The Pop-Culture E-Zine
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!
With the popularity of Cobra Kai, of course it was only a matter of time before some clever peep would create the infamous ‘All Valley Karate Championship’ duel between Daniel Larusso and Johnny Lawrence, complete with Daniel San’s all conquering crane kick with Lego bricks!
If you haven’t guessed, this LEGO Ideas design is based on the 1984 The Karate Kid film, depicting the final fight scene between the protagonist, Daniel and his nemesis from Cobra Kai, Johnny.
The posable characters are really cool, so surely all of you The Karate Kid and Cobra Kai fans will give this a vote!
source: Lego Ideas
Being avid video games collectors, we love seeing other collections, especially the epic ones like Lind Guillory’s Guinness World Record collection – it’s super impressive! To say we would love to just see Lind’a collection in person would be a massive understatement.
A winner is you pic.twitter.com/DIa9FgMJkd
— 60 Second Docs (@60SecDocs) August 6, 2021
As Kotaku reports, Linda has over 3,000 pieces and is still in the midst of growing her collection. Like all of us, Linda steers well away from the cheapie handhelds, like the awful (but yet cool) Tiger Electronics ones. You can’t put a price on collections like this, as they are usually priceless to their collector. Like most collections, we hope they get used, played and enjoyed. Having said that, we were quite chuffed to read that Lind thinks the same way, she was quoted saying, “And if I love them, I’m gonna play them.” Well done Linda, your collection is awesome!
story & image source: Kotaku
What do you get when you cross Lego with an iconic piece of audio history – you get the LEGO Sony Walkman, that’s what!
Forget about your CDs and MP3 files, grab your trusty old cassettes (if they haven’t oxidised!) and blast them on this awesome Lego Ideas entrant – vote here so this becomes a reality!
source: LEGO Ideas – Sony Walkman
We last visited Musée Mécanique in San Francisco in 2012, which was a major highlight for us, so when we heard that this antique arcade was doing it tough, it was definitely difficult to hear.
We had a blast when we last visited Musée Mécanique! To view the album of our visit, go here
The below ‘Nostalgia Museum’ short documentary by Sofie Kodner and Eleonora Bianchi, provides an intimate portrait of owner Dan Zelinsky as he struggles to keep the legacy of this iconic San Francisco institution alive in the face of economic loss and mechanical deterioration.
source: KQED Arts
We love River Raid on the Atari VCS/2600. Heck, we love it on pretty much every other 8-bit platform.
When we saw Mauri Helme’s tweet about a gorgeous looking River Raid made with MagicaVoxel, well, we can say that it was an easy question to answer.
Would you play? Atari 2600 River Raid made with #MagicaVoxel and #Blender #b3d pic.twitter.com/tVnVly3AeQ
— Mauri Helme (@maurihelme) June 18, 2021