Welcome Back!

As we get started on yet another school year, we in the CVGA welcome you all, both new and returning students!

We resume our regular Fall semester hours as of today:

• Monday: Noon - 9pm
• Tues - Friday: 10am - 9pm
• Saturday: 1pm - 9pm
• Sunday: Closed

(But note: This Friday—the 6th—we will not open until 1pm.)

Stop by and visit; we're in room B474 in the basement of the Duderstadt Center. We've added many new games over the summer and even a few new systems, including an Apple ][!

To learn more about the CVGA, please visit our Library Guide at http://guides.lib.umich.edu/cvga

This fall marks the 5th anniversary of the CVGA. We are in the process of planning several events to commemorate the occasion, mostly in November. Stay tuned to this space for more details, as well as our Twitter and Facebook accounts. (Follow us! Friend us! It's fun!)

Celebrating 25 Years of Final Fantasy

To mark the 25th anniversary of the Japanese release of the first Final Fantasy game, we have a display commemorating some of the popular cast and themes that have presented themselves throughout the series. A few pictures:

Some general information about Final Fantasy:

And some information about recurring cast and themes:

Which parts of Final Fantasy were your favorites?

Legend of Zelda: Celebrating an Anniversary

In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda series, our colleague Joe Dresch has put together an informative display for the archive that celebrates its legacy.

Each smaller section shares a piece of the Legend of Zelda story:

NES Turns 25 Today

Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the introduction of Nintendo's NES system in the United States. Although this went on to be one of the best-selling, most popular, and most influential home consoles ever, its roots in the U.S. were far more humble than many might realize.

Happy 121st Birthday Nintendo!

On this day back in 1889 Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Nintendo in order to manufacture playing cards.

121 years later, it has all led to this:

Happy Belated Birthday, Mario!

I'm not sure how I missed this, but yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the release of Super Mario Bros. Although Mario appeared in games prior to Super Mario Brothers - 1981's Donkey Kong, 1982's Donkey Kong Junior (which featured Mario as a villain!), and 1983's Mario Bros. (which introduced Luigi) - it was Super Mario Bros. that made Mario world-famous and saved the video game industry. Prior to the release of Super Mario Bros., sales of consoles and games had collapsed, hurt by a glut of poorly made games from developers and publishers for systems like the Atari, Intellevision, and ColecoVision. Mario, along with the NES console it was packaged with, was largely responsible for the resurrection of the industry, which has persisted to this day.

In honor of this occasion, The Guardian's web site published a list of 25 facts about the portly plumber. See how many of them you are familiar with!