The Pop-Culture E-Zine
Who doesn’t love a 10 minute promo video for a (then) new pinball machine!
Check out Bally-Midway’s promotional video for their 1993 smash hit pinball machine, Judge Dredd. The machine was based on the comic series ‘2000 AD’, not the 1995 movie starring Sylvester Stallone.
With a rotating planet and rings, magnetic robotic arm and diamond plate playfield, this ‘SuperPin’ was darn awesome in its day (and still is)!
source: JoBlo Horror Trailers
We know this is OLD news, but who doesn’t like seeing this again?
Back in late 2018, the National Videogame Museum (NVM) in Texas (USA) tracked down the much rumoured Mini Vectrex VideoSystem. Once it was found that this was a working system, the NVM secured it as part of their Vectrex archive, ensuring all could see this lost treasure on display!
GCE designed and developed the Mini Vectrex just after being purchased by Milton Bradley in 1983. The mini system was to offer a slim alternative, much like contemporary mini console revisions of video games systems from the past. Now imagine if this actually made it to retail stores……….
We definitely could never get sick of watching the Mini Vectrex in action!
source: National Videogame Museum
Attention our fellow Atarians (fans of the old Atari),
The month of June is fast approaching and you all know what that means – it’s #AtariMonth!
To celebrate 49 years of Atari, we are asking you to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and get writing about your affinity for this iconic brand.
This is your opportunity to let your writing juices flow! To get you started, check out Matt Lacey’s Atari story from the last time we ran #AtariMonth for Atari’s 42nd anniversary.
Once you are satisfied with your written masterpiece, just submit it to us here. The most entertaining submissions will be immortalised on ausretrogamer.com!
There is no word limit, so go for your life (just keep it clean)! Article submissions are opened from now till June 25 2021. That means you have (almost) 3 months for your submission, so get cracking you awesome Atarians!
It is awesome to see that The Strong (National Museum of Play) has a Women in Games Initiative and their International Center for the History of Electronic Games creating brilliant history exhibits, like A Brief History of Women in Gaming.
You can check out A Brief History of Women in Gaming: The 1980s on Google’s Arts and Culture forum, which showcases a plethora of amazing and talented women in the gaming industry, from the assembly line to the marketing department, this exhibit highlights how women have shaped the games industry through hard work, creative coding, artistic imagination, and business savvy. This exhibit tells this vital but underappreciated part of history!
source: Arts and Culture – Google
From Carol Shaw at Atari and then Activision, creating her best-selling game River Raid, Hope Neiman leading the Vectrex home game console manufacturer General Consumer Electronics’ marketing efforts in the early 1980s, to Gail Tilden creating and editing everyone’s seminal favourite magazine, Nintendo Power, this exhibit is brimming with amazing and talented women in gaming.
Check it out right now!
We have featured The Strong’s ‘World Video Game Hall of Fame‘ finalists from previous years on here, so for 2021, we were quite chuffed to see a number of our favourite video games make the final 12 cut!
From FIFA International Soccer, Tron, Mattel Football, to Pole Position, StarCraft and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?, we would say that most retro gamers would be quite satisfied with this year’s hall of fame inductees.
Oh yeah, gaming fans can vote for their favourite finalists from now until March 25 (US time) as part of the Player’s Choice ballot at World Video Game Hall of Fame.
image source: The Strong
We are reminiscing about the time we were invited by the Weird and Retro crew to join them in Sydney for the 2015 EB Expo – it was such an amazing experience!
Before the EB Expo shenanigans, we took time out to visit The Gamesmen in Penshurst (NSW), to check out their awesome (Retro) Game Museum.
The Gamesmen has been an Australian game store icon for almost 40 years and it is still going strong. Back in the day, we used to love receiving their catalogues which we would pore over each page, drooling at the latest gaming systems and games – we just wish we had kept those catalogues! Oh yeah, luckily for us (and all of you), The Gamesmen folks have made electronic copies of their old catalogues, so go here now and enjoy some intoxicating nostalgia.
Anyway……… This pilgrimage was a long time coming and fulfilled our wish to go and check out the museum in person. We definitely weren’t disappointed and we were glad to have ticked this off our bucket list. The sixty plus photos we took below from the game museum does not do it any justice – to see it in person was amazing. However, the next best thing to going there was to share what we saw, and as you will see below, your nostalgic senses will not be disappointed.
There was no one favourite section, but the glassed cabinets were like a time machine looking back at our childhood, daydreaming about owning and playing the systems and games on display. The video games system timeline mural was another highlight, reflecting how far gaming has come. The Gamesmen Retro Game Museum had truly encapsulated our past, leaving a delectable mark on our 8-bit brain.
Make sure you scroll through each image slowly, as you do not want to miss anything!
Approaching the Mecca of Australian Video Gaming!
images remain the copyright of ausretrogamer
PS: Special thank you to the Weird and Retro team for inviting us to be part of their WaRrior crew for the 2015 EB Expo and for a memorable road trip!
As Daniel Ibbertson (aka: Slope’s Game Room) so eloquently puts it, it’s time to drop a coin into one of the highest grossing video game franchises of all time – Pac-Man!
In this history documentary, Daniel discusses the inspiration and creation behind Namco’s flagship mascot, the troubled development between Namco and Midway when bringing him to western shores as well as the interesting backstory behind the controversial Atari 2600 port.
source: Slope’s Game Room
This is an interesting 17 minute video indeed. Mat Taylor (aka: Techmoan) delves into the history of transparent electronic devices used in US Prisons, from cassette players, cassette tapes, radios to headphones and televisions – it’s a clear case of nostalgia! OK, we’ll see ourselves out.
source: Techmoan
We absolutely love archival footage from television broadcasters, especially footage from amusement centres (or as we used to call them, parlours) from back in the day!
The below video is from the popular segment on ABC News’ ‘This Day Tonight’, with this particular occasion focusing on Pinball Parlours in Australia in the mid 70s. This is very intriguing with some very enlightening discussions with Malcolm Steinberg (from Leisure & Allied Industries (LAI) and Timezone fame) about video gaming and pinball entertainment that are apt to this day.
So, how much did you spend on gaming back in the day? In 1976 a player might’ve spent as much as $5 (approx. $35 in today’s money) on amusement machines!
source: ABC NEWS via Facebook
If you are a fan of the Commodore 64’s SID chip and the brilliant music and sounds it pumps out, then you’ll also know the works of one, Mr. Rob Hubbard! The SID Maestro created countless classic chiptunes for some of the biggest games on the Commodore 64, from Commando, International Karate to Monty On The Run and Sanxion to name just a few.
This album reconstruction of Rob’s classic SID music in full stereo was painstakingly (and lovingly) assembled by Jason Page (aka: No Other Medicine). Jason had previously worked with Rob on the Project Hubbard KickStarter campaign, so this reconstruction was a homage to Rob.
The best thing about this album is that the 11 chiptunes are not remixes or hacked versions of Rob’s work, rather they have gone through a process called “True Stereo” to highlight the brilliance of the original tracks.
We reckon the best way to enjoy this album is via a pair of good headphones (or stereo speakers), so kick back and crank up the volume and enjoy some classic chiptunes in full stereo!
Thank you to Jason Page and Rob Hubbard for this aural pleasure!