The Pop-Culture E-Zine
Nikola Tesla was one clever cookie – imagine what he could’ve come up with if he was still around? Well, we would guess that he would use his namesake coils to perform an 8-bit cover of the Super Mario Bros. theme.
Watch out for the sparks!
source: Franzoli Electronics
If you think you have had enough of video games related movies, then you may want to look away. For those that lap up these types of nostalgia-inducing films, 8-Bit Christmas starting Neil Patrick Harris as a father looking back fondly at the late ’80s Christmas where he desperately did everything he possibly could to get an NES, will be right up your alley! Since we can relate to this tale (we also wanted a NES for Christmas in 1988, alas we didn’t get one then), we are definitely keen on giving this a watch and getting right into the Christmas spirit!
Check out the trailer below to see if 8-Bit Christmas will be on your viewing list his festive season.
source: Warner Bros. Pictures
Remember the Tetris light you could build from tetrominos? Well, now there is a Super Mario Bros. light you can build too!
The Super Mario Bros Build A Level Light is a stackable 16 light-blocks set that features a host of familiar icons and characters from the much-loved Mario saga, which you can arrange as you wish. Each pixelated cube is double-sided and can be stacked in a whole host of combinations to create your own unique Mario level.
With Christmas around the corner, this is the perfect gift for gaming geeks and nostalgia junkies alike, that will brighten up their home or gaming space.
source: Firebox
story source: technabob
Planes, trains and automobiles? No, magazines, comics and books, the retro gaming kind!
Last weekend we tweeted a couple of teaser photos of a number of magazines in our collection and promised that we would share more. Well, here they are! Relocating this stuff is always a chore, but the amount of nostalgia we get is priceless, so it is always well worth it.
For those keen observers, you will note that there are no photos of our most favourite 80s mag, Zzap64!, but rest assured, those issues are well preserved and didn’t require relocating. We hope these images bring back great memories for you too!
All images copyright of ausretrogamer.com
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
By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.
Driving in America can be insane at times. People ride your back bumper for no reason, and they cut you off in traffic without any hesitation. Sometimes I compare daily driving to a competitive game of Tetris. Everyone is always trying to pass you and fill an open gap. Could moving ahead in a way be seen as points by some?
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with Tetris. The first time I ever played the Alexey Pajitnov designed game was at my local bowling alley. The strategic game blew my mind. The quick thinking and hand-eye coordination skills that Tetris required made me an instant fan. I got really good at the arcade version of the game. But when I got the NES game for my birthday, I became a Tetris prodigy. Well, maybe not that exceptional, but I ran the score up higher than any of my friends. When the various shapes of pieces started falling faster, that’s when I went into a video game playing, frenzied zone. My playing skills would elevate to another level.
It’s not hard comparing traffic to Tetris. I don’t understand why another driver has to ride my bumper, and then, when there’s a lane that suddenly opens next to me, they rapidly whisk around me. I’m not a slow driver, I just follow the speed limit laws. The car lanes are like the empty space for the various shaped blocks to fall through.
Why is everyone in such a mad hurry? Like playing Tetris, is driving for some motorist a fun game? I’m more aggressive when I play Tetris than when I’m on the highway. That doesn’t seem to be the case for others where I live and work.
Erik Rosenlund, take a bow! Erik has created and released, SLOW MOLE, an awesome speedrunning platformer for the NES!
Playable on both real hardware and other modern devices, Slow Mole challenges your speedrunner skills to the max with a unique checkpoint mechanic that will only award a checkpoint when the player proves their mastery! The game provides the player with two difficulty options which affects the timer, thus making an impact on game play. For those that have twitch skills who can truly master the game, the game ramps up its mechanical challenge to nightmare levels!
Grab Slow Mole for free (or for a small token of appreciation for Erik) from here and get running!
Slow Mole (NES) Trailer – The 80s NES claymation trailer that never was
From NFTs selling for millions to other ephemera going for ridiculous amounts of money, we now find video games entering this realm of the ludicrous money!
In the last week we have had two record breaking auction sales of Nintendo video games, first it was The Legend Of Zelda (NES) selling for US$870,000, only for this record to be broken a few days later by the US$1.56 million fetched by Super Mario 64 (N64)!
Now don’t get us wrong, both of these games are great, but come on, these prices are scary as hell! Anyway, as long as there are buyers with deep pockets, then stuff like this is going to go for mega bucks! So if you have some old-school games in mint condition, get them rated and hit Heritage Auctions, you never know, you may be an instant millionaire.
We wonder what video game will break the sales record next?
image source: Heritage Auctions and CNN US
source story: The Verge
With having a lot of time at home in 2020, we had been thinking about changing things up in the Ausretrogamer Fun Factory!
Things are afoot with designing the new space, which will see new additions, things being moved around and unfortunately, stuff that will go to a new home. We are quite excited with the next chapter of our games room, so we’ll be sure to share our journey throughout 2021 of the new and improved Ausretrogamer Fun Factory.
For now, you can have a read how the Ausretrogamer Fun Factory has evolved over the years.
Taking one last look at the current Ausretrogamer Fun Factory (click to enlarge)
Asking a gamer to nominate their favourite Nintendo game is like asking a parent to pick their favourite child. Well, guess what, we are going to do the unthinkable!
But before we crown our favourite, let us tell you about the top 3 contenders (that we still love playing till this day!):
First contender, Wave Race 64 (N64) – yes, we did pick Wave Race 64 above Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64 and Goldeneye 007. Don’t get us wrong, the aforementioned games are superb, but nostalgia draws us to Wave Race 64. What wasn’t there to like – realistic water physics, challenging courses and an absolutely cracking 2 player challenge – ‘Bonsai!’. We lost a lot of hours playing this game head to head. Oh yeah, the N64 controller was perfect for this game.
The second contender is none other than Super Mario Bros. (SMB) on the NES. This 2D platformer catapulted the Mario franchise into the stratosphere for good reason. The game had great level design, matched by awesome gameplay, a mesmerising Koji Kondo tune and most importantly, intuitive control – what more could you want!
Well, if it wasn’t for the next game, I guess the choice would have been easy and SMB would have walked away with the prize. Let us tell you about a 16-bit platformer that took the SMB ingredients, gave them a fair shake and then poured the contents into the SNES for a game we call (drum roll please), Super Mario World (SMW)! With SMW, the 2D platformer reached its pinnacle – sublime level design, 16-bit aesthetics that were an absolute feast for your eyes and the sound was perfectly atmospheric. This was a game that you could lose yourself in. SMW is one of those games you can either pick up and play for half an hour to get your Mario fix, or play till the wee hours of the morning. SMW walks away with the prize of our favourite Nintendo game of all time. Thank you Mr. Miyamoto for creating the definitive 2D platformer.
Phew, that was hard!