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Timezone Plans Expansion: Bringing Back The Arcade Parlour

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Pew pew, remember chucking coins in arcade machines and having a blast at your local Timezone? We do. Then came the PlayStation and Xbox era, and everyone decided to get their gaming entertainment at home.

Well, time has come where people are again seeking gaming entertainment outside of the home. With this demand, Timezone’s announcement that they will be expanding their amusement centre network in Australia is absolutely perfect timing.

We have always loved visiting Timezone centres around Melbourne and also on the Gold Coast, so this expansion news is great for all those seeking some great child and adult-friendly gaming entertainment. It’s going to feel like the ’80s and ’90s once again. Go Timezone!

Jump in one of the Ferraris!

Yours truly enjoying some After Burner Climax!

Yahoo! Mario Kart 2!

Let’s get shoot’n

Oh man, can’t wait for some head-to-head Daytona USA action!

We love flippin’ at Timezone!

images by: Alex Boz and Ms. Ausretrogamer

 

Atari To Make New Gaming Hardware

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There is nothing more exciting than hearing that one of your favourite video gaming companies from your childhood is about to launch new hardware!

We know that the new Atari is nothing like the old, but hearing that they are teaming up with Gameband to create a new wearable gaming product, we did let out a little squee! With lots of teaser tweets (see below), we are anxiously awaiting further news on this new Atari product that lets you play Atari classic games in a whole new way! We’ll update this post as more news comes to hand.

Just an interesting tidbit – according to the Gameband website, they are launching their Terraria and Atari Edition products via Kickstarter on February 8.

image source: Atari

 

Meet The Jetsons Pinball Machine!

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Meet George Jetson, his boy Elroy, daughter Judy, Jane, his wife! We loved The Jetsons cartoon, so when The Pinball Company and Spooky Pinball announced The Jetsons Pinball Machine, our collective interest was piqued!

Designed by Dan and Nathan Goett, with stunning art by Jon Chad, coupled with sounds and music from the classic TV show, The Jetsons pinball machine will be one cool flippin’ experience! The LED lighting and the full colour 15″ LCD dot-matrix system will give your peepers something pretty cool to stare at! According to The Pinball Company and Spooky Pinball, the rule-set of this full featured pinball machine will be action packed and easy to learn for the whole family.

The Jetsons pinball machine will begin shipping in late March, with a production run limited to 300 units, making this an instant collectable pinball table. If you are in North America and pre-order one now, you will save $1,000USD. We still await on news regarding The Jetsons pinball machine coming to Australia.

Woohoo, it’s The Jetsons!

Love the vibrant artwork

The art is so cheery, it takes us back to our childhood

The playfield looks a bit sparse, but we’ll reserve judgement till we have a go!

No old school plunger here!

The devil is in the (art) detail

Oh yeah, Little Dipper School!

Jet Again!

Elroy, Judy and our fave canine, Astro, are all there!

The multi-ball cast!

The Flyer!
source: The Pinball Company

 

The SainT Of Retro HQ

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After the success of his awesome Atari Lynx SD cartridge, SainT from Retro HQ is back with some new projects for our old hardware. Let the drooling begin!

The self professed geek, hardware hacker and seeker of knowledge is currently working on the Neo Geo Pocket SD and Atari Jaguar SD carts. To say we are excited about these new SD carts would be a massive understatement! We are in constant touch with SainT and will be bringing you updates on the progress of these highly anticipated cartridges!


source: Retro HQ

Chip It: The Chiptune Cover Challenge

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Soundfly, the guys that brought you the free online chiptunes crash course  has launched the “Chip It Challenge“!

The Chip It Challenge is a one-month contest (started on January 19) to win a free modded Game Boy and flash carts (courtesy of Kitsch-Bent!), feedback on your work from chip artist Chipocrite, and promo on Flypaper for your project! Entries will be judged by three prominent chiptune artists — glomag, BIAS ONE (f.k.a. minusbaby) and chiptune course instructor extraordinaire, Chipocrite! All you have to do is whip up the best 60-second cover of Devo’s classic groove “Whip It” in a chiptune/8-bit style, and you are in with a shot!

So you reckon you can whip it up? For all the info on the tools to use, rules, judgement criteria, submission and fine print details, head over here. Make sure you chip it, chip it good!


source: Soundfly

 

Pinball: 2016-17 IFPA Australian Championship Series Final Is Coming!

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The 2016/17 International Flipper Pinball Association (IFPA) Australian Championship Series (ACS) final will be held in Melbourne on February 11 and 12! Australasia’s top 32 ranked pinball wizards will face off for the ultimate crown!

With most of the Australian eastern states represented and a solitary New Zealander, the competition is guaranteed to be flipping hot! Number one contender is the young gun, Jordan Tredaway. Jordan has had another stellar year winning competitions or being in the top 4, which makes him the one to beat. Looking at the table of the top 32 players, any one of these wizards is capable of carrying away the crown. We will be covering the event, with live social media commentary and updates, so make sure you follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Bring on February 11 and 12!

TOP 32 Australian Ranked Pinball Players
Pos. Name State
1 Jordan Tredaway VIC
2 Greg Gee NSW
3 Luke Marburg VIC
4 Martin Robbins VIC
5 Paul Jones NSW
6 Brett Goodwin NSW
7 Jason Lambert QLD
8 Gavin Drogemuller QLD
9 Stuart Thornton VIC
10 Johnny Crabtree VIC
11 Pat Nichols NSW
12 Paul Reid NSW
13 Robert Macauley SA
14 John Hutchinson QLD
15 Greg Siegele SA
16 Rob Singh QLD
17 Matthew Venables NSW
18 Brian Schleibs VIC
19 Michi Henning QLD
20 Stacey Borg VIC
21 Jasen Mouritsen QLD
22 Andrew Ferguson NSW
23 Wal Dickie VIC
24 Geoff Wills VIC
25 Grant Quinn QLD
26 Marcus Sezonov VIC
27 Marc Bell NSW
28 Nick Hamhougias VIC
29 Chris Wade QLD
30 Alex Nunn VIC
31 John Ebejer VIC
32 David Peck NZ

Young gun, Jordan Tredaway will be the one to beat

The Pinball Wizard himself, Wal Dickie – we bet he’ll shake things up!

Johnny Crabtree will be tough wizard to beat

The dynamic pinball duo, Nick Hamhougias and Martin Robbins

Dr. C (Stacey Borg), will be flippin’ with precision!

For those of you that want to know more about the IFPA Australian Championship Series and it’s finals competition rules, here you go:

The IFPA Australian Championship Series (ACS) is an annual pinball competition where the qualification is done over an entire calendar year. Results of all IFPA-endorsed tournaments held in Australia count towards qualification. The top 32 players at the end of the calendar year are invited to compete in the IFPA Australian Championship Series Final, held the following February. The winner is crowned IFPA Australian Pinball Champion.

The IFPA ACS final consists of a group stage and a knockout stage. For the group stage, the field of 32 players is split into two pools of 16 players each. Qualifiers ranked 1,4,5,8,9,12,13,16,17,20,21,24,25,28,29,32 are placed in Pool A, and qualifiers ranked 2,3,6,7,10,11,14,15,18,19,22,23,26,27,30,31 in Pool B.

The group stage consists of 5 rounds of 4-player group match play. Each player is grouped with the other 15 players in their pool once each across the 5 rounds. Groups play 3 games in each round: one old, one mid, one new. 7-5-3-1 scoring. The top 7 players from each pool advance to the knockout stage. The winner of each pool receives a bye in the first round of the knockout stage. Players tied for 1st or 7th place in their pool will play a one-game tiebreak match on a randomly selected machine.

The knockout stage consists of head-to-head, single elimination best-of-3 matches until the final, which will be best-of-5.  Players will be seeded according to group stage standings, then ACS qualifying rank. The higher seed in each match will have choice of machine or order for game 1 or 2 (at their discretion), as well as game 3. In the final, the higher seed will have choice or machine or order for any two of games 1 to 4 (at their discretion), as well as game 5. No machine may be played more than once in a match.

If you want to watch Australia’s top pinball players in action, then head to the Thornbury Bowls Club, 27 Ballantyne St, Thornbury on February 11 and 12 (from 10am). It’s a short walk to the High Street cafes, the St Georges Motor Inn, Route 11 and 86 trams, and Thornbury station on the South Morang train line. We can’t wait!

 

Stern’s Aerosmith Pinball Debuts At CES 2017

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We knew there was a reason to attend the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas! Forget about the hottest tech in smart home appliances and virtual reality, we were excited about Stern Pinball’s first showing of their latest pinball machine, Aerosmith.

Testing Aerosmith Pinball at CES 2017

The new Aerosmith pinball machine was jointly announced by Stern and Aerosmith’s global licensing agent, Epic Rights. This new machine honours the classic and iconic rock band by creating high-energy and excitement that accompanies the experience of a live Aerosmith concert. Pinball wizards will rock to nine famous Aerosmith hits in the concert arena playfield and embark on an exhilarating pinball experience. Players score points and finish game objectives to raise the audience’s levels of energy, thrill and enjoyment. Higher scores amplify the experience–the higher the energy level, the bigger and louder the show – we like the sound of that!

The Aerosmith machines all feature original hand-drawn art provided by “Dirty” Donny Gillies, who has produced work for huge bands like Metallica. In addition, the machines feature custom speech from Brendon Small, creator of Metalocalypse, the American animated television series centring around a death metal band.

In addition to the heart pounding music and game experience, the machine features a full-colour high-definition display. In conjunction with Stern Pinball’s new SPIKE-2 electronic platform, the display enables high-definition graphics and innovative animations. The game includes a high-fidelity 3-channel audio system that is three times more powerful than audio systems of previous generations. Aerosmith pinball will have what it takes and be suitable for all skill levels.

Prices start from US$6199 for the Pro model and go all the way up to US$8999 for the Limited Edition.

A 4 minute sneak peek at Aerosmith Pinball
image and video source: Stern Pinball Inc.

 

Double Dragon IV: Billy and Jimmy Lee Are Back!

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Just in time to celebrate their 30th anniversary since kicking ten shades out of the Black Warriors gang, Billy and Jimmy Lee are back in Double Dragon IV! This time, the Lee brothers are bringing back the gritty 80’s with them, however the battleground has moved from New York City to Japan!
This instalment of one of the greatest co-op beat’me ups will be coming to the PlayStation®4 and Steam (PC) at the end of January (Jan 30 in North America). We have yet to hear if that is a worldwide release date – we hope it is! Either way, all Double Dragon fans should rejoice as key members from the 1987 arcade version including Original Planner, Yoshihisa Kishimoto, Designer, Koji Ogata, and Composer, Kazunaka Yamane, have teamed up to recreate the next chapter in this awesome saga.
Details about this sequel are sketchy, but the screenshots show that the game will follow Double Dragon‘s old school pixelated visuals and will offer both a story mode and a two-player duel. The catchy Double Dragon theme song has also been remixed for your aural pleasure.
To say we are excited for Arc System Works’ Double Dragon IV would be a gross understatement! Get your baseball bats ready!


video & image source: Arc System Works

 

eSports Is Coming To The Pinball Arcade

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Get those flippin fingers ready, as eSports is coming to The Pinball Arcade!

FarSight Studios has partnered with Pinball Joe and Major League Pinball and starting this year, they plan to bring you sponsored tournaments where you can win cash and prizes. Players will be able to compete in time and objective based tournaments to establish themselves as the best in their geographical region. The first tournament is to be launched this month (January) with many more to come. This is going to be a huge year in video pinball!

For more information, check out Major League Pinball on Facebook, or sign up on their site.


2016 Reset C64 ‘Craptastic’ 4KB Game Competition Results

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Whoa, the Reset C64 ‘Craptastic’ 4KB game coding competition was a great success and we would like to thank all of the competitors for their participation and hard work. Also a big thank-you to the judges and competition sponsors, Retro Computer Scene, Bitmap Books and Protovision.

The competition was extremely close and tough to judge, but every single entry brought a smile to our faces. Like any cmpetition, there could only be one winner, and this time it was Vanja Utne of Pond/Privy Software with her game, Goblin – an amazing achievement for a 4KB game!

The winner: Goblin by Vanja Utne

You can play the games on the official compilation disk (available here) which was coded and compiled by Richard Bayliss (thanks Richard!). Judges’ comments and more details will be published in the Reset Christmas mini-issue, which will be out soon! Until then, enjoy the games and on behalf of the Reset team, we wish you all a Merry Christmas!

PLACINGS

  1. Goblin by Vanja Utne (30)
  2. Dog by Vanja Utne (29.86)
  3. Lumberjack by MajikeyriC (28)
  4. Bonkey Kong by Graham Axten (27.57)
  5. Super Ski by Andreas Gustafsso (27.29)
  6. Rise and Shine Professor Miggles by Paulko64 (26.57)
  7. Attack of the Mutant Cabbages by Anthony Stiller (26.4)
  8. Winky Blinky by Roy Fielding (25.29)
  9. Granny’s Teeth by Richard Bayliss (23.67)
  10. Zombie Massacre by Wanax (23.57)
  11. Antarctica by Antarctica (23.29)
  12. Picross by Oziphantom (22.86)
  13. I am the Flashing C64 Cursor by Craig Derbyshire (22.29)
  14. Firefighter Jenny by OziphantoM (21.14)
  15. Watschinator by Georg RottensteineR (20.29)
  16. Valentine Day Shopping Simulator by Karmic (18.57)
  17. Princess Saver 2000 by Freakin Frankie (11)
  18. :10 by COUT (10.43)
  19. I Ate the Purple Berries by COUT (9.71)
  20. $#!7 by COUT (8.14)
  21. MASTERBAGELS by COUT (7.14)

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Unkle K / Reset C64
Father, husband, teacher and retro gaming/computer enthusiast! Editor of Reset… C64 magazine.

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