Justin Olivetti is Massively Overpowered’s resident Game Archaeologist; he never lets a good old game stay buried. [Follow this column’s RSS feed]
the game archaeologist
The Game Archaeologist: Perpetual’s Star Trek Online
If you're among the legions of Trekkies, then you are almost certainly aware of Cryptic Studios' Star Trek Online. Since early 2010, players have...
The Game Archaeologist: Online gaming service providers of the ’80s and ’90s
As graphical MMOs took off in the 1990s with the advent of games like Neverwinter Nights, The Realm, and Ultima Online, many of them...
The Game Archaeologist: Asheron’s Call 2
MMO sequels are funny animals. Sequels (along with prequels and "reimaginings") are ingrained into the entertainment industry so deep that it makes sense that...
The Game Archaeologist: Asheron’s Call
It's hard being the youngest child -- you get the hand-me-downs, suffer through swirlies by older siblings, and eventually develop such a neurosis that...
The Game Archaeologist: Shadowbane
Way back when I used to haunt the corridors of Gamestop and had yet to shun the place due to its stinky evil, I remember...
The Game Archaeologist: Seed
Seed is a game that I thought I must have dreamed up at some point. Do you ever have that happen? For years I...
The Game Archaeologist: Dark Sun Online
Computer RPG players in the late '80s and early '90s were surely familiar with Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) and its now-famous Gold Box series....
The Game Archaeologist: The assassination of Lord British
At the end of August 2015, the fledgling Shroud of the Avatar community gathered together for a massive PvP fight. This wasn't to be...
The Game Archaeologist: Anarchy Online
"The future in your hands."
This was Funcom's promise to gamers in the early days of the 2000s. Even as the MMORPG genre slowly took...
The Game Archaeologist: Lucasfilm’s Habitat
Some of you reading this may simply never have known a world before the internet existed by virtue of your age. It's not your...
The Game Archaeologist: Star Wars Galaxies’ NGE
It became one of the most infamous moments in MMO history -- and perhaps one of the most misunderstood.
For all that the MMO community...
The Game Archaeologist: Microsoft’s Mythica
While Microsoft may be the big cheese when it comes to operating systems and worldwide domination, for whatever reason the company has the absolute...
The Game Archaeologist: Kingdom of Drakkar
Kingdom of Drakkar, also known as Drakkar or even Kingdom of Drakkar II, is a really odd duck among the annals of MMO history....
The Game Archaeologist: The Sims Online
The Sims Online was one of the odder entrants into the MMO genre, an online iteration of an immensely popular game franchise that promised...
The Game Archaeologist: The 4th Coming
Over the years that I've been writing The Game Archaeologist, I've received more than a few requests to cover a game that was completely...
The Game Archaeologist: Seven MMOs operating on borrowed time
Most everyone who knows me well will acknowledge that I'm not generally a cynical, dark person. I'm not rooting for games to fail, for...
The Game Archaeologist: Mythic’s Imperator Online
It is a truly difficult thing to create something completely new and original, especially in storytelling and setting. It's perhaps impossible in this day...
The Game Archaeologist: Multiplayer BattleTech
It was the 31st century, where feuding factions decided to settle their differences by throwing multi-ton war robots at each other. It was also...
The Game Archaeologist: AOL’s Neverwinter Nights
Here's a question for you: How much do you really, really have to love a game to pay $6 to $8 an hour to...
The Game Archaeologist: What Star Wars Galaxies life was like before the NGE
A decade after Star Wars Galaxies' "New Game Enhancements" hit the game, controversy, grumbling, and revelations still pop up about the notorious decision to...
