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GoldenEra – A Documentary about GoldenEye for the N64 will screen at the Astor for 1 night only!

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For all Nintendo 64 GoldenEye 007 fans in Melbourne, mark yourself busy, as Melbourne produced documentary, GoldenEra, will be screening at the prestigious Astor Theatre on the 10th of September for one night only!

Just in case you have been living off the grid, GoldenEra is a documentary film about one of the most influential video games of all time – Goldeneye 007. Celebrating its 25th anniversary, GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64 holds a special place in history and defined a generation of gamers. Made in the mid 90s at the birth of the 3D era, GoldenEye sold over 8 million copies, making a huge cultural impact on a generation of gamers due to its innovative mechanics and beloved multiplayer features.

The game was made by an inexperienced group of graduates from countryside England and went on to be a system seller for the Nintendo 64, outselling 1st party titles like Zelda. Most notably Goldeneye would set the stage for the FPS genre to dominate the gaming industry, ushering in a new era of console gaming.

This film celebrates a watershed moment in gaming history and explores the creative process behind the game, the culture in which innovation thrived, and the team from countryside England whose ambition, innovation and ingenuity resulted in countless hours of joy for players around the world.

Get your tickets now before they sell out!



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



Our Fun Factory Gets a RPI2DMD Retro Arcade Wall Clock

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We have always admired the Run-DMD clock and RPI2DMD arcade wall clocks, but getting one always proved elusive.

In October last year we serendipitously stumbled upon a new post on a UK pinball forum advertising a limited run of these DMD retro arcade clocks. We immediately registered our interest and the rest as they say, is history! The maker of these was going to do a run of about 30 units, so we definitely got lucky, as they got snapped up within minutes of the post going live!

Let the build begin!

We received our meticulously handmade RPI2DMD Retro Arcade Wall Clock in early January, which was amazing, considering all the international shipping disruptions due to the pandemic.

We must say, this amazing DMD panel is eye-poppingly gorgeous in real life and is quite large – which is a good thing. The DMD clock is connected via WiFi (it also has an Ethernet/RJ45 port), allowing us to login and configure our location (for time and weather information) and the animations we want to cycle through.

Speaking of animations, this thing is loaded! It has 5235 animations to be exact. The animations range from arcade and pinball attraction screens, logos, consoles, computers, to Christmas and Halloween GIFs to name just a few. There were also some *ahem* questionable adult animations, but we switched those off for obvious reasons.

Setting up the RPI2DMD

DMD Wall Clock

Specs of the RPI2DMD Retro Arcade Clock include:

  • Built on Raspberry Pi, Custom software, Colour panels, Remote accessibility and settings
  • Brightness settings dependant on the time of day (so it can go dim at night, and then on bright at 8am for example)
  • Edit the display duration (or switch the individual function off!), choose different fonts & background images
  • Display a 7-day weather forecast (using an API key from OpenWeatherMap)
  • WiFi and Ethernet connection
  • 5000+ animations across 14 categories

And of course, to do all of this, ideally you would need a Wifi Connection, or wired Ethernet (although not essential, highly recommended – the Weather forecast does NOT work without an internet connection).

The wait to get one of these was definitely worth it. It looks absolutely amazing and is always a great conversation starter.

Testing the RPI2DMD

Shinobi on DMD Wall Clock



Get Your DOS Gaming Fix With eXoDOS 5

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Are you of a certain vintage that you can recall battling archaic and extremely frustrating requirements/configs to get your DOS games playing on your PC?

If you answered yes, then eXoDOS (version 5) is here to help make things a lot easier. In a nutshell, eXoDOS obtains and catalogues games to make them playable for DOS and PC Booter platforms.

The eXoDOS v5.0 games collection is vast and can be played on any modern Windows PC without the frustrating configurations we used to endure and deal with back in the 286/386/486 days!

This platform is really cool, with awesome features like CD audio and 3dfx support. To play any game in the library, you just click on the title, and that’s it! Oh yeah, there is also a cool physical big box version too! Go on, go and have some DOS gaming fun.



A Rare 1990 ATARI STe Computer Promo Film

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If you were in the market for an Atari STE and were stumped on how to use, then this 28 minute promo film from 1990 may help!

The cheese factor is off the scale in this video, but we couldn’t look away, as there were some things we actually learned or were reminded of that we had forgotten about our 16-bit Atari!

Watch it, as you may learn something new too (or at least rejog your memory) 😉


source: Computer History Archives Project



Intoxicating Nostalgia: The LEGO Icons Atari VCS (10306) Set

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Here we were thinking it doesn’t get any better than Lego’s Nintendo Entertainment System set, but looks like we were terribly mistaken! Lego have now gone up another level with their amazing Atari VCS/2600 (10306) set! Just look at the intricate detail, it oozes an intoxicating aroma of nostalgia. The set contains 2,532 pieces that create the iconic woodgrain console, three game carts, a CX40 joystick, three-shelf cabinet and three 3D vignettes of classic 2D games!

Just like when the Lego NES set was released, this won’t be cheap. Slated at a retail price of AU$369.99, you can grab one from 1st August – not long to wait now!

image source: Brickfinder – Facebook



Nintendo PlayChoice Countertop

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We saw this Nintendo PlayChoice countertop machine and thought we’d share it with you!

We don’t recall coming across this countertop in any of our travels around Australia, so if you are like us, this may be the first time your eyes are feasting on such awesomeness! We have seen and played on the standup PlayChoice machines, but this one is definitely a rarity for us.

This one is for sale (at the time of writing) in Las Vegas for US$3,000. There countertop comes with 5 carts, Kung-Fu, Dr. Mario, Baseball Stars, Excitebike and Tecmo Bowl. However, it is missing a few components and the unit does have a few bumps and nicks. So if you are in the Vegas area and are keen on this expensive beauty, check out this post on Facebook to get in touch with the seller.

image source: Facebook



All English-Language SNES Manuals Are Now Available Online

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Retro gamers rejoice, you can finally put away your physical SNES game manuals as you can now use the SNES Manual Archive online library to check out any game manual from your smart device (or computer) anywhere in the world!

This amazing resource for nostalgic fans of videogaming history was painstakingly curated by a team of dedicated peeps lead by Peebs. To say we owe them all our gratitude would be a massive understatement!

PS: If you look closely, there are Super Famicom, N64 and Virtual Boy manuals too!

Story source: The Verge / image source: Reddit / Title image: Peebs



Introducing the Super Famicom SF-1 Mini (SNES TV)

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Every morning we do what most of us probably do when rolling out of bed  – we grab our phone and scroll through our Twitter timeline to see what we had missed while asleep!

This morning was no different till we came across a tweet from our Liverpudlian friend, Paul Darbyshire, who showcased a DIY Super Famicom SF-1 Mini that was fully integrated with a 5.5 inch LCD TV in a cute CRT case!

I mean just look at this thing – it’s so adorable! The creator of this amazing DIY is Limone Studio, so you should check out his DIY creation video here.

Oh yeah, now we need to find the ChoFamitsuku DIY kit (~ AU$55.00) to make our very own SF-1 mini!

SF-1 Mini Features:

  • 5.5 inch LCD screen
  • usb c-type 5v power supply
  • RGB output
  • Stereo sound



Review: Wonder Boy Collection

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Let’s get one thing straight, we are checking out the digital version of the Wonder Boy Collection, which is vastly different from the physical boxed edition from Strictly Limited Games. Just so you guys are informed, this digital version contains 4 Wonder Boy games, whereas the Strictly Limited Games (physical) edition has all 6 of the classic Wonder Boy titles, plus every Master System, Mega Drive/Genesis, Game Gear and arcade versions of those games, both in English and Japanese, for a grand total of 21 games – so you see, there is a pretty big difference!

OK, we have got that out of the way, let’s get into the 4 games that you get in the digital version of the Wonder Boy Collection. First off the bat (and our absolute favourite, because we grew up with it) is the arcade version of Wonder Boy (1986). The next one is another arcade version, Wonder Boy In Monster Land (1987), with the last two titles being Mega Drive/Genesis ports of  Wonder Boy in Monster World (1991) and (Wonder Boy) Monster World IV (1994).

This is not a bad little collection, but it does feel incomplete if you are a hardcore Wonder Boy fan. Considering there other titles in the main series left off this compilation, coupled with the remakes and Adventure Island ports, this could have been such a stellar collection worthy to be in everyone’s games library. Anyway, we digress!

If you are reading this, then you will know what types of games these are. Wonder Boy is an out and out platformer with jumping and collecting items on the way to rescuing his girlfriend – sound familiar? Yeah, it is in the Super Mario Bros. ilk, which isn’t a bad thing. The rest of the collection take this formula and sprinkle RPG elements to spice things up in each of the successive titles in the collection.

All games have the option to save/load states, modify the controls, rewind speeds and importantly, the video, which includes options to change the display, scaling and shaders – ensuring that you can retro it up to your heart’s content. The arcade ports have the additional options to change the number of lives, bonus lives and difficulty level, with Monster Land having the option to change how you use your special weapon. It would be remiss of us not to mention a blaring error on the Wonder Boy (1986) selection screen where there is reference to Tom-Tom’s girlfriend as Tanya instead of Tina. Hey, we know we are being very pedantic, but come on, this is elementary detail that should have been a no brainer.

All games are faithful to their original content, with the emulation accuracy being quite good on the Nintendo Switch. As it stands, for AU$39.99 (US$29.99), you get four pretty good Wonder Boy titles, but you can’t help it think how much more awesome it would have been if they added Monster Lair and Dragon’s Trap to this collection.



Disclaimer: The Nintendo Switch eShop code for the Wonder Boy Collection was provided by PR Hound.