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Archives for April 2019

Raised By Rainbows: Adorable Pop Culture Art

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Oh man, wish we had seen Luke Flowers’ brilliant Raised by Rainbows exhibit earlier!

Luke’s exhibit at Gallery 1988 has a number of cool arcade games and other popular toys related art which is very unique and absolutely adorable.

Most art pieces are sold out (Ed: darn it!), but there are a few that you can still get your hands on (Ed: looking at you ‘Mario Mayhem’)!

You got to admit, these are quite cool. Picking a favourite seems impossible!

For more details of available art to be purchased, please check out the entire Raised by Rainbows exhibit at Gallery 1988.

image source: Raised by Rainbows exhibit via Gallery 1988

 

Sega Mega Drive Mini: To be this good takes AGES, To be this good takes SEGA

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Just in case you have been in a cave without any outside contact, get your diary out now and mark September 19, 2019 as the date that the beautiful Sega Mega Drive Mini will be released in the wild to go toe-to-toe with its old foe, the SNES Classic Mini! Oh yeah, this ain’t no Flashback system!

We were amazed to find the following letter, with love, from SEGA:

My Old Friend,

I know it’s been a while. Time moves forward, yet not a day goes by that you’re not on my mind. I, the popular, star-console, you, the shy, unassuming kid, but we found common ground when we played Ecco the Dolphin together. You were so fast, racing through the Green Hill Zone with my pal, Sonic!

You sure knew how to play. The way that CRT hue hit your glazed over face as you spent another hour playing Castlevania: Bloodlines…We both knew things would change and that we’d move on to other great things, but lately, I’ve been thinking about spending time together once more. We didn’t do what we were told, but we made a good team.

I look a bit different now. I’m much smaller. I’m packing 40 games inside my sleek, molded shell, and more blast processing power than ever before.

We lived fast and dangerously, together, playing the games some of the adults weren’t too keen on (but you had the cool parents). We had the games your friends wanted to play, a whole stack of them. Shining Force, Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, and Earthworm Jim, to name a few.

Sure. there were other distractions (remember pogs?). I was never jealous though because we still had Altered Beast and Gunstar Heroes.

I will try to write more regularly. I hear there is this friendly meeting space called “social media” now where I can share more.

I hope to hear from you soon.

With love,

SEGA Mega Drive Mini @-}–

Wow. We’ve never seen the SEGA Mega Drive Mini express itself like that before. If you’d like to write back, here is some information you may find useful when crafting your reply 😉

When: September 19, 2019

What: Miniature Sega Mega Drive console which will be plug-and-play ready with 40 classic games built-in! Oh yeah, the controllers will have 3 fire-buttons, not 6 (Ed: Oh well, it’s better than nothing)

Price: AU$139.00 / US$79.99 (Pre-orders via JB Hi-Fi or Play-Asia)

Announced titles (and more to come!):

  • Sonic the Hedgehog​
  • Ecco the Dolphin
  • Castlevania: Bloodlines
  • Space Harrier 2
  • Shining Force
  • Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine
  • Earthworm Jim
  • Comix Zone
  • Altered Beast
  • Gunstar Heroes

So there you have it. Are you excited? Of course you are! Let us know on Twitter or Facebook which other titles you would like to see make the list of 40 legendary games.

Now, there are no limits with the Sega Mega Drive Mini!

image source: Sega Mega Drive Mini

 

The Red Strings Club – Nintendo Switch Review

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Mix equal parts intrigue, corporate sabotage and philosophy, shake well and serve over ice to get the delicious cocktail that is The Red Strings Club, a cyber-noir adventure game of dystopian proportions.

Set in a cyberpunk future on the verge of becoming a dystopia, The Red Strings Club is an incredibly gripping and heavy hitting adventure game that manages to push all the right buttons. Playing as one of three active characters, an advanced AI android, a bartender and a freelance hacker, The Red Strings Club succeeds in pulling no punches. Asking deep and philosophical questions of the player constantly, there is rarely an easy answer to be found and the ones you do find can be shot down just as quickly. Mainly playing as the bartender and information dealer Donovan, you mix drinks to put patrons into the right mindset for questioning.

Being so driven by narrative there is a real fear in deciding exactly which questions to ask and when. Do you wish your intended target to feel guilty? Would they let slip better information for a specific question if they felt overly confident? On numerous occasions I found myself staring at two choices for great lengths; following the logical train of thought for both, unhappy with my options but also seeing no alternatives. There is hidden depth to every choice that can affect the story in a multitude of ways. After each client has left the club you are asked ten questions in relation to the conversation you just had, testing your information gathering skills. Every bit of knowledge will count in the ultimate goal of trying to bring down the implementation of “Social Psyche Welfare,” a plan to improve society by removing negative feelings and emotions completely.

Looking very much like a classic adventure game in its pixel art style, The Red Strings Club has a nice gritty feel to it. Adding to this is the sombre and futuristic soundtrack, giving a sense of tension and importance to every scene. Skylines and neon signs glow in the distance of some scenes making this world feel more modern than stories like Blade Runner but still giving off a very similar vibe. Fans of Science fiction and adventure games will appreciate the world that DeconstrucTeam has created.

A simple and very enjoyable game with narrative that really must be experienced first hand to really appreciate. The Red Strings Club is a game you will easily find yourself playing multiple times to discover everything it has to offer.

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Mat Panek
Retromancer – Collector, repairer & fan of retro games & tech. Atari to Amiga, Nintendo to Sega! LD, Zip, Beta and a proud dad! One half of the TiredParents on Twitch.

Follow Mat on Twitter and Twitch

 

 

Disclosure: The Red String Club [Nintendo Switch] was kindly provided by Power Up PR for this review.

 

 

Happy April Fools’ Day

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You got to love April Fools’ Day tricksters. The more elaborate the April Fools joke (or trick), the better.

One games publisher that loved staging elaborate April Fools’ Day jokes on unsuspecting fans was Irem. While in business, Irem always had a joke or two up their sleeve come April 1.

They would create websites that were usually dedicated to promoting something that tended to poke fun at themselves and their own games, like the three “real life” models of the R-Type R-9 unit you could choose to purchase, or their new Irem Zoo, and our absolute favourite, their EXIDNA XAVY console, which was touted as the ultimate games machine that housed a self-propelled folding controller!

Irem had a lot of us gamers going with their elaborate jokes till we realised it was a ruse and in good fun. Here are a few listings of Irem’s sites that had us fooled over the years:

image source: Irem – via wayback machine