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Archives for February 2021

Oz Comic-Con is back with OCC Pop Up Shows!

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Oz Comic-Con gets back to the grassroots of pop culture with the launch of community-based OCC POP UP shows

In a year that relegated fans to virtual conventions, the team behind Oz Comic-Con are thrilled to announce the launch of their first LIVE event of 2021. OCC POP UP is a community-based event
showcasing the local pop-culture scene and is set to hit Sydney Showground on March 6th and 7th. We can assure you that masking up has never felt this good.

Since its Australian launch back in 2012, Oz Comic-Con has secured a permanent place within the hearts of fans across the country through its ongoing support of the local community. Although things may seem a little different this time around, OCC POP UP will encompass everything we have come to love and know over the years.

With a jam-packed schedule full of workshops and activities, attendees can expect appearances from local creators, comic artists, gaming and freeplay opportunities, industry talks and panels and exclusive merchandise that can’t be found anywhere else. Some of the highlights include:

  • Creators Live – an area dedicated to promoting Australian digital content creators such as YouTubers, streamers, podcasters, bloggers, and influencers. Whilst it’s a great chance to sell merch and network with each other, Creators Live provides a new platform amongst an ever growing community and a chance for Creators to interact with their fans;
  • Cosplay Active – a cosplay competition for mainstream competitors that find themselves a step above the Cosplay Parade but not quite ready for the Championships of Cosplay. Open to both solo and group performances, Cosplay Active is an opportunity to showcase crafting talents, perform a skit, and bring along the PLAY component of cosplay. And, even your pets can get involved, with the finalists of the OCC Pet Cosplay being invited to attend the Con;

Confirmed guests for the OCC POP UP include Queenie Chan (The Dreaming, Fabled Kingdom), Christopher Sequeria (Sherlock Holmes: The Australian Casebook, The SuperAustralians ), Louie Joyce (Haphaven, Past the Last Mountain ), and JusZ Cosplay, with more announcements yet to come.

A first-of-its-kind event in Australia, OCC POP UP is truly an event for the whole family no matter what fandom you belong to. For more information about the event, guest announcements, and to purchase tickets, please go here.

EVENT DETAILS:

  • OCC POP UP Sydney
  • WHEN: March 6 – 7, 2021
  • WHERE: Sydney Showground, 1 Showground Road, Sydney Olympic Park

TICKET INFO:

Tickets to OCC POP UP will be sold in sessions with a limited amount of full day tickets available for each day. In full compliance with government guidelines and regulations, session times will allow for crowd management in a controlled environment. For more information about ticketing and general information regarding OCC’s COVID guidelines, please visit the Oz Comic-Con site.

 

 

Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon

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“Celebrate good times, come on!” – To commemorate the 40th anniversary of Pac-Man, which was in 2020, Cook and Becker is releasing a history book this coming winter (southern hemisphere) on the classic arcade video game titled: Pac-Man: Birth Of An Icon.

The book is billed as “the first written history book” for the iconic video games series, and it’s written by Arjan Terpstra and Tim Lapetino, so you know it’s going to be a special tome.

Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon is available for pre-order at US$39.95 (plus shipping) for the standard hardcover edition and US$99.95 (plus shipping) for the special edition that comes with a Pac-Man-shaped slipcase and a vinyl pressing of the song Pac-Man Fever (limited to 2,000 copies). The limited Collector’s Edition (limited to 40) is already sold out!

This book definitely tickles our nostalgic senses!

 

Turrican Flashback – Nintendo Switch

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We have fond memories of playing Manifred Trenz’s Turrican on our Commodore 64 and later, its sequel, Turrican II on the Amiga. What we remember most fondly were the awesome graphics and Chris Huelsbeck’s brilliant tunes on the Amiga, which elevated this run and gun game to extremely addictive levels. Oh yeah, the other thing we remember was the difficulty level – it was totally off the scale, even rage inducing at times, but that just enhanced its charm.

In the decades that have passed since we first fired up Turrican, it was great to hear that the series was going to make it to new gen consoles, thanks to ININ Games, ensuring new gamers experience what we did some 3 decades ago, rage and all!

So what do you get in this new Turrican Flashback for AU$45.00 on your Switch (and PS4)? Well, you get 4 classic titles from the series, including; Turrican, Turrican II, Mega Turrican and Super Turrican. These are great inclusions, as the four games are faithful to their originals, but we would have loved to have seen the rest of the games from the series make it into this compilation. Aside from this little niggle, what is in Turrican Flashback will keep you well satisfied and possibly frustrate you if you aren’t used to extremely punishing game difficulty.

Oh yeah, you also get Chris Huelsbeck’s iconic scores, painstakingly programmed to ensure the highest quality playback of the original audio across the various sound chips Chris perfected. So we cranked up the volume and enjoyed the 7 minute chiptune that is “The Final Fight” in Turrican II! All of the tracks across the four games are darn classics and will give you a great dose of aural nostalgia!

Moving right along, because if you have played any Turrican title, be it on the C64, Amiga, Mega Drive or SNES, you know what this game is all about and you know what you are getting. If you haven’t played any Turrican game, it is in essence a run and gun game (just like Contra), with a lot of precision jumping, shooting and exploring the terrain from left to right, and up and down. It may sound basic, but the devil is in the overall detail, from the games’ graphics, sounds, music, control, to its easy-to-pick-up and play, but difficult to master premise – you’ll be hard pressed to fault Turrican, unless you dislike the run and gun gaming genre.

For those itching to know what extra tweaks and features are included, well there are quite a few! If you love the curvature and scanlines of old school CRT TVs/monitors, then using the display, scaling and shader features, you can customise the display to the way you remember it looking from all those years ago.

Remember how we said these games are rage inducingly difficult? Well, there is also a “Rewind” feature, which allows the player to rewind part of the game to learn the pattern and overcome the challenge being faced by trial and error. And for those who wish to come back to the adventure at a later time, the save states are there to let you pick up exactly where you left off – a very welcome feature indeed.

The reworked controls are welcome, making the games accessible, even if you haven’t played any Turrican game. All four games felt familiar, but each one presented enough unique gameplay content to have you exploring them for a long long time.

If you love run and game games with gigantic levels to explore, heart-stopping action with a lot of non-stop mayhem and huge boss fights, then you seriously need Turrican Flashback in your life! It is great to have an iconic series like Turrican make it to new consoles for all to experience, from those players that are new to the series, and those of us that have nostalgic ties to it – Turrican Flashback is a great blast from the past!

image source: ININ Games

 

Disclosure: Turrican Flashback [Nintendo Switch eShop code] was kindly provided by PR Hound for this review.

 

Our Favourite Retro Games on the Pico-8

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There are a heap of great Pico-8 games out there, but for those of you yearning for a hit of nostalgia on the fantasy console, you may find it difficult to find that classic 80s game you enjoyed in the arcade amongst the plethora of available Pico-8 games.

Well, we are here to help you find a few needles in the massive haystack of Pico-8 games that will help with your hunger for nostalgia. Get your Pico-8 ready, and start favouriting these games:

Wizard Rule: If it’s Wizard of Wor you are after, then this port is absolutely amazing. We can’t stop playing it!

Galactic Wars: Um, it’s Galaga, and it’s awesome.

Pico Tetris: As if it wasn’t addictive enough on the Game Boy, this version is just as addictive.

Pico Sprint: A suped up version of Super Sprint on the Pico-8, need we say more?

Pico Frogger: Leap onto the highway and avoid the cars and other obstacles to reach the other side. The iconic arcade game is superb on Pico-8. If in case this Frogger version doesn’t feel right, then check out Minionsoft’s Frogger.

Bomb’n Picoman: eliminating your enemies by placing bombs strategically, just like Bomberman, it’s darn enjoyable.

Sonic 2.5:  Don’t be thrown off by the .5, there is nothing half about this version of Sonic The Hedgehog. This is a work of art and has the speed to match.

MOTU: If you liked Palace Software’s head-chopping Barbarian game, then this version with Masters of The Universe characters takes it to a new and cooler level.

Super Mario Bros: How can we have a list without the little Italian plumber? Easy, we add him here as SMB is cool to play on any device.

Gaplus – Galaga Edition: There is nothing Galaga about this side-scrolling shoot’em up, but that’s not to say it is bad. If you like games like Salamander or R-Type, then this game is for you!

Bubble Bobble: The cutest dinos, Bub and Bob, are back and still as awesome as ever. This game never gets old -on any platform!

Minionsoft Scramble: The Minionsoft treatment is fantastic on this classic arcade game!

NOTE: Most games are available via the official PICO-8 site, while others can be found via itch.io.

Well, there you have it, a list of a few classic old games (and some not so old) to play on the Pico-8 that will satisfy any retro gamers’ nostalgia yearnings. Enjoy!