The Pop-Culture E-Zine
The next installment in the Fire Emblem tactical role-playing video game franchise has arrived: Fire Emblem Fates on Nintendo 3DS. It’s available as two different versions – Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright and Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest, which path will you choose?
Sponsored post
My fellow Melbournians, DOOMsday has descended upon our great city! Walking down Lonsdale Street on a gloomy Melbourne day (Ed: what’s new!), we were confronted by the huge (10-metre x 15-metre) DOOM artwork adorning the Melbourne Central wall.
Being the largest hand-painted mural in the Southern Hemisphere and a throwback to the original DOOM art, Bethesda definitely know how to capture our attention!
If you want to watch how this artwork came to be, check out the time-lapse video below. And then go and fight like hell!
source: Bethesda Softworks UK
Growing up in the 1980s, there was one publisher that dared to give us games at an affordable price – which meant us kids with limited funds could go out and grab some pretty good video games from Mastertronic for under (an Australian) tenner (or £1.99/£2.99 if you were in the UK)!
Mastertronic are still held very dear to many a retro gaming hearts, so when we heard about Player One Books’ Mastertronic Archives book on Kickstarter, we knew we had to jump on board to pledge our support. If the name Mastertronic triggers an ounce of nostalgia within you, then do yourself a favour and get onto this Kickstarter now!
source: The Masteronic Archives by Player One Books on Kickstarter
Dust off the C64 and grab that ideas pad where you scribbled down your game design all those years ago, as you now have the opportunity to enter the 2016 Reset C64 4KB game coding competition, AKA: the Reset Crap Game Compo!
This is going to be one mega CRAPTASTIC comp! Say what? Crap game comp? What gives? My game will be awesome! Relax, don’t get precious about it, the theme of the comp is craptastic, so the crappier the game, the better chance you have at being crowned the winner.
For those of you that want the lowdown on how to enter, just be aware that your game must not be greater than 4 kilobytes in size. Oh yeah, your game can (and should) be ludicrous, awful, bonkers and downright outrageous. The main aim is to have fun. So once you have your crap game done, make sure you email it to the Reset editor by no later than October 1 2016! So go on, get cracking, ahem, we mean coding!
For a complete list of the rules and regulations, go here. This Reset competition is proudly sponsored by:
There will be awesome prizes, including Reset physical issues for the top three winning entrants!
Apple’s history in gaming goes a long way back. Heck, even my first computer gaming experience was on an Apple ][e playing the awesome text adventure, Transylvania way back in 1983. The Apple line of computers had its avid gaming fans and also paved the way for many a developers that cut their teeth on the trusty computers. When the Apple Macintosh computer was launched in the mid 80s, it’s built in screen, graphical user interface and the mouse pointing device were at the bleeding edge of computing. Apple may have aimed the computer at the business end of town, but the beloved Mac was also thriving in the gaming community too. Sadly, not much has been written or shared with the gaming masses about the Mac gaming communities, till now.
The Secret History of Mac Gaming, a new crowdfund book project by talented freelance writer Richard Moss, aims to tell the story of those Mac communities and the game developers who survived and thrived in an ecosystem that was serially ignored by the outside world. It’s a book about people who made games and people who played them — people who, on both counts, followed their hearts first and market trends second. How in spite of everything they had going against them, the people who carried the torch for Mac gaming in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s showed how clever, quirky, and downright wonderful videogames could be.
The work draws on archive materials as well as 60+ new interviews with key figures from Mac gaming’s past, including: Craig Fryar, who is co-authoring several chapters, Robyn and Rand Miller, Patrick Buckland, John Calhoun, Andrew Welch, Ben Spees, Matt Burch, Ian and Colin Lynch Smith, Steven Tze, Mark Stephen Pierce, Jonathan Gay, Bill Appleton, Steve Capps, Charlie Jackson, Peter Cohen, Trey Smith, Dave Marsh, Joe Williams, Brian Greenstone, Craig Erickson, Rick Holzgrafe, Chris De Salvo, Ray Dunakin, Glenda Adams, Rebecca Heineman, Eric Klein, Marc Vose and many more.
The book will be a 304 page hardback, printed on 120 gsm fine art paper, with a bookmark, head and tail bands, and a four colour jacket printed on clear plastic stock. So if you have (or had) an interest in Mac gaming or are hungry to know more about the history of Mac gaming, then pledge for Richard Moss’ The Secret History Of Mac Gaming book!
source: Unbound
Ladies, kids of any age and gentlemen, listen up! Pinfest 5 has just been announced by the Newcastle Pinball Association! Mark the 24th and 25th September 2016 in your calendar and make sure you head to the Caves Beachside Hotel, which is 90 minutes north of Sydney.
Celebrating its 5th consecutive year, Pinfest 5 will be bigger and better, with awesome special attractions to mark the occasion, including an exclusive Pinfest patrons raffle to win a Data East Time Machine pinball table! If that wasn’t enough of an incentive, there will be up to 70 pinball machines to flip and tilt on, ensuring that every patron experiences as many pinball machines as possible.
No matter your age or your level of interest, if you have itchy flipping fingers, you need to be at Pinfest 5! Keep an eye on the Newcastle Pinball Association Facebook page for more details.
Pinfest 2015 highlights
source: Newcastle Pinball Association
Put your retro party hats on peeps! SEGA Europe Ltd. is celebrating the launch of the all new SEGA Mega Drive Classics Hub on Steam with a 66% off sale on all SEGA Mega Drive games currently available on the platform. Anyone who purchases or already owns at least one SEGA Mega Drive title on Steam will be able to experience the wonder of the redesigned SEGA Mega Drive Classics Hub when it launches on the 28th April, 2016.
The new-look system, developed by d3t, from which you can access all the SEGA Mega Drive games you own on Steam, now resembles the bedroom of an early nineties SEGA fan with dynamic time-of-day conditions, retro SEGA paraphernalia, a shelf full of Mega Drive games reflecting which ones you own on Steam, and of course, a CRT TV! It’s not just cosmetic improvements though; every single Mega Drive game available now on the platform will feature Steam Workshop support, allowing you to share modified versions of your favourite retro SEGA titles!
In addition to these new features the all new SEGA Mega Drive Collection hub also includes, spot-on emulation, local co-op for games that support it, optional graphic enhancement filters, the ability to save states at any point during gameplay and full controller and keyboard support.
For a full list of SEGA Mega Drive games available on the platform (there are 5 packs to choose from!), log on to Steam now!
source: Sega
Just in case you have been on a sojourn to the moon and have just landed back on earth, we have some HUGE news – those awesome folks at NG:Dev.Team have announced that due to popular demand, they will re-issue some of their past Dreamcast games in Japanese styled CD jewel cases!
If you haven’t already got them, you can grab Gunlord, Fast Striker and Last Hope Pink Bullets now to enjoy on your Dreamcast. These re-issued games are aimed at new customers but previous owners may want the CD case releases to compliment their DVD case editions of the same games.
There is a limited run of each game and the special bundle, so you better be quick! Shipping is scheduled to commence between April 20th and 25th! More details at the NG:Dev.Direct site – get ordering!
image source: NG:Dev Team
Attention all you pinball loving peeps, April 1 2016 will mark the commencement of the new Melbourne Silverball League monthly pinball tournament. This new tournament will be based on a selfie format, but more on that later! No, this is no April Fools’ Day joke, this is for real!
After his recent US trip to Arcade Expo 2.0 competing in the It Never Drains In Southern California pinball tournament, Martin Robbins was inspired to set up a similar qualifying and competition format here in Melbourne, hence the Melbourne Silverball League (MSL) was born. The first selfie competition in Melbourne will be at Bartronica in Flinders Lane. This is how the MSL pinball competition format will work:
Each month there will be particular pinball machines at Bartronica selected for qualifying – for the month of April the machines will be: Creature from the Black Lagoon, Party Zone, Addams Family, Goldeneye 007 and Pin*Bot. Play on each of these machines and take a photo of your score. You can either upload your picture via the tournament location at Matchplay.Events or post it to the Melbourne Silverball League (MSL) Facebook page. One of the MSL scorekeepers will review your photo and then submit your score. Your ranking on each machine will be worth more points the higher up you are to give you a combined overall ranking (based on the PAPA format i.e.: 100 points for the top score, then 90 for 2nd, 85 for 3rd and so on). The combined scores of the top 16 ranked players will qualify for the playoff (which is on the first Sunday of the following month).
To ensure your score submission goes smoothly, your selfie should have your face and the score to help the MSL scorekeepers validate your submission. Some patience might be needed where certain machines take a while to scroll through credits to get back to your score.
If we have lost you so far, here are the TL;DR (that’s Too Long;Didn’t Read) notes:
It is that easy! So what are you waiting for? Go and register now and then hit Bartronica during the month of April to rack up your high score!
Martin Robbins – the brains behind the Melbourne Silverball League
Shane Rubans getting some testing done at Bartronica
source: Melbourne Silverball League
Being a fan of the silver ball and 8-bit micro computing, I was always craving for a pinball game to play on my trusty Commodore 64. Finally, my prayers have been answered in the form of Errazking’s Petaco’5!
This new C64 pinball game was developed by Errazking and Maniako using ‘Bill Budge’s Pinball Construction Set’, coupled with cool music by the great chiptune composer, Richard Bayliss.
What you get is 6 pinball tables to play on, with as-close-to-realistic ball physics on your C64 – which is a good thing if you are a pinball purist. The screen is divided in half, with the playfield on one side and the player score on the other. If you are a pinball fan and are in need of a silver ball fix on your C64, then Petaco’5 will go a long way to satisfy your pinball craving.
Errazking’s PETACO’5 is available for free on CSDb. Get it now!
The T-UFO Table
image source: CSDb and Vintage Is The New Old