The Pop-Culture E-Zine
Well, Thank Gawd It’s Friday, or better yet, #TGIF!
Friday always feels good as it is the end of the working week and knowing that the weekend shenanigans are nigh.
To make Friday flow even easier, we thought we’d go shopping for some cool retro gaming and general pop culture stuff that you may also be interested in. Oh yeah, if you are keen on any of the gear below, just click on the pic and it will take you to the relevant merchant/store – too easy, here we go!
Whoa, this new Ian MacLarty developed white-knuckle dodge’em-up is straight outta Melbourne!
You may be asking, what exactly is this game? Well, let us tell you, at its essence, JUMPGRID is a bullet hell hyper-Pac-Man. The player must survive an ever-moving cosmic obstacle course by deftly teleporting between nodes on the “jump-grid”. Clear all nodes to open a wormhole to the next level. Success requires only a few seconds of precision finger ballet, but touch any of the pulsing hazards and the level instantly resets, ready for you to try again, and again, and again… This is a game about honing your muscle memory until you learn to dance with your fingers!
Jumpgrid will be hitting PC/Steam, Mac and Itch.io on February 12 for US$4.99 / £3.99 / €3.99 / A$7.50.
image source: Ian MacLarty
It is no surprise that we (outside of Japan), missed out on a lot of cool gaming products, just like this Sony PSX DESR-7100 PlayStation 2 console!
The Sony PSX DESR-7100 is a digital video recorder that can be used to record and playback TV programs (on its hefty 250GB HDD), play your favourite PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 video games and of course, to blast your audio CDs on.
The DESR-7100 has interfaces (under the front panel) for two PlayStation memory cards, USB (to connect with the PSP) and Sony’s proprietary Memory Stick PRO Duo. The rear of the system has two PlayStation (DualShock / DualShock 2) controller ports, VGA, S-Video, composite video, RGB/SCART and RF (VHF and CATV connections).
The infrared remote makes the whole package feel more like a one stop media centre, which would have been mind blowing for us back in 2003!
This model (7100) came with a 250GB HDD, but the entire DESR range starts at the lower-spec models (DESR-5000) and goes all the way up to the top of the range DESR-7700 which includes all the bells and whistles for the time, like the Ghost Reduction Tuner and the introduction of the Broadcast Satellite (BS) inputs/outputs.
Oh yeah, the DESR range also introduced Sony’s XrossMediaBar (XMB) which we grew to love and use on the PSP, PS3 and 2008-era Bravia TVs!
Who has one of these? Hit us up on Twitter on Facebook and show us some photos so we can drool some more.
image source: eBay
We thought we’d seen every conceivable console variation that has ever existed, yep even the Pioneer CLD-A100 LaserActive that plays Mega Drive / Genesis carts, CDs and LaserDiscs, sadly, we were wrong (in a good way)!
Check out some of these amazing console variants (you may know some or most of them) and then go to the Console Variations site to drool over the rest!
Hyundai Comboy (NES variant sold in South Korea only)
N64 ANA (given away by All Nippon Airways (ANA) in April 1st 1999)
GameCube Panasonic Q (we knew about this one, but still cool to see it)
Nintendo Wii: 26k Gold aka Royal Wii (only 1 made!)
Atari Marlboro Lynx
Game & Car Navi HiSaturn
Sega Dreamcast: Maziora Edition
Sony PlayStation 10 Million (only 1 made)
Xbox Panzer Dragoon Orta
Atari 2600 jr. Black (only released in Ireland)
image source: Console Variations
[story source: Kotaku Australia]
We love seeing old photos of arcade games and parlours, especially ones from Eastern Europe – just like these photos uploaded on Flickr by Marcin Wichary from mid 1990s Poland.
If you look closely, you will find some interesting bootleg machines, but that doesn’t matter, as this is great to see what gamers got to play in Poland in the mid 1990s.
You can check out the rest of the photos on Flicker.
source: Marcin Wichary on Flickr
Here is something to ponder, what if classic video game consoles were made into cars?
Ponder no more, as Jennings FordDirect from the UK has answered our question – check them out!
image source: Jennings FordDirect
[story source: technobob]
Whoa, seemingly out of nowhere we get the biggest surprise (so far) of 2019 – The latest Numskull Designs Quarter Arcades GALAGA ¼ scale arcade replica machine is coming to Australia!
We were totally blown away with their Pac-Man ¼ scale machine (which we got to play at PAX Aus 2018), so to say we can’t wait to play their Galaga machine would be a gross understatement.
The new Galaga ¼ scale arcade machine is currently available for pre-order (AU$278) via EB Games Australia!
Who is in? Let us know on Twitter or Facebook.
image source: EB Games Australia
PLEASE NOTE: As at February 11 2019, this documentary has expired and is no longer available to view!
Don’t you just love SBS Viceland! For the next 30 days (starting January 11 2019), you can watch the awesome Nintendo Quest: The Unofficial And Unauthorised Nintendo Documentary for free on SBS OnDemand. Oh yeah, it is geo-locked, so it is Australian residents only (sorry everyone else).
For those of you that don’t know about this documentary – it is a fun film that follows Jay Bartlett, a fanatic video game collector, who, on a dare, tries to collect all 678 original NES games – a long-time dream of his. The kicker is, Jay must achieve this tall order in 30 days without using the Internet in any way. While following Jay on his adventure, the film also examines Nintendo’s cultural history, their on-going legacy, and specifically, the endurance of the NES. If you have ever played on a Nintendo system, not just the NES, then we highly recommend you watch this most unofficial and unauthorised Nintendo documentary ever! Oh yeah, it is free (to watch) for the next 30 days, so hop to it!
image source: Rob McCallum Films
Now this was a pleasant surprise from Jack (aka: NewOldStock)!
If you like your videos to be authentically gritty and grainy (like they were 30 years ago), then check out this one of the Classic Gaming Area at PAX Aus 2018 captured on a 1986 National (Panasonic) M5 VHS camera!
We spoke to Jack to tell us a bit more about how this cool video came about. Jack told us that he is an avid collector of vintage A/V equipment that he loves to restore and use – his dream is to ultimately become a filmmaker. The National (Panasonic) M5 camera that he used for this footage cost him AU$70 at Cash Converters – we reckon that is money well spent. He informs us that he wanted this particular brand and model due to its reliability and the fact that batteries are still being manufactured for it – some 32 years after its initial release (totally mind blowing)! Jack’s challenge to transfer the VHS footage to be viewed on the net was daunting, however with sheer determination and tenacity, he found an old DVD recorder in hard rubbish that he used to digitise the VHS footage – now that is fortuitous!
Thanks heaps to Jack and his hard work in creating this awesome video – we feel like we have been transported back to the 80s and absolutely love it! Enjoy!
source: OldNewStock
Thank you to our awesome friend Goose (on Twitter), for letting us know about these lovely little Nintendo console infographics.
We knew we had to share them with the rest of you! Now we just need to convince Entartika to create some for the SNES, N64 and GameCube.
image source: Fun Little Infographics on imgur