The Pop-Culture E-Zine
Back in 2017 there was a crowdfunded project titled Golden Era which was going to tell the story of the making of GoldenEye 007 on the N64. The project didn’t reach it’s funding goal, but thankfully onaretrotrip stepped in to offer all of us a a glimpse into the game that revolutionised first-person shooters (FPS) and defined the Nintendo 64.
So kick back and enjoy the making of one of the all-time best N64 games!
source: onaretrotip
We cherish our Commodore gear, from the Commodore 64 and Amiga 1200, to our Commodore watches, joysticks, CD32 and the obscure and gorgeous CDTV (aka: Compact Disc Television / Commodore Dynamic Total Vision).
Speaking of the Commodore CDTV, we particularly love its obscure controllers, the game pad that doubles as a remote control and the CD1200 trackball – both using good ole fashioned infrared (no Bluetooth here – Ed) for that true wireless gaming experience. There is also the CDTV keyboard, but that ain’t no controller, well, sort of.
The CD1200 trackball is peculiar in that it also has two DB9 joystick ports on the front so that you can hook up you fave joysticks, like the TAC-2, to play your Amiga games in comfort. However, the use of “C” batteries to power it in wireless (IR) mode is not that environmentally friendly at all. The remote control / game pad on the other hand uses “AA”, which means we can use our Eneloops for a more enviro friendly gaming session.
What obscure Commodore gear do you have? Hit us up on Twitter or our Facebook page now!
CDTV Remote Control
CD1200 Trackball
CD1200 Trackball – joystick ports
CDTV – Keyboard et al
We love finding these promo videos of arcade games we used to love and play at amusement centres back in the day.
The below promotional video is for Sega’s Scud Race arcade game from 1996. Scud Race (Sports Car Ultimate Drive) was also known as Sega Super GT in North America.
Oh yeah, keep an ear out on how “Sega” is pronounced in this promo video – long live See-gah!
source: Australian Pinball Museum
Hey peeps, here is some awesome news that the Recalbox folks have shared with us – this Friday, April 23rd, at 9:00pm (GMT+2), they will finally launch their long awaited 7.2 update, packed with heaps of new features, new systems, functionalities and optimisations!
source: Recalbox via YouTube
To recap what is new and improved in Recalbox 7.2, which there are many, we thought we’d share the major highlights right here:
Play more than 250 lightgun games on many different systems (Arcade, Megadrive/MegaCD, Dreamcast, and Playstation to name just a few), no configuration needed! Now gathered under a new “LightGun” virtual system.
The team has optimised Recalbox, allowing almost all N64, Dreamcast, Naomi & Atomiswave games to run at full speed on Raspberry Pi 4!
And for even more performance, we’ve tested and chosen 4 optimal overclock settings on the Raspberry Pi 4. Overclocking your Pi will increase the frame-rate on CPU and GPU intensive games.
Play almost all PSX, N64, and PSP games at full speed on both ODROID-GO Advance & ODROID-GO Super!
5 new supported systems are added to the nearly 120 systems already supported in Recalbox:
Recalbox now supports both left and right JoyCons! In addition, you can use both JoyCons as a single combined controller!
Connect your Bluetooth headphones or speakers! (just pair them like you would a controller, for now).
3 new emulators are also available, depending on your hardware:
Pre-installed games are no longer copied into the user share. They stay on the system and can be hidden/shown using an option from the settings menu.
The main menus have all been rewritten. They’re now faster, consume less memory, and are more intuitive. The most useful options have been moved so they’re faster to access. Reboots can now be delayed. This way, you can configure everything you need to before having to restart.
New options have been added:
In-game video sound/music is now available! You can choose between the following sound mode:
The internal scraper has been greatly enhanced:
Many emulators have been updated and/or reconfigured for new features, or to achieve better performance.
Lots of bug fixes, as usual:
Buildroot has been bumped to version 2020.11.
Linux kernels have been bumped to:
We’ve moved from a purse ALSA audio backend to PulseAudio! Recalbox now supports more audio devices — and even Bluetooth audio!
image source: Recalbox
There you go peeps, to say we can’t wait for Recalbox 7.2 would be a massive understatement!
It’s amazing what you find when trawling eBay late at night!
During one of our insomnia induced evenings, we stumbled upon a rare piece of history, a listing for an Atari Lynx / Epyx Handy Specifications, Development System and Schematics document from the late 80s! Looking at the listing, it seems that this folder belonged to or came from Atari Corporation Executive Producer, Richard (Rich) Robbins, who was responsible for developing and managing products for the Atari Lynx.
We see a lot of eBay listings that purport to be rare, but this one definitely deserves that moniker, even if it is a pricey bit of history!
As with any eBay listing, they do disappear after a while, so we thought we would preserve this listing by saving the images here for posterity (click on each image to see them in their full glory).
PS: If you procure this rarity, please let us know (privately or via social media)!
source: eBay
We know this is OLD news, but who doesn’t like seeing this again?
Back in late 2018, the National Videogame Museum (NVM) in Texas (USA) tracked down the much rumoured Mini Vectrex VideoSystem. Once it was found that this was a working system, the NVM secured it as part of their Vectrex archive, ensuring all could see this lost treasure on display!
GCE designed and developed the Mini Vectrex just after being purchased by Milton Bradley in 1983. The mini system was to offer a slim alternative, much like contemporary mini console revisions of video games systems from the past. Now imagine if this actually made it to retail stores……….
We definitely could never get sick of watching the Mini Vectrex in action!
source: National Videogame Museum
UPDATE: Fritz has informed us that FreeCell64 version 2.2 is out now! Fritz has also advised us that this awesome game is now complete, which is now more colourful, has mouse support and comes with time counter and statistics included. Grab this latest version and enjoy!
Whoa, developer Friedrich “Fritz” Philipp has released his first version of Freecell, titled Freecell64, for the Commodore 64!
What is so impressive is that Freecell64 has been totally written in BASIC! So don’t just sit there, go and download Freecell64 via GitHub right now! Oh Fritz, what have you done to us, our productivity will surely take a tumble!
For those that need some quick instructions, to move cards, click anywhere on the respective pile and then onto the destination pile. Double-clicking is also possible where cards are moved to the Aces pile (as a priority) or to the repository. When you think you have won, click on the “Game” menu item and select “Check” – good luck!
Being version 1.0, Fritz advises that Freecell64 still requires:
To say we’ll be watching this eagerly will be a gross understatement!
Absolutely adore these kinds of videos of news reports from department stores in the early 80s featuring some awesome footage of their home and entertainment departments from back in the day.
The best part about this video is that it is a b-roll (raw footage) taken from inside a Sears store in mid-December 1982 (just before the Christmas rush for that year), which features clips of Atari computers and kiosks, a Vectrex store display and Donkey Kong being played on the Intellivision amongst other great clips!
Check it out and let the nostalgia wash over you.
source: btm0815ma
There are some images that need to be shared for their informative awesomeness, and this NEO•GEO games infographic is one that definitely fits that bill.
Created and shared by Ange Albertini of the Corkami Reverse Engineering and Visual Documentation github repository, this image speaks to us loud and clear! We love the fact that in one image, we can see the timeline of all the games that were released for SNK’s mighty NEO GEO.
To get a sense of this amazing graphic creation, please click on the image below to see it in its native resolution!
Now this is a blast from the past! Well, a blast from 1982!
While trawling good ole eBay, our nostalgic interests were piqued when we found this 12-page ‘The Players Guide To Programmable Videogame Systems’ advertorial, which is cool to read in hindsight. We were glad to see the Bally Astrocade featured amongst the heavy hitters.
Check it out!
