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PAX Aus 2024 Panel Schedule Announced

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With only a month to go till PAX AUS 2024 (Ed: wow, not long to go now!), we thought we’d share some of the panels that will be on at this year’s event.

To check the full schedule of panels so you can map out your weekend at PAX Aus, go here now!

Friday, October 11:

  • Storytime with Julian Wilton, Creative Director of Massive Monster | Main Theatre, 12:00pm – 1:00pm

  • Fireside with Abubakar Salim | Main Theatre, 3:00pm – 4:00pm

  • Fireside with Sonia Coronado Cuesta, Senior Music Designer at PlayStation | Quokka Theatre, 5:00pm – 6:00pm

  • Content Creating with Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses: Finding Acceptance within Gaming | Fruitbat Theatre, 1:00pm – 2:00pm

  • Career Storytellers | Dropbear Theatre, 10:30 – 11:30am

  • Creating Armour and Props with EVA Foam | Cosplay Theatre, 12:30pm – 1:30pm

  • Civilization VII Developer Panel: Bringing Your Civ World to Life | Quokka Theatre, 11:00am – 12:00pm

  • Xbox presents: In Conversation with Ryan Warden, Production Director of Avowed: Lifting the lid on Production | Quokka Theatre, 3:00pm – 4:00pm

  • Fireside: Bringing Lord of the Rings lore to the Art of Tales of the Shire, presented by Wētā Workshop | Main Theatre, 5:00 – 6:00pm

Saturday, October 12:

  • Penny Arcade Make-A-Strip | Main Theatre, 11:00am – 12:00pm

  • The Custodians of Lord of the Rings bringing Hobbit lore to Tales of the Shire, presented by Wētā Workshop | Quokka Theatre, 11:00 – 12:00pm

  • Crafting Characters: The Style and Substance of FINAL FANTASY XIV | Main Theatre, 1:00pm – 2:00pm

  • Making Music in the Games Industry | Dropbear Theatre, 2:30pm – 3:30pm

  • MOUSE: P.I. For Hire – First Look: Developer Playthrough | Quokka Theatre | 3:00 – 4:00pm

  • Fireside Chat With Josh Weier – Project Lead On Portal 2 | Quokka Theatre, 5:00pm – 6:00pm

  • Forging a new league of legends: gaming, mental health and masculinity | Dropbear Theatre, 4:30pm – 5:30pm

  • Sea Shanties you say? Yahaarghh! | GenerOZity Wombat Theatre, 9:00 – 11:00 pm

  • Airbrushing 101: Airbrushing for cosplay, props and minis (Live painting demo) | Cosplay Theatre, 10:30am – 11:30am

  • So you want to be a Voice Actor? | Main Theatre, 3:00pm – 4:00pm

Ausretrogamer’s Alex Boz at the ‘Blast From The Past’ panel at PAX Aus

Sunday, October 12:

  • World Of Vtubers | Dropbear Theatre, 10:30am – 11:30am

  • Fireside with Mark Meer | Main Theatre, 12:00pm – 1:00pm

  • Zelda Universe Presents: More Than A Damsel | Quokka Theatre, 1:00pm – 2:00pm

  • Cosplay Central Crown Championship Finals | Main Theatre, 2:00 – 3:30 pm

  • Overshare: Handling Mental Health Topics in Stream Chat | Kookaburra Theatre,  2:30 – 3:30pm

  • Fireside with Teddy Dief and Karrie Shao | Quokka Theatre, 3:00 – 4:00pm

  • One-Shot Wonders | Writing D&D5e One-Shot adventures | Dropbear, 4:30 – 5:30pm

 

Play A Huge Pinball Machine In The Centre of London Courtesy Of PlayStation UK

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A giant PlayStation pinball machine you can play in the middle of London 👀

PlayStation UK has teamed up with the UEFA Champions League Festival to bring lucky Londoners a huge interactive Astro Bot pinball machine!

This is all in celebration of this weekend’s UCL Final between Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid.

Whatever you do, do not rage tilt this thing!

 

The Sony HB-F5 MSX2 Computer – The Gaming System That Came Before the PlayStation

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On a recent hunt for retro gaming systems we came across the Sony HB-F5, Sony’s first MSX2 based computer gaming system that was released in Japan in 1985.

There were two HB-F5 variants that were released – grey and back. Both of these colour variants are quite rare and difficult to find in working condition (and with working game carts).

These aren’t cheap, but if you are after this oddity, there is one currently available (at the time of publishing) on Facebook Marketplace for $1,050 – and you thought the PlayStation 5 was expensive!

PS: Don’t mistake that RGB21 output for SCART – they look similar, but the pinouts have differing designations!

image source: Facebook Marketplace



The Making of Karateka – The Interactive Documentary Coming Soon From Digital Eclipse

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Before The Last Express… before Prince of Persia… there was Karateka

Famed game designer Jordan Mechner was an 18-year-old college student when he started making the martial arts adventure that would become one of the most influential games of the Apple II era.

Four decades later, the story behind this groundbreaking game has been meticulously reconstructed into an innovative interactive documentary by Digital Eclipse, the team behind acclaimed collections including the Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection.

Unveiled minutes ago during Microsoft’s ID@Xbox showcase, The Making of Karateka will be available on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S as well as Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC (Steam, GOG, and Epic Store). A simultaneous release on all platforms is expected later this northern hemisphere summer.

MORE DETAILS:



Gamer Golf or Real Golf?

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By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.

Sometimes it’s hard to decide to play golf on Nintendo Switch or play on a real course in the elements. I recently had an experience where I wished that I had stayed home and played golf on my Switch or Playstation.

When you play golf on Switch, you don’t have to worry about other golfers, especially ones with bad attitudes, coming up behind you and giving you anxiety. Playing real golf makes me a little anxious at times anyway.

I was playing on this small, 9-hole course the other day and a light rain was coming down; it was the kind of weather that I liked playing golf in. When I was playing on the 4th hole, a fun par 3, I noticed this older gentleman coming up quickly on the hole behind me. He was playing very fast. When I put my ball into the hole, my phone rang. It was an important call. I walked off the course slightly and took the call. The elderly gentleman played the par 3 rapidly. When he was done, he approached me with a heated look on his face.

He asked, “Do you want to play together?”

“I’d probably slow you down,” I replied. “You can go ahead of me.”

He chuckled and walked on in a huff. I wanted to play alone, and he looked like a fast player. There was no one behind me after the call, so I could take my time.

After some time passed, I was setting up my shot on the 6th tee, and I saw the older gentleman talking to the ground crew guys who were working on the putting green of the hole ahead, hole 7. It looked like he was yelling, and he kept pointing at me. His arms were very animated. I hit my shot with a 3 wood and the ball landed near a sand trap. As I was walking to my ball, I saw the older gentleman coming toward me in the distance.

As he began to approach me, I took a few practice swings with my pitching wedge. My hand on the grip got tighter as he came closer. He looked upset. I stopped studying my shot and just stared at him. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks, and turned around and started walking in the opposite direction. He was muttering something as he left my hole.

After that interaction, I shot 2-over. So, not a bad day on the course in hindsight.

Golf in my living room never involves worrying about any speedy, angry players rushing me. I’ve probably played a round of golf on “Tiger Woods PGA Tour,” on Playstation, hundreds of times, and not once have I ever felt hurried while on a difficult hole.



Guide: How To Softmod Your PS VITA

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This guide will provide you the steps to permanently mod your PS VITA (2000 Series models!) using the browser-based hack/jailbreadk. This mod is perfectly safe and allows you to run emulators, homebrew apps and load/play backups of your PS Vita, PSP and PS1 games. This mod will work on any PS Vita firmware version (up to and including v3.74).

As mentioned above, this guide is intended specifically for the PS Vita 2000 models, however, most steps can still be followed to mod your 1000 model. As for modding the PS TV, there are a number of differences in the process, therefore we recommend you to visit VitaHacks site for the specific guide.

OK, so you want to unleash your PS VITA, then follow along!

Before you begin, you’ll need the following items:

  • SD2Vita Pro – PS Vita Card Adapter (approx. AU$13); and
  • Samsung 256GB EVO Plus Micro SD (approx. AU$34)

NOTE: Prices are correct as at date of publication!

First thing – grab your fully charged PS Vita 2000, SD2Vita adapter and micro SD card!

Insert the micro SD card in the SD2VITA adapter

Check your system’s software (firmware) version to ensure you are at the latest version (3.74)

Connect your PS Vita to your local WiFi, and log into the PSN Store at least once before starting this mod!

Installing VitaDeploy and Henkaku is as easy as opening up the web browser app and navigate to jailbreak.psp2.dev

At the HENlo – a Playstation Vita Jailbreak site that appears, tap on “Unlock my Vita” and then “Unlock”

On the black screen menu, navigate to and select “Install henkaku” and press the X button. Once that is done, do the same for “Install VitaDeploy”. Once done, navigate down to “Exit and mount sd2vita to ux0” and press the X button

Don’t forget to insert the SD2Vita adapter (with the micro SD) into your PS Vita and ensure your device is connected to the internet before performing the next steps!

Open the Vita’s Settings app, and open “HENkaku settings”

Select “Enable Unsafe Homebrew” check-mark

Open the VitaDeploy app and navigate to “Install a different OS” -> “Quick 3.65 install”. The app will download and install v3.65. It will ask you if you really want to do it — just press X to confirm. Once complete, the Vita will reboot.

Open the Settings app and then go to System Information to confirm that you are now on v3.65 with the enso permanent hack

Now it’s time to setup the SD2Vita storage! Open VitaDeploy and navigate to Miscellaneous -> Format a storage device. Select “Format target storage” and follow any prompts. Reboot the device.

Open up your Settings app, then navigate to Devices -> Storage Devices, and enable YAMT. Reboot the console.

Open VitaDeploy -> File Manager, and make sure that the “uma0” partition is visible. Navigate to the “ux0” partition and select all of the folders except “SceloTrash” (use the SQUARE button to select). Press the TRIANGLE button and select “Copy”.

Navigate to the “uma0” partition, press TRIANGLE to bring up the menu, and select “Paste”.

Return to the Settings app and navigate to Devices > Storage Devices. Set the following options:
– ux0: SD2Vita
– uma0: Internal Storage 

Reboot the Vita, then head to Settings -> System Information and the memory card size should now reflect the capacity of your microSD card (in our case, our micro SD’s capacity is 256GB)

Now to the business end of the mod – Installing the core homebrew apps! 

Open the VitaDeploy app and naviate to App Downloader, and install the following apps:

– VitaShell – file management system
– VitaDB Downloader – Library tool to browse and download various apps and homebrew games
– Adrenaline – a PSP environment that allows you to play PSP and PS1 games with perfect performance
– PKGj – Powerful app that allows you to install backups of your PS Vita, PSP, and PS1 games
– Custom Themes Manager – as the name implies, this allows you to manage custom themes
– iTLS Enso – adds TSL v1.2 to the device, which fixes many plugin errors, adds more installer options, allows secure (https) internet access, and restores access to the PS Store
– Registry Editor – this allows you to improve the color saturation on the PS Vita 2000 models

Once all the apps have been downloaded and installed, exit the VitaDeploy app and reboot your Vita
NOTE: We installed additional apps, which aren’t mandatory

Now that your PS Vita 2000 has been jailbroken, feel free to explore and install custom themes (like we did – see below)

Once you have that cool custom theme, it’s time to check out the homebrew apps, emulators and homebrew games in VitaDB Downloader. Once done there, grab the backups of your favourite PS Vita, PSP and PS1 games via PKGj 

We used the SwitchView UI frontend (from VitaDB Downloader) to make our Vita look like the Nintendo Switch!

Finally, time to enjoy and play some games on your freshly modded PS Vita! Bonsai!

all images remain the property & © of ausretrogamer.com



Atari’s AKKA ARRH Is Finally Available

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Do The Math with Atari’s AKKA ARRH

I really really don’t like the crapola that the new Atari dishes out (or promoting anything with their name on it), however, there are a few exceptions! Their Atari 50 Anniversary compilation was vintage Atari, with great curated content. It now looks like we can add AKKA ARRH to this very small and illustrious list of titles from the new Atari.

AKKA ARRH is the latest game from legendary game designer Jeff Minter and Llamasoft! AKKA ARRH is a frenzied kaleidoscope of neon insanity with playful psychedelic landscapes, which is right up Minter’s alley, as he takes on one of the rarest arcade games of the 80s era and turned it into a tough blaster for all of us to enjoy now! .

Will you become the hero in this mind bending universe? AKKA ARRH is available on pretty much every platform for under AU$30.00: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Steam and the new Atari VCS!

 

image source: Atari Interactive



Zen Studios’ Pinball FX now on Xbox and PlayStation

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Being in a future timezone, we in Australia had to wait a few extra hours for Zen Studios’ Pinball FX to hit Xbox and PlayStation consoles!

The latest in the FX series, Pinball FX has graduated from early access to full release at the Epic Games store, as well as making its debut on PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One! Nintendo Switch fans will have to wait a bit longer.

This is a new era of digital pinball from Zen Studios, including a day-one, ever-expanding lineup of 86 tables, plus an impressive suite of new features, the revolutionary pinball platform is inching ever closer to the real silverball game. If you love playing pinball video games, then jump on this right now and enjoy the Wild West Rampage table at no cost, and check out the trial modes for all other tables.

All returning tables from previous editions have been fully remastered in Unreal Engine, with ray-tracing-enhanced, 4K-HDR visuals, as well as upgraded Pro Physics. Not lacking plentiful fresh downloadable content, Pinball FX also introduces three brand new releases: Borderlands®: Vault Hunter Pinball, Brothers in Arms®: Win the War Pinball and The Addams Family (itself including a never-before-seen enhanced play, as with all Williams classics). At the same time, console players can get their hands on more than 15 tables for the first time that Pinball FX Early Access players enjoyed in 2022, such as Star Wars Pinball: The Mandalorian, World War Z Pinball, DreamWorks Pinball, five Zen Originals, plus Williams classics World Cup Soccer and The Machine: Bride of Pin-Bot. Zen will release new tables regularly, many involving exciting new licensed IPs – most immediately, Legendary Pictures’ Godzilla vs. Kong.

Go on, get flippin’ peeps!


source: Zen Studios



Playing ‘The Last of Us’ Again

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By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.

After watching the HBO smash hit “The Last of Us,” I think I’ll go back and play the original game again. The popular series tells the story of a smuggler and a teenage girl in a zombie-infested world.

When I first played “The Last of Us” when it was released in 2013, I thought the action-adventure, survival horror game was captivating and enjoyable, but I wasn’t into it that much. I played it like crazy for about a week, and then I moved on to something else. I did start a new job around the time I bought the epic game, so that might’ve contributed to me losing interest.

The HBO series has an incredible production budget, and it unquestionably shows. You are in the series’ post-apocalyptic 2023. The attention to detail is impeccable. It’s been almost ten years since I’ve played the game; breaking the game out again after watching the show sounds fun.

The show has done an amazing job creating the look of the blind infected, the “clicker” zombies, from the video game. I can see several award nominations for the series on the horizon. They are even scarier in the television series. In Episode 2, when Joel fought with one of the “clickers,” the choreography was taken directly from the massively successful game.

“The Last of Us” television show has knocked it out of the park since its debut on HBO. I thought the zombie genre was sort of getting stale, but “The Last of Us” feels like a fresh spin on the genre. The cinematography of the first three episodes has been visually flawless.

According to the industry website gamesindustry.biz, the television series is drawing in new “The Last of Us” game players, too. After the show’s release, sales jumped in the United Kingdom. Sony has already sold 37 million “The Last of Us” themed video games since the release of the original.

With only a small sample of three episodes, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a Season 2, in 2024 or ’25. By then, time allowing, I can be caught up on playing some of the franchise. It’s a rich world that the developers of “The Last of Us” series have created for new, different mediums.



Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration – Steelbook Edition

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We are late to Atari’s 50th Anniversary party, but we are glad that we are!

We waited to see what everyone thought of the compilation before pulling the trigger, and it has been overwhelmingly positive – which was great to see! With 100 games, surely you’d find several absolute gems.

Since we wanted the Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration in physical format, we inadvertently stumbled upon the JB Hi-Fi exclusive Steelbook Edition pre-order, which will be available on November 25th. Well, without hesitation, we put in our pre-order and can’t wait for this Friday to roll around!

Anyone else grabbing the Steelbook Edition for the Nintendo Switch?

image source: Five Star Games