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JAPAN: Retro Arcade Gaming In Osaka

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👾Retro arcade gaming at Retro Games Zarigani!👾

Ausretrogamer’s intrepid traveller, Brant Raven, found himself in Japan last month during the ever-popular Cherry Blossom season.

But Dr. Raven wasn’t there just to admire the Sakura, nosiree, he also found time to seek out some old school Japanese arcade parlours. He did find one in Osaka, the Retro Game Center Zarigani, located at the foot of Tsutenkaku Tower in Shinsekai.

What Brant found was a treasure trove of classic arcade machines, including the Yu Suzuki designed SEGA favourites, OutRun and Afterburner – both in their Deluxe cabinets. To say we wish we were all there would be a gross understatement.

Check out all these precious machines!!!

image source: (c) Brant Raven for ausretrogamer.com

You Can Now Play OutRun on Atari 8-Bit Computers!

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Say what?! Yep, OutRun can be played on your Atari 8-bit (A8) XE/XL computers!

This is a Work In Progress (WIP), so there is more content/improvements coming, but for now, it is still looking and sounding pretty darn good!

Read up on the development/progress of OutRun on the AtariAge forum and download the WIP file direct from here. Brush the dust off your A8 computers (grab your Atari MAX cart) and get some OutRun into ya!


source: Atari 8-Bits Forever



Sean’s Amazing Retro Video Game Art and Arcade Model Builds

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We have many talented friends around the world. One local multi-talented friend, Sean Tagg (aka:  ) is not only an accomplished Donkey Kong player, but he is also an arcade restorer, OutRun expert and an amazing artist (amongst many other talents)!

Out of all of Sean’s accomplishments and creations, it is his meticulous artistic skill and flair that always captures our attention and astounds us with each of his amazing creations. Sean’s artwork (like on his Shinobi runners) and model builds of iconic video games are simply stunning to say the least. If you don’t believe us, check out the video below!

source: Sean Tagg – Arcade Modeller

Want to see more of Sean’s amazing Arcade Model builds? If you said yes (as you should have), then go to his Arcade Modeller site right now!



Slipstream: Retro Arcade Racer Review – Nintendo Switch

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With the Australian F1 GP being on this weekend, we’ve been playing Slipstream non-stop on our Switch for this last week, and we must say, this is the closest we’ll get to a modern OutRun, especially OutRun 2006/Coast 2 Coast (with a mix of F-Zero & Sonic The Hedgehog), with amazing drifting, slipstreaming and speed mechanics, complimented with a cool time rewind feature and a thumping synth pop soundtrack.

Slipstream has been a labour of love for Brazilian solo developer, Sandro Luiz de Paula (ansdor) since 2015. The love and attention to detail really stands out. Sandro’s Slipstream has pulled us right into one of our favourite arcade racer periods of the 80s and early 90s with gorgeous 2D sprite scaling and colourful pixel art graphics. This all amounts to an authentic retro experience on modern consoles with smooth and constant 60fps gameplay.

The entire package of Slipstream, from its graphics (with Pixelated, CRT and NTSC filters), speed and racing mechanics, awesome soundtracks to its six game modes, all combine to draw you into racing across a variety of twenty exotic locations from all around the world, including cities, deserts, forests, mountains and beaches. With a plethora of other retro inspired racers out there, Slipstream stands out with its speed, drifting, rewinding and slipstreaming mechanics, which add depth to the driving gameplay, resulting in a strategic, challenging and fun experience – what more could you ask for?! Oh yeah, it gets better, grab a few friends or family members and have yourself a local 4-player split-screen race.

The six game modes add longevity and variety for solo players, with different challenges. If you are time poor and need a quick fix of racing, then the single race or time trial modes are for you. If you have a bit more time on your hands, then the other modes (Grand Tour – just like in OutRun, Cannonball, Grand Prix and Battle Royale) provide ample challenges to test your racing skills. There are also some secrets to discover, which we won’t spoil for you here. Just like the arcade racers from yesteryear, Slipstream’s difficulty is dialled up, but luckily you don’t have to pump coins to continue enjoying the racing!

For under US$10/A$15, you get bang for your buck here, with an abundance of modes and amazing content. This all amounts to transporting gamers back three or so decades, when racing games were pure fun. The nostalgia that Slipstream induces is strong, so if you ever played and enjoyed racing games in the 80s and early 90s, then we highly recommend you add Slipstream to your games library!



Disclaimer: Nintendo Switch review code for Slipstream was provided by BlitWorks.

Building Miniature SEGA Arcade Machines

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The amount of talent and knowledge some people have is beyond comprehension. One particular person got our attention on Twitter, gaug888. gaug888’s miniature Sega arcade machine creations are beyond amazing! Not only are they faithful miniature recreations of their bigger arcade brethren, they also play the arcade video games they are based on – totally mind blowing!

The meticulous level of detail of these miniature creations are off the charts. We reckon Yu Suzuki would be quite impressed too!

PS: If you want to check out the complete and documented log of gaug888’s miniature creations, head to Togetter now.

image source: gaug888 via Togetter

 

LEGO Ideas: Outrun and Pac-Man

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This is a call to action for all lovers of Lego and retro gaming to head to the Lego Ideas site and vote for the Lego Outrun and Lego Pac-Man Action Figure!

What are you waiting for, go and vote!

image source: Lego Ideas

 

Byte Driver – Review

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Get radical and blast down the endless highway in Byte Driver, the latest game from Vector Hat.

Feeling like a long lost arcade cabinet from the early 80’s, Byte Driver is an interesting mix of games like Outrun, Night Driver and Spyhunter. As you make your way through the courses energy slowly depletes, hitting an object or obstacle will drain a larger percentage and hitting zero means game over. As you drive along you can hack opponents stealing energy or earning upgrades like improved vehicle stats, weapons or other consumables for your vehicle. Progressing through levels means harder enemies with more defensive and offensive skills will be there to oppose you in your pursuit of high scores.

Byte Driver definitely has some cool retro styling, looking like an old vector drawn game with screen shake and glitches being thrown in for good measure. There is also a monochrome mode for those that really want to embrace that real vector drawn feeling. The soundtrack is  fantastic and suits the style perfectly, filling sound and vision with pure 80s aesthetic that really gets you into the feel of the game. Being high score driven means that at low level play, Byte Driver is perfect for hot seat score comps with friends while high level play can be fought for with online leaderboards.

Byte Driver succeeds in evoking retro game feel and charm but, much like it’s early arcade peers, there isn’t much else to the game beyond 5 difficulty levels and high scores. Challenge does ramp up nicely as you progress and it can get real tough towards the end but with practice it’s easy to shoot for those high scores. The addition of a “low Stress” mode is nice for people to come to terms with the mechanics and allows you to play without the energy meter falling to zero for some more casual play.

There is a lot of fun to be had here and fans of classic arcade games will likely enjoy what Byte Driver has to offer, a well made and fantastic looking indie title.

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Mat Panek
Retromancer – Collector, repairer & fan of retro games & tech. Atari to Amiga, Nintendo to Sega! LD, Zip, Beta and a proud dad! One half of the TiredParents on Twitch.

Follow Mat on Twitter and Twitch

 

 

Disclosure: Byte Driver was kindly provided by Vector Hat for this review.

 

 

80s Baby: NKOTB Are Back Baby!

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New Kids On The Block are back, baby! Well, so are Salt-N-Pepa, Naughty By Nature, Tiffany and Debbie Gibson performing 80s Baby. Part of the ‘The Mixtape Tour 2019‘, this new single is a throwback to the awesomest decade of them all, the 1980s!

This song will have you bopping along with that familiar cool 80s tunes. Oh yeah, the video clip is a throwback to Sega’s cool OutRun arcade game – a nice touch indeed!

Huge thanks to Poop Face (aka: Freakin Frankie) for letting us know about this!


source: New Kids On The Block

 

Tomy Turnin’ Turbo Dashboard OutRun Arcade

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Talk about an awesomely impressive retro hardware hack!

What do you get when you grab a Tomy Turnin’ Turbo Dashboard, Sega’s awesome OutRun arcade game and a very very clever hardware hacking peep named Matt Brailsford? You get a hack to outdo all other hacks – the Tomy Turnin’ Turbo Dashboard OutRun Arcade!

Rather than regurgitating the meticulous steps Matt took to create this awesome piece, read his epic blog post right now! Wish we could make this!


source: Circuitbeard

image source: Circuitbeard.co.uk

 

SEGA Arcade: Pop-Up History

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We know we said no more backing of Kickstarter campaigns, but when Read-Only Memory are involved, we make an exception. If you need convincing as to why they are one of the best gaming-related book publishers, then check out the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works, Britsoft: An Oral History and The Bitmap Brothers: Universe to name just a few.

The latest Read-Only Memory tome ‘Sega Arcade: Pop-Up History‘ has definitely excited us and tickled our nostalgic fancy. This will be a book of pop-up sculptures of SEGA’s greatest arcade cabinets: Hang-On, Space Harrier, Thunder Blade, After Burner, and Out Run! If this doesn’t excite you, then we have no idea what will. One thing is for certain, the quality and content will be top notch!

Check out the Kickstarter campaign now and make sure you get a piece of this awesome Sega arcade history!

image source: SEGA Arcade: Pop-Up History