AUSRETROGAMER

The Pop-Culture E-Zine

You are here: Home / Archives for Announcements

Announcements

This Is The Way: Microsoft & Lucasfilm Launch ‘The Mandalorian’ themed Xbox Gaming Gear

By

This Is The Way

Celebrating the start of The Mandalorian season 3 on Disney+, Microsoft/Xbox and Lucasfilm have teamed up to launch ‘The Mandalorian’-themed gaming gear, including cool Xbox Series X|S Mando livery!

The third season of The Mandalorian follows Grogu as he reunites with Din Djarin, so what better way to celebrate this much-loved Star Wars series than to have a colour-coordinated controller, a hoodie and best of all, a human-sized armoured floating pram (Pram XL), which doesn’t really float, but would still be cool to win.

The comp/sweepstajes for The Mando-themed Xbox Series X|S is open to everyone on the planet, with the only entry requirement being a retweet of this tweet!

PS: For more news and how to enter the sweepstakes to win the Pram XL, head over to the Xbox News site right now.

image source: Microsoft Xbox News



Stern Pinball Inc. Unleashes FOO FIGHTERS Pinball

By

DeadFlip’s Jack Danger designs his first Stern Pinball cornerstone title

Pinball and Rock & Roll go hand in hand, so when a music pinball machine is released in the wild, it usually garners a lot of interest. The world’s largest pinball manufacturer, Stern Pinball Inc., know where it’s at with their latest cornerstone title, Foo Fighter pinball!

Designed by Jack Danger of DeadFlip fame, his maiden cornerstone title looks pretty darn impressive! From the Pro to the Premium and Limited Edition (LE) models, Foo Fighters looks every bit darn awesome and fun! We can’t wait to flip this one!

Official Trailer

source: Stern Pinball

Foo Fighters first stepped onto the world stage in 1995 with their classic self-titled debut album. Over the course of their career, the band has released 10 studio albums, amassed over 32 million records sold worldwide, won 15 Grammy Awards, were recipients of the first-ever MTV “Global Icon” award, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021. One of the biggest headliners on the global stadium, arena and festival circuits, their music will soon begin filling gamerooms and entertainment locations in pinball form.

Stern’s Foo Fighters machines bring the Foo Fighters concert experience home as players are immersed in an epic pinball adventure featuring 15 iconic songs spanning the band’s expansive catalog, including All My Life, Best of You, Breakout, Everlong, Holding Poison, I’ll Stick Around, Learn to Fly, Monkey Wrench, My Hero, Run, Something from Nothing, The Pretender, This is a Call, Times Like These, and Walk.

More than two years in the making and with creative input from the band’s own Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel, Pat Smear, Chris Shiflett, Rami Jaffee, and the late, great Taylor Hawkins, Stern’s Foo Fighters is a top-shelf pinball machine—and so much more. An entire new universe has been developed with jaw-dropping hand-drawn artwork and custom animations including “Foo Fighters Saturday Morning Action Time!”—a fictional TV series chronicling the band’s quest to save rock and roll… AND THE WORLD! Join Foo Fighters on this rescue mission to thwart the evil, mysterious alien Overlord and his army of bots. Search the Area 51 upper playfield to break into and unleash pinball chaos. Jump in the van for a righteous tour of duty to save humanity from extinction and let rock rule!

Foo Fighters pinball models

Foo Fighters pinball machines include Stern’s award-winning Insider Connected™ system, which enables players to interact with the game and a global network of players in a variety of ways. Through Insider Connected, players can track progress, earn new game-specific achievements, engage with the player community, and participate in promotions and Challenge Quests. Insider Connected also provides an operator-focused toolset to drive location play through Location Leaderboards, build player loyalty, analyze performance, make adjustments remotely, and maintain the machines.

Main Design Team:

Lead Game Designer: Jack Danger

Lead Software Engineer: Tanio Klyce

Technical Lead Artist: Zombie Yeti

Limited to 1,000 machines globally, the highly collectible Limited Edition includes the Expression Lighting System™. With 96 intelligent RGB LEDs, the Expression Lighting System enables full color spectrum control. Positioned in pockets cut into the cabinet sides to provide color themed full playfield illumination, this integrated playfield lighting system is synchronized to custom light shows specifically designed for every song and dynamically responsive to game events. The LE version also includes an exclusive Rock-Battle inspired full-color mirrored backglass, exclusive full color high definition reflective foil decal cabinet artwork, custom high gloss Overlord green powder-coated pinball armor, a custom designer-autographed bottom arch, exclusive inside art blades, upgraded audio system, anti-reflection pinball playfield glass, shaker motor, a sequentially numbered plaque, and a Certificate of Authenticity signed by Stern Chairman Gary Stern and President & CEO Seth Davis.

Pricing and availability (Australia):

  • PRO – Available end of May 2023: $11,950
  • PREMIUM – Available end of June: $15,500
  • LIMITED EDITION (1000 worldwide) – Available end of May: $20,500

For more information on Foo Fighters pinball, head to the Stern Pinball website here.

Foo Fighters LE playfield

image source: Stern Pinball



Media release supplied

Atari’s AKKA ARRH Is Finally Available

By

Do The Math with Atari’s AKKA ARRH

I really really don’t like the crapola that the new Atari dishes out (or promoting anything with their name on it), however, there are a few exceptions! Their Atari 50 Anniversary compilation was vintage Atari, with great curated content. It now looks like we can add AKKA ARRH to this very small and illustrious list of titles from the new Atari.

AKKA ARRH is the latest game from legendary game designer Jeff Minter and Llamasoft! AKKA ARRH is a frenzied kaleidoscope of neon insanity with playful psychedelic landscapes, which is right up Minter’s alley, as he takes on one of the rarest arcade games of the 80s era and turned it into a tough blaster for all of us to enjoy now! .

Will you become the hero in this mind bending universe? AKKA ARRH is available on pretty much every platform for under AU$30.00: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Steam and the new Atari VCS!

 

image source: Atari Interactive



Mega Book Collection Digital Book Is Now FREE

By

Yep, you read that right! The ‘Mega Book Collection – A Visual Guide to the Sega Mega Drive’ digital book – the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis visual opus is now totally gratis!

The author, Darren Doyle (Greyfox Books) explains the reason this book has now been released for free:

We attempted to bring this book physically to everyone back in 2021 via crowdfunding but alas we were unable to do so. So going forward, we decided rather than this amazing project to be left sitting on a hard drive gathering dust forever, we made the decision to offer it for free for everyone to enjoy and because we are very nice and generous people here at Greyfox Books and love to support the Sega retro gaming scene.

In case you were wondering, the great big SEGA put the kibosh on this book being published physically. So before they kill the digital one, grab it now! And while you are at it, please consider leaving a donation via the publisher’s PayPal account.

image source: Greyfox Books



Zen Studios’ Pinball FX now on Xbox and PlayStation

By

Being in a future timezone, we in Australia had to wait a few extra hours for Zen Studios’ Pinball FX to hit Xbox and PlayStation consoles!

The latest in the FX series, Pinball FX has graduated from early access to full release at the Epic Games store, as well as making its debut on PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One! Nintendo Switch fans will have to wait a bit longer.

This is a new era of digital pinball from Zen Studios, including a day-one, ever-expanding lineup of 86 tables, plus an impressive suite of new features, the revolutionary pinball platform is inching ever closer to the real silverball game. If you love playing pinball video games, then jump on this right now and enjoy the Wild West Rampage table at no cost, and check out the trial modes for all other tables.

All returning tables from previous editions have been fully remastered in Unreal Engine, with ray-tracing-enhanced, 4K-HDR visuals, as well as upgraded Pro Physics. Not lacking plentiful fresh downloadable content, Pinball FX also introduces three brand new releases: Borderlands®: Vault Hunter Pinball, Brothers in Arms®: Win the War Pinball and The Addams Family (itself including a never-before-seen enhanced play, as with all Williams classics). At the same time, console players can get their hands on more than 15 tables for the first time that Pinball FX Early Access players enjoyed in 2022, such as Star Wars Pinball: The Mandalorian, World War Z Pinball, DreamWorks Pinball, five Zen Originals, plus Williams classics World Cup Soccer and The Machine: Bride of Pin-Bot. Zen will release new tables regularly, many involving exciting new licensed IPs – most immediately, Legendary Pictures’ Godzilla vs. Kong.

Go on, get flippin’ peeps!


source: Zen Studios



Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game – Official Trailer

By

The official trailer for Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game premiered today on the leading entertainment site, IGN. Watch the trailer below now!


source: IGN

Written and directed by The Bragg Brothers (Austin and Meredith Bragg), Pinball is based on the true story of Roger Sharpe, the GQ journalist and real-life pinball wizard, who in 1976 helped overturn New York City’s 35-year ban on pinball. The film’s all-star cast is led by Mike Faist (Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story), Crystal Reed (Teen Wolf, Swamp Thing), and Dennis Boutsikaris (Better Call Saul, The Bourne Legacy).

The award-winning film will be released in select theaters and on your favorite streaming platforms, including Apple TV, iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, and Google Play, beginning March 17, 2023.

Get flippin’ 😉

[press release supplied by MPI Original Films]



Do The Math – Atari XP: 50th Anniversary Box Set

By

Do The Math! Atari doing what they do best, squeezing every cent out of their IP

Goddammit Atari, just when we thought you had redeemed yourself with the amazing Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration collection, you go ahead and become the exploitative shell of a company yet again 🙁

Don’t get us wrong, the concept for the Atari XP: 50th Anniversary Limited Edition Box Set is super cool, but the price is way too much for the majority of Atari fans, especially in the current global financial climate.

Anyway, if you have a cool USD$999.99 / AUD$1440.00 / £830.00 burning a hole in your pocket, then this collection may be right up your alley, but you better hurry, as these are limited to 100 worldwide!

Just like Pokemon, will you get them all?

PS: We always wonder what Nolan and Ted (RIP) would have thought about this ‘new’ Atari…….

We just want this Missile Command light up cart!

Will you get them all?image source: Atari Interactive, Inc



‘Tomb Raider’ Film in the Works at Amazon Studios!

By

Some exciting news for Lara Croft Fans!

As reported exclusively in The Hollywood Reporter;

the retail giant and streamer has teamed with Dmitri M. Johnson’s dj2 Entertainment for a massive rights deal to make a Tomb Raider feature film, in addition to the newly announced TV series from Phoebe Waller-Bridge and at least one video game in the Lara Croft franchise.

Fusing all three elements of Tomb Raider across film, TV and video games is a smart business decision in creating a huge franchise which will hit the mark with millions across the globe. This is very cool news for Tomb Raider/Lara Croft fans (like Ms. ausretrogamer)!

We’ll keep across this news and report when we find out more.

[story source: The Hollywood Reporter / image source: Crystal Dynamics]



Weeping At Another Video Rental Store Closing

By

Another Australian video rental store bites the proverbial dust!

We reported back in 2019 when the last Australian Blockbuster was closing its doors, and this time it’s no different, which we are sad to report that the independent family run video rental store in Kambalda, a mining town in the WA Goldfields, is closing its doors one last time after 40 years in business.

Run by the Assaad family since 1983, the video rental store has succumbed to FIFO (fly in, fly out) – where mining workers no longer reside in the town and are instead flown in and out. The steady decline has been a long time coming, with patronage almost nil which left the Assaad’s with no other option than to close this once thriving video rental store.

We wonder if there are other video rental stores still about in Australia? If you know of any, please let us know!

story and image source: ABC



Zax Amusements Is Now At A Bigger & Better Location

By


Looks like 2023 is the start of new beginnings!

Our friends at Zax Amusements have relocated from their Port Melbourne location to a much bigger warehouse, service centre and showroom at 1661 Centre Road, Springvale, a south-eastern Melbourne suburb.

We will miss the old Port Melbourne location as it was convenient for us, however, the bigger showroom is a drawcard for us to visit Zax Amusements in Springvale to check out the latest arcade and pinball machines.

image source: Zax Amusements