The Pop-Culture E-Zine
In case you missed it, there is now a TV show based on the classic Konami arcade game Frogger!
Just like the video game, contestants will require quick thinking and problem solving skills in varied challenges to be crowned Frogger champion and hop away with US$100K! If you like Wipeout (the TV show, not the video game) and enjoy the Ninja Warrior type shows, then Frogger will be right up your alley!
PS: Unfortunately, Peacock TV ain’t streaming Frogger in Australia (Ed: Boo!)
source: PeacockTV
You would have all guessed it by now that we are huge fans of Namco’s timeless classic arcade and iconic vertical shoot’em up, GALAGA. The constant pew pew pewing at enemy ships as they stream down and across the screen never gets old!
It seems that we are not alone in our love of Galaga, as Etsy seller Wardingers has created these awesomely cute 1 inch Galaga Enamel Pins which we would proudly wear on our lanyard as we blast those pesky enemy ships!
source: Wardingers on Etsy
What do you get when you cross two C64 music maestros like Martin Galway and Rob Hubbard? You get this awesome Green Beret Commando Infiltration SID chiptune (remix) by t-tracker!
Play it loud!
source: t-tracker – Green Beret (Commando Infiltration)
It is always great to see the Atari Jaguar homebrew and independent developer scene going from strength to strength. With a number of awesomely talented and prolific developers, like Reboot, we always get excited when a new Jag game is about to drop, like Gravitic Mines!
In development since 2019, Gravitic Mines is best described as a love letter to iconic games like Thrust, Lunar Lander and Gravitar, with an injection of contemporary flavour like Gravity Crash plus a lot more! This new and exclusive Atari Jaguar title was painstakingly developed by the Reboot team, with the full version containing 32 campaign missions, 8 training missions, 40 minutes of music, 8 boss encounters, online scores and achievements amongst a plethora of other cool features.
source: AtariAge
According to Reboot, the game is now complete and will be available to purchase in a few months via the AtariAge store – so keep an eye out for it! In the meantime, if you have a Skunk Board (Ed: yay, we do!) or RetroHQ’s Jaguar GameDrive, then you can download the Gravitic Mines demo from here. The Demo ROM is a short teaser, featuring a few levels of the game to whet your appetite.
To say we are excited for the final Gravitic Mines game would be the greatest understatement! Our Jaguar is hungry, so we can’t wait to give it a taste of Gravitic Mines!
French Street artist, In The Woup have shared their awesome pixel art mosaics of Super Mario cosplaying as different characters as part of their MARIO WORLDZ project – how darn cute are they??!!
If you are lucky to be wandering around Lyon (France), Villeurbanne (France) or Korčula (Croatia), then be on the lookout for the Italian plumber cosplaying as your fave pop culture characters!
Just in case you aren’t in France or Croatia right now, here are a few of our favourites. Check out the rest here!
image source: In The Woup
Amazing Swedish band Rymdreglage have followed up their 2009 LEGO 8-Bit Trip stop motion video (which took them 1,500 hours to make!) with an even more awesome LEGO 8-Bit Trip 2!
The Trip 2 stop motion video pays tribute to some of the most iconic video games of all time in super duper 4K resolution – it is oh sooo lovely!
source: rymdreglage
We love the NZ Mint gaming related silver coins, so their latest release, the Street Fighter – Ryu Chibi Coin is so cool (and cute)!
Made from 1oz of pure silver, this new Chibi® Coin features experienced martial artist Ryu – the main protagonist in the video game Street Fighter™. The coin has been shaped and coloured in the Chibi art style to resemble Ryu. He is shown in his most recognisable attire consisting of a tattered white karate gi, long red headband, red martial arts gloves and bare feet. The Ian Rank Broadley effigy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II can be found on the opposite side to confirm it as a legal tender coin.
The coin is protected inside a specially designed case, moulded to the coin’s shape. The outer box is Street Fighter-themed, incorporating images of Ryu as he appears in the game, and includes a large window so you can easily display this precious collectable.
A maximum of 2,000 coins will be produced. This is confirmed by the Certificate of Authenticity printed on the box, along with the coin’s unique serial number. Don’t miss out on this officially licensed coin for Street Fighter!
PS: We can also exclusively reveal that there will also be Ken silver coin in the very near future!
source: NZ Mint
As we come out of a long (southern hemisphere) winter, we look long and hard into the vastness of our retro gaming vault and come out with a number of juicy nostalgia-inducing classic gaming bits and pieces, starting with a couple of pretty cool, but useless NES peripherals!
We also have the mighty Neo Geo featured this month, with its interchangeable console and arcade memory card that we use on our AES and MVS. For the Nintendo fans, we have DK on the NES and a snippet of Super Mario World (you gotta look hard). For the really old school fans we have the Futuretronics Galaxy Invader 1000 tabletop and the cool Space Shuttle Game Watch we used to love strutting at school. The Contra lads make an appearance as well, as does the DynoVisor VR headset we use on the PC-Engine. Last but not least, our all time fave C64 compilation.
Enjoy the nostalgia and we”ll see what we find in the vault next month!
All images are copyright of ausretrogamer
Ever wondered how those distinct pinball sound effects, speech and music were developed back in the day?
In this short early 80s documentary clip, renowned Electronic Music Composer, Suzanne Ciani, takes us through the creative process of putting together the iconic soundtrack for Bally’s Xenon pinball machine. By lending her voice to Xenon (as the female robot), Suzanne became the the first human female voice in a pinball game!
We absolutely love Suzanne’s body of aural work that spans across many mediums, including film and of course, pinball.
Welcome to Xenon!
source: Tokyo Matt
It was bound to happen! After the success of TheC64 Mini, Retro Games Ltd has announced that they will be releasing an Amiga 500 Mini in early 2022.
Based on Commodore’s iconic 16-bit Amiga 500 (A500), the new The A500 Mini will be able to emulate the original A500/A600 chipset and the Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA) of the latter Amiga model, the Amiga 1200 – pretty darn cool indeed.
source: Retro Games Ltd
The Amiga 500 Mini will come with a 2-button mouse and 8-button game-pad, as well as USB inputs to plug in a standard keyboard and the ability to add your own games (with WHDLoad support). Speaking of games, The A500 Mini will be bundled with 25 games, with the following 12 titles being confirmed at this stage:
Other features include the ability to save and resume games, flick between 50Hz and 60Hz screen refreshes and various CRT filters and scaling options.
With a retail price of £119.99 / €129.99 / US$139.99, we won’t be expecting TheA500 Mini to be less than $200 Aussie dollars, which is quite a bit for a Mini, even for an iconic one like the Amiga!