster Strike for Mixi.

Early career at Konami

His early games Time Pilot (1982) and Gyruss (1983) innovated in the shoot 'em up genre during the golden age of arcade games. The Killer List of Videogames included both Gyruss and Time Pilot in its list of top 100 arcade games of all time. Although these games turned out to be successful titles for Konami, Okamoto's employer was not happy as apparently Okamoto had been told to create a driving game instead. Internal disagreements, financial and credible, caused his termination from Konami.

Career at Capcom

Joining Capcom in 1984, Okamoto directed several arcade games such as 1942 (1984), SonSon (1984), Gun.Smoke (1985) and Side Arms (1986). The last game he directed was the 1988 CP System game Forgotten Worlds (1988). He would oversee the development of Capcom's subsequent games as a producer and was responsible for recruiting character designer Akira Yasuda for Capcom. Okamoto and Yasuda developed some of Capcom's biggest hits, most notably the beat 'em up game Final Fight (1989) and fighting game Street Fighter II (1991).

Nintendo

Nintendo Co., Ltd. (Japanese: 任天堂株式会社, Hepburn: Nintendō Kabushiki gaisha) is a Japanese multinational consumer electronics and software company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. Nintendo is the world's largest video game company by revenue. Founded on September 23, 1889, by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as cab services and love hotels.

Abandoning previous ventures in favor of toys in the 1960s, Nintendo then developed into a video game company in the 1970s, ultimately becoming one of the most influential in the industry and Japan's third most-valuable company with a market value of over $85 billion. Nintendo of America is also the majority owner of Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners.

The word Nintendo can be roughly translated from Japanese to English as "leave luck to heaven".As of March 31, 2014, Nintendo has cumulative sales of over 670.43 million hardware units and 4.23 billion software units. The company is known for creating some of the most iconic video game franchises, including Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Pokémon.