Archives for 2016

Thrill Of The Chase: Retro Buzz at Carrara

August 21, 2016 By ausretrogamer

There is nothing better than going to a weekend market and finding a stall that sells retro gaming gear, and lots of it!

That was the case when we found the Retro Buzz stall at the Carrara Markets on the sunny Gold Coast. What we found there was a treasure-trove of old school systems from Nintendo, Sega, Atari, Commodore, Sony and Microsoft. To complement these retro systems, Retro Buzz also had a vast array of game cartridges, CDs and other games media from every era – you would have been hard pressed not to have found the game you were after!

Once we were done with the retro hunt, we enjoyed a few games of Alex Kidd In Miracle World on the Master System and then dropped a few coins on the arcade machines. If you do find yourself on the Gold Coast and need your retro hunt fix, then you can’t go wrong with hitting the Retro Buzz stall at Carrara!

Welcome to Carrara Markets! Woohoo!

Aha, found what we were looking for!

Trade, Buy AND Sell! They have every system covered!

No retro stall is complete without a Mario and Luigi display!

We spy some N64 and SNES consoles over Luigi’s shoulder!

We could have a ComLynx party with these beauties!

Mario crashes the Sega party!

Pro-tip: Grab some Atari Lynx games while they are cheap!

Stacks of Sega Mega Drive games to choose from!

Not to be outdone by its bigger 16-bit Sega brother – stacks of Master System games!

The SNES games demand your attention!

Whoa, more SNES games!

Game Boy games galore!

*GULP* It was hard to resist this Pokemon N64 console!

Found the NES treasure! Don’t worry about Zela, look at that P.O.W cart!

NES games always demand premium prices

Old school computer games! VIC-20 represent!

Oo’er, Game Gear games!

After a fruitful hunt like this, an arcade session is in order!

Ludiphilia: A Podcast About Play, People, And Things

August 19, 2016 By ausretrogamer

After doing a number of podcast interviews, it was quite refreshing to have been invited on Richard Moss’ Ludiphilia podcast. Ludiphilia weaves the subject matter into a fascinating, heartwarming and a compelling story about play, the people and all other things in-between!

We have to give credit to Richard for doing an amazing job in the scripting, editing and the narrative of this podcast – we were blown away by the final result. Take a listen *smiley*

Vans X Nintendo: Powered Up Streetwear

August 18, 2016 By ausretrogamer

It is great being on holiday – nothing beats being relaxed and away from your every day concerns! On our recent trip to Queensland’s Gold Coast, where it is beautiful one day and perfect the next, we happen to stumble across the Vans store at the Pacific Fair Shopping Centre. To our surprise, the store featured a complete Vans X Nintendo range by having an eye catching display at the front of their store.

We obviously didn’t need much coaxing to enter the Vans store once the exclusive 8-bit Nintendo graphics inspired gear caught our attention. The Vans X Nintendo range includes all of your fave Nintendo characters in an assortment of streetwear; from shoes, trucker’s hats, backpacks, to ties, socks, t-shirts and long-sleeve sweaters! Oh yeah, there are sizes for the little ones too!

So get “Off The Wall” and check out what we found at the Vans store on the Gold Coast…

Vans Gold Coast! What do we have here then…..

Woohoo, the Vans X Nintendo Collection is ranged!

So much to see and touch! What do we look at first?

Cool runners (that’s sneakers for our American friends)

Oo’er, we REALLY like these NES inspired runners!

GAME OVER? Never!

Tough choice: Donkey Kong or Duck Hunt…..

Mario and Luigi’s personal parking spots!

CIB – complete in box! Gotta try some!

The level of detail is phenomenal!

Gonna keep this!

Whoa, the kids can don their Vans X Nintendo gear too!

Vans X Nintendo is where the heart is…

We didn’t walk away empty handed *wink*

We had to get the cool NES runners!

Oh yes, the collectable pins given away were a great surprise!

It’s never GAME OVER!

Brisbane Retro Hunting: Gametraders

August 17, 2016 By ausretrogamer

Gametraders stores may have gone the way of the dodo bird in metropolitan Melbourne, but they are still going strong in the suburbs of Brisbane!

Hitting the Gametraders store at Westfield Chermside Shopping Centre brought back memories of how we used to enjoy hunting for retro gaming gear at the Highpoint store, which sadly closed a few months ago.

So what did we find at Gametraders Chermside? Take a peek down below. *winks*

Let’s get hunting!

What do we have here then?

The Perfect Mega Drive Street Fighter II weapon: The Honey Bee SF-3

We spy more Nintendo controllers and Game Boy games!

Oo’er, Mega Drive and Master System games!

We want this game!

Nintendoooooooooooo!

Atari Lynx gear amongst the NES and SNES juggernaut!

Look up, you never know what you’ll see!

Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 Is Coming!

August 15, 2016 By ausretrogamer

Pac-Man fever strikes back! Mark September 13 in your diary, as this will be the day that the yellow dot chomper digitally hits Steam®, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One!

Taking cues from its past games in the series, Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 features new eye-popping 3D graphics and funky visuals where players will be chomping and chasing ghosts through mazes to a whole new level of addictive fun gameplay!

Players will experience brand-new ways of playing Pac-Man with numerous new features such as the Time Attack and Adventure modes. Gather as many points as possible by herding ghosts into ghost trains in a specified time thanks to the Chain Eating feature, chase fast fleeing fruits, fight big bad bosses, experience ridiculous remixed rules and much more! Get your fast twitch skills ready, as Pac-Man fever will take its hold on you!

source: Bandai Namco Enterntainment Europe

Low-Level Festival 2016

August 14, 2016 By ausretrogamer

The Low-Level festival is happening again this year on August 19th and 20th at The Muse in Brooklyn, NYC. This year’s unique event will bring together 14 live musical and visual performances, large scale installations and game cabinets.

Among the talented exhibitors, Andy Reitano will be there to showcase his secret soviet weapon arcade game VEC9 and the latest build of his new NES game, Super Russian Roulette. Andy will be there both days testing the latest updates with players, so make sure you drop by and give him some constructive feedback. You never know, you may score some exclusive giveaways!

Just in case you don’t know what the Low-Level festival is all about, it is two days of lo-bit music, art and indie arcade games. Performers and exhibitors at this year’s Low-Level event will include: Make Up & Vanity Set, Chipzel, FearOfDark, Trey Frey, Partytime! Hexcellent!, Enerjawn, Death by Audio Arcade, Line Wobbler and many more!

If you are keen to hit Low-Level 2016 in NYC this weekend, check out the ticketing details here!

image source: Low-Level and Andy Reitano

End Game: The Different Goals In OutRun

August 6, 2016 By ausretrogamer

Ah, OutRun! It was the first street racing arcade game where you drove a Ferrari Testarossa at breakneck speeds with a female passenger in tow, feeling the wind in your hair as you raced to your next checkpoint area to progress further in the game. It was as simple as that, thank you Mr. Yu Suzuki.

OutRun’s simplicity was its biggest drawcard – the flash red car, gorgeous woman, awesome graphics (especially the crashes!), great European tracks (with uphill and downhill gradients!), brilliant music (oh that Magic Sound Shower tune!) and the choice of path to take when confronted with a fork in the road!

It was this choice of which road you took in OutRun which ultimately lead you to five very different goals (endings), some more humorous than others. For those of you that weren’t aware or had not seen all of OutRun’s different endings, here they are for your pleasure! Don’t forget to lock the Testarossa!

Choose your course – it’s as easy as a, b, c, d or e!

Course: Vineyard (a)
End Goal: No wine here for the easy winner. After the driver is hoisted aloft by the crowd, they then get distracted by a bikini clad lady and drop the driver to the bitumen. That’s gotta hurt!

Course: Death Valley (b)
End Goal: How apt is the name of this route as your Testarossa literally falls apart the second the winning line is crossed. Instead of celebrating, your driver will need to wait for a while for the Ferrari roadside assist van to rock up.

Course: Desolation Hill (c)
End Goal: What could be the winning prize here? Perhaps the camels to take the driver back to civilisation as the Ferrari has ran out of fuel? Hang on, what will the driver wish for when rubbing that lamp? Oh, a harem!

Course: Autobahn (d)
End Goal: As the crowd gathers to see the driver receive the big gold trophy, he gets embarrassingly bypassed by the presenter, with the trophy being handed to his female passenger! ZING!

Course: Lakeside (e)
End Goal: As the driver screeches past this most difficult of all goals, he is finally rewarded for his most excellent driving skills! Now he is ready to party!

image source: The Video Game Museum

The Commodore 64 Store

August 2, 2016 By ausretrogamer

Commodore will always be our first true (gaming) love. Yeah, we may have wanted an Atari (VCS/2600), but then we saw the C64 and the rest, as they say, is history.

You could imagine our delight when we came across a Lemon64 post showing a heap of photos from an Australian Commodore store from the late 90s (thanks Rob Caporetto!).

Lemon64 forum user, CronicBadger was kind enough to share the photos he took from the Korella Trading’s ‘The Commodore 64 Store’ in Belmont, N.S.W. Being a huge Commodore fan, CronicBadger shares some great stories that he had heard in the store , including how Commodore was still importing C64s in 1993 to fulfil demand for the venerable 8-bit micro! To read more of CronicBadger’s reflection (and see more awesome pics) from ‘The Commodore 64 Store’, head on over to the Lemon64 forum now.

source: CronicBadger on Lemon64

Las Vegas Shenanigans: The Fun Dungeon At Excalibur

July 29, 2016 By ausretrogamer

In this last of our Las Vegas Shenanigans feature series, we hit the Fun Dungeon at the Excalibur Hotel and Casino! If you thought that The Big Apple Coaster & Arcade looked awesome, wait till you see how much fun we had at the Fun Dungeon! Well, what are you waiting for, take a look down below! Viva Las Vegas!

The upside down Atari sign is pointing down! Let’s go!

Oh no, not this guy! Nah, we don’t wanna know our fortunes!

Ello, ello, ello, what do we have here then……Golden Oldies!

Right-io, let’s fight then!

Woohoo, silver-ball action!

Where to go next? Aha, perhaps to a galaxy far, far away?

The menacing T-Rex looks enticing!

What’s this red bubble thing then……..

Should we challenge this dude? Nah, we don’t wanna embarrass him 😉

Oh man, so many choices – to fight or go off-road driving?

No punching on this ice skating rink!

Big rig drivin coming up!

Ms ausretrogamer tries her hand at flying! Land that plane!

Some snow action too!

Rushing off to San Fran, baby!

Love being a (crazy) taxi driver!

Shoot! Dodge!

Where play saves the day? Indeed it does!

Found another Atari arcade machine in the desert!

Batwoman, oops, we mean Ms ausretrogamer shows Batman how it’s done!

All this play has made us work up a massive hunger (and thirst)!

Review: Western Press

July 28, 2016 By Aaron Clement

Taking you back to an era when the duel abided, Western Press is a fast-paced duelling simulator best enjoyed with a bunch of friends, or by people with super-human reflexes.

When I was growing up, one of the Commodore 64 games my circle of friends used to like playing as a group was Law of the West. A single-player only game, you were tasked with attempting to Sheriff a lawless town, but gave you the chance to start a gun duel in order to settle a discussion. We’d often sit there as a group taking turns to insult people, then try to get the draw on them to shoot first, only to suffer through a long load time when we failed for the next person to have their go. That’s probably as close as the similarities go, but for me Western Press’ pixel-art graphics and gun duelling invoked memories of this nearly forgotten retro-title.

The first release from Melbourne-based indie studio Bandit-1, Western Press calls itself “the most historically accurate frontier duelling game ever (probably)”. And to be honest? While I’m unsure if the gunslingers of the wild west needed to press 10 random buttons in order to shoot, I’m more than happy to accept this claim. Featuring 12 unique characters, several different local and online multiplayer modes for up to 16 players, Steam Workshop support (for creating your own duellists or stages), and a single player Skill Tester mode, there’s a reasonable amount of content on offer here.

Matches in Western Press play out in a fairly straightforward fashion: pick your character, select what input method you want to use, then get set to reel off 10 commands as fast as humanly possible. First person to complete their key combination in the fastest time, or with the least amount of mistakes wins. While it sounds deceptively simple, you’ll need insanely good reflexes to beat your opponent – press first, think later! One thing that is surprising is the different variety of controllers Bandit-1 have included support for. Allowing you to choose from keyboard input to XBox or Playstation joypads, and even Dance Mats (but sadly no steering wheels or Power Glove), the game will even automatically change the on-screen icons depending on what you’re using!

As with similar games in this genre, I found the most fun I had with Western Press was against other people, and not trying to outsmart the AI. My attempts to best the skill tester left me angry and frustrated, as my poor old reflexes just aren’t up to the task of beating a perfect, immortal machine! If you’re someone who digs local co-op competitive multiplayer games and wants something else to add into the catalogue of games to play with mates, you won’t go too far wrong with giving Western Press a shot.

trailer source: Bandit-1