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Galencia Blasts Onto Your C64

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Fire up your trusty Commodore 64 and grab Jason Aldred’s brilliant new shoot’em up Galencia.

For those that have been away on Mars and have just landed back on Earth, Galencia is a fast action shoot ’em up for the C64 in the mould of Galaga, but even better! Yes, it is that good that we reckon it is even better than Galaga – there, we said it.

Galencia features 50 action packed levels with asteroid fields, challenging stages, boss battles, ebb and flow difficulty curve and siren enemy with tractor beam for double ship action (Ed: oo’er!). The game includes gorgeous intro, launch and completion sequences, coupled with 6 unique SID chiptunes for your aural pleasure.

Blast-Off!

But wait, there is more! In-game options include:

  • Load, Save and Reset High Scores
  • Extensive CRT options including 3 levels of Starfield Brightness
  • 3 different Score Palettes
  • Tournament Mode
  • Music and Simultaneous Sound Effects or Sound Effects only
  • 3 selectable difficulty levels; and
  • Pause and Quit game options

There are many great people behind great games, just like the peeps that had a hand in creating Galencia. We can all thank these talented group of people for making such a wonderful and sublime game:

  • Jason Aldred: programming and graphics
  • Pulsebot: all music and some sound effects
  • Saul Cross: additional graphics and sound effects
  • Lobo: physical artwork including box and manual
  • Mark Hardisty: manual back cover illustration
  • Flemming Dupont: concept art
  • Jakob Chen-Voos: Protovison

Even the great Julian ‘Jaz’ Rignall gives his sizzling approval!

You can grab the digital version right now via itch.io for US$4.99 (which is an absolute steal!), or for the more traditionalists among us, Galencia will be available on physical media from Friday, November 17 via Protovision Games, just take a look at these tangible temptations:

  • Cassette (without box) €10.00 – comes on a green cassette with a j-card that can be flipped around for an alternative cover picture. The tape comes in a neon green jewel case (front side is fully transparent, only back is neon green).
  • Cassette (boxed) €30.00
  • Disk (boxed) €30.00
  • Cartridge (boxed) €40.00
  • Disk and Cartridge Special Edition (boxed) €50.00

All boxed editions of Galencia will come in a fully printed cardboard box with custom inlays to hold the disk, tape or cartridge, which will also include:

  • a full colour manual with 16 carefully designed pages (A5 sized),
  • Galencia coaster with a scratch free glass surface,
  • Bee key ring that can serve you as a trophy when you battle against vermin,
  • Big Galencia sticker that you can stick on your disk sleeve if you have the disk version; and
  • While stocks last – the first 200 boxed version orders will receive an additional small Galencia sticker!

With the Disk and Cartridge special edition, both physical media will be in the one box with all of the above inclusions, plus a space amulet that is much needed in higher levels of Galencia, as it has been reported to promote good fortune!

Oh yeah, the game works on both PAL and NTSC C64 computers, with all physical editions containing the tape and disk digital images. If you don’t have a C64, then emulation is fully supported through VICE.

So what are you waiting for, go and pilot the 1981 Galencia Fighter to restore order, before it’s too late!

The game is never over!

The eyes have it!

Credit where credit is due

Tough choice – will you grab Galencia on cart?

On disk?

Or on tape? The choice is yours (you can’t go wrong!)

Time to squash some bugs!

Go on, get blastin’

image source: Jason Aldred – Galencia HQ

 

Grab Some New Atari Jaguar and 2600 Games!

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Get your Atari 2600 and Jaguar consoles ready, as AtariAge has released six new games for pre-order!

The Atari 2600 gets, Super Cobra Arcade, Space Cactus Canyon and Draconian, while the Jag gets Escape 2042, AstroStorm and the Jeff Minter Classics, Llamatron 2112 and Revenge Of The Mutant Camels!

All six new games will feature high-quality, professionally printed boxes, manuals and labels. Draconian, Super Cobra Arcade and the Jeff Minter Classics will include a poster featuring the box art for each game (and the best part, the Jeff Minter Classics poster is double-sided!).

We are quite excited about these games, but it is the Jaguar Jeff Minter Classics we are most looking forward to! Hit the AtariAge Store now and grab yourself some cool new games for your old Atari hardware.

image source: AtariAge

 

Tomb Raider Film Looks Like 2013 Game

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By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.

It is rare that the tenth instalment of a video game is the best of the franchise. 2013’s Tomb Raider, an action-adventure game developed by Crystal Dynamics, was a reboot that reconstructed the origins of Lara Croft. The Warner Bros. Pictures film, coming out in March, starring Alicia Vikander, looks very similar to the classic ’13 Raider.

I liked the gritty, dark turn the ’13 Raider took. The violence was slightly outrageous, but it definitely pleased the fans of the franchise. It was time for a reboot and Crystal Dynamics and the publisher, Square Enix, knew it. It was vastly different from all of the prior Tomb Raider games and it was grounded by Lara Croft’s origin story. I think it’s one of the best games of the decade…so far.

The new Tomb Raider film’s trailer has the same colour pallet as the ’13 game. It looks like the film’s director, Roar Uthaug, has pulled various scenes directly from the hit game. The game centred on Croft’s survival and exploring an island and its various tombs. That’s what the film appears to centre on as well.

image source: The Nerd Mag

Academy Award winner Alicia Vikander looks just like the ’13 Croft; it’s indistinguishable. She’s an excellent actress; just watch Ex Machina or The Danish Girl. It’ll be interesting to see if Vikander can pull off such an iconic action character in a film that could be a tent-pole film for Warner Bros. She has the physicality and dramatic chops to bring a truly captivating Croft to the big screen.

I hope Vikander’s Croft is as cold blooded as the’13 game version. The gritty compositions, and some of the tilted camera angles in the trailer, mirror the imagery from the game. It’s just a teaser trailer, but I like what I see. The costume design is also on point, which is important for a property that has such a large following.

We have to wait until March to see if Tomb Raider will be that one great film based on a video game. From the teaser, and being an aficionado of the ’13 game, I’m anticipating Raider almost as much as Disney’s Solo: A Star Wars Story and Avengers: Infinity War.

Assassin’s Creed and Warcraft had good trailers too. I turned Assassin’s Creed off fifteen minutes in.

It’s astonishing that a film studio still hasn’t cracked the code on making an exceptional movie based on a video game franchise.

Tomb Raider has to be rated R to truly be like the ’13 game. Will it be as bold with its violence and death scenes as the iconic game? I bet it’ll be a safe PG-13 for box office reasons.

 

Commodore 65: Rarer Than Rocking Horse Poop!

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Back in February 2015 we told you about the Commodore 65 (C65) that sold for a then record of AUD$26,915.

Fast forward to today (November 9, 2017), and the latest C65 on eBay (serial number 000016) has sold for a whopping (and now new record price) AUD$123, 449! Geez we could buy a lot of pinball machines with that money.

Interestingly, the listing was deleted from eBay after the auction ended – time to speculate starts now!

 

image source: eBay

 

PAX Aus 2017 Was A Classic!

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For a 5th year in a row, the PAX Aus Classic Gaming area proved yet again to be a popular spot for families, friends, kids, teenagers and people of all other ages wanting to get their hit of nostalgia.

The Classic Gaming area had it all – consoles, computers, handhelds, arcade and pinball machines. And for the more competitive types, there were tournaments to show-off their old school skills, like Press Play On Tape’s International Karate comp on the Commodore 64.

The museum displays had visitors intrigued, from Weird and Retro’s awesomely rare Atari pieces (like that cool Atari baseball and patches!) and Lord Sugar’s Amstrad micros, to our custom built Neo Geo MVS console and games.

In the arcade area, Greg Pell and Bartronica had curated some very cool and rare machines, like an original 3-player Rampage and a Ms Pac-Man. But once again, it was the fighting machines (Mortal Kombat II) and the gun games (Point Blank and Time Crisis) that proved quite popular.

As proven in previous years, pinball is getting a lot of attention, and rightly so. Skott Kellett assembled some absolute beautiful pinball machines with the help of the great pinball community – Bayside Pinball Club, Pinmem, Melbourne Silverball, Mr. Pinball and Zax Amusements. There were machines older than most players playing them and there were machines from Stern and Jersey Jack that had just been released. You would have been hard pressed not to have found a machine you would’ve liked to flip on.

The Classic Gaming area will be back bigger and better for PAX Aus 2018. For now, enjoy these photo highlights!

Look, this is where we are!

Almost there. Oh wait, we know this guy – it’s Mr Ant Stiller!

We have arrived!

On the way to the pinball section and look who we run into – Melbourne Silverball & Head2Head Pinball’s Marto!

Love this machine, again!

 

PAX Aus 2017 Cosplay

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One of the main highlights at every PAX Aus is the cosplay. Even if you weren’t there this past weekend, you will definitely appreciate the awesome cosplay highlights package we have for you here – and to think, this was only the tip of the great cosplay iceberg!

Overwatch cosplay was well represented!

A bunch of Links. Now, to find Zelda!

Weird and Retro’s Kelly-Maree as Lollipop Chainsaw’s Juliet Starling

Press Play On Tape’s Phoebe as ‘The Puppet’ – FNaF2

Dragonair!

Of course we were bound to find a super couple

Skyrim by the awesome Combustible Props and Zel T

Zel T is gonna get ya!

A close cut!

2B (Nier Automata)

Even Pyramid Head makes friends with Nintendo characters

Nintendo Man?

Blathers and Celeste flew to PAX Aus too!

Sewn Chaos Orianna – Legendary indeed!

Cross-Cosplay = Roadhog (Overwatch) and Deadpool!

photos by: Alan Ly and ms. ausretrogamer

 

Amazon’s Retro Zone: All Retro. All The Time

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While the big news is of Amazon arriving Down Under, we were more excited about their new Retro Zone!

Amazon has curated their best of the best retro gaming items, from console, games and toys, to clothing and books! Oh yeah, there is plenty of Sega, Nintendo, Square Enix and Atari gear too!

So what are you waiting for, go and hit up the Amazon Retro Zone now!

More Retro than you can poke a stick at!

The heavy hitters of retro gaming are all there! Wait, where is Commodore?

image source: Amazon Retro Zone

 

PAX Aus Panel: Blast from the Past – How Yesterday’s Heroes Became Today’s Icons

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ausretrogamer.com Editor-in-Chief, Alex Boz, had the privilege of being a panelist on GameSpot’s ‘Blast From The Past: How Yesterday’s Heroes Became Today’s Icons’ panel at PAX Aus 2017.

The panel discussed the obvious gaming icons, Nintendo’s Mario and Sega’s Sonic and what exactly makes them and other well known characters so timeless and appealing to every generation of gamers.

There is some chat about Sonic Mania by Christian Whitehead which leads to a discussion in what (forgotten) gaming characters should make a return to our consoles – watch for Alex’s choice towards the end of the video!


source: GameSpot @ PAX Aus 2017

The Panelists await their questions!

Alex The Comeback Kidd!

 

PAX Aus 2017 Classic Gaming: Atari and Sega Console Giveaway

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*** THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED ***

Thanks to our good friends at Five Star Games, we are giving away an Atari Flashback 8 Gold HD and a Sega Mega Drive Flashback HD gaming consoles to two lucky PAX Aus 2017 attendees.

To score yourself one of these gaming consoles has never been easier! Just follow these three steps:

  • Visit the Classic Gaming area at PAX Aus (on any of the three days);
  • Pick up an ausretrogamer flyer and take a photo of the flyer anywhere within the Classic Gaming area;
  • Post the photo on either Twitter or Facebook using the and hashtags (make sure you also tag ausretrogamer on Twitter or Faceook!)

See, we told you it was going to be simple!

The winners will be selected at random by our Editor-in-Chief, Alex Boz. Winners will be notified after the event and advised when to expect their prize (Prize will be sent to the winners by Five Star Games).

So if you want to stand out from the other entrants, go and say hi to Alex (he’ll have his name on the back of his t-shirt)! *wink*

image source: AtGames