Featured articles represent some of the best content on the English Wikipedia.
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Super Meat Boy is a 2010 platform game designed by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes under the collective name of "Team Meat". It was self-published as the successor to Meat Boy, a 2008 Flash game designed by McMillen and Jonathan McEntee. In the game, the player controls Meat Boy, a red, cube-shaped character, as he attempts to rescue his girlfriend, Bandage Girl, from the game's antagonist Dr. Fetus. The gameplay is characterized by fine control and split-second timing, as the player runs and jumps through over 300 hazardous levels while avoiding obstacles. The game also supports the creation of player-created levels. Super Meat Boy was first released on the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade in October 2010, and was later ported to Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, and the Nintendo Switch. A Wii version was in development but was ultimately cancelled.
Development of the game began in early 2009. McMillen worked on level design and artwork, while Refenes coded it. The game's soundtrack was written by Danny Baranowsky, who had also worked on the original Meat Boy. Super Meat Boy won several awards and has been cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. Critics lauded the game's controls, art, soundtrack, and challenging gameplay. The game was also a commercial success, selling over a million copies by January 2012. A sequel, Super Meat Boy Forever, was released on December 23, 2020, without McMillen's involvement. (Full article...)
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Devil May Cry is a 2001 action-adventure game developed and published by Capcom. Released from August to December, originally for the PlayStation 2, it is the first installment in the Devil May Cry series. Set in modern times on the fictional Mallet Island, the story centers on Dante, a demon hunter who uses his business to carry out a lifelong vendetta against all demons. He meets a woman named Trish who takes him on a journey to defeat the demon lord Mundus, who is responsible for the deaths of Dante's brother and mother. The story is told primarily through a mixture of cutscenes, which use the game engine and several pre-renderedfull motion videos. The game is very loosely based on the Italian poem Divine Comedy by the use of allusions, including the game's protagonist Dante (named after Dante Alighieri) and other characters like Trish (Beatrice Portinari) and Vergil (Vergil).
The game was originally conceived by Capcom developers as Resident Evil 4. Due to the staff feeling it would not fit the Resident Evil franchise, the project became its own title. Several gameplay elements were also inspired by a bug found in Onimusha: Warlords. Devil May Cry received prominent coverage in the video game media due to the impact it had in the action-adventure genre, its high difficulty, and the high overall scores given to it by professional reviewers. The game has sold more than three million copies, spawned multiple sequels and a prequel, and is considered among the greatest video games ever made. (Full article...)
In Conan, the hero is on a quest to recover his lost armor and defeat an evil wizard. Conan can fight with sword and shield, two-handed weapons, or a weapon in each hand. Starting with several basic attacks, the barbarian gains experience points by killing enemies. By exchanging these points for additional attacks, players improve the hero's fighting abilities. Magic powers complement Conan's arsenal, including the abilities to turn enemies into stone and conjure firestorms. The game also features context-sensitive action sequences in which players press a sequence of buttons displayed on the screen to complete actions such as killing powerful enemies and interacting with the environment.
Critics enjoyed Conan's combat system and gory kills, but said the game failed to match the experience offered in God of War. Reactions varied on the game's depiction of the Conan universe; several critics praised the emulation of Frank Frazetta's famous artwork, but others found the game's graphics drab and of low resolution. Regarding the audio, Golden Globe-winning actor Ron Perlman was both praised and criticized for his voice work as Conan. Composer Mike Reagan received acclaim for the game's music and later gave live performances of the game's soundtrack at Video Games Live shows. Despite the average reviews and commercial success of the Conan franchise, Conan sold poorly and was a financial loss for THQ. (Full article...)
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Cave Story is a 2004 Metroidvania game for Microsoft Windows. It was developed over five years by Japanese independent developer Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya in his free time. Cave Story features 2D platform mechanics and is reminiscent of the games Amaya played in his youth, such as Metroid and Castlevania. After its initial self-published release, the game slowly gained popularity on the internet. It received widespread critical acclaim for many polished aspects of its design, such as its compelling characters, setting, story, and gameplay. Cave Story is considered by many as the quintessential indie game because of its one-person development team and influence on the video gaming world.
Independent video game developer Nicalis worked with Amaya to port the game to WiiWare and DSiWare in 2010. An enhanced version, Cave Story+, was released for Steam in November 2011, and the original game was released for the Nintendo 3DS in October 2012 with added content. A 3D remake of the game, titled Cave Story 3D, was developed by Nicalis and published by NIS America for the Nintendo 3DS in November 2011. A port of Cave Story+ for the Nintendo Switch was released in June 2017.
Cave Story revolves around Quote, a robot who wakes up suffering from amnesia and explores in diverse cavernous areas in order to uncover his backstory and escape from the cave. The character gains access to new areas as he powers up his weapons by collecting triangular experience crystals and solves various platforming puzzles. Quote speaks to non-player characters scattered around the game world in order to learn more about the world and its inhabitants. (Full article...)
Games in the series have been praised as some of the best action games of all time. The series has received numerous awards, including several Game of the Year recognitions for the 2005 and 2018 installments. Some games have also been remastered for newer PlayStation platforms. As of November 2023, the franchise has sold an estimated 66+ million games worldwide, and is PlayStation's most profitable first-party brand. Strong sales and support of the series led to the franchise's expansion into other media, such as three comic book series and three novels. A film adaptation of the original installment had been in development but was ultimately canceled; however, a television series adaptation of the Norse era is in development for Amazon Prime Video. Merchandise includes artwork, clothing, toys, and prop replicas, as well as the games' soundtracks, including a heavy metal album, Blood & Metal (2010), featuring original music by various bands, who were inspired by the Greek era of the series. (Full article...)
The game follows the five Simpsons family members—Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie—who learn they are part of a video game and are given superpowers to resolve several situations. Eventually, they must save their 8-bit predecessors from Will Wright, and the creator of their video game character selves, Matt Groening. The Simpsons family travels to four scenarios in parodies of other games to collect key cards used to infiltrate their creator's mansion and ultimately to save their predecessors from destruction to reverse their generations old ban on video games.
The game was met with mixed reception from video game critics. They praised its visuals, writing, and faithfulness to the original material, while they criticized its short length and poor camera system, which did not always function properly. The Simpsons Game received the Best Game Based on a Movie or TV Show award at the 2007 Spike Video Game Awards and was nominated for Best Video Game Writing at the 2007Writers Guild of America Awards. As of January 31, 2008, four million copies of the game have been sold worldwide. (Full article...)
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Final Fantasy VIII, a 1999 role-playing video game by Squaresoft, features "SeeD", an elite group of mercenaries, as well as soldiers, rebels, and political leaders of various nations and cities. Thirteen weeks after its release, it had earned more than US$50 million in sales, making it the fastest selling Final Fantasy title at the time. The game has shipped 8.15 million units worldwide as of March 2003. Additionally, Final Fantasy VIII was voted the 22nd-best game of all time by readers of Famitsu in 2006. The game's characters were created by Tetsuya Nomura, and were the first in the series to be realistically proportioned in all aspects. This graphical shift, as well as the cast itself, has received generally positive reviews from gaming magazines and websites.
Nights: Journey of Dreams is an action video game developed by Sega Studios USA and published by Sega for the Wii. The sequel to the 1996 Sega Saturn title Nights into Dreams, it was released in Japan and North America in December 2007, and in Australia and Europe the following month. The story follows two children, William Taylor and Helen Cartwright, who enter a dream world called Nightopia. When their nightmares come to life, they enlist the help of Nights, an exiled "Nightmaren", as they journey through Nightopia to stop the evil ruler Wizeman from escaping into the real world.
As with its predecessor, gameplay is centred around Nights flying through the dreams of the two children. The main objective of the game is to fly through rings while gathering enough keys to proceed to the next level. Development of Journey of Dreams began shortly after the release of Shadow the Hedgehog in 2005, and was headed by Sonic Team veteran Takashi Iizuka. The team took steps to ensure that the game stayed faithful to the original, while incorporating a variety of new mechanics and features. The game's setting was designed to resemble England, especially parts of London.
Journey of Dreams received mixed reviews; critics praised the game's colourful visuals, boss battles, soundtrack, and special effects, but criticised its controls, camera, aesthetics, and aspects of its gameplay. Despite the mixed reception, Iizuka said that he would be interested in making a third Nights game, should Sega commission one. (Full article...)
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Claire Redfield is a character in Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan), a survival horror series created by the Japanese company Capcom. Claire was first introduced alongside Leon S. Kennedy as one of two player characters in Resident Evil 2 (1998). The character was conceived as Elza Walker, a blonde motorcyclist character in the prototype of the game, but her name and role were changed for the final version to connect its story to that of Resident Evil (1996). In Resident Evil 2, Claire arrives in Raccoon City, a settlement in the Midwestern United States that has been overrun by zombies, to find her missing brother Chris Redfield.
Claire is the protagonist of several Resident Evil games, novels, and films, and has appeared in other franchises, including Monster Hunter and Teppen. Several actors have portrayed Claire; in Resident Evil 2 (1998) , she is voiced by Alyson Court, whose features were later used for the character. In the 2019 remake of Resident Evil 2, she is voiced by Stephanie Panisello and modeled on the Canadian model Jordan McEwen. In the live-action Resident Evil films, Claire has been portrayed by Ali Larter and Kaya Scodelario.
Critics have positively responded to Claire's personality and her role as a strong, female lead character. Several journalists considered Claire to be significantly less-sexualized than other female game characters. She was exemplified as a female character who is as competent and skilled as her male counterparts. (Full article...)
... that the video game mode Ultimate Team has been criticized for its reliance on loot box packs, considered to be a controversial form of gambling?
... that when Kaz Ayabe pitched his video game Boku no Natsuyasumi to Sony, he said that illustrator Mineko Ueda was interested in the project even though they had never actually met?
... that before Sarah Elmaleh voiced the player character in the video game Anthem, developed by BioWare, she voiced characters in a mod of an earlier BioWare game?
... that the 1979 video game Superman was one of the first console games with a pause feature?
... that Rockstar Vienna was the largest video game developer in Austria when it closed in 2006?
... that fighting video game Panza Kick Boxing was endorsed by a French kickboxing champion who also supplied technical advice?
... that the success of Kingdom Rush prompted plans to grow the video game industry of Uruguay?
... that Rawson Stovall became the first nationally syndicated video game journalist in the United States when he was only eleven years old?
Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg (/ˈʃɛlbɜːrɡ/SHEL-burg, Swedish:[ˈfěːlɪksˈǎrːvɪdɵlfˈɕɛ̂lːbærj]ⓘ; born 24 October 1989), better known as PewDiePie (/ˈpjuːdiːpaɪ/PEW-dee-py), is a Swedish YouTuber, best known for his gaming videos. Kjellberg's popularity on YouTube and extensive media coverage have made him one of the most noted online personalities and content creators. Media coverage of him has cited him as a figurehead for YouTube, especially in the gaming genre.
Born and raised in Gothenburg, Kjellberg registered his YouTube channel "PewDiePie" in 2010, primarily posting Let's Play videos of horror and action video games. His channel gained a substantial following and was one of the fastest growing channels in 2012 and 2013, before becoming the most-subscribed on YouTube on 15 August 2013. From 29 December 2014 to 14 February 2017, Kjellberg's channel was also the most-viewed on the platform. During this period, his content shifted focus from Let's Plays and diversified to include vlogs, comedy shorts, formatted shows, and music videos. (Full article...)
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Uematsu in 2011
Nobuo Uematsu (植松 伸夫, Uematsu Nobuo, born March 21, 1959) is a Japanese composer and keyboardist best known for his contributions to the Final Fantasy video game series by Square Enix. A self-taught musician, he began playing the piano at the age of twelve, with English singer-songwriter Elton John as one of his biggest influences in pursuing a musical career.
Uematsu joined Square in 1986, where he first met Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. The two later worked together on many games at the company, most notably in the Final Fantasy series. After nearly two decades with Square, Uematsu left in 2004 to create his own production company and music label, Dog Ear Records. He has since composed music as a freelancer for other games, including ones developed by Square Enix and Sakaguchi's studio Mistwalker. (Full article...)
Charles Andre Martinet (born September 17, 1955) is an American actor. He is best known for voicing Mario in the Super Mario franchise, portraying him from 1991 to 2023. He also voiced other characters in the series such as Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, and the baby equivalents of Mario and Luigi, prior to stepping down as voice actor to become an official brand ambassador for the series.
After working at Capcom for thirteen years, he left the company to form his own studio, Whoopee Camp. His latest game was Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection for former employer Capcom. He is notorious for making his titles difficult for the average video game player and strict personality among peers. IGN listed Fujiwara at number 13 in its "Top 100 Game Creators of All Time" list. (Full article...)
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Kojima at SXSW 2025
Hideo Kojima (小島 秀夫, Kojima Hideo, born August 24, 1963) is a Japanese video game designer. Regarded as one of the first auteurs of video games, he developed a strong passion for film and literature during his childhood and adolescence, which in turn has had a significant influence on his games. In 1986, Kojima joined Konami, for which he directed, designed and wrote Metal Gear (1987) for the MSX2, the game that laid the foundations for the stealth genre and the Metal Gear franchise, his best known and most acclaimed work. At Konami, he also produced the Zone of the Enders series, as well as designing and writing Snatcher (1988) and Policenauts (1994), graphic adventure games regarded for their cinematic presentation.
Kojima founded Kojima Productions within Konami in 2005, and he was appointed vice president of Konami Digital Entertainment in 2011. Following his departure from Konami in 2015, he refounded Kojima Productions as an independent studio; his first game outside Konami, Death Stranding, was released in 2019. (Full article...)
Keiji Inafune (稲船 敬二, Inafune Keiji, born 8 May 1965) is a Japanese video game producer, character designer, game designer, and businessman. In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time.
Starting his career at Capcom in the late 1980s, his job was as an artist and illustrator. The first two games he worked on were the original Street Fighter and Mega Man in 1987. He was then a character designer and planner of the Mega Man series during the NES and Super NES era. For Mega Man X, he created and designed the character Zero. (Full article...)
In 2013, he resigned from id Software to work full-time at Oculus VR as their CTO. In 2019, he reduced his role to Consulting CTO so he could allocate more time toward artificial general intelligence (AGI). In 2022, he left Oculus to work on his AGI startup, Keen Technologies. (Full article...)
Following disputes with Carmack, Romero was fired from id in 1996. He co-founded a new studio, Ion Storm, and directed the FPS Daikatana (2000), which was a critical and commercial failure. Romero departed Ion Storm in 2001. In July 2001, he and another former id employee, Tom Hall, founded Monkeystone Games to develop games for mobile devices. (Full article...)
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Steve Ritchie speaks during the Atari panel at California Extreme 2009
Steven Scott Ritchie (born February 13, 1950) is an American pinball and video game designer. His career began in the 1970s. Ritchie holds the record for best-selling pinball designer in history. He has been called "The Master of Flow" due to the emphasis in his designs on ball speed, loops, and long smooth shots. Ritchie was also the original voice of Shao Kahn in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series, serving as the announcer of Mortal Kombat II (1993), Mortal Kombat 3 (1995), and the updates to Mortal Kombat 3. He is the older brother of fellow pinball designer Mark Ritchie. (Full article...)
Toriyama first achieved mainstream recognition for creating the manga series Dr. Slump, for which he earned the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen/shōjo. Dr. Slump went on to sell over 35 million copies in Japan. It was adapted into an anime, with a second series created in 1997, 13 years after the manga ended. (Full article...)
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Mechner in 2017
Jordan Mechner (born June 4, 1964) is an American video game designer, author, screenwriter, filmmaker, and former video game programmer. A major figure in the development of cinematic video games and a pioneer in video game animation, he began his career designing and programming the bestselling 1984 martial arts game Karateka for the Apple II while a student at Yale University. He followed it with the platform game Prince of Persia five years later; it was widely ported and became a hit. Both games used rotoscoping, where actors shot on film by Mechner were drawn over to create in-game animation. Prince of Persia has become the basis for a long-running franchise, including a 2010 live-action film released by Walt Disney Pictures and an ongoing series of video games published by Ubisoft.
Mechner is the recipient of many accolades, including the 2017 GDC Pioneer Award. His works are often included in all-time lists of the game industry's best and most influential titles. (Full article...)
Satoru Iwata (Japanese: 岩田 聡, Hepburn: Iwata Satoru, December6, 1959 – July11, 2015) was a Japanese businessman, video game programmer, video game designer, and producer. He was the fourth president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Nintendo from 2002 until his death in 2015. Iwata was a major contributor in broadening the appeal of video games by focusing on novel and entertaining games rather than top-of-the-line hardware.
Born in Sapporo, Iwata expressed interest in video games from an early age and created his first simple game while in high school. He majored in computer science at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 1980, he joined the game developer HAL Laboratory while attending the university. At HAL, he worked as a programmer and closely collaborated with Nintendo, producing his first commercial game in 1983. Games to which he contributed include EarthBound and many games in the Kirby series. Following a downturn and near-bankruptcy, Iwata became the president of HAL in 1993 at the insistence of Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi and brought financial stability. In the following years, he worked in the development of the Pokémon and Super Smash Bros. series. Iwata joined Nintendo as the head of its corporate planning division in 2000. (Full article...)
Newell was born in Colorado and grew up in Davis, California. He attended Harvard University in the early 1980s but dropped out to join Microsoft, where he helped create the first versions of the Windows operating system. In 1996, he and Mike Harrington left Microsoft to found Valve and fund the development of their first game, Half-Life (1998). Harrington sold his stake in Valve to Newell and left in 2000. Newell led the development of Valve's digital distribution service, Steam, which launched in 2003 and controlled most of the market for downloaded PC games by 2011. (Full article...)
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Rolfe in character as the Nerd in 2021
James D. Rolfe (born July 10, 1980) is an American YouTuber, filmmaker, and actor. He is best known for creating and starring in the comedic retrogaming web series Angry Video Game Nerd (2004–present). His spin-off projects include reviews of retro films, television series, and board games. He is considered a pioneer of internet gaming videos, and is noted for his widespread influence on YouTube content after the series premiered on the site in 2006.
Rolfe began creating homemade video productions in the late 1980s, having filmed more than 270 video productions by 2004. Among these were the first Angry Video Game Nerd episodes (originally known as Bad NES Games, and later Angry Nintendo Nerd), which were released on his Cinemassacre website in 2004. Two years later, he gained mainstream attention when the series went viral after being published to YouTube. Following its success, Rolfe released a feature-length film based on the series in 2014, which received mixed critical reception. (Full article...)
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Jun Maeda (麻枝 准, Maeda Jun, born January 3, 1975) is a Japanese writer and composer. He is a co-founder of the visual novel brand Key under Visual Arts. He is considered a pioneer of nakige visual novels, and has mainly contributed as a scenario writer, lyricist, and musical composer for the games the company produces.
After graduating with a degree in psychology from Chukyo University, Maeda contributed to the scripts and scores of games released under the Tactics brand of Nexton: Moon and One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e. He has contributed both to writing music and scripts to most games released under the Key brand, notably writing the majority of Air and Clannad. He also served as a screenwriter and composer for several anime series produced by P.A. Works, such as Angel Beats! and Charlotte. (Full article...)
A fan of arcade games in his youth, Tajiri wrote for and edited his own video gaming fanzineGame Freak with Ken Sugimori, before evolving it into a development company of the same name. Tajiri claims that the joining of two Game Boys via a link cable inspired him to create a game which embodied the collection and companionship of his childhood hobby, insect collecting. The game, which became Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green, took six years to complete and went on to spark a multibillion-dollar franchise which reinvigorated Nintendo's handheld gaming scene. Tajiri continued to work as director for the Pokémon series until the development of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, when he changed his role to executive producer, which he holds to this day. (Full article...)
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Naka in 2015
Yuji Naka (中 裕司, Naka Yūji, born September 17, 1965), credited in some games as YU2, is a Japanese video game designer and programmer. He is the co-creator of the Sonic the Hedgehog series and was the president of Sonic Team at Sega until his departure in 2006.
Featured articles represent some of the best content on the English Wikipedia.
Super Meat Boy is a 2010 platform game designed by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes under the collective name of "Team Meat". It was self-published as the successor to Meat Boy, a 2008 Flash game designed by McMillen and Jonathan McEntee. In the game, the player controls Meat Boy, a red, cube-shaped character, as he attempts to rescue his girlfriend, Bandage Girl, from the game's antagonist Dr. Fetus. The gameplay is characterized by fine control and split-second timing, as the player runs and jumps through over 300 hazardous levels while avoiding obstacles. The game also supports the creation of player-created levels. Super Meat Boy was first released on the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade in October 2010, and was later ported to Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, and the Nintendo Switch. A Wii version was in development but was ultimately cancelled.
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