Arcade

Pac-Dog

September 7, 2016 By Ms. ausretrogamer

Hello Denizen‘s latest video features the adorable ‘Pac-Dog’ running around a live-action maze. The video is titled ‘Pac-Dog (Animal Arcade Ep. 1)’ – which leads us to believe there will be more cute videos like this heading our way, and that’s OK with us. Now enjoy the cutest little arcade character: Pac-Dog.

Source: Hello Denizen on YouTube via Laughing Squid

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Ms. 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

End Game: The Different Goals In OutRun

August 6, 2016 By ausretrogamer

Ah, OutRun! It was the first street racing arcade game where you drove a Ferrari Testarossa at breakneck speeds with a female passenger in tow, feeling the wind in your hair as you raced to your next checkpoint area to progress further in the game. It was as simple as that, thank you Mr. Yu Suzuki.

OutRun’s simplicity was its biggest drawcard – the flash red car, gorgeous woman, awesome graphics (especially the crashes!), great European tracks (with uphill and downhill gradients!), brilliant music (oh that Magic Sound Shower tune!) and the choice of path to take when confronted with a fork in the road!

It was this choice of which road you took in OutRun which ultimately lead you to five very different goals (endings), some more humorous than others. For those of you that weren’t aware or had not seen all of OutRun’s different endings, here they are for your pleasure! Don’t forget to lock the Testarossa!

Choose your course – it’s as easy as a, b, c, d or e!

Course: Vineyard (a)
End Goal: No wine here for the easy winner. After the driver is hoisted aloft by the crowd, they then get distracted by a bikini clad lady and drop the driver to the bitumen. That’s gotta hurt!

Course: Death Valley (b)
End Goal: How apt is the name of this route as your Testarossa literally falls apart the second the winning line is crossed. Instead of celebrating, your driver will need to wait for a while for the Ferrari roadside assist van to rock up.

Course: Desolation Hill (c)
End Goal: What could be the winning prize here? Perhaps the camels to take the driver back to civilisation as the Ferrari has ran out of fuel? Hang on, what will the driver wish for when rubbing that lamp? Oh, a harem!

Course: Autobahn (d)
End Goal: As the crowd gathers to see the driver receive the big gold trophy, he gets embarrassingly bypassed by the presenter, with the trophy being handed to his female passenger! ZING!

Course: Lakeside (e)
End Goal: As the driver screeches past this most difficult of all goals, he is finally rewarded for his most excellent driving skills! Now he is ready to party!

image source: The Video Game Museum

LEGO Arcade Robot Breakdance Battle!

July 4, 2016 By Ms. ausretrogamer

This cute little video by BreaksBricks features adorable breakdancing robots and awesome LEGO arcade machines (follow the link to vote for the robots on ‘LEGO Ideas’).

‘When I was a kid in the 1980’s I became obsessed with arcade games like Donkey Kong, Pac-Man and Q-bert. This LEGO brickfilm is inspired by my love of the music, toys and video games from that era’.

Source: BreaksBricks via Laughing Squid

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Ms. 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

Sega Arcade Game History

April 29, 2016 By ausretrogamer

STOP THE PRESS! Thanks to our good friend Skott Kellett, we were made aware of Sega-Interactive’s Sega Arcade Game History site!

So what is this site all about? If you have been (and still are) a fan of Sega’s arcade games (Ed: which many, many of you are!) and love history, then this site should be bookmarked as your go to reference on anything related to Sega arcade games.

The site is great to navigate, with a plotted timeline of all Sega arcade games from 1970 to present day on the left of screen, a cross-hair to ‘target’ (choose) the arcade game in the centre of the display, and the right of screen being your search area and view type selector (cruise or list mode for the targeted decade). Now, if only Sega-Interactive could release an English version of this site!

Let’s cruise through Sega’s arcade games from the 1980s

Tiled list view of Sega’s arcade games from the 1980s

Machine list view of Sega’s arcade games from the 1980s

Checking out Yu Suzuki’s Space Harrier
source: Sega Interactive

Arcade and Pinball Sale Of The Century

April 16, 2016 By Aaron Clement

So it was at some unholy hour on a warm Saturday morning back in early January that I found myself standing outside of an old office supplies warehouse in North Hobart along with a whole range of people from all over Australia. Why you ask? Inside was a significantly large assortment of pinball tables, jukeboxes and arcade cabinets, all for sale or auction by one of the oldest operators in Tassie.

Proof that we do get warm, clear days in Hobart!

If you’ve ever spent time in Hobart, you may have passed a building on the corner of Patrick and Campbell streets with a faded sign advertising “Pinballs from $400”. The building is home to Automatic Music, a local family-owned amusement operator founded by a guy named Erwin Boot back in the 1960s. While their focus now is mainly pool tables and jukeboxes, Erwin had kept a lot of the older and unused machines stashed away at various locations across the state. So with retirement looming, there was only one thing to do; open the warehouse to the public and sell, sell, sell!

I want a $400 Pinball machine!

Quite the line-up!

Jukeboxes were the major theme of the sale, with easily a hundred or more out on display, although it was hard to miss the entire wall lined with some 30 to 40 years of pinball history! With machines ranging from early electromagnetic releases like Sky Jump (Gottlieb, 1974), Sky Kings (Bally, 1973), Lawman (Gottlieb, 1971) and Super Star (Williams, 1972), through to more recent titles like Star Wars (Data East, 1992), Judge Dredd (Midway, 1993) and Dr. Who (Midway, 1992). There were definitely bargains to be had, although the cheaper the machine, the better your repair skills had to be!

Smaller than their solid state descendants, the electromagnetic Pinballs of the 60s & 70s are unmistakable

The most expensive machine sold on the day wasn’t a pinball table, it was a 1959 AMI Continental Jukebox that was snagged by a Gold Coast man for $6100! On the pinball front, Star Wars, Playboy (Bally, 1978) and Dr. Who all cleared the $3000 mark, with the cheapest going for just over $200 (for a mostly incomplete, non-working machine I might add).

The Doctor is in the house!

Given my holy grail was well out of reach (I’ll own Star Wars one day!), I was happy to just attend and spend time walking amongst all of the amusement history on display. Although there’s another long time amusement operator down here with an equally large warehouse of machines, so maybe we’ll see another sale sometime soon…

Oh my, $50 for a Taito Thunderbolt!

No tabletop dancing on these old beauties!

Let’s go Raving!

Even Judges need repair from time to time

Rock ‘n’ Wrestling – A good combination!

We’re only playing it for the multiballs, right?

Sweet sounds of Wurlitzer

Shoot’em up gallery

Checking out the lethal merchandise

It’s seen better days, but you can almost hear Sweet Georgia Brown

Feeling like a superstar!

More awesome pics from the arcade and pinball sale of the century here!

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Aaron Clement
Tassie based retro gaming guy. Father of 3 and married to the very tolerant Kellie Clement. Coffee powered!

Follow Aaron Clement on Twitter and Instagram

Welcome to STARWORLD 78

April 4, 2016 By ausretrogamer

For those of you that don’t remember, once upon a time Atari was the king of video games, not just in the home with their Atari VCS/2600, but also in the amusement parlours. Atari was so diversified, they even got into making pinball machines!

To get an understanding of just how huge the Sunnyvale company was, at the 1978 Amusement and Music Operators Association (AMOA) trade show, Atari had a massive exhibit titled Starworld ’78, showcasing their latest wares to wow the industry (and scare the pants off their competitors)!

The “Starworld” theme was chosen by Atari to preview their new games, which they cleverly dubbed as the “Stars” of the 1978 AMOA show. Previewed pinball machines included Space Riders, the colossal Hercules and the double playfield extravaganza of Middle Earth. In the video gaming stakes, their new 2-player space duel game, Orbit and the 3-games-in-one version of Breakout (very smartly titled) Super Breakout were gaining a lot of attention. Also taking centre stage at Starworld ’78 were: Sprint 2, Sit Down Night Driver, Starship, Smokey Joe, Fire Truck, UFO and the unique dual monitor submarine strategy game, Subs. If that wasn’t enough, Atari also had their service technicians on hand to demonstrate the latest test equipment to show off to operators.

And what is a trade show without prizes? Atari was promoting their ‘Starworld Sweepstakes’, a first at the AMOA trade show. Prizes included a Super Breakout machine, a Sony Betamax video tape recorder, a colour TV, a set of leather luggage and a Sony 5” Swivel-vision TV. There were also minor prizes awarded by Atari in their sweepstakes, including Seiko pocket digital alarms and Seiko desk clocks! Whoa, if only we had attended the 1978 AMOA trade show!

source: The Arcade Flyer Archive

The Ultimate IKEA Hack: The IKEAKÄDE

January 29, 2016 By Ms. ausretrogamer

You want an arcade cabinet, but you’re short on space. Don’t fret, IKEA hacker ‘Johnny’ has you covered. Just grab an Allen key and follow his DIY instructions, and you too can have your very own IKEAKÄDE.

He’s even added a LED marquee, awesome!

Video source: mrhwangify on YouTube

Source: IKEA Hackers via Mental_Floss

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Ms. 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

Oculus Arcade on Gear VR

November 15, 2015 By Ms. ausretrogamer

What does everyone want to do with the latest cutting edge gaming technology? Play classic games, of course! Here is the Oculus ‘Arcade’ Gear VR app which lets you play over 20 classic titles from Sega, Namco, and Midway. James Halliday would approve!

Video source: Road to VR on YouTube

Games available:

Bandai Namco
Pacman (1980)
Galaga (1981)

Midway
APB (1987)
Defender (1981)
Joust (1982)
Gauntlet (1985)
Gauntlet II (1986)
Rampage (1986)
Root Beer Tapper (1983)
Spy Hunter (1983)

Sega
Altered Beast (1988)
Golden Axe (1989)
Phantasy Star II (1989)
Shinobi III (1993)
Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992)
Sonic Spinball (1993)
Streets of Rage (1991)
Streets of Rage 2 (1992)
Virtua Fighter 2 (1994)
Ecco the Dolphin (1992)

Source (including images): Road to VR

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Ms. 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

Green With Envy: An Amazing Home Arcade

October 19, 2015 By Ms. ausretrogamer

This basement arcade built by Redditor mertzlufft and their father has to be one of the most awesome games rooms we’ve ever seen! Give that dad a prize for ‘father of the ~~year~~ decade’ then feast your eyes on the photos of this amazing home arcade.

Source: Redditor mertzlufft via Cheezburger

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Ms. 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

PAXAus 2015: Classic Gaming Tournaments

September 25, 2015 By ausretrogamer

So who here likes gaming tournaments? There are a lot of hands going up – which is great to see! Well, you are all in luck! The Classic Gaming area will be running tournaments all weekend at PAXAus 2015. You can compete for fun or for the glory.

There will be high score challenge tournaments on arcade machines, consoles, 8-bit computers and pinball tables to show off your prowess. Speaking of pinball tournaments, Saturday’s competition will be fully sanctioned by the IFPA! We suggest that you diarise the following Classic Gaming tournament schedule:

You still have time to practice and sharpen your gaming skills. You never know, you just may end up being a Classic Gaming champion! Are you game to compete?

Arcade

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