AUSRETROGAMER

The Pop-Culture E-Zine

You are here: Home / Archives for ausretrogamer

ausretrogamer

Ausretrogamer Is 10 Years Old!

By

Who would have thought that when we first started ausretrogamer.com in January 2012 that 10 years later we would still be here! Time certainly flies when you are having fun.

Today marks a major milestone for us at ausretrogamer as we have reached the magical decade mark! When starting our site and social media channels in 2012, we honestly didn’t have any expectations that we would still be around in 2022 – but we are glad that we are!

We have been pleasantly surprised over the years to find so many like-minded people who enjoy playing and talking about all the stuff we love, from obscure video games from the 1970s to those schoolyard-type discussions on which 8-bit computer was best (we all know it was the Commodore 64!).

Ausretrogamer has also allowed us to meet a lot of you in real life, either at events like PAX Aus or local pinball competitions or computing club events – which have been a priceless experience. We are humbled to call all of you our good friends. Nostalgia is a powerful force that binds us all – long may it continue!

To all the awesome folks that have contributed and to those that are still contributing content and everyone that engages with us, thank you very much – you all rock our world!

Looking forward to another decade full of retro gaming (and pinball) goodness! 😉



May The Festive Season Be With You

By

Wow, another year has flown by! It was another year for all of us to put behind and hope that 2022 brings us all a better, safer and healthier year!

From the ausretrogamer team, we wish you all a wonderful Festive Season, which we hope is filled with fun, laughter and lots of gaming, be it video games, pinball, board games or whatever tickles your fancy! Oh yeah, we hope Santa brings you what you wish for!

Next year we celebrate an important milestone, our 10th anniversary of all things ausretrogamer. But for now, it’s time to relax, be merry and we’ll see you all in 2022!



image source: supplied



The Retro Gaming Vault – June 2021

By

It’s heading toward the end of June, so for this month we dug up some ultra cool stuff that will give you a good old dose of nostalgia, so make sure you seek medical advice if you start feeling faint-ish.

From playing Sega Mega Drive/Genesis games on our Pioneer LaserDisc to getting some BurgerTime, Psycho Fox gaming action and of course, getting instantly sick playing on the Virtual Boy and everything in between!

If you see anything that induces nostalgia, hit us up on Twitter or Facebook and tell us all about it (or seek medical advice ;-))!

Nothing beats blowing minds by playing our Mega Drive / Genesis (cart, CD and LD) games on our Pioneer LaserDisc

Our fave conversion of BurgerTime. Yep, it plays marvellously on the Intellivision

The rage inducing Master System game!

Tabletop action, starting with Astro Wars!

Contemplating on sorting out our Amstrad CPC6128 collection…..

Anyone else have a Bally Astrocade or the Sega Lock-On?

Yeah, we love all things Star Wars, including pinball machines and LaserDiscs!

Sega Power! Two of our favourite Sega consoles in one image!

One of our all time favourite video games. We have played this infinite amount of time in these last 30 years!

Instant headache! We love the Virtual Boy, but our brain and eyes don’t 🙁

Original image copyright: ausretrogamer



Celebrating the Sega Mega Drive in Australia

By

On this day [November 30] in 1990, Sega’s 16-bit beast arrived on our shores, which was about 2 years after Japan got theirs, but it was always better late than never back in those days!

Coming from the days of playing games on the Commodore 64 and Atari ST, the Mega Drive felt like we had a genuine arcade system in our bedroom! The Mega Drive was our first day one purchase (the N64 was the other) in 1990, which we paid $399 with the pack-in Altered Beast game. We also couldn’t resist buying Golden Axe on that day too. We still remember unpacking and playing it that day – our mind was completely blown!

Sega stamped their authority with their 16-bit powerhouse, and as history would record it, their most successful console ever. The Mega Drive was the catalyst for converting a generation of micro computing enthusiasts into console gamers, we should know, as we were one of them. Our transition from 8-bit (C64) and 16-bit (Atari ST) computing was quite stark – and as soon as we got our Mega Drive and whacked in the pack-in Altered Beast and then Golden Axe games, we honestly thought we had Sega’s arcade games in our bedroom. We were instantly smitten, and alas, that also rang the death knell on our playing days on the micros.

What were your earliest memories of Sega’s 16-bit beauty? Hit us up on Twitter or Facebook and join in the conversation.



The Great Classic Gaming Magnets Giveaway!

By

**** GIVEAWAY ****

** GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED! **

Whoa, our friends at Magnetism Creations have given us some of their awesome video games and pinball related magnets to giveaway to our readers! Yep, this is a giveaway!

So what do you have to do to be in the running for 1 of the 3 mystery magnet packs? Relax, you don’t have to do anything stressful like run a marathon under 2 hours – all you have to do is ensure you like Magnetism Creations and Ausretrogamer on Facebook (and don’t forget to like and share the post for more chances!). For an extra chance to win, make sure you follow us in Twitter! See, that wasn’t too painful now, was it?!

The giveaway will finish at 6:00pm on Friday September 18, 2020! Winners will be notified by us shortly after the conclusion of the giveaway, so stay tuned and good luck!

PS: To get you motivated for this easy giveaway, check out a few of Magnetism Creations’ awesome magnets below…

 

Talking Retro Gaming, Pinball and Toy Collecting with Cause and Effect Gamers

By

I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed during the Tech Games Fest event (TGF 2020) by our good friend Andrew Owen from Cause and Effect Gamers – Andrew is also the co-ordinator of TGF.

We talk all things retro gaming, our involvement with PAX Aus, the lure of pinball, toys – especially Masters Of The Universe, and of course, movies we love to watch!

Grab some popcorn and enjoy 🙂


source: Cause and Effect Gamers

 

LEGO Nintendo Entertainment System Set

By

Whoa, LEGO and Nintendo have given us a one two punch of sets – first with their LEGO Super Mario, and now, the awesome LEGO Nintendo Entertainment System set!

This awesome LEGO NES set will be available from August 1 and will retail for AU$349.99. You’ll now be able to assemble your own console and retro CRT TV, then turn the crank to make 8-bit Super Mario move across the screen! We are excited 🙂

source: LEGO

 

FunKey S – All Your Retro Games On A Keychain

By

We promised no more Kickstarters, but this FunKey S – the world’s smallest handheld gaming system, has grabbed us by the scruff off the neck and it ain’t letting go!

You can relax with the question about funding, the FunKey S is already well and truly funded – by a long shot! Right, let’s get straight to it – if you want a retro gaming system small enough to fit on your keyring so that it can be taken anywhere, then the FunKey S is your jam. The FunKey S features a clam-shell design, just like the classic GameBoy Advance SP. Once opened, it greets you with a 1.54″ IPS LCD screen and a D-pad style controller. This teensy little beast is no slouch, with an ARM Cortex-A7 CPU @ 1.2 GHz under the hood. Playtime is roughly 90 minutes on a 20 minute charge, which is pretty decent too.

Most importantly, the games are loaded via its SD card slot, supporting memory cards up to 128GB, which should be enough for pretty much every retro game under the sun – which bring us to the shady part. To play NES, SNES, Game Boy (Original, Color, GBA), Sega Master System, Sega Genesis / Megadrive, Sega Game Gear, Atari Lynx, Playstation, WonderSwan and Neo Geo Pocket games, you will have to hunt for ROMs in some pretty murky areas on the web, which is kinda not so legal.

If you are craving to play classic video games on the go, then you can’t really go past this small and very cute foldable handheld!

story & image source: technabob

 

Podcast: Vertical Hold – Retro Gaming In Self Isolation

By

I can’t believe that we (myself and Ms. ausretrogamer) have never appeared together on a podcast! Well, I am here to tell you that we finally made our debut together in guest speaking on episode 275 of the Vertical Hold podcast!

The topic of discussion was how we were passing the time and keeping our sanity in this worldwide pandemic. We delve into the midst of nostalgia and discuss all things gaming, from retro and modern, pinball, arcade, board games to the Commodore 64, SNES, RetroPie and Nintendo’s Wii! Oh yeah, Double Dragon and Zelda came up in conversation too 😉

Thank you to Alex Kidman and Adam Turner for having us on their brilliant weekly Vertical Hold podcast, we had a blast!

 

WA-HOO: Happy MAR10 Day

By

Wa-hoo, it’s that time of year when we celebrate the greatest video game character of all time, that little Nintendo plumber who likes to munch of mushrooms, Mario! Or should that be Mar10? 😉

To celebrate (Super) MAR10 Day, we encourage you all to play one of his many many games, from the classic platformers, adventure, karting, to tennis, party games and even his old school Game & Watch based games!

Today is the day we honour one of the most iconic video game characters of all time. We are going to celebrate by playing something very old and also one of our favourite Mario games of all time. Oh yeah, we may even throw on a pair of overalls to get right into this great day!

Which Mario game will you play in celebration of MAR10 Day? Hit us up on Twitter or Facebook to share the Mario love.