The Pop-Culture E-Zine
Pins! Lots and lots of pins! Even if you are not into video gaming related enamel pins, you have to admit, these are quite cool. Ah, if only I had kept my Atari Lynx club badge.
These gaming related promotional pins are definitely becoming harder to find and are starting to demand the big bucks. If you have some in your possession, wear them proudly!
All you ever wanted to know about Nintendo’s 64-bit console – from inception to release. It is all here in under eight minutes. Thank you to the Did You Know Gaming team!
source: DYKGaming
Any time I hear or see the word “Cops”, I want to break out into Inner Circle’s “Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you, bad boys, bad boys”. Too bad I haven’t got the Jamaican accent down pat.
Ah, I have digressed. Speaking of cops, have you ever wondered what The Legend Of Zelda would be like if it had a patrolling policeman? No? Well, if it did, Dorkly shows us how it would play out.
source: Dorkly
Remember the old “Are you keeping up with the Commodore” television commercial? Or who could forget the ‘Atari Summer‘ promotion for their 5200?
The advertising wars weren’t just confined to print media. There were shots fired via television commercials by all major players. Commodore focused on the family unit and pushed their C64 as a home computer for the entire family to enjoy. Atari on the other hand chose to sex it up when it was time to peddle their ill-fated 5200 Super System.
Sega played it safe when it came to introducing the west to their 8-bit Master System by depicting a family (minus mum!) having fun with their arcade conversions. Meanwhile, Nintendo hit hard in the USA with their 1985 commercial, introducing us to R.O.B, the Zapper gun and their 8-bit console beauty, the NES. The rest, as they say, is history.
Take a trip down nostalgia lane and relive the television commercials that introduced us to our most beloved systems.
Are You Keeping Up – Commodore 64
source: gamemusicparadise
Nobody’s Hotter Than Atari This Summer
source: DigThatBoxRETRO
The Challenge Will Always Be There – Sega
source: robatsea2009
The Birth Of The Nintendo Entertainment System
source: DigThatBoxRETRO
Format: PS Vita
Year: 2014
Developer: Llamasoft
Cost: $10.35
I am going to go against the grain here and write about a current gen video game. It’s no ordinary game, it has it’s roots in the arcades dating back to 1981. The game I speak of is TxK. What praises can be written here that haven’t already been lavished on this beautiful game by the great Yak, Jeff Minter (Llamasoft).
For starters, this is no ordinary update on Dave Theurer’s original arcade smash hit Tempest, or Jeff’s own Tempest 2000 on the Atari Jaguar. TxK brings Tempest well and truly into the 21st century. This tube shooter captures your attention and gobbles up a lot of your free time, not just the PS Vita battery. Words like mesmerising, sublime, frantic, nail-biting and intense come to mind when describing TxK.
For those that have just arrived on this planet, TxK is a tube/web shooter, where your ship is attached to the top edge (rim) of a web playfield, shooting at enemies approaching from the background into the foreground. Your mission is to clear each of the 100 playfields and not allow the enemies to shoot you down or capture your ship. To assist you in getting further into the game, each level provides power-ups that can unleash screen-clearing bombs or provide you with an AI Droid which is handy in clearing enemies that have jumped up on the rim.
Coupled with the gorgeous psychedelic visuals, Jeff Minter has also thrown in some catchy, rave-inspired soundtracks. With an ingenious save system and modes of play, TxK is clean, perfectly designed and bristling with high energy.
Verdict: If there is one game that will convince you to buy a PS Vita, it is TxK. It has ‘killer app’ written all over it.
Commodore 64: a visual commpendium is a book that celebrates the beauty of the greatest home computer ever made.
A campaign to create this book will launch as a Kickstarter on April 1, 2014. This is a call to action and is no April Fools’ Day joke! Mark this date in your diary and support this great campaign.
Created by lifelong Commodore 64 fan and Graphic Designer Sam Dyer, the final book will feature 200+ pages of lovingly designed and beautifully printed artwork. Unlike other Commodore 64 books, it will celebrate the visual side of the computer in a way that has never been seen before.
It will be packed full of artwork by Oliver Frey, game art, reviews, loading screens, game maps and photography. The foreword will be written by legendary Sensible Software Graphic Artist Stoo Cambridge.
source: MrSid64
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About Sam
Sam has over 10 years experience as an award winning professional Graphic Designer, working for agencies in London and also in the South West of England. His passion for design and also the Commodore 64, mean that he is ideally placed to create this book to the highest possible standard.
Follow Sam (aka: MrSidc64) on Twitter
About Bitmap Books
A new publisher specialising in beautifully designed and produced books all about video games. Commodore 64: a visual commpendium is the first book by Bitmap Books.
I thought the first rule of Fight Club was that you did not talk about Fight Club! I am breaking that rule here – what if Fight Club was retold in 8-bit pixelated glory? Wonder no more people. Well, actually, it’s more like 16-bit, but that is beside the point.
CineFix are ‘gamifying’ a few Hollywood blockbusters into old school video gaming inspired action. You should take a look!
source: CineFix
Got an error page to present on your website? I know ours needs a bit of sprucing up! Perhaps we could use some classic video games for inspiration. Take a look at these little beauties.
How about a Super Mario inspired error message
A confronting Dead Link error message. Poor Link
An entertaining Pac-Man game
source: econsultancy
It wasn’t just Hasbro that were making transforming alien robots in the 80s and 90s. The heavy hitters of the home computing and video gaming industry got into the act by transforming their home computers into consoles. Unfortunately, the only thing that this venture proved was that home computers should never be repackaged as consoles.
Commodore 64 Games System
On the back of the success of the C64 home computer, good old Commodore decided to release the console version in 1990 – the Commodore 64 Game System (C64GS). With other more powerful consoles on the market, the C64GS disappeared without making a mark. The C64GS was a blight on the C64 pedigree.
Amstrad GX4000
Amstrad wasn’t going to be outdone by Commodore, so to compete against the C64GS, they released their GX4000 console – a repackaged CPC computer. Despite being more powerful, it suffered the same fate as the C64GS. Both machines booked their tickets to obscurity, as they were no match to the offerings from NEC, Sega and Nintendo.
Atari 5200 Super System
Atari’s first attempt at transforming their home computer, the Atari 400, into a console, was the disastrous 5200 Super System! With a hideous controller added into the mix, the 5200’s fate was sealed. It was never released outside of North America.
CBS ColecoVision
The joker in the Home Computers In Disguise pack is the ColecoVision. What a lot of gamers don’t realise is that the ColecoVision was based on the MSX standard – an early Japanese PC standard developed by (none other than) Microsoft. The Coleco got a better sound chip, but other than that, it was a console-ised MSX.
Amiga CD32
You would have thought that after the disaster of the C64GS, Commodore would have learned their lesson. Well, they didn’t. Commodore tried their hand at repackaging their Amiga 1200 computer into a console, the Amiga CD32. When compared to the Amiga CDTV, some would argue that the CD32 was a success. Sadly, Commodore’s financial woes in the 90s ensured that the CD32 didn’t stand a chance in surviving the looming 32-bit console war.
Let this be a lesson learned – DO NOT REPACKAGE COMPUTERS INTO CONSOLES!
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image source: C64GS – 6502.org; Atari 5200 – avgn.wikia; Coleco – retroauction; CD32 – ilesj
There are times when words should not be spoken, or on this case, written. This is a must watch video! Awesome doesn’t do it justice. Press play, turn it up and enjoy this audio visual bliss!
source: owatax99