Eaten by a Grue

Top Games - Week of Nov 2

2009-11-10T12:23:00.001-05:00

We've started keeping track of which games are being played in the archive. So here at the top ten games for the first week of November:

1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl
2. NCAA Football 10
3. Battlezone
4. Super Smash Bros.
5. Call of Duty 4
6. Ace Combat 6
7. Halo 3
8. NCAA Football 10
9. Mario Kart Wii
10. NBA 2K9

Serious Games Expo, Nov 19

2009-11-04T12:21:00.001-05:00

Serious Games Expo, Nov 19

2009-10-26T10:39:00.000-04:00

Serious games, Simulations and Natural Learning

"Show and Tell"
265 Chrysler Center, North Campus
Ann Arbor 48109

Thursday, November 19, 2009
5:00 – 7:00 P.M.

FREE FOOD

2009 Racing Tournament Results

2009-10-19T14:15:00.002-04:00

Here are the final results from the 2009 Racing Tournament. The top four overall racers received gift certificates for Get Your Game On.

1 Cesar Jose Miguel Parra (32)
2 Daniel Ponstein (28)
3 Daniel Thomas Miller (27)
4 Nathan Feenstra (26)
5 Weslie Tigner II (23)
6 Kevin Lapprich (22)
6 Aaron Skolnik (22)
6 Ladante Riley (22)
9 Alan Duanmu (15)
10 Yang Gao (12)
11 Alex Goff (10)
12 Shaun Joshua Levin (9)
12 Brian Chung (9)
14 Dorian Waitz (5)
15 Vlad Voziyanov (4)
15 Raghunath Sai Katragadda (4)
17 Sammy Joe Lee (2)
17 Charles Mercer (2)
19 Douglas William Strait (1)

The top finishers for each game were:

F-Zero: Weslie Tigner II (2:08:40)

Star Wars Episode I Racer: Daniel Miller (3:16:32)

Mario Kart Double Dash: Nathan Feenstra (1:56:21)

Pure: Nathan Feenstra (5:06:00)

Forza 2: Cesar Parra (3:36:27)

Thanks to everyone who participated. We're already planning our next tournament, probably in early 2010...

Fall Break Hours

2009-10-16T13:01:00.002-04:00

Due to the Fall Break, the Computer & Video Game Archive will close today at 3pm. We will be closed Saturday through Tuesday, and reopen Wednesday at 10am, resuming regular hours.

Racing Tournament - Day Four

2009-10-09T10:10:00.001-04:00

Here's the leaderboard after day three of the racing tournament:

F-Zero - 1st: Weslie Tigner II ; 2nd: Daniel Ponstein ; 3rd: Cesar Jose Miguel Parra

Star Wars - 1st: Alan Duanmu ; 2nd: Dorian Waitz ; 3rd: Cesar Jose Miguel Parra

Mario Kart - 1st: Nathan Feenstra ; 2nd: Daniel Ponstein ; 3rd: Shaun Joshua Levin

Pure - 1st: Nathan Feenstra ; 2nd: Daniel Ponstein ; 3rd: Weslie Tigner II

Forza 2 - 1st: Yang Gao ; 2nd: Kevin Lapprich ; 3rd: Daniel Ponstein

Competition continues through Saturday. Remember, you have to complete all five races in order to be eligible to win!

Racing Tournament - Day Three

2009-10-08T09:35:00.003-04:00

Here's the leaderboard after day three of the racing tournament:

F-Zero - 1st: Weslie Tigner II ; 2nd: Daniel Ponstein ; 3rd: Brian Chung

Star Wars - 1st: Alex Goff ; 2nd: Charles Mercer ; 3rd: Douglas William Strait

Mario Kart - 1st: Nathan Feenstra ; 2nd: Daniel Ponstein ; 3rd: Shaun Joshua Levin

Pure - 1st: Nathan Feenstra ; 2nd: Weslie Tigner II ; 3rd: Shaun Joshua Levin

Forza 2 - 1st: Yang Gao ; 2nd: Kevin Lapprich ; 3rd: Daniel Ponstein

Competition continues through Saturday. Remember, you have to complete all five races in order to be eligible to win!

Racing Tournament - Day Two

2009-10-07T09:43:00.002-04:00

Here's the leaderboard after day two of the racing tournament:

F-Zero - 1st: Daniel Ponstein ; 2nd: Yang Gao ; 3rd: Alex Goff

Star Wars - 1st: Alex Goff ; 2nd: Yang Gao ; 3rd: Daniel Ponstein

Mario Kart - 1st: Nathan Feenstra ; 2nd: Daniel Ponstein ; 3rd: Shaun Joshua Levin

Pure - 1st: Nathan Feenstra ; 2nd: Shaun Joshua Levin ; 3rd: Yang Gao

Forza 2 - 1st: Kevin Lapprich ; 2nd: Zhen Li ; 3rd: Shaun Joshua Levin

Competition continues through Saturday. Remember, you have to complete all five races in order to be eligible to win!

Racing Tournament - Day One

2009-10-06T10:47:00.002-04:00

Here's the leaderboard from day one of the racing tournament:

F-Zero - 1st: Daniel Ponstein ; 2nd: Yang Gao

Star Wars - 1st: Alex Goff ; 2nd: (none)

Mario Kart - 1st: Nathan Feenstra ; 2nd: Daniel Ponstein

Pure - 1st: Nathan Feenstra ; 2nd: Yang Gao

Forza 2 - 1st: Kevin Lapprich ; 2nd: Zhen Li

Competition continues through Saturday, so expect these standings to change as the week goes on...

Tournament Poster

2009-09-25T12:10:00.003-04:00

Here's the poster for our upcoming Racing Tournament:

The poster is by Stephanie Grimm, one of our grad students.

Racing Tournament!

2009-09-23T12:19:00.002-04:00

We are getting ready to run our first gaming tournament in the archive!

This will be a silent tournament, meaning that instead of several hours of head-to-head competition, the competitors will have to prove their mettle on five different racing games by scoring the best times. The races can be done during any of the designated times over the course of a week.

The games are F-Zero (SNES); Star Wars Episode I Racer (N64); Mario Kart Double Dash (GameCube); Pure (PS3); and Forza 2 (Xbox 360).

Sign-up during the week of September 28.

The tournament is the week of October 5.

Open only to U-M students, faculty & staff. Since this is our first tournament, we are limited participants to the first 50 people who sign-up.

Prizes are gift certificates to local gaming store Get Your Game On.

All the details are online at http://bit.ly/race-cvga

Fall Hours Start Tomorrow

2009-09-07T19:19:00.003-04:00

Fall semester begins on Tuesday, and so do the fall hours in the CVGA:

Mon: Noon - 9pm
Tues - Fri: 10am - 9pm
Sat: 3pm - 9pm
Sun: Closed

Yes, by popular demand, we are adding hours on Saturday.

We are also planning our first tournament in the CVGA, for sometime late September or early October. Stay tuned for details soon...

Archive Hours

2009-08-21T07:03:00.002-04:00

Bad news and good news:

The bad news is that the archive will be closed all next week, due to the intersession. Regular summer hours will resume the week of August 31, though we'll of course be closed on Labor Day.

The good news is that starting September 8 not only will we expand our daily hours to 10am - 9pm, we'll also be adding Saturday hours of 3pm to 9pm.

You can always find the hours for the archive online at http://www.lib.umich.edu/unithours/82.unit/

GISE Playing Games

2009-08-11T14:54:00.000-04:00

Over the course of the summer, various camp groups from here at U-M have made use of the video game archive for their campers, including Camp CAEN and GISE (Girls in Science and Engineering) Summer Day Camp.

Here are a few pictures of the GISE campers playing games in the archive:

(more photos from the camp can be found on PhotoBucket)

Games Will Rot Your Brain

2009-07-02T14:07:00.000-04:00

From the July 2009 issue of Scientific American:

“A pernicious excitement to learn and play [this game] has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages. Why should we regret this? It may be asked. We answer, [this game] is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body. [This game] has acquired a high reputation as being a means to discipline the mind, but persons engaged in sedentary occupations should never practice this cheerless game; they require out-door exercises—not this sort of mental gladiatorship.”

Another screed against video games? Hardly. SciAm is reprinting a paragraph from their July 2, 1859 issue, and the game in question is: Chess!

(The full article is available in an almost-legibile online edition from Making of America.)

Holiday Closings

2009-06-29T10:19:00.002-04:00

The Computer & Video Game Archive will be closed Thursday & Friday July 2-3.

Homeless in Sims 3

2009-06-24T15:42:00.002-04:00

Robin Burkinshaw created a homeless family in Sims 3 and has been blogging their story at Alice and Kev: The story of being homeless in The Sims 3. Start at the beginning; you'll find their story fascinating and sometimes heartbreaking.

Getting Our Game On

2009-05-18T17:55:00.002-04:00

Local gaming store Get Your Game On is now a University of Michigan vendor, so I went down there this afternoon and picked out some old games for the archive: Atari, Intellivision, Genesis, NES, SNES, PS1, etc. A big thanks to Manager John for all his help!

The Blackbird is Back

2009-04-29T17:58:00.002-04:00

After a long absence, the HP Blackbird 002 is back up and running, so you all can play your PC games again!

Spring/Summer Hours

2009-04-20T14:23:00.003-04:00

The archive will be on reduced hours for the spring/summer. Starting April 27, the archive will be open M-F Noon - 7pm.

The Rise of Indy Console Games

2009-04-18T08:40:00.003-04:00

This weekend's On the Media show from NPR has a segment about the rise of independent console game developers: "DIY Gaming"

Now with More Networking

2009-04-10T14:48:00.003-04:00

We finally got an ethernet line run down next to the large flat panel display. The Xbox 360 is online and ready to go (though the PS3 still doesn't connect properly). So if you want to play online Halo 3 on the large 46" screen, you can!

We also added a new Nintendo DSi this week, for your handheld gaming pleasure.

Update: Forgot to mention that the PS3 is now networked as well.

Little Power Surges

2009-04-06T19:06:00.002-04:00

Little power surges/spikes were running through campus today, including the Duderstadt Center where the game archive lives. The only thing we seem to have lost is one of the base stations for the remote headphones; it still charges, but no longer gets a signal from the tv. Luckily we have a couple of back-up base stations, so all is well.

CVGA Facebook Page

2009-03-22T21:48:00.001-04:00

The Computer & Video Game Archive now has a page on facebook; become a fan at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ann-Arbor-MI/Computer-Video-Game-Archive-University-of-Michigan/58951879764

'Spring' Break Hours

2009-02-16T14:44:00.002-05:00

During U-M's 'spring' break, Feb 23 - Feb 27, the archive will be open only for the hours of Noon - 5pm.