AUSRETROGAMER

The Pop-Culture E-Zine

You are here: Home / Archives for Retro Gaming Culture

Retro Gaming Culture

New LEGO Star Wars X-Wing Starfighter

By

“Red Five standing by”

As a LEGO sucker, I mean a fan, yeah, let’s go with a LEGO fan, this teaser video from LEGO that I found on Facebook of their new Ultimate Collector Series version of the T-65 X-Wing Starfighter is mind blowingly detailed – with updated and authentic wing and engine design along with a new cockpit interior. There is even a place for your R2-D2 droid figure in the socket behind the cockpit!

With 1949 LEGO bricks to build this detailed X-Wing, you better get onto it on May the 4th and blast off to fight for the Rebel Alliance!

NOTE: This new set will be released on May 4th (Star Wars Day) and will retail for AU$369.99

May the 4th Be With You – Happy Star Wars Day!



Nintendo Game Boy, NES & Zelda Teethers For Your Game Baby

By

Lil ausretrogamer is a tad too old for these, but if she was still a little bubby, then these Bumkins Silicone Nintendo Game Boy, NES and Link (Zelda) teethers would be sitting on her high-chair right now!

Consider this a public service announcement for those of you that have babies in your household that require teethers right now 😉

image source: Amazon US – Bumkins

story source: technabob



An ‘SNL’ Sketch Sold a ‘Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’ Unit

By

By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.

Two weeks ago, I bought a copy of “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe” because of “Saturday Night Live’s” “HBO Mario Kart Trailer” sketch.

Pedro Pascal is one of my favorite actors. His performance on the Netflix series “Narcos” is incredible, and when his character, Javier Pena, was no longer on the hit series, I stopped watching. When I saw that he was hosting “Saturday Night Live,” I was excited and instantly thought to myself, what took so long?

In my freshman year of college, my roommates and I would play “Mario Kart 64” on Nintendo 64 for hours after classes. We would often bet a six-pack of beer on a race. Sometimes the person who came in last would have to buy a 24 case for the other racers to share. Everyone was on a college budget, so you really didn’t want to finish last.

I haven’t played the game in a few years, but when I watched the great “SNL” sketch, it piqued my interest again in the iconic game. The sketch was one of the funniest things that the writers have come up with this season; and it’s been an exceptional season. The spin on Pedro Pascal’s involvement in HBO’s “The Last of Us” and a dystopian “Mario Kart” world was brilliant and cleverly funny. When I first watched the sketch, I thought, that’s going to go viral. Since it’s airing, the sketch has had 12 million views on YouTube.

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking over all the Nintendo Switch games at my local Best Buy. My mind went to the “SNL” sketch, and I realized I didn’t own a single “Mario Kart” game. That afternoon, I purchased “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe” and played the game for hours when I arrived home.

I’m sure “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” will have numerous references to “Mario Kart.” I just hope they somehow include my favorite racetrack in the film, Sweet Sweet Canyon…but I doubt it.



LUSH x The Super Mario Bros. Movie Bath Products

By

With the new The Super Mario Bros. movie out now in cinemas, of course there were going to be brands clamouring to license the world’s most famous plumber to use on their products!

A case in point is Lush, you know, the folks that make and sell those smelly soaps. Being a plumber and climbing in and out of sewer pipes, Mario gets a tad dirty on the job, so what better way to cleanse himself than to use the new Lush bath product line!

The Lush product line is of course inspired by the Super Mario Bros. film which includes a peach and pineapple-scented Princess Peach body spray, Mario (Cola) and Luigi (green apple) shower gels, Princess Peach (peach) and Bowser (cinnamon) shower jellies, a gold coin (honey) soap bar, and a question block bath bomb that includes one of six different power-up soaps inside!

So when heading to watch the movie, make sure you smell peachy by using these new Lush SMB film bath products!

story source: technabob



Custom Retro Gaming Action Figures

By

Whoa, these unique action figures based on yesteryear’s gaming consoles are either awesomely cool or absolute nightmare fuel – you be the judge!

U.S. based eBay user shdurr0 has created some very quirky custom action figures based on vintage gaming systems from the 70s and 80s, just take a look them below! These may not be to the caliber of Dano Brown’s custom-made video game toys, but they are still worth a mention.

If you are inclined to take a peek and possibly grab one (or all) of these one-off creations, go and check them out.

PS: Love the ‘AGES 45 & UP‘ on some these – a nice touch indeed 😉

The Sega Master System Droid

Milton Bradley (MB) Vectrex Man (Glow In the Dark)

GCE Vectrex Man

K.C. Munckin / Magnavox Odyssey 2

Captain Atari (Glow in the dark)

image source: eBay



Taycan PONG Arcade Battle: Porsche X Atari

By

Ready, Player One? Porsche Taycan Arcade Is Here!

Now here is a collaboration we never saw coming – Porsche and Atari! Say what?!

Porsche Cars Australia recently released a campaign featuring two Porsche Taycan electric sportscars playing an intense, high-speed, real-life version of Pong. In this life-sized adaptation of the 1970’s Atari classic, the paddles are two Porsche Taycan sportscars while the ball is a fast moving high-tech drone.


source: Porsche

Along with the video, Porsche Cars Australia have also created Taycan Arcade, an interactive web-based game inspired by Pong. Players can use their keyboard or mobile device to move their Taycan up and down on their side of the screen trying to deflect a fast moving ball towards their opponent. Get the ball past your opponents Taycan, and players score a point.

Porsche fans and PONG video game lovers can play Taycan Arcade here.



Cool Street Fighter vs Red Bull Stop Motion Ultra Combos

By

Hot damn there are clever creators out there! We absolutely adore stop motion, so we had to share this one with you all!

Love Street Fighters crushing Red Bulls cans with their ultra combos? Then this vid is for you 😉


source: Animist



DOOM Ring: The Ring To Rule Them All

By

Hot on the heels of DOOM running on a Commodore 64 comes the DOOM Ring – you’ll have to squint, but we assure you it’s DOOM!

The version of the game being run is RP2040 Doom (designed to be run on a Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040) that’s been modified to generate grayscale graphics. It runs on a tiny printed circuit board  along 4 score lines to wrap into a ring shape.

According to James,

“I wanted to see if this was a useable technique. It isn’t. The result was very fragile, and I lost the connections to the capacitive pads and USB port during encapsulation.”


source: Ancient

story source: technabob



Book Review – Go Straight: The Ultimate Guide to Side-Scrolling Beat-’Em-Ups

By

If there ever was a book made for us, then Go Straight: The Ultimate Guide to Side-Scrolling Beat-’Em-Ups is it! As massive fans of side-scrolling beat’em ups (Ed: Double Dragon and Final Fight are still two of our all time faves), this book screamed for us to read it!

Relishing each turn of the page and soaking in all that beat’em up content found in this book, the adrenaline rush we felt was off the charts.

Back in the late 80s going to the local arcade involved checking out the latest and greatest beat’em up games. When the first 2-player co-op beat’em up, Double Dragon, showed up at our local arcade in 1987, we were smitten. We pumped so many 20c pieces in that machine (each credit was 40c), the coin box must have been quite heavy when taking them to the bank! Double Dragon felt fresh, with an amazing array of weapons to use on baddies (we loved swinging the baseball bat!), plus the punching, kicking, backward elbowing and our fave, the knee to the head, all felt visceral at the time.

It was a pleasant surprise to read my hero, Yoshihisa Kishimoto’s foreword! For those that don’t know, Yoshihisa-san was the original creator of Double Dragon – he was only 26 years old when he created the groundbreaking game. Go Straight: The Ultimate Guide to Side-Scrolling Beat-’Em-Ups is one heavy tome, so you’d be forgiven to think that it could also double up as a weapon in real life! Of course we jest about the weapon part, but we are dead serious about the weight of the book.

Packed with delicious beat’em up content (there are over 450 pages!), Go Straight covers all the major eras of the beat’em up genre, including the golden age from the mid 80s to the early 90s. Each decade from the 1980s onwards, has its own section, documenting all the games that were released during that period. The book documents every beat’em up that has ever graced a video game system (arcade and console) from 1980 all the way up to 2021 – that’s over 200 games!

There has been no stone left unturned in Go Straight: The Ultimate Guide to Side-Scrolling Beat-’Em-Ups. Dave Cook and the team at Bitmap Books has created a tome for all fans of beat’em ups, and if you aren’t a fan of this genre, we urge you to check this book out, as it is a great guide for first timers wanting to dip their toes in playing some iconic and fun side-scrolling beat’em ups! GO and read it now!!

  • Price: $79.99 AUD / Where to buy: PixelCrib

Specifications

  • 456 pages.
  • 210mm × 297mm. Hardback.
  • Gatefold pages.
  • Spot-varnished cover.
  • Edge-to-edge high quality lithographic print.
  • Sewn binding for enduring quality and the ability to lay flat for ideal double-page image viewing.



Disclaimer: Go Straight: The Ultimate Guide to Side-Scrolling Beat-’Em-Ups book was kindly provided by PixelCrib for this review.

Jirard Bought EVERY Nintendo Wii U & 3DS Game Before the Nintendo eShop Closes

By

Jirard “The Completionist” Khalil has spent a smidgen under US$23,000 (~ AU$34,300) buying EVERY available Wii U and 3DS game before Nintendo shutters these respective eShops at the end of this month (March 2023).

This is definitely one way to preserve games, but let’s face it, we don’t all have tens of thousands of extra dollars sitting around, waiting to be used to buy up every game for these now deprecated Nintendo systems. We can’t even imagine the storage required to save and store all of these games – that’s a lot of microSD cards and solid-state drives!

Jirard should be commended, as he could have easily chosen the dark path, piracy, to achieve a similar result.

Completionist by name, completionist by nature, we salute you Jirard!

PS: When you are done watching the vid, read Kelsey Lewin’s Twitter thread on how this could solve the whole “preservation of games” puzzle.


source: Jirard The Completionist on Twitter