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10 Years Of Classic Gaming at PAX Aus

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Cheers to 10 years of inducing intoxicating gaming nostalgia at PAX Aus!

Another PAX Aus is done and dusted, but this was no ordinary year, it was the 10th year the event had been held here in Melbourne (Australia, not Florida).

For this celebratory year, the Classic Gaming (CG) area was moved from its usual Freeplay section to the main Expo Hall, rubbing shoulders with modern AAA gaming heavyweights and indie devs.

Starting the Classic Consoles (as it was known back then) area in 2013 with Retrospekt, Retro Domination and our (Ausretrogamer) team, we knew it would be a hit with attendees of all ages – which not even Melbourne’s inclement July weather could stop anyone getting their nostalgia hit at the inaugural PAX Aus event.

Over the years, the Classic Gaming area has grown from strength to strength, with its popularity ensuring that it returns at every PAX Aus – with an even bigger floor space! The inaugural teams may no longer be involved, but the baton change with the Weird and Retro and the Press Play On Tape Podcast crew has ensured the growth and sustained popularity of the Classic Gaming area.

For the tenth anniversary, the Classic Gaming area didn’t disappoint, with a plethora of amazing machines from yesteryear to tickle every nostalgic nerve in the body. From all of our old favourites from the 8-bit and 16-bit era (hello Atari, Commodore, Sega and Nintendo) all the way through to some darn awesome old-school PC power – and whomever thought of using the Dance Dance Revolution mat to control your (Doom Slayer) character in Doom (cheekily christened Doom Doom Revolution) should be given a knighthood! We hear that we have to now call Aaron (aka: Blahjedi), Sir Aaron of Press Play On Tape podcast, from now on 😉

Doom Doom Revolution!


image & video source: Aaron ‘Blahjedi’ Clement – PPOT

Back in 2015, Skott Kellett proposed to include pinball in the Classic Gaming area, which was an instant hit! The pinball section has now become a permanent fixture of the Classic Gaming area, ensuring gamers can get their mechanical hit via the silverball game. Skott is still the main wrangler of the pinball section, with games provided by Reality Games Australia, Mr Pinball Australia and the Australian Pinball Museum. We were lucky enough to experience some quite rare and hard to find pinball games, from Dutch Pinball’s The Big Lebowski, CGC’s Cactus Canyon Remake, Pinball Brothers‘ Queen, to American Pinball’s amazing Galactic Tank Force, complete with tank tracks and backbox turret!

But wait, there was more! PLAION Australia had the yet-to-be released Atari 2600+ console on display, which was impressive. We have been quite critical of Atari over the years, but even we are quite excited to get our hands on the new 2600+ console!

Last but not least, it is the people that bring the Classic Gaming area to life that we love the most, from the CG showrunning team members to the PAX Aus Enforcers, and the public that come in and reminisce with us about systems and games from a long long time ago.

See you at PAX Aus 2024!

We are going home – to the Classic Gaming Area!

Here are a few of the nostalgia inducing systems and displays!

Pinball in the Classic Gaming area is as popular as ever!

Classic Gaming is nothing without the awesome people that make it happen and for those that come and visit!



Cheers To 10 Years – See You At PAX Aus 2023

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Wow, we still can’t believe that PAX AUS is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year!

It is also hard to believe that the Classic Gaming area, or Classic Consoles as it was known in the inaugural year, has been at PAX AUS since the beginning. From the Showgrounds in Ascot Vale in 2013, where it was bitterly cold, we were quite excited when PAX Aus was moved to its new and much bigger home in 2014, at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. By moving PAX AUS from July to October, it also ensured that we would have better weather, but then again, this is Melbourne, so anything can happen, in any season!

We are indulging ourselves with nostalgia by reflecting on years gone by at PAX AUS – there has been countless awesome memories and meeting new and amazing people that we are proud to call our friends. Cheers to ten years!

We hope to see some (or all) of you at PAX AUS 2023!

slides created by: Aaron ‘Blahjedi’ Clement (Press Play On Tape podcast)



An Amazing Retro Gaming Donation

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When we first started ausretrogamer over a decade ago we never imagined that our little corner of nostalgia would capture the attention of people around Australia and around the world.

Over the years we have had readers contacting us to donate their wares, usually due to our genuine love of retro gaming and the preservation of classic games and consoles, plus no one wants to send stuff to landfill – it’s a win win!

A few weeks ago we were contacted by Mike, an avid reader of our site, who asked if we would be interested in his donation of classic consoles, computers and games. Mike sent us a photo of some of his goodies, and we must say, our eyes lit up at the vastness of the collection he was going to donate.

We finally met up with Mike late last week and the big surprise was that he had way more amazing stuff to donate than what was in the initial photos. We were pleasantly surprised and found it totally humbling that someone would generously give away their items to be preserved and enjoyed – which we will! The best part of this donation was meeting Mike and having a great conversation about games, systems and life in general – which is totally priceless.

We haven’t gone through all of the items Mike donated to ausretrogamer, but we thought we would share some photos of this amazing collection – scroll slowly to take in all the nostalgia!

Many thanks to Mike for his generosity, these will be cherished.

all images owned by & copyright of ausretrogamer



Ausretrogamer Is 10 Years Old!

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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

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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

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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

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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!

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**** 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

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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

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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