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Australian Jordan Tredaway Wins Division B At PAPA 20 World Pinball Championships

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Young Australian pinball wizard, Jordan Tredaway wins the PAPA 20 (Professional & Amateur Pinball Association) World Championship B Division!

The 16 year old Melbournian showed poise and maturity beyond his years by beating veterans double and even triple his age from across the globe in the world’s most prestigious pinball championship. We managed to grab Jordan as he was tucking into a well deserved dinner to ask him how he was feeling right now, “Ecstatic! Feels like a dream come true”. Also flying the flag high for Australia was Martin Robbins, whom also had a fantastic tournament.

14 year old Jordan (JTH) smashes Game Of Thrones at PAX Aus 2015

Jordan’s PAPA 20 (Division B) win was just reward for his hard work and consistent pinball tournament wins in Australia. We first met Jordan at Supanova in 2015 when he won the Under 18s Pinball vs. Supanova Championship at the tender age of 14! With his current IFPA world ranking at 231, we are pretty sure that this win at PAPA 20 will propel him in the top echelon of pinball wizards, and who knows, perhaps an A Division win at next year’s PAPA 21!

The PAPA World Pinball Championships is the most renowned event in all of competitive pinball which is held annually in Carnegie, Pennsylvania USA.

PAPA 20 competition floor!

Jordan in action!

Martin Robbins keeps an eye on the standings, while Jordan keeps an eye on the competition!

Jordan Tredaway, PAPA 20 Division B World Pinball Champion!
image sources: Martin Robbins and Carme Martinez

Jordan’s impressive points tally in Division B at PAPA 20

 

Coolate Vectrex 3D Printed LED-Lit Controller

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We’ve been on a Vectrex kick lately, from having a beautiful boxed system donated to us, to the cool custom controller overlay to pimp out our older and tired looking Vectrex controllers. We adore the retro gaming splendour that is the Vectrex!

While we are on this vector kick, we’ve found out that there is a smart cookie out there that has used their 3D printing skills in fabricating a Vectrex controller, decked out in great colours and LED-lit analogue sticks! It’s a bit rough around the edges, but it’s still damn cool.

PLEASE TAKE OUR MONEY!

source: eBay

source: Coolate

 

 

Atari Lynx: The Games That Never Were

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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

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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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Pinball Press
Pinball Press brings you news from the world of pinball – events, product reviews/updates, interviews and the people in pinball!

If you have any pinball news to share, hit Pinball Press on Twitter

 

 

 

PAPRIUM: A New Brawler On The Sega Mega Drive

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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

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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

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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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msausretrogamerMs. 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

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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

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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

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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.