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The Lost Arcade on SBS On Demand

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If you missed watching The Lost Arcade, don’t fret, you can now catch it on SBS On Demand. For those of you outside of Australia, you can catch The Lost Arcade on a myriad of streaming services.

Kurt Vincent’s The Lost Arcade is an intimate story of a once-ubiquitous cultural phenomenon on the edge of extinction, especially in New York City, which once had video arcades by the dozen. These arcades were as much social hubs to meet up and hang out as they were public arenas for gamers to demonstrate their skills. But by 2011, only a handful remained, most of them corporate affairs, leaving the legendary Chinatown Fair on Mott Street as the last hold-out of old-school arcade culture. Opened in the early 1940’s, Chinatown Fair, famous for its dancing and tic tac toe playing chickens, survived turf wars between rival gangs, increases in rent, and the rise of the home gaming systems to become an institution and haven for kids from all five boroughs.

A documentary portrait of the Chinatown Fair and its denizens, The Lost Arcade chronicles the evolution of arcades, while celebrating the camaraderie and history of a pop culture phenomenon.

You better hurry Australian peeps, as you have 29 days left (from today) to watch this on SBS On Demand. After that, you’ll have to watch it via a paid streaming service.

Sources: SBS On Demand & The Lost Arcade

Refashioned Vintage Pinball Machines

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Whoa, hipsters rejoice! Actually, we really really like how these vintage pinball machines have avoided going to the scrapheap and been refashioned as ultra cool furniture and home decor!

Some purists may thinks these old pinball machines should have been restored to their former glory, which we agree with, but if they were beyond repair, then why not give them a new lease of life as cool furniture – we need some of these for our Fun Factory!

Check out Michael Maxwell’s Silverball – Maxwell Furniture Company, the makers behind these darn cool refashioned pinball machine coffee tables, side tables, bars, consoles and wall mirrors – we love’em!

source: If It’s Hip, It’s Here

 

Getting Our Nostalgic Fix on the PS4 with Sega Mega Drive Classics

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Let’s get this out of the way, if you are still enjoying the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection on previous systems, then stop reading this review (even though you will be missing out!). If on the other hand you are yearning to play some classic 16-bit Sega games on your PS4, then read on. Oh yeah, Sega Mega Drive Classics is also available on Xbox One, but we don’t have a XBone, so there you go.

Now, should we connect our Sega Mega Drive console and compare the games side by side? Actually, if you are lucky enough to have a working Mega Drive console connected to your TV with all the titles that are in this Classics pack, then you know what, you should stop reading too!

Ok, we are glad we got that off our chest! Wow, two paragraphs in and we still haven’t started telling you about the games and the other bells and whistles in this nostalgia inducing package.

Sega Mega Drive Classics on the PS4 is the largest collection of retro classic games in one pack. There are over 50 classic Sega 16-bit games, ok we counted them all, there are actually 53 games (and that’s not counting the games that have region specific variants) to satisfy almost every genre under the sun, from arcade action, adventure, pinball (sort of), shooters, beat ‘em ups, fighters, puzzlers, hack’n slashers, tactical RPGs to everyone’s favourite, platformers – and there are lots of platformers!

These old favourites aren’t just dumped from their cartridges and thrown in this package, no sirree, they have had a raft of very cool modern features injected into them including mirror mode, rewind (for when you slip up), controller customisation, online multiplayer and achievements, optional emulation enhancement filters like pixel scaling and save states to save your game at any time, meaning players – both old and new, should find revisiting these retro games an absolute Sonic 3D Blast (Ed: Oh dear, that was terrible!).

Upon loading Sega Mega Drive Classics we were totally impressed by the opening title sequence, which we will leave as a surprise, but we can tell ya this much, it’s pretty darn awesome – either that or we are too easy to please. Anyway, once you stop drooling from the title sequence (unless you hit X!) you are greeted by the new-look menu system, developed by d3t, from which you can access the 53 Sega Mega Drive games and other options. The menu resembles the bedroom of an early nineties Sega fan, which is a great throwback, with dynamic time-of-day conditions, retro SEGA paraphernalia, a shelf full of the aforementioned 53 Mega Drive games, and of course, a CRT TV with the sexy Mega Drive console underneath it.

When selecting a game to play, its corresponding cart is removed from its case and then inserted into the Mega Drive console – pure nostalgic nirvana. On top of the already mentioned modern conveniences and features jammed into this package, the most important thing we can tell you is that the emulation of the games is spot-on. The word ’emulation’ may trigger negative connotations, but we are here to tell ya that this is as close as you will get to playing Mega Drive games without forking out for the console on eBay and then fishing around for the game cartridges.

We touched on this earlier, but we’ll elaborate – each game has additional options, some more than others, like region specific versions (L3), modifications (Y) and extras (R1) like target milestones that earn you specific trophies.

As we aren’t much of adventure or RPG fans, we stuck to Sega’s arcade conversions, platformers, beat’me ups and puzzle games. After playing a lot of Sonic, Ristar, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Gunstar Heroes, Columns, the Wonder Boy and Shinobi games, we can say that we definitely felt like we were back in the early 90s – good times!

Before we go on, here is the full list of games included in this package:

  • Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle
  • Alien Soldier
  • Alien Storm
  • Altered Beast
  • Beyond Oasis
  • Bio-Hazard Battle
  • Bonanza Bros.
  • Columns
  • Columns III: Revenge of Columns
  • Comix Zone
  • Crack Down
  • Decap Attack
  • Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine
  • Dynamite Headdy
  • ESWAT: City Under Siege
  • Fatal Labyrinth
  • Flicky
  • Gain Ground
  • Galaxy Force II
  • Golden Axe
  • Golden Axe II
  • Golden Axe III
  • Gunstar Heroes
  • Kid Chameleon
  • Landstalker
  • Light Crusader
  • Phantasy Star II
  • Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom
  • Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millenium
  • Ristar
  • Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi
  • Shining in the Darkness
  • Shining Force
  • Shining Force II
  • Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master
  • Sonic the Hedgehog
  • Sonic the Hedgehog 2
  • Sonic 3D Blast
  • Sonic Spinball
  • Space Harrier II
  • Streets of Rage
  • Streets of Rage 2
  • Streets of Rage 3
  • Super Thunder Blade
  • Sword of Vermilion
  • The Revenge of Shinobi
  • ToeJam & Earl
  • ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron
  • Vectorman
  • VectorMan 2
  • Virtua Fighter 2
  • Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair
  • Wonder Boy in Monster World

The problem with a pack like this is that players will concentrate on all the games Sega left out of the mix. Granted, Sega probably could put the entire Mega Drive catalogue on one Blu-ray and flog it for $90.00, but then we would find something else to complain about – you just can’t please everyone. The games that are included are solid, bar a few questionable titles, however, just because we don’t like adventure and RPG titles, it doesn’t mean they should be excluded. Same goes the other way, if you loathe platformers, beat’em ups and puzzlers, it doesn’t mean these genres should be thrown out for more RPGs. Actually, if there was a driving game like Super Monaco GP or a motorcycle-racing-bashing one like Road Rash, then we could say that most, if not all, genres are well represented. Come to think of it, a few more shoot’em ups, like Truxton and Thunder Force would have rounded out this already pretty awesome package. Ah, we can speculate all we want, but we have to give it to Sega, they have tried to cater for the majority and we reckon they have done an admirable job.

After waffling on about this Sega Mega Drive Classics package on the PS4, the ultimate decision to buy or not buy is yours, but we’ll leave you with this little nugget – if you want to get your Sega 16-Bit gaming fix on your modern console, then you can’t go too wrong with Sega Mega Drive Classics.

Review System: PS4
Release Date: May 29 2018
Format: Xbox One & PS4 (sorry Nintendo Switch owners)
Price: $49.95

image source: Mega Drive Classics

Disclosure: Sega Mega Drive Classics [PS4] download code was kindly provided by Five Star Games for this review.

 

Results Are In For Your Dream Pinball Theme

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image source: David Manzano via Ozark Pinball Syndicate – Facebook

You all cast your vote and now it is time to reveal the results of what you all wanted your dream pinball theme to be.

We swear, we did not influence this result, but let’s just say we are very very happy to see Masters Of The Universe at the top of the dream theme heap! We were surprised with Pokemon, Die Hard (movie) and Predator (movie) getting votes for equal 3rd spot, but Harry Potter (2nd) and Rick and Morty (equal 3rd) were always going to poll well.

With all this talk of dream pinball themes, we wonder if the major pinball manufacturers and their licensing teams will take heed and surprises us in the not too distant future? We should hope so!

So, do you agree with this vote result? What theme would you have preferred to be number 1? Let us know via Twitter or Facebook – go on, have your say!

 

Gottlieb’s Freddy: A Nightmare on Elm Street Pinball Machine

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title image: Liberty Games UK

By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.

When I was a kid, there was a bowling alley near my house that always had the best pinball machines. One day, I walk in with my friends, and there is Gottlieb Premier’s Freddy: A Nightmare on Elm Street, right next to the men’s bathroom entrance.

I’ve always been a Freddy Kruger fan. Some of the films are better than others; the third and the fourth instalments of the franchise are my favourites. What Renny Harlin did with “A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master” should be studied in film schools on how to jolt new life into a successful franchise. I find the Rialto cinema scene when Alice is getting sucked into the movie screen to be a stunning and haunting visual.

Freddy was everywhere when I was a kid. He even had his own television series “Freddy’s Nightmares.” Most of the episodes were poorly produced, but it was always fun seeing Freddy introduce or close every anthology story. Some of them were really bad. The show had a short run and it had little to do with the films other than Freddy’s short appearances.

The Gottlieb pinball machine was like an extension of my Freddy fandom. When I wasn’t in school, I would watch one of the films and then go to the bowling alley to play the machine. I would save up my allowance and get my dollar bills converted to quarters at the front counter.

The sound effects of the machine were terrific. I liked how the film’s score played when you put your quarters in and throughout play. My favourite part of the machine was the large, plastic Freddy head that the game balls would come rolling out of. A friend, years later, who loved the machine as much as I did, told me that the Freddy head was the first thing to go. He said that the plastic would erode after a few years. The machine at the bowling alley already had some wear and tear, but it didn’t make me enjoy it any less. The Freddy glove artwork along the side of the machine was a nice, scary touch.

If I could ever afford a fully restored pinball machine, Gottlieb’s Freddy: A Nightmare on Elm Street would be the one that I would buy. Perhaps because of simple childhood nostalgia? That, and it’s such a fun interactive pinball machine connected to my favourite horror property.

After a few months, the Freddy machine just vanished. I asked the manager of the bowling alley where the machine went; he told me that it didn’t make any money. He added, “That machine was giving people the creeps when they went to wizz.”

The Freddy pinball machine was a little creepy, but on my play alone, I know it made money.

image source: The Arcade Flyer Archive

 

The Ultimate Airbnb Experience: The Tiny House with a Pool and Retro Arcade!

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We definitely need a holiday! Who doesn’t like holidays, right? Well, we may have just found the perfect place to stay for our next getaway via Airbnb! This proves that tiny can be awesome!

If the photos of this tiny house with the great arcade and pool don’t convince you why it’s a cool place to stay at, then perhaps the write up may sway you:

“Our goal is to offer guests a unique opportunity to experience life in a “Tiny House” and to re-live some of their childhood in our retro arcade (all 45 games on free-play!). The atmosphere we’ve tried to create is “fun & different”. We want AirBnB’ers from ages 6 – 106 to relax, have fun and feel at home here. We’d love to have you come back to visit again & maybe even tell your friends about us too!? We’ll do everything in our power to make sure your stay is awesome, just like you expect it to be.”

Rightio, we have dibs on this tiny place next summer 😉

image source: Airbnb

 



LEGO: The Amazing Pinball Machine

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Remember Vladimir van Hoek’s playable Lord Of The Rings pinball machine made from Lego? Well, not to be outdone, The Brothers Brick’s Bre Burns has created the ultimate playable space themed Lego pinball machine!

Boasting some 15,000 bricks, this Lego built Benny’s Spaceship Adventure pinball machine has to be seen and heard to be believed! The level of detail that Bre has undertaken is simply breathtaking. Using LEGO’s Mindstorms NXT programmable bricks, Bre has ensured that this masterpiece gives you aural pleasure while also keeping score, just like a real pinball machine. Find out more about the technical details and build process here.

image source: The Brothers Brick

While we are all collectively picking up our jaws of the floor, watch the video of Bre’s brilliant pinball machine and be in awe of the loving detail of her masterpiece. AMAZING STUFF!


source: The Brother Brick

 

Evolution Of The Ausretrogamer Fun Factory

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This post has been a long time coming!

Not content with the home office acting as our games room, Ms. ausretrogamer came up with the idea to transform the garage into a fun factory – a place where all of our retro gear would be setup to be played and enjoyed.

Once the overall design was pitched, it took a while for me to come around to convert the garage into a gaming space. The garage was basically going to provide an idyllic setting for all of our computers, consoles, arcade and pinball machines in the one space so that they could be enjoyed by anyone at anytime – no more fetching stuff out of cupboards and wiring them up to be used!

With the garage already sporting painted walls and ceiling, the next step was to make it secure from the elements – we didn’t want dust to come in and damage the delicate old school gear. Once the garage was secure and weather tight, the interior design was kicked off by Ms. ausretrogamer. Her eye for detail and use of space was second to none! I must admit, I had trouble picturing how the whole thing would look like, but I should not have had any doubt. Ms. ausretrogamer’s vision for the room was exactly what both of us had wanted, I just didn’t know it till I saw it done!

The games room, now called the ‘ausretrogamer fun factory‘ started taking shape once we relocated the computers, consoles and the Dreamcast kiosk on one side, the cupboards holding the precious software on the opposite side and the larger items (pinball and arcade machines) utilising the rear of the room. Every inch of the room was used to its fullest extent – no waste of space in this fun factory!

The ausretrogamer fun factory has evolved over the last few years, with old items making way for newer old items, with the overall design and function remaining true – which is an ideal space for friends and family to get together and have fun!

All great ideas start with a mess!

Starting the building process

Starting to take shape

Getting the console area setup using a Data Centre grade power-strip!

Testing 1, 2, 3 – we have POWER!

Getting the artwork setup

A comfy chair is a prerequisite!

Fun Factory MK I – console area

Fun Factory MK I – panoramic view

Fun Factory MK I – the pinball and arcade machines area

Fun Factory as it is TODAY! There have been quite a few moves and changes!

Fun Factory – the current pinball and arcade area. Fun times ahead!

If you intend on using any of the photos from our Ausretrogamer Fun Factory, please credit them back to this article – thank you.

 

Rising From The Ashes: Argonauts Pinball Club Tournaments Are Back!

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Like the phoenix rising from ashes, the Argonauts Pinball Club is back with new pinball machines and new tournament format with the same awesome group of pinball fanatics!

Come along to the Golden Fleece Hotel this Thursday (May 3rd) for the Argonauts Monthly Pinball Quest – The Horrid Hydra tournament. Bring your friends, bring your family, play pinball and soak up the fantastic atmosphere as Melbourne’s pinball community gather to battle it out for great prizes and IFPA points. Oh yeah, everyone is welcome, so you have no excuse!

The tournament format has changed to an 8 game limited qualifier, meaning that there is more time to socialise and hang out!

Tournament Details:

  • Qualifying time: 5:00pm to 9:00pm
  • Finals (start time): 9:15pm to 11:00pm (the aim is to be finished by 11:00pm, but it could run later)
  • Cost: $15.00 (entry fee covers ALL games for the night!)

The competition consists of limited qualifying and head-to-head final rounds. During qualifying, each player will play ONE game only on each machine and a SECOND game on one machine of their choosing. A point system will be used to rank each player’s best score on each machine. Those who rank highest at the end of qualifying will participate in the head-to-head final rounds.

This tournament will be managed through the rules and regulations of the IFPA.

Current Pinball Machine Lineup:

  • Medieval Madness Remake
  • Dialed In!
  • Indianapolis 500
  • Jack*Bot
  • The Shadow
  • Bally Playboy
  • Star Trek – The Next Generation

For more information visit the Argonauts Pinball Club on PinballScore.

image source: Argonauts Pinball Score

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Pinball: What Would Be Your Dream Theme?

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*** POLL CLOSED on May 9, 2018 ***

OK, it is time to head to Utopia where everything you want is there, including every pinball machine that doesn’t exist!

Having said that, in an ideal world like Utopia, which one of these pinball themes would you like to see made?

For the record, we would love an original Masters Of The Universe based pinball theme, with the player assuming the role of Prince Adam who has to become He-Man to free Eternia from the evil clutches of Skeletor! The playfield would be complete with Snake Mountain and Castle Grayskull interactive toys, left and right orbits and a couple of ramps to get the pinball juices flowing. Oh yeah, the artwork would have to be done by Alex Ross, with the below masterpiece as the backglass art!

source: sideshowtoy

This time around we will give you all more time to cast your very important vote – the poll will close on Wednesday, May 9! Spread the word and vote now or forever hold your peace.

We just hope Stern Pinball and/or Jersey Jack Pinball are reading this 😉