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The Force Is Strong in these Unofficial Nike Star Wars Runners

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According to our friends at Kotaku, Nike is releasing three pairs of runners (or sneakers for our US friends – Ed) in a line that’s an unlicensed tribute to Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.

The Boba Fett, Darth Vader and Rebel Pilot* (* not their model names) are quite impressive, even if they are known by other model names to avoid any potential licensing issues. In case you wanted to know, Adidas has the Star Wars license, so it is interesting that Nike is releasing a line of runners with Star Wars inspired themes and colourways – surely this is just a coincidence!

Nike has scheduled to release these runners November 2021, with the best part being that they will not be in limited quantity!

source: Kotaku



Slow Mole: 8-bit Platformer For The NES

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Slow MoleErik Rosenlund, take a bow! Erik has created and released, SLOW MOLE, an awesome speedrunning platformer for the NES!

Playable on both real hardware and other modern devices, Slow Mole challenges your speedrunner skills to the max with a unique checkpoint mechanic that will only award a checkpoint when the player proves their mastery! The game provides the player with two difficulty options which affects the timer, thus making an impact on game play. For those that have twitch skills who can truly master the game, the game ramps up its mechanical challenge to nightmare levels!

Grab Slow Mole for free (or for a small token of appreciation for Erik) from here and get running!

Slow Mole (NES) Trailer – The 80s NES claymation trailer that never was



Chip’s Challenge is coming to the SNES and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive!

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Chip's Challenge for SNES and SEGA GENESIS

Chip’s Challenge for SNES and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive Pre-Orders Now Live

Top-down tile-based puzzle game

Independent publisher The Retro Room Games has recently announced that the pre-orders for Chip’s Challenge on Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive are now open!

Play as Nerdy Chip McCallahan, who navigates through a series of increasingly difficult puzzles in 148 two-dimensional levels, in order to prove himself and gain membership to the very exclusive Bit Busters Club.

Chip's Challenge

Originally developed by Epyx, Chip’s Challenge is a classic top-down tile-based puzzle game launched on Atari Lynx in 1989. The game was also ported to MS-DOS, Atari ST, Amiga, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and the Amstrad CPC back in the 90s.

Chip’s Challenge was also released on Steam 6 years ago featuring 90% of positive reviews. This will be the first time that the game will be available on Nintendo and Sega platforms.

Chip’s Challenge will be available on 16-bit consoles including a cartridge in both PAL and NTSC versions, a box and an instruction booklet. Pre-orders for the game can be found here.


source: The Retro Room Roo

Features:

  • 148 two-dimensional levels
  • Block-pushing puzzles
  • Dodging enemies
  • Skip to the next level option

Price: US$24.99 (cart only) / US$49.99 (Complete In Box)



Mini Review: Within The Blade on XBox Series X/S

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We knew there was a good reason for buying the Xbox Series S console! With games like Within The Blade (WTB) by Ratalaika Games – a feast of ninja action with a retro flair, it hits the sweet nostalgic spot for us.

Within The Blade’s aesthetic is inspired by those sprites and pixels from the 8-bit day of ole, but with a polish for contemporary gaming systems. The retro style presentation of WTB and the easy to pick up and play are the strong suits for this game.

Within The Blade

WTB is a platforming hack’n slash, but the devil is in its details as your ninja encounters new and unique enemies which forces him to learn new battle tactics, improve the quality of weapons and learn new skills. Oh yeah, the blood and gore as your ninja hacks through each enemy is so visceral, so if you are squimish of the site of virtual blood and that squirting sound, then you may need a sick bag while playing WTB.

Game Features:

  • Over 100 types of weapons that players can find or craft
  • Branching skills to level up and master
  • Secrets to unlock, with epic items to find
  • Randomly generated levels
  • 5 unique acts with 5 levels
  • Distinct visual style, with a distinct medieval feel

Featuring 25 levels and some unforgettable boss encounters, players can also complete additional tasks to gain more experience and money to help level up their ninja. WTB ticks all the boxes for us, so if you like retro-styled ninja hack’n slash platformer games with a twist of RPG elements, then you should seriously check it out!

Publisher: Ratalaika Games
Developer: Ametist Studio
Platforms: Xbox, PS4/PS5 and Switch
Release: July 16, 2021
Price: US$10.99/€10.99/£9.99



Disclaimer: Xbox Series S/X review code for Within The Blade was provided by PR Hound.

The Legend Of Zelda and Super Mario 64 Sell For Mega Bucks!

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From NFTs selling for millions to other ephemera going for ridiculous amounts of money, we now find video games entering this realm of the ludicrous money!

In the last week we have had two record breaking auction sales of Nintendo video games, first it was The Legend Of Zelda (NES) selling for US$870,000, only for this record to be broken a few days later by the US$1.56 million fetched by Super Mario 64 (N64)!

Now don’t get us wrong, both of these games are great, but come on, these prices are scary as hell! Anyway, as long as there are buyers with deep pockets, then stuff like this is going to go for mega bucks! So if you have some old-school games in mint condition, get them rated and hit Heritage Auctions, you never know, you may be an instant millionaire.

We wonder what video game will break the sales record next?

image source: Heritage Auctions and CNN US

source story: The Verge



 

Wii U Playing Games From Zip Disk

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We always love coming across clever folks doing extraordinary and clever things, and Will It Work? is no exception!

Will It Work? caught our eye with his cool mods with old school media being used on modern consoles, which is quite impressive.

In the below video he attaches an Iomega Zip Drive (Ed: remember those 100MB disks!) to the Wii U to test whether such a small piece of media (Zip Disk) can be formatted by the console, and even better, if any games will fit on the disk. Watch and find out!


source: Will It Work?



LEGO IDEAS: Playable Space Invaders Arcade

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Another darn awesome Lego Ideas entry by Bricks Down Under that tickles our nostalgic nerve!

This playable Lego Space Invaders arcade game replica has the charm of the 1978 arcade machine that took the video gaming world by storm. We reckon Tomohiro Nishikado would be quite impressed too.

If you want this Lego Ideas Space Invaders to become a real Lego set you can buy from your fave retailer, make sure you go and vote for it now!


source: Bricks  Downunder

source: LEGO Ideas: Space Invaders



What Arrived: An Xbox Series S and an Arduboy FX

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Our postal service surprised us today with not one, but two packages! Wow, AusPost never ceases to amaze us.

XBOX Series S

We may stir up a few hardcore retro gamers with this first package, but before they start flying off their handle, relax, we got the Xbox Series S for a couple of reasons, the main one being that we can legitimately play our retro games on it via the retail version of RetroArch. Yep, you read that right, there is a legit RetroArch version available on the Microsoft store. The other use case we have is playing the classics we know and love via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which we scored for a bargain ($2 for 6 months)!

ARDUBOY FX:

The second parcel to arrive was in a much smaller package, which we honestly didn’t know what it was till we opened it. The story goes like this – we ordered the Arduboy FX almost a year ago, which at the time we were told that it would arrive by September 2020, but COVID derailed that ETA. Opening up this package was a total surprise and we must admit, we got more excited for the Arduboy FX than the Xbox Series S.

We bet you’ll guess what we will unbox and play first 😉

Happy Gaming peeps!

Arduboy FX



 

Spooky Pinball: Halloween VS Ultraman

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Well, well, well, not one, but two pinball machines are simultaneously announced by the cool peeps at Spooky Pinball. No one saw that coming! This 2 from 1 (2 machines from the 1 design) is a stroke of marketing genius!

First, Halloween Pinball, a not so well kept secret. Spooky did their darnedest to keep this horror themed machine under wraps, which was fun to watch on their social media channels, but since they dropped the news early this morning (Australian time), let’s just say that the internet has been abuzz! With the multiple play-levels and cool Michael mech scaring the hell out of you from the hedges, John Carpenter’s Halloween Pinball by Spooky looks dead set amazing – just check out the trailer!

With a total of 1,250 machines, ranging from US$6,995 for the standard, US$7,995 for the Blood Sucker Edition to the all bells and horror whistles Collector’s Edition for US$8,995, we have no doubt these will be snapped up in no time! Do you dare to battle against Michael Myers in Haddonfield?!


source: Spooky Pinball

The second machine to be announced by Spooky which was a total surprise was Ultraman: Kaiju Rumble. Basically a reskin of the Halloween Pinball machine, which is a) impressive and b) clever. Killing two birds with one stone by catering for different sets of fans is clever indeed – if you aren’t into horror themed pinball but love the Ultra Series, then this pinball machine will defnitely be up your alley!

Ultraman Pinball will be the same pricing as the Halloween Pinball machine editions with the only difference being the total number of machines being limited to 500.


source: Spooky Pinball

For more in-depth information and heaps of photos of these pinball machines by Spooky Pinball, check out the excellent Halloween Pinball and Ultraman: Kaiju Rumble Pinball articles by our good friends at This Week In Pinball.



Diary: Making of Mr. Do! for the ZX Spectrum

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If you follow Mark R. Jones on Twitter, you may have come across his post about the Diary on the making of MrDo! for the 48k/128k ZX Spectrum.

Mark’s 50 page PDF is a fascinating read for any gamers that want to learn how Mark and co. converted the 1982 Universal arcade game and why it took nearly 2 years (Feb 2017 to June 2019) to complete! Oh yeah, did we mention it is free?!

source: Tweet link