The Pop-Culture E-Zine
Ms ausretrogamer and I hit spa country in north western Victoria on a fine winter’s day a few weekends ago.
From the Daylesford Sunday Market to local vintage bazaars and The Amazing Mill Markets in Ballarat and Daylesford, we found vintage goodies that warmed our cockles.
Last week we reported on the imminent new Atari hardware, and now we can tell you a tad more. With just 3 days to go till the official Gameband Kickstarter launch (1:00am February 9th AEDT), some teaser sneak peek photos have emerged of the Gameband Atari and Terraria Edition smartwatches.
As can be seen in the photos (from left to right); there’ll be a straight Gameband Edition (Black, sleek and shiny), an Atari Edition (red, black and retro) and a Terraria Edition (brown, green and indie). Apparently there will be a super early bird price on Kickstarter (starting at $99USD) for a limited quantity – too bad the Kickstarter will launch at the ungodly hour of 1:00am our time :-/
According to Gameband’s CEO, Feargal Mac Conuladh, the Gameband Smartwatches will be “An insanely powerful Smartwatch, wrapped in gaming design and content.”. We shall see!
We reached out to Feargal to state that the launch was going to be at 1:00am on February 9 (our time), meaning a lot of Australians would miss out on the early bird special. He responded thusly:
@ausretrogamer you telling me gamers down-under are in bed by 1am? 😉
— Feargal Mac Conuladh (@feargalmac) February 7, 2017
It’s always good to see a CEO having a sense of humour!
When was the last time you truly got excited over a cartridge based console release? I know for myself, it was when the Nintendo 64 was announced – Super Mario 64 totally blew my mind, and that controller, oh man, I still love that controller (even though a lot of you don’t!). I just realised, that excitement for a new cart based console was almost two decades ago!
Well, start getting excited people (if you haven’t already), the Retro VGS console is generating a buzz in the gaming community like the systems we knew and loved in the 1990s. With the imminent Kickstarter campaign launch (it should launch any day / any minute now!), we can’t contain our excitement – this is the latest early bird pricing details we could find:
“The final early bird pricing of the RETRO VGS Kickstarter has been announced, and it appears to be starting at $299 for the standard black model, and $349 for the Kickstarter Exclusive colours. They’ve announced that the early bird will be limited to 500 units.
This indicates that the standard pricing for the system will be $349 for the standard black model, and $399 for the Kickstarter variants, which is in line with what we’ve been hearing from Mike Kennedy and the team over at RETRO VGS over the last couple of weeks.
With the recent pricing controversy, it’s nice to see that people will have a chance to grab the system at a lower price.”
As we know, Mike Kennedy and his team have been working tirelessly to ensure that the Retro VGS is a resounding success. The Retro VGS will truly be keeping it retro!
image source: RetroVGS
NOTE: Since publication, the Retro VGS crowdfunding campaign has kicked off on IndieGoGo – check it out now!
From Real Genius, War Games and Weird Science, to TRON, Spies Like Us and Cloak & Dagger, how many other 80s movies can you spot from this montage of computer hacking in films?
The team at Found Item Clothing have done a stellar job in collating and presenting the silliest, best and iconic hacking scenes from the big screen. Oh the nostalgia!
Source: FoundItemClothing
We have featured CineFix’s 8-Bit Cinema creations on our site before, but not to this extent. The following cult movie 8-Bit remakes are the new pinnacle in pop culture fusion.
There is no need to head to the nearest cinema complex, just get that popcorn out of the microwave, sit back on your comfortable recliner, put your feet up and watch these luscious pixelated remakes. You definitely won’t be disappointed.
Donnie Darko
The Fifth Element
Star Trek
Pulp Fiction
Anchorman
Inception
Blade Runner
The Big Lebowski
The Shining
Batman The Dark Knight
A Clockwork Orange
Iron Man
Hunger Games
Godzilla vs Monsters
Kick Ass
The Amazing Spider-Man
Finding Nemo
8-Bit Cinema videos source: CineFix
Ever wondered what retro technology (including retro gaming systems) would be worth today when you factor in inflation? Wonder no more – the kind people at Portable Universe have created this awesome ‘Money Behind Retro Tech’ infographic documenting some of the most iconic retro technology of our time.
Money Behind Retro Tech by Portable Universe
Survival of the fittest or just plain bad business decisions. Just as Betamax was left in the wake of the VHS behemoth, the video games market is strewn with carcasses of systems and games that just never made it.
Some of history’s most spectacular gaming console flops come from two of the industry’s heavy hitters, Atari and Sega. The hardware manufacturing death knell was getting quite loud at Atari – they decided to throw in the towel and quit making games consoles after the Atari Jaguar was caught in the crossfire of the Sega versus Nintendo battle of the 1990s. The Jaguar was rushed to market and suffered the consequences. Selling fewer than 250,000 units just wasn’t going to cut it. Perhaps Atari should have done the math (get it!) before they embarked on the Jaguar.
A few years after Atari ceased making hardware, it was Sega’s turn to wave the console making white flag. Once a pillar of the video games console industry, Sega’s Dreamcast was met with initial enthusiasm but Sega also abandoned making consoles after the Dreamcast was smashed by the new kid on the block, Sony’s PlayStation 2.
As for gaming flops, Atari’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial takes the gong. The game was rushed (it took 5 weeks to develop) to retail stores for the 1982 Christmas season but was such a disappointment, that millions of unsold game cartridges ended up in landfill in the New Mexico desert. Atari ordered more E.T. cartridges to be made than there were installed Atari VCS 2600 units! Again, Atari should have DONE THE MATH.
I do not condone graffiti, but when I see ‘street art’, I am always in awe of the talented artists that came up with the idea and created their masterpiece (well, they are masterpieces to me).
Art is quite personal, therefore each and every one of us will take something different from each piece being viewed. With that said, check out these clever retro gaming inspired masterpieces:
San Francisco, it may not have Disneyland, but what it does have is an arcade aficionado’s paradise – the Mechanical Museum, or ‘Musée Mécanique’.
Located at Pier 45 in Fisherman’s Wharf, this wonderland is Mecca for arcade nostalgia buffs. Once you enter the museum, you are greeted by familiar sounds of coins dropping into machines, pinball bumpers being hammered, plastic fire buttons being mashed, and good old Zoltar providing fortunes – music to the nostalgic ear. This Musée contains one of the world’s largest (over 200) privately owned collections of coin-operated mechanical musical instruments and antique arcade machines in their original working condition. The best part is, you can play them all!
After admiring Laffing Sal, the very first game that took my fancy was the original Pong. I had never seen one in real life, so this was an experience to behold. The sharp and square cabinet is a testament to industrial design. The machine still works, even after all these years of punishment. The round dials were still responsive; and yes, after being down a few points, I did beat my less-experienced wife.
The most difficult decision in the Musée is where to go first, and what to see next. It is a huge place! It is akin to being a kid in a candy store. But after Pong, we proceeded to the ‘mechanical’ machines, built 80+ years ago. No photos can do these old machines justice. They have to be seen and touched in the flesh. Their build quality is second to none. Now I understand why people say “they don’t build them like they used to”. These things are built like tanks and are priceless relics.
Interspersed among the antique coin operated machines are pinball tables and arcade games from the Golden Era – Ms Pac-Man, Galaga, Pole Position, Moon Patrol, Sprint, Robotron 2084, and Dig Dug – to name a few. First I chose to play the 1962 electro-mechanical pinball table ‘Olympics’. I managed to draw some onlookers, fascinated by the bumper noises. I felt like a teenager, feeding off their attention. Once the table was tilted, it was game over and time for me to move onto the next machine.
At the rear of the Musée, you will find the largest concentration of golden era games (Centipede, Spy Hunter, Rally X, Battlezone and others) as well as more modern arcade machines, including SNK’s Neo Geo cabinets. Let’s just say, I spent a considerable amount of time (and money) in this area.
After prying myself (and my wife) away from these machines, we walked the floor of the Musée to (again) saviour the old and the not so old in coin operated machines. During this stroll one thing struck me, there were families containing multiple generations all enjoying every aspect of this place. There were parents showing their kids Pac-Man, grandmother’s having a go on Bally’s Sharpshooter, and kids generally wide-eyed at the wonderment that was within the walls of the Musée.
If you are an arcade video games player and you are in the vicinity of San Francisco, head to Pier 45 at Fisherman’s Wharf to soak up some nostalgia at Musée Mécanique.
To view all 111 photos from Musée Mécanique, hit the album on Facebook.
Place: Musée Mécanique
Where: Pier 45 (Shed A), Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco, CA 94133
Tel: (415) 346-2000
Hours of operation:
Mon-Fri 10:00am-7:00pm;
Sat-Sun 10:00am-8:00pm;
Holidays 10:00am-8:00pm
It was 1986 when I got my grubby mits on the new, sleek and all beige Commodore 64C. Like numerous others around the world, I affectionately called it the C64.
The Family Pack it came in was the ‘America’s Cup’ edition. It included various peripherals (joysticks, paddles, datasette) and games (Howzat Cricket, Arnie Armchair’s America’s Cup Challenge, Le Mans and International Soccer) to get started in 8-bit computing and gaming. I truly thought this was gaming nirvana (and a much better option than the Atari 2600).
Our Commodore 64C
The C64 was a versatile machine – it could load games via cartridge, cassette and 5.25″ floppy diskettes.
Loading games on tape wasn’t fun – they took ages to load, and there was a propensity for them to fail. Nothing drove me insanely mad than having to rewind and reload a game and wait another 30+ minutes for it to load. Oh well, it was one way of ensuring we got to play outside while we waited for the games to load.
The best way to experience games was either on cartridge or floppy disks. The majority of games were available on both cassette and disk. Cartridges were too expensive to manufacture and limiting when compared to tape or disk.
The C64 enjoyed many arcade conversions and film tie-in games, like Robocop, Batman, and The Untouchables. Unfortunately, many of the other film tie-in games were sub-par or completely crap. Nevertheless, the trusty C64 had plenty of great games to satisfy everyone’s taste.
In 1987, when the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Sega Master System were released, I had thoughts about selling the C64 and shelling out for the shiny new grey Nintendo shoebox. Finding it hard to part with the C64, I ended up keeping it – which was a great decision!
After all these years, I still have my original C64, I just wish I had kept the box. It has lost some of its beautiful beige colour, but it still looks good to me. It has aged gracefully. I eventually jumped ship onto the Atari ST and then console gaming via the Sega Mega Drive, but the C64 was always close by.
The Commodore 64 had a number of peers in the 8-bit computing market, namely the Amstrad CPC464 and the ZX Spectrum. But at the end of the day, enjoying total global dominance, the C64 was ensured the 8-bit computing throne and its place in retro computing history.
Long live the Commodore 64!