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The Complete History of Sega World

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Ah, Sega World Sydney – wish we had visited! Image source: Sega World Sydney Memoriam

If there is one regret we have, it’s that we didn’t get to visit Sega World in Darling Harbour (Sydney) before it was closed down.

The next best thing was to find Badnik Mechanic’s awesome video on the history of Sega World. Sega had planned to revolutionise arcades forever with their new arcade / theme park concept. Unfortunately Sega failed, but the story of Sega World’s creation needed to be told.

Sit back for the next quarter of an hour and take in some 1990s Sega goodness – you may learn something new too!


source: Badnik Mechanic

 

LEGO Ideas: Banjo-Kazooie and the Planet Express Ship

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We are hooked at trawling the LEGO Ideas site and finding wonderful creations, just like this Banjo-Kazooie action figure and the Planet Express delivery ship from Futurama.

We have voted and now have our fingers and toes crossed.

image source: LEGO Ideas

 

 

Star Wars Pinball – Switch Review

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What do you get when you mash together the world’s biggest pop culture franchise with one of the best video pinball developers on the planet? You guessed it, you get Zen Studios‘ Star Wars Pinball!

Zen Studios has somehow crammed 19 Star Wars themed pinball tables on this Switch release, which are damn brilliant and will satisfy any discerning Jedi pinball master – we were going to say wizard, but we reckon that has been done to death. The superlatives don’t just end there, there are additional features and modes that are exclusive on the Nintendo Switch, like HD Rumble, Vertical Play (grab your Flip Grip!), Cantina Jukebox, Galactic Struggle and Career Mode to name just a few.

As the title suggest, this is a pinball game at heart, meaning it is easy to get into and instantly enjoyable to flip the silver-ball. This is thanks to Zen Studios honing their skill in creating wonderful pinball experiences on consoles. The added bonus here is that the whole package is wrapped up in all things Star Wars. If you scratch the surface of this title and start looking deeper, there is a lot of content that will keep you playing for a long long time (in a galaxy nearby).

As mentioned, the unique gameplay modes on the Switch allow players to participate in community-wide Galactic struggles, allowing for contribution points to the light or dark side, depending on how you feel. Likewise, the new career mode allows players to join the ranks of the Jedi or Sith as they achieve up to 50 career ranks, and simply playing any table unlocks special Force Power bonuses that can be applied toward bigger scores. Playing any table unlocks special Force Power bonuses that can be applied towards bigger scores, and a Force Training mode to help pinball Padawans maximize their flipping potential.

The 19 Star Wars pinball tables are centred around the movies and TV show franchises, with iconic characters, memorable locations, and general Star Wars goodness:

  • Movies Adaptations: Episodes IV, V, VI, VII and VIII, plus Rogue One: A Star Wars™ Story and Solo: A Star Wars™ Story
  • TV Adaptations: Star Wars™: The Clone Wars™, Star Wars Rebels™
  • Characters: Han Solo, Darth Vader, Lando Calrissian in The Calrissian Chronicles table, Boba Fett, Droids
  • Locations: Ahch-To Island, Mimban (Battle of Mimban)
  • Themes: Jedi vs. Sith (Masters of the Force), X-wings vs. TIE fighters (Starfighter Assault), being the bad guy (Might of the First Order)

No matter which side you choose, Light or Dark, Jedi or Sith, you will Feel the Force in Zen Studios’ Star Wars Pinball on the Nintendo Switch. We highly recommend you give this awesome game a flip!

Disclosure: Star Wars Pinball [Nintendo Switch eShop code] was kindly provided by Zen Studios for this review.

 

 

Heart of Neon: A Life Inside Video Games

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You’ve either heard of Jeff Minter or you haven’t. If you have, then that means you know he creates high-octane, psychedelic retro-style shoot’em up video games, usually with a camel, llama or some other ungulate. Perhaps you don’t know Jeff, but you have played Tempest 2000 on the Atari Jaguar, arguably Jeff’s best known game. It’s mind blowing to think that Tempest 2000 was released 25 years ago, when Jeff was already a decade plus into his game development career, which is still going strong today, with the impending release of Minotaur Arcade Vol 1 on the PlayStation 4.

A story of one game designer making video games for four decades deserves to be told. That’s the mission of Paul Docherty, a filmmaker who himself used to work as a graphics designer in the early days of video games. Paul is now making a feature documentary called HEART OF NEON, which centres around Jeff and Llamasoft. He talks about the documentary’s goals in more detail here.

Paul is currently raising funds to help put Jeff’s legend out into the world, and he’s gratefully accepting crowdfunding pledges right now!

You can follow everything about the Heart of Neon documentary on Twitter, Facebook, Twitch and Instagram.

image source: Paul Docherty – Heart of Neon

 

Celebrate Batman Day 2019 By Playing Stern’s Batman ’66 Pinball Machine via the Internet!

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We celebrate this (Batman’s 80th anniversary) by playing Stern Pinball’s BATMAN ’66 pinball machine via the internet!

Yep, you read that right. Finnish company Surrogate, with their motto of rethinking the way video games have been designed and bringing real-life gaming to the internet, have teamed up with pinball celebrity, Jack Danger of DeadFlip fame, to build the first internet-connected Batman ‘66 pinball machine – a world first where anyone can control the pinball machine from anywhere on this planet!

To inspire other pinball enthusiasts, check out the build video below where Shane (Surrogate CEO) and Jack (DeadFlip) go in-depth on how anyone can hook-up a pinball machine to the internet.


source: SurrogateTV

What are you waiting for? You can go and play Batman ’66 pinball over the internet right now from anywhere in the world – Play Batman ’66 here!

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Pinball Press
Pinball Press is here to spread the word on everything pinball across the known universe. For business / PR email: [email protected]

Follow Pinball Press on Twitter and Facebook

 

 

 

PAX Aus 2019 Classic Gaming Tournaments

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Hey peeps, it is that time of year that you sharpen your reflexes and get your twitchy fingers ready for the PAX Aus 2019 Classic Gaming Tourneys!

From tournaments on the Atari 2600, Commodore 64, PC-Engine, Sega Saturn, Atari Jaguar, to some Doom II FPS action on an old school MS-DOS computer and pinball, we have your nostalgia covered! Check out the PAX Aus 2019 Classic Gaming tournament schedule below and make sure you come around to the Classic Gaming Area nice and early for your chance to become a retro gaming champion!

 

The PAX Aus 2019 Classic Gaming Tournaments are brought to you by these awesome community partners: Bayside Pinball Club, Press Play On Tape Podcast, Weird And Retro and us at Ausretrogamer.

 

LEGO Ideas: Outrun and Pac-Man

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This is a call to action for all lovers of Lego and retro gaming to head to the Lego Ideas site and vote for the Lego Outrun and Lego Pac-Man Action Figure!

What are you waiting for, go and vote!

image source: Lego Ideas

 

Wild Chicago visits Williams Electronics

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This is a cool video from the early 1990s which has the TV show, Wild Chicago visiting the Williams factory. The video shows the making of The Addams Family pinball machine, which also includes a brief chat with Roger Sharpe and Steve Kordek amongst other pinball peeps at Williams. Ed Boon also makes an appearance where they show the making of Mortal Kombat!


source: Arcade Hunters

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Pinball Press
Pinball Press is here to spread the word on everything pinball across the known universe. For business / PR email: [email protected]

Follow Pinball Press on Twitter and Facebook

 

 

 

Flipout 2019 Ticket Giveaway!

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Thanks to our friends at Zax Amusements, we are giving away a weekend double pass for two people to enjoy Flipout 2019 on Saturday, October 26 and Sunday, October 27.

To be in the running for the Flipout 2019 weekend double pass, all you have to do is post a photo of your favourite pinball machine on our Twitter or Facebook page (don’t forget to tag us!) with the hashtag .

Entry is open to Australian residents that can attend Flipout 2019 on October 26 and/or 27! If you are interstate and will be travelling to Melbourne during those dates, please note that this giveaway does not include travel or accommodation. The other condition of entry is that the double passes do not give you entry to the pinball tournaments.

Are you flippin pumped to enter? If you are (and you should be!), then you better hurry, as entries close on October 1 at 3:00pm. The lucky winner will be notified on October 2.

Good luck and see you at Flipout 2019!

PS: If you want to get a feel for what to expect at this year’s Flipout, check out the highlights from Flipout 2018!

 

Review: Sega Mega Drive Mini – Welcome to the Next Level!

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Casting our mind back to November 1990, we recall walking into our local family run Home and Entertainment Centre with our hard earned money (from pushing trolleys at our part-time job) to be faced with a dilemma of what new gaming console to buy for the new decade. This decision wasn’t taken lightly, as we had been 8 and 16-bit computer gamers till that point. We remember paying $399.99 for the Sega Mega Drive (Altered Beast pack-in) that day and another $100 for Golden Axe. Let’s just say that it was the best decision we ever made. We instantly fell in love with Sega’s 16-Bit console and that love affair is still as strong as ever.

Fast forward to the present day and the excitement of bringing home a mini version of Sega’s venerable console feels just the same as it did almost 29 years ago! Cracking open the box, we found a super cute shrunken Mega Drive Mini console, about 55% the size of the original Model 1 Mega Drive, two 3-button USB controllers, one HDMI cable and one USB to Micro-B power cable.

Being a genuine made Sega product, everything feels high quality. You can tell that Sega took a lot of care and poured their heart and souls into crafting this sleek and miniaturised Mega Drive. We love the attention to detail, like the cartridge flaps retracting, but obviously they are there for aesthetics, so you can put away your game carts. The headphone volume slider feels the same, albeit on a smaller scale, as do the reset button and on/off switch – it all feels very familiar, which is a good thing. The 3-button controllers are identical to the ones we had in 1990, except these are USB, not D-Pin connected. On that front, it would have been great if Sega had included 6-button controllers so that we could play games like Street Fighter II right out of the box. But don’t dwell on this, as you can use the Retro-Bit® 6-button controllers on this Mini.

Once the Mega Drive Mini was fired up, we were keen to start playing one of the 42 pre-loaded games (full list of games further down). The menu we were presented with was quite easy to navigate, with an awesome catchy tune created on the YM2612 sound chip by legendary composer Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage and Beyond Oasis). Knowing that the pre-loaded titles from both first-party and third-party development teams were all handled by the premier developer, M2 (SEGA AGES and SEGA 3D Classics Collection), a team renowned for high attention to detail and accuracy, we knew the games ported to the Mega Drive Mini were in good hands – the M2 team should be commended for their brilliant effort. Oh yeah, both Tetris and Darius make it in the overall games list, which means the Mega Drive Mini is the only console where you’ll be able to play these two newly published Mega Drive games – how cool is that?!

Just like in 1990, the first game we fired up was Golden Axe. The hit of nostalgia was purely intoxicating. Our muscle memory didn’t let us down, so playing the game was just as fun as it was back then. However, unlike back then, we could now save our game at any point to come back to it later – so no more pesky pausing for 24 hours and running a high power bill. The game playing experience felt authentic, even if playing on a modern television. Having said that, there are settings available to change the aspect ratio (4:3 or 16:9) and for those of you that want the same visual experience from three decades ago, there is a CRT filter, which adds scan lines and adjusts the colour of the display to emulate the look and feel of a CRT television (see photos of this further below) – it’s pure magic.

Lovingly crafted from the ground up, the sleek and miniature SEGA Mega Drive Mini is for all retro gamers, especially those that have fond memories playing the original 16-bit console back in the day. Sega have truly delivered a high-quality, plug-and-play, collectable version of their awesome console. As their famous slogan once said, and it still rings true now, “To be this good takes AGES, To be this good takes SEGA.”

If you want to see the Sega Mega Drive Mini in the flesh, we will have it available in our Classic Gaming area at PAX Aus 2019. The Sega Mega Drive Mini will be released on September 19 at a retail price of AU$139.95.

The Mega Drive Mini 42 pre-loaded titles:

1. Sonic the Hedgehog
2. Ecco the Dolphin
3. Castlevania: The New Generation
4. Space Harrier 2
5. Shining Force
6. Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine
7. ToeJam & Earl
8. Comix Zone
9. Altered Beast
10. Gunstar Heroes
11. Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
12. World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck
13. Thunder Force III
14. Super Fantasy Zone
15. Shinobi III
16. Streets of Rage 2
17. Earthworm Jim
18. Sonic the Hedgehog 2
19. Probotector
20. Landstalker
21. Mega Man®: The Wily Wars
22. Street Fighter II’®: Special Champion Edition
23. Ghouls ‘n Ghosts®
24. Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle
25. The Story of Thor
26. Golden Axe
27. Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium
28. Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball
29. Vectorman
30. Wonder Boy in Monster World
31. Tetris®
32. Darius
33. Road Rash II
34. Strider
35. Virtua Fighter 2
36. Alisia Dragoon
37. Kid Chameleon
38. Monster World IV
39. Eternal Champions
40. Columns
41. Dynamite Headdy
42. Light Crusader

Disclosure: The Sega Mega Drive Mini was kindly provided by Five Star Games for this review.