Retro Gaming Culture

Jason Paul’s Arcade Run: Free Running In 8-Bit

September 23, 2014 By ausretrogamer

You got to hand it to Red Bull, they know how to excite, and I am not talking about the Taurine in their drinks!

Red Bull is synonymous with adrenaline rush and death-defying events, from freestyle motocross to base jumping. You want excitement, Red Bull delivers it in spades.

It was about time Red Bull incorporated their hardcore sporting elements with video games. The product that they have come up with is some very cool free running (parkour style) in the form of an 8-bit platformer. Take a bow Jason Paul and Team Farang!

Warning: Do not attempt this at home!

source: Red Bull

If you want to know how this Arcade Run was done, check it out here.

The Roast Of Super Mario

September 22, 2014 By ausretrogamer

The superstar of video games, that plucky little Italian plumber gets roasted hard! This is one hilarious roast! Even Mario’s brother gets in on the action, which goes horribly wrong (Ed: poor Luigi). You got to love a good old fashion roasting. With friends like these, who needs enemies aye?

source: College Humor

Getting Ready For PAXAus 2014: Ms. Ausretrogamer’s DIY Lara Croft Cosplay

September 19, 2014 By Ms. ausretrogamer

I had always wanted to make my own cosplay costume. I was inspired by all the awesome cosplay I saw at PAX AUS last year. To prepare for PAX AUS 2014 I dusted off my sewing machine and hot glue gun and embarked on a DIY cosplay adventure!

I did not have to think hard to choose the subject for my creation – I adore the Tomb Raider series, so Lara’s pistols and holsters were the obvious choice.

Here is how I did it:

First I found the pistols – it took a bit of searching, but I eventually found some on Amazon.

Next I got some black leather-look vinyl, strapping and clips for the holsters from Spotlight – the sales assistant asked me what I was making, and I initially said shyly ‘just a costume’ but when I realised how suspicious that sounded I explained it was for holsters!

To make the holsters:

Cut 4 from the vinyl, glue 2 together and sew the top and bottom edges.

Fold into a cone shape around barrel of the gun and glue the long edges together.

Then I attached the holsters to the belt (the belt was just $4.25 – thanks Salvos)

Cut and sew loops on the ends of 4 straps. The straps should reach from the belt to the middle of the holsters.

Cut and sew loops on the ends of 2 straps. These straps should reach from the middle of the holsters to the leg straps/bottom of the holsters. Sew together in a ‘Y’ shape.

Then glue the holsters onto the ‘Y’ shaped straps.

Finally make the thigh straps (with clips to allow for bio breaks!).

To complete my outfit I got some leather fingerless gloves from eBay.

And here is the finished product – now I’m ready for PAX AUS 2014. Don’t forget to stop by to say hello to the ausretrogamer team and play a game or two (or three) in the classic console area!

Tomb Raider image source: TombRaiders.Net

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Ms. ausretrogamer
Editor and Researcher 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

Retro Supercuts: Arcades In Movies

September 16, 2014 By ausretrogamer

When watching a movie, do you get excited when you see a scene with a video gaming reference? I know I definitely do! I get even more excited when I see arcade machines in movies. Speaking of which, Ben Craw, a video editor at The Huffington Post, has created a four-minute retro supercut video of arcades in movies (1975 to 1994).

Watch the video first and see how many movies you can list. Did you pick them all? If you want to cheat, scroll down (Ed: damn cheats!).

source: Huffington Post

Here it is, the complete list of arcade games that appear in movies:

“Rancho Deluxe” (1975)
“Jaws” (1975)
“Jaws 2” (1978)
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1978)
“Dawn of the Dead” (1978)
“Midnight Madness” (1980)
“Bustin’ Loose” (1981)
“Death Wish II” (1982)
“Rocky III” (1982)
“Tron” (1982)
“Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (1982)
“Jekyll and Hyde… Together Again” (1982)
“The Toy” (1982)
“Joysticks” (1983)
“WarGames” (1983)
“Twilight Zone: The Movie” (1983)
“Strange Brew” (1983)
“Nightmares” [segment ‘Bishop of Battle’] (1983)
“Never Say Never Again” (1983)
“High School U.S.A.” (1983)
“Rumble Fish” (1983)
“Footloose” (1984)
“Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” (1984)
“Ghostbusters” (1984)
“Gremlins” (1984)
“The Karate Kid” (1984)
“The Last Starfighter” (1984)
“The Philadelphia Experiment” (1984)
“The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension” (1984)
“Ninja III: The Domination” (1984)
“Night of the Comet” (1984)
“The Last Dragon” (1985)
“Code of Silence” (1985)
“The Goonies” (1985)
“Real Genius” (1985)
“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (1986)
“Maximum Overdrive” (1986)
“The Color of Money” (1986)
“Something Wild” (1986)
“Over the Top” (1987)
“Can’t Buy Me Love” (1987)
“Best Seller” (1987)
“Death Wish 4: The Crackdown” (1987)
“Bloodsport” (1988)
“Big” (1988)
“Parenthood” (1989)
“Back to the Future Part II” (1989)
“The Wizard” (1989)
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (1990)
“RoboCop 2” (1990)
“Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (1991)
“Suburban Commando” (1991)
“Juice” (1992)
“Encino Man” (1992)
“Honeymoon in Vegas” (1992)
“Roadside Prophets” (1992)
“Toys” (1992)
“Double Dragon” (1994)

C64 Shmuptember Action

September 7, 2014 By ausretrogamer

It may no longer be C64 month, but hey, who is complaining when you are getting an awesome free C64 game! Besides, it is SHMUPTEMBER, so here is your contender – take it away, Mr. Anthony Stiller:

SOPWITHS AND PTERRORDONS:
This simple, single-level Shoot’Em Up Construction Kit (SEUCK) game was a project I assigned myself to celebrate August, the unofficial C64 month. I didn’t hit my deadline (Ed: we ain’t complaining).

This is my first completed SEUCK game. My only other attempt was a long, long time ago (I tried to get a bubble to float gracefully across the screen, couldn’t get it to look any way decent, and gave up).

There’s no backstory to Sopwiths and Pterrordons. I just thought of two things that would be cool – my love of World War I and World War II planes, and who doesn’t like dinosaurs? They seemed like a great mix (and from feedback I’ve received, other people feel the same).

Feel free to make up your own backstory. Make sure the pilot is dashing, handsome and says, “Tally ho!” and “Chocks away!” an awful lot.

Special thanks to Andrew Fisher, David Rayfield and Cameron Davis for their valued advice, support and feedback.

Thanks also to Noble Kale and Rob Caporetto for their encouragement and inspiration.

Get your free copy of Sopwiths And Pterrordons here. Enjoy!

Playing tips:
– Scoring has been balanced, so with a little practice, you should just be able to nab an extra life right before the end of level boss;
– Due to the shape of the player bullet, enemies, and how SEUCK determines hitboxes, you really need to line up your shots with the pterrordon’s head to better guarantee a kill;
– You can squeeze between the vertical rows of deadly crystal chunks in the terrain later in the game
Design Notes – I approached Sopwiths and Pterrordons with definite goals:
– Use vanilla SEUCK;
– Short (originally only one scrolling and one static level which I then dropped to one scrolling level only);
– End of level boss;
– Minimise framerate loss (a particular bugbear of mine with regards to SEUCK games);
– Well-animated player and enemy graphics;
– Noticeable ACTION-REST-ACTION phases during the game;
– Use of foreshadowing (new enemies usually appear in generally non-threatening positions onscreen. The first laser-pterrordon is an exception however neanderthals are placed before it appears to encourage the player to move away from the mental “safe zone” of the bottom-middle of the screen);
– Minimise unfair death (pterrordons that appear behind the player)

What worked:
– The restrictions of SEUCK greatly reduced choice paralysis during the design/build phase;
– Descoping: I had several rather neat ideas that I dropped late in the design phase and into the early build phase;
– Getting some player feedback was very helpful; and
– SEUCK is still a pretty great tool, relatively speaking!

Challenges:
– Like anything, this took a lot longer than I expected from both an effort and elapsed time perspective. For example, the title page took about 4 hours of actual effort spread out over a day. In total I think I spent around 40-50 hours of total actual effort on this project from beginning to end;
– SEUCK and C64 restrictions can get a little frustrating and needed a lot of replaying. I also wanted this to work on a real C64 with minimal juddering and forgot that emulators can keep a steady framerate much easier than the original hardware;
– Initially I went for a low-flying biplane meaning the graphics needed to reflect that we were closer to the ground (eg: larger rivers). After some consideration I went for a higher altitude. This ended up causing considerable difficulty in the subsequent graphics design as I had to create graphics that provided the illusion of depth and distance (things falling into the screen or rising out of the screen);
– The cliffs on either side were a right pain. Ultimately the “overhang” design seemed to work;
– Colour palette choices. UGH!!!!!;
– I used CCS64 using snapshots to save progress but actually getting the final game onto a working d64 image via SEUCK seemed to be entirely random

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Anthony Stiller
Loves the C64 a little too much, but that is ok.

Follow Anthony on Twitter

Rise Of The Arcade Phoenix

September 5, 2014 By ausretrogamer

It is always sad to see a family business close down. This is all the more apparent in the arcade and pinball parlour establishments. Long gone are the days of dark and dingy arcade joints we used to revel in. With the advent of super consoles and redemption machines, the old arcade parlours have been banished to the past.

Alas, there is hope! Barcades are starting to pop up all around the US. Their popularity is undeniable! We only have one here in Melbourne – Forgotten Worlds. There is even GameRoom Essentials in Adelaide, a throwback to old school arcades. Oh yeah, how could I forget the Mana Bar in Brisbane – another very hip bar and gaming establishment. We are keeping our fingers crossed that more of these throwback arcades and barcades pop-up around Australia!

Fun ‘N’ Games indeed!

You are never too old to have fun

The arcade: a friendly place

Let’s play!

image sources: Port Macquarie News | GameRoom Essentials | ausretrogamer

Robin Williams: A Video Games Inspired Web Comic Tribute

August 29, 2014 By ausretrogamer

Melbourne based cartoonist, Gavin Aung Than of Zen Pencils has created an awesome web comic tribute to the late Robin Williams (Robin Williams: A Spark Of Madness). Fusing Robin’s love of video games with his vast body of comedy and film works, Gavin has captured the essence of Robin’s life story just perfectly.

source: Zen Pencils

NYC Apartment Turned Into An Arcade

August 28, 2014 By ausretrogamer

Chris Kooluris, a Manhattan PR Exec, has a great eye for interior spaces. While unsuccessful at selling his apartment, Chris decided to transform the under utilised space into an arcade for himself and friends to use. Chris even had his former fiancée assist in the design of the arcade room!

Chris went with the dark, cave-like arcade feel of the 80s, while his former fiancée added the bright colours and art work. Having dropped USD$32,000 on the project, we reckon it was money well spent! Now, where is our invite?

Before the transformation

After the transformation

Oh yeah baby, gimme some Street Fighter II action!

Classic Nintendo arcade machines

Miniaturised Arcade!

The Street Fighter II Roster

A Lovely View

image source: abc News – Lifestyle

My Decade TV: 70s, 80s, 90s!

August 21, 2014 By ausretrogamer

Lock up your cat, put the kids to bed and then settle in for some nostalgic TV fun! MyDecadeTV honours the pop culture memories of bygone decades – the 70s, 80s and 90s in particular. Basically, each decade has a TV channel (site) to simulate the vintage experience of channel-surfing on a TV from a particular era.

If you haven’t checked this out yet, I have no idea what you are waiting for – bookmark the sites immediately and get surfing on this awesome wave of nostalgia!

If you do enjoy MyDecadeTV, please show your support by giving a donation. It is worth every cent.

image source: MyDecadeTV

Commodore Club: Under the Hammer

August 19, 2014 By ausretrogamer

Carrying the tradition of August being Commodore month, the Commodore Club held their annual auction at the weekend. There was a fair bit of loot on offer, from the C64 and Amiga, to the Atari 2600, N64, SNES and other classic systems.

Paul the auctioneer kept the formalities to a minimum and ensured the smooth running of the bidding processes – once the gavel dropped, there was no mucking around. What transpired was some friendly bidding wars amongst the modest crowd. Weird and Retro’s Serby cleaned up with the winning bid on the C64 cassette games, but I ensured I got in on the action with winning the C64 Breadbin andC64 compilation game pack auctions. The usual suspects (Stacey, Rob and Pedro) also got in amongst the action and scored themselves some impressive vintage goodies. By the end of it all, everything that was up for grabs was gone.

Once the auction wrapped up, it was down to business of playing some old school classics. The Commodore Club day is one of those monthly events that you should not miss! Are you coming to the next one?

Let the auction begin!