With E3 putting the future of video games on display, it was no time for lessons in history. That gives us a week to catch up on plus the week ahead. That's a lot of history. Without further ado, here we go:
 
June 20
 
1997 -- Square releases Final Fantasy Tactics in Japan. It would see a "translation" for its release in North America, but trust me: It's easier to learn Japanese than to understand any localization of the game.

June 21
 
1989 -- Nintendo wins the Tetris war, and Tengen is ordered to recall and destroy a quarter million Tetris cartridges. I'm not sure what's more rare: Tengen's Tetris for the NES or Tetris DS. Geez, thanks Nintendo.

June 22
 
1965 -- Happy birthday Uwe Boll (pictured, left)! This director of terrible video-game film adaptations turns 45. Hopefully someday someone will make a terrible film of his life.
 
1979 -- MIT students found the company Infocom to handle the release of the influential Zork games, amongst others. Activision would acquire the company and would close it down a mere 10 years after its creation, marking the end of one of the most generic company names of all time.
 
1996 -- Id releases Quake. Ho hum, just John Carmack and his company changing the course of gaming forever. Again. Those guys...when do they ever give it up?
 
At the time, I had no historical perspective concerning the game -- I was too busy losing hundreds of hours to it in my high school's computer lab. It also started an unhealthy obsession with Nine Inch Nails, which I have since, thankfully, gotten over.
 
2000 -- The troubled Ion Storm and publisher Eidos releases Deus Ex, which is still considered one of the best PC games of all time. Looking back on it, it is quite remarkable that such a fantastic game came out of such a bizarre and terrible company. Even more stunning is that someone as sensible as executive producer Warren Spector put up with Ion Storm long enough to make a game. Maybe that's why he went with Disney (to make Epic Mickey).

June 23
 
1991 -- Sega releases Sonic the Hedgehog in North America, marking the first and final time that we would see a good Sonic game. OK, that's not fair. Sonic 2 was good, too.
 
1996 - Nintendo releases the Nintendo 64 in Japan. For millions of fanboys, the (very ugly) 3D era had begun. The rest of the world welcomed them as they caught up.

June 24
 
2002 -- Nintendo releases the Silicon Knights-developed Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, making it the very first Mature-rated game released by the Big N. While Silicon Knights head honcho Denis Dyack has had a few run-ins with gamers, this game is still held in high regard by those who played it. We're not sure, but we don't think Denis won any message board bets with its release.

June 25
 
1997 -- Marvelous Entertainment begins as a company in Japan. Most gamers will know the company for its Harvest Moon games. And if you've played them, you can agree that "marvelous" is an overstatement. Alright, I'm joking.... OK, I'm not. the games are about farming, for crying out loud. Boring.
 
2003 -- Data East, popular pinball and video game manufacturer, declares itself bankrupt and becomes defunct. If you had told me that Data East was still a company in 2003, I probably would have said something like "Data East is still a company?!" Maybe that's why they went bankrupt.

June 26

2003 -- LucasArts launches Star Wars Galaxies. And then promptly wished they hadn't.

Now that you're up to date, keep reading to see what's coming up this week.