The Turtles return to save the city from a dangerous threat in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.
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Sponsored Video: Fire Emblem Fates – Choose your path (Nintendo 3DS)
The next installment in the Fire Emblem tactical role-playing video game franchise has arrived: Fire Emblem Fates on Nintendo 3DS. It’s available as two different versions – Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright and Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest, which path will you choose?
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Melbourne Is DOOMed
My fellow Melbournians, DOOMsday has descended upon our great city! Walking down Lonsdale Street on a gloomy Melbourne day (Ed: what’s new!), we were confronted by the huge (10-metre x 15-metre) DOOM artwork adorning the Melbourne Central wall.
Being the largest hand-painted mural in the Southern Hemisphere and a throwback to the original DOOM art, Bethesda definitely know how to capture our attention!
If you want to watch how this artwork came to be, check out the time-lapse video below. And then go and fight like hell!
source: Bethesda Softworks UK
The Mastertronic Archives
Growing up in the 1980s, there was one publisher that dared to give us games at an affordable price – which meant us kids with limited funds could go out and grab some pretty good video games from Mastertronic for under (an Australian) tenner (or £1.99/£2.99 if you were in the UK)!
Mastertronic are still held very dear to many a retro gaming hearts, so when we heard about Player One Books’ Mastertronic Archives book on Kickstarter, we knew we had to jump on board to pledge our support. If the name Mastertronic triggers an ounce of nostalgia within you, then do yourself a favour and get onto this Kickstarter now!
source: The Masteronic Archives by Player One Books on Kickstarter
Press Play On Tape: Hitting The Reset Button
As the weather in the southern hemisphere gets cooler, the Press Play On Tape podcast heats things up with three hosts and one very special guest!
In this episode, we welcome Aaron Clement as our co-host and we sit down to have a chat with the C64-centric Reset magazine editor extraordinaire, Kevin Tilley (aka: Unkle K). We probe Unkle K about all things Reset – how the magazine came to be, its evolution, highlights, lowlights and any sneaky inside information on the upcoming issue.
For the publisher of choice, Unkle K chose Hewson Consultants, which had no shortage of classic video games! We hit the social media channels to read our your fave Hewson published games and we even have time for shoutouts, so you better listen in!
Oh yeh, Daz and Aaron even also get to speak to Paul Bridger the director and producer of the new documentary, The Amiga Works – Allister Brimble. Get the inside information on how he produced and self funded his first feature documentary.
Stay away from the reset button and press play on tape now!
PRESS PLAY ON TAPE podcasts are available on iTunes and Podbean
Ghostbusting At Zax Amusements
It is not every day we get an invitation to check out and play a newly released pinball game. We were lucky enough last year to experience Game Of Thrones before its official release, and it seems that we got lucky once again! This time, Zax Amusements were kind enough to open their doors and allow us to have a bump and tilt on Stern’s new pinball machine, Ghostbusters.
Before we could get to grips on the new Ghostbusters Pro pinball table, Zax’s Business Manager, Phil Boniwell gave us a grand tour of Zax Amusements – let’s just say that we were like kids in a candy store! There were 1980s and 1990s JAMMA boards carefully stacked on shelves, a myriad of gun peripherals, control panels, Neo Geo MVS carts and an amazing array of arcade machines from all eras! We honestly didn’t know where to look – it was a 360 degree visual onslaught of the amusement kind! You can take a peek at the photos further down below to see why we went all gaga.
Once we wiped our drool and returned to Zax’s business showroom, it was time to put Ghostbusters Pro through its paces. So what did we think? Having played the pinball machine a few times, our first impressions were very positive indeed. Like with any new product, it was the visual and aural beauty of the machine that captured our immediate attention. Based on the original Ghostbusters movie, the colours, set scenery and characters on the playfield were an instant trip down memory lane. Not to be outdone in the sensory game, the sound effects, Ernie Hudson’s speech guiding you through the game and Ray Parker Jr’s Ghostbusters soundtrack were literally music to our ears. Stern have really captured the feel of the original Ghostbusters movie to a T! We reckon Stern has created another winner!
Thank you to the team at Zax Amusements for their hospitality (Scott Kellett rocks!). You can read more about Zax Amusements over here.
Z marks the spot!
Zak (Zax final boss) and yours truly!
Oh wow, OutRun 2 SP and Sega Racing Classic (aka: Daytona USA Mk II)!
THIS is still our all-time fave arcade driving game!
Kick it to Homer!
Now this is a reasonable price for a twin seat Daytona USA!
The great wall of PCBs!
You need guns? Zax has you covered!
Guitar riffin’
Dayyyyyytona!
You don’t control me!
A view to a thrill!
Silverball classics waiting for some TLC
15K out! That is perfect vision!
Time to flip some balls!
Oh wow, what to play next?
Our spidey sensors are tingling!
Who you gonna call?
I ain’t afraid of no ghost
Ecto-1 in glorious colour!
Let’s play Slimer!
Busting ghosts has never been this much fun!
Aim well and true!
This machine is flippin’ magic!
Ball Saved! Lucky break!
Keep your eye on the target(s)!
What has spooked Slimer?
Mmm, marshmallows!
The outlanes can be brutal – be ready to bump!
A row of beauties! It’s very hard to leave Zax Amusements!
Top 5 Games Charts: May 1999
We roll the clock back 17 years to see what games were hot on the Playstation, N64 and the humble PC. As you peek at the games charts below, you’ll notice some very well known gaming franchises that are still going strong till this day. But what makes it great to look back at old charts like these is the more obscure and long forgotten games, like Rollcage for the Playstation, Virtual Pool 64 on the N64, and The Simpsons: Virtual Springfield on the PC.
What ever tickled your fancy back then, scour through the top 5 games from May 1999, you never know, you still may be playing some of these gems!
 |
1) Metal Gear Solid (Konami) |
| 2) Rollcage (Psygnosis) | |
| 3) A Bug’s Life (Sony) | |
| 4) FIFA 99 (EA) | |
| 5) Populous: The Beginning (EA) |
 |
1) South Park (Acclaim) |
| 2) Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (Nintendo) | |
| 3) The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (Nintendo) | |
| 4) WCW/nWO: Revenge (THQ) | |
| 5) Virtual Pool 64 (Crave) |
 |
1) Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri (EA) |
| 2) Sim City 3000 (EA) | |
| 3) South Park (Acclaim) | |
| 4) The Simpsons: Virtual Springfield (Fox) | |
| 5) Premier Manager 99 (Gremlin) |
2016 Reset C64 4KB Game Coding Competition
Dust off the C64 and grab that ideas pad where you scribbled down your game design all those years ago, as you now have the opportunity to enter the 2016 Reset C64 4KB game coding competition, AKA: the Reset Crap Game Compo!
This is going to be one mega CRAPTASTIC comp! Say what? Crap game comp? What gives? My game will be awesome! Relax, don’t get precious about it, the theme of the comp is craptastic, so the crappier the game, the better chance you have at being crowned the winner.
For those of you that want the lowdown on how to enter, just be aware that your game must not be greater than 4 kilobytes in size. Oh yeah, your game can (and should) be ludicrous, awful, bonkers and downright outrageous. The main aim is to have fun. So once you have your crap game done, make sure you email it to the Reset editor by no later than October 1 2016! So go on, get cracking, ahem, we mean coding!
For a complete list of the rules and regulations, go here. This Reset competition is proudly sponsored by:
There will be awesome prizes, including Reset physical issues for the top three winning entrants!
The Secret History Of Mac Gaming
Apple’s history in gaming goes a long way back. Heck, even my first computer gaming experience was on an Apple ][e playing the awesome text adventure, Transylvania way back in 1983. The Apple line of computers had its avid gaming fans and also paved the way for many a developers that cut their teeth on the trusty computers. When the Apple Macintosh computer was launched in the mid 80s, it’s built in screen, graphical user interface and the mouse pointing device were at the bleeding edge of computing. Apple may have aimed the computer at the business end of town, but the beloved Mac was also thriving in the gaming community too. Sadly, not much has been written or shared with the gaming masses about the Mac gaming communities, till now.
The Secret History of Mac Gaming, a new crowdfund book project by talented freelance writer Richard Moss, aims to tell the story of those Mac communities and the game developers who survived and thrived in an ecosystem that was serially ignored by the outside world. It’s a book about people who made games and people who played them — people who, on both counts, followed their hearts first and market trends second. How in spite of everything they had going against them, the people who carried the torch for Mac gaming in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s showed how clever, quirky, and downright wonderful videogames could be.
The work draws on archive materials as well as 60+ new interviews with key figures from Mac gaming’s past, including: Craig Fryar, who is co-authoring several chapters, Robyn and Rand Miller, Patrick Buckland, John Calhoun, Andrew Welch, Ben Spees, Matt Burch, Ian and Colin Lynch Smith, Steven Tze, Mark Stephen Pierce, Jonathan Gay, Bill Appleton, Steve Capps, Charlie Jackson, Peter Cohen, Trey Smith, Dave Marsh, Joe Williams, Brian Greenstone, Craig Erickson, Rick Holzgrafe, Chris De Salvo, Ray Dunakin, Glenda Adams, Rebecca Heineman, Eric Klein, Marc Vose and many more.
The book will be a 304 page hardback, printed on 120 gsm fine art paper, with a bookmark, head and tail bands, and a four colour jacket printed on clear plastic stock. So if you have (or had) an interest in Mac gaming or are hungry to know more about the history of Mac gaming, then pledge for Richard Moss’ The Secret History Of Mac Gaming book!
source: Unbound
Sega Arcade Game History
STOP THE PRESS! Thanks to our good friend Skott Kellett, we were made aware of Sega-Interactive’s Sega Arcade Game History site!
So what is this site all about? If you have been (and still are) a fan of Sega’s arcade games (Ed: which many, many of you are!) and love history, then this site should be bookmarked as your go to reference on anything related to Sega arcade games.
The site is great to navigate, with a plotted timeline of all Sega arcade games from 1970 to present day on the left of screen, a cross-hair to ‘target’ (choose) the arcade game in the centre of the display, and the right of screen being your search area and view type selector (cruise or list mode for the targeted decade). Now, if only Sega-Interactive could release an English version of this site!
Let’s cruise through Sega’s arcade games from the 1980s
Tiled list view of Sega’s arcade games from the 1980s
Machine list view of Sega’s arcade games from the 1980s
Checking out Yu Suzuki’s Space Harrier
source: Sega Interactive