Retro Gaming Culture

Atari Lynx: The Games That Never Were

March 31, 2017 By ausretrogamer

The Atari Lynx was and still is a great handheld. Imagine if Atari had McWill’s LCD mod back then, they may have given the Sega Game Gear and possibly the Game Boy a run for their money (Ed: OK, perhaps not the Game Boy)!

If you were into arcade style games, then the Atari Lynx was your platform of choice. With games like Double Dragon, Klax, A.P.B., Battlezone 2000, Rygar, Hard Drivin’, Joust, Xybots, Paperboy and the awesome Rampage, Robotron and S.T.U.N. Runner, the Lynx was not short on quality action titles. Actually, we could have added a laundry list of other games, but we thought you’d get the picture with a subset of titles.

During the commercial lifespan of the Atari Lynx, there were a roster of big name titles that never saw the light of day. We could only imagine the impact these games may have had on the commercial viability of the Lynx! Just in case you were wondering, here are a few of the cancelled games from 1992 that we reckon could have catapulted the Lynx on the path to success:

Rolling Thunder

Vindicators

Geoduel

720°

Cabal

There were quite a few other cancelled games, but we thought we’d limit the list to ensure that we didn’t enrage you all. Actually, quite a few cancelled games did make it out when Hasbro, the owners of the Atari properties at the time, released the rights to develop for the system to the public domain, but that was well after the Lynx was considered dead (Ed: we did appreciate Alien vs Predator and Raiden)!

Ah, the beautiful Lynx, if only you were given a proper and fair chance by your creator!

Clever Marketing: Using Pinball To Promote A Credit Card

March 30, 2017 By ausretrogamer

So how does a bank promote their new unlimited cashback credit card for us to notice it? They tap into popular culture and see what is currently hot!

As we all know, pinball is going gangbusters all around the world, so Standard Chartered Bank thought they’d cleverly use a pinball playfield, not just as a metaphor, but to get their message across about their new credit card – a simply brilliant piece of marketing! We may need this credit card for our next pinball machine purchase *winks*

Keep flippin’!

source: Standard Chartered Bank

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PAPRIUM: A New Brawler On The Sega Mega Drive

March 29, 2017 By ausretrogamer

Strike Harder, Beat Stronger!

Do you yearn for a Streets Of Rage-like game for your old trusty Mega Drive (Sega Genesis to our American friends)?

Well yearn no more! WaterMelon Games, the development crew that makes cool retro games like Pier Solar, are back with their latest (and possibly greatest) 16-bit killer game, PAPRIUM (aka: ProjectY)!

PAPRIUM is a post-apocalyptic, outrageous head-kicking brawler made in the spirit of classic beat’em ups like Double Dragon, Final Fight and Streets of Rage. This brand new Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) game is being built from the ground up and is expected to smash on your 16-bit Sega console in 2017!

PAPRIUM has been lovingly crafted at WaterMelon’s Magical Game Factory using Investor’s votes and suggestions, which have helped shape the game! Make no bones about it, this game has been developed by a team driven by true passion and 16-bit excellence.

PAPRIUM is the biggest Sega Mega Drive game ever made (over 80-MEG!), featuring multiple game modes, speed (uncompromised 60fps!), 24 levels and up to 5 selectable characters! Come at us PAPRIUM, we are waiting!

We have pre-ordered ours, so if you want to do the same, go here.

source: WaterMelon Games

PS: Thank you to Anthony Durso for bringing PAPRIUM to our attention!

Pimp Your Vectrex Controller

March 27, 2017 By ausretrogamer

Even in its original guise, the Vectrex is one unique and gorgeous piece of gaming hardware! The all-in-one vector gaming system has been a long-time favourite of collectors, hence its hefty price tag.

If you happen to have a Vectrex and you want to make it pop, then perhaps some custom controller overlays of your favourite Vectrex games from German store, arcadeartshop, would be an ideal way to personalise your machine. Arcadeartshop also allow for individual designed controller overlays, all you need to do is send them the graphics and they’ll do the rest!

With a choice of glossy or rough laminate, these custom controller overlays are a cool way to add some colour to your Vectrex and protection for your controller. Priced at €5 (plus shipping) per overlay, we reckon that they are very reasonably priced – we’ll get a couple, thanks!

source: arcadeartshop.de

Zelda Ocarina Controlled Home Automation

March 24, 2017 By Ms. ausretrogamer

Allen from Sufficiently Advanced has cleverly automated his home in the best way possible…

‘With Zelda: Breath of the Wild out on the Nintendo Switch, I made a home automation system based off the Zelda series using the ocarina from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.’

Source: Sufficiently Advanced via Gizmodo

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Ms. ausretrogamer
Co-founder, editor and writer at ausretrogamer – The Australian Retro Gamer E-Zine. Lover of science fiction, fashion, books, movies and TV. Player of games, old and new.

Follow Ms. ausretrogamer on Twitter

Sonic Forces: Gameplay Footage Teaser

March 20, 2017 By ausretrogamer

Just in case you missed it, at last week’s SXSW (South by Southwest) in Austin, SEGA revealed the first gameplay footage of the upcoming Sonic Forces game. We must admit, it is great to see Sonic back in force (Ed: sorry, it was there for the taking). The blue blur is smooth and as speedy as ever!

Sonic Forces, the latest in the Sonic the Hedgehog games series is being developed by the gun Sonic Team. The game is scheduled for release later this year on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC!

source: Five Star Games

Origins Of The Sega My Card

March 20, 2017 By ausretrogamer

Produced from 1985 to 1987, the Sega Card (known as My Card in Japan) wasn’t just created as a cheaper format to conventional game cartridges, oh no sirree!

The great Hideki Sato, creator of Sega’s SG-1000 console (and all other Sega consumer hardware) felt that the original game cartridges resembled small black tombstones when inserted into the console. Sato felt that an upgrade to the game cartridge media was required. This drove him to create the cute little pocket-sized alternative, the Sega My Card – games on microchips embedded in 2mm thick credit card sized plastic.

The compact design allowed game collections to be carried around with ease (instead of lugging around the much larger carts). Sega also experimented with a re-writable EPROM version of the My Card, which could be overwritten with new games at specifically-equipped kiosks (for a fraction of the usual retail cost), much like Nintendo’s Famicom Disk System, which arrived a year later.

Sega would eventually return to cartridges for higher memory capacity, while NEC would later use the My Card design pedigree for their PC-Engine HuCards.

The tombstone-looking carts

My Card VS Cartridge

The Rise And Fall Of SNK

March 16, 2017 By ausretrogamer

Back in May 2002, US digital cable channel G4 (aka: G4tv) aired the video gaming documentary series, Icons. For four seasons Icons focused on the key people, companies, products, history and major milestones in the world of video games. In season five, which was its last, Icons broadened its scope by featuring general pop culture content.

From the many Icons video gaming documentaries, we loved their look at SNK Corporation (season 3, episode 12), from its humble beginnings to becoming an arcade gaming behemoth with their Neo Geo products, only to see it all crash and tumble a decade or so later.

Step back in time and get a dose of some video gaming history!

source: KonamiGamer

DISCLAIMER: We are well aware that SNK lived on via Playmore, but this article focuses on the old SNK Corporation that produced arcade games and home gaming systems.

The Sega Saturn killer: The Atari PlayOne

March 12, 2017 By ausretrogamer

The Atari Jaguar didn’t stand a chance when it was released at the end of 1993. Coupled with hardware idiosyncrasies that made it difficult to program for and poor pricing and marketing from Atari, the Jaguar was already on the back foot. Once the onslaught of new consoles arrived from video gaming juggernauts Sega with their 32-bit Saturn and the new player in the industry, Sony with their PlayStation, the Jag’s fate was sealed.

But Atari’s black cat now enjoys a huge fanbase, with a shedload of homebrew hitting the market at a frenetic pace, a true testament to what the machine could have been back then if things didn’t turn pear shape. Now imagine if Atari had integrated the Jag console with the CD unit 24 years ago and then marketed it properly (Ed: JagDuo anyone?), the fifth generation console story may had been different. To gain an understanding of what this all-in-one Jaguar plus CD unit would have been like, German hardware modder 10p6 has created the Atari PlayOne prototype – a Jaguar and CD combo unit that we reckon would’ve given the Saturn and PlayStation a run for their money.

Atari Jaguar + Jaguar CD VS The All-In-One PlayOne

Oo’er, check out that rear!

The Atari PlayOne not only looks sexy as hell, but is crammed with cool stuff under the bonnet, like a proper integrated power supply (replacing the 2 separate power sources), a host of outputs and beefed up processing at an eye-watering (overclocked) 32MHz, compared to the stock 26MHz – which would have made it compete quite easily with the Saturn and PlayStation.

Before you get excited, the Atari PlayOne hasn’t seen the light of day, yet. If 10p6 ever decides to do a production run of the Atari PlayOne or the latter Atari PlayOne V2.0, we would be right at the front of the queue!

source: 10p6

Retrogaming Designer Jewellery

March 9, 2017 By ausretrogamer

Are you a gaming nerd that is into their designer jewellery? If you are, then you’ve come to the right place.

We have seen many DIY gaming related jewellery on Etsy and other e-stores, which are pretty cool, but they don’t come close to the jewellery we have drooled over by Han Cholo.

With the Han Cholo collections (which there are many), there are designer and officially licensed products to choose from, like the official Sonic The Hedgehog 25^th anniversary class ring and the awesome Sonic sneakers pendant!

Being gaming nerds and general pop culture geeks, we found ourselves trawling many of Han Cholo’s collections, from the cool Gamer stuff (hello Sega Mega Drive controller necklace) to the many Star Wars rings and Masters Of The Universe keychains and pendants. We just wish we had more than ten fingers and one neck!

The Sega Mega Drive / Genesis controller is close to our heart