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Review of the Official SNK Book – NEOGEO: A Visual History

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When you grab hold of a tome by Bitmap Books you immediately feel its quality in your hands. Like every other Bitmap Books publication, the high standard in aesthetics extends to great content within.

We found that with each page turn of the NEO-GEO: A Visual History book our pupils were dilating in joy at the eye popping and gorgeous visuals (the photography and artwork throughout this book is simply sublime) and the content on each page, like the rare interviews with key SNK staff (Yasuyuki Oda, Tatsuhiko Kanaoka and Hideki Asanaka) and the brilliant master games list for NEO-GEO, among other great content, simply elevates the book to bible status.

It is easy to see that the NEO-GEO: A Visual History book was a labour of love for its creators. The loving and painstaking detail that has gone into each of the 400 pages makes the reader stop and absorb it all before turning to the next eye popping page. With SNK’s official blessing, this is the one and only definitive English language book you will ever need based on the great NEO-GEO video game line, from the MVS, AES, CD to the Hyper 64 and NEO-GEO Pocket systems, and the aforementioned master games list. This book will be a permanent fixture on your coffee table for ease of access to great content and reference (oh yeah, and to show off its beauty to your friends).

If you are a NEO-GEO fan (or even if you are not!) or know of someone that is a NEO-GEO fan, this book is an absolute MUST GET! With Christmas around the corner, you can’t go wrong with this as a gift for yourself or for that SNK fan you know will appreciate this fantastic publication.

If you can only buy one video games related book this year, then let me make your decision quite easy, get NEO-GEO: A Visual History now!

NEO-GEO: A Visual History Collector’s Edition is available from:

  • Pixel Crib $109.99 AUD (free Australia-wide delivery)

What you get in the NEO-GEO: A Visual History Collector’s Edition:

  • The book comes protected in a full-colour heavy duty board slipcase
  • A set of 5 high quality A4 art prints protected within a card wallet
  • Comes with a 25mm black plated soft enamel pin badge
  • A sticker set comprising 2 A6 stickers of famous Neo-Geo logos

You better hurry, as the Collector’s Edition book is in limited quantity and will never be produced again!

The NEOGEO: A Visual History book (only) is available from:

Do yourself a favour and get this now. You won’t regret it!

NEOGEO: A Visual History was supplied for review by Bitmap Books and Pixel Crib

 

Galencia Blasts Onto Your C64

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Fire up your trusty Commodore 64 and grab Jason Aldred’s brilliant new shoot’em up Galencia.

For those that have been away on Mars and have just landed back on Earth, Galencia is a fast action shoot ’em up for the C64 in the mould of Galaga, but even better! Yes, it is that good that we reckon it is even better than Galaga – there, we said it.

Galencia features 50 action packed levels with asteroid fields, challenging stages, boss battles, ebb and flow difficulty curve and siren enemy with tractor beam for double ship action (Ed: oo’er!). The game includes gorgeous intro, launch and completion sequences, coupled with 6 unique SID chiptunes for your aural pleasure.

Blast-Off!

But wait, there is more! In-game options include:

  • Load, Save and Reset High Scores
  • Extensive CRT options including 3 levels of Starfield Brightness
  • 3 different Score Palettes
  • Tournament Mode
  • Music and Simultaneous Sound Effects or Sound Effects only
  • 3 selectable difficulty levels; and
  • Pause and Quit game options

There are many great people behind great games, just like the peeps that had a hand in creating Galencia. We can all thank these talented group of people for making such a wonderful and sublime game:

  • Jason Aldred: programming and graphics
  • Pulsebot: all music and some sound effects
  • Saul Cross: additional graphics and sound effects
  • Lobo: physical artwork including box and manual
  • Mark Hardisty: manual back cover illustration
  • Flemming Dupont: concept art
  • Jakob Chen-Voos: Protovison

Even the great Julian ‘Jaz’ Rignall gives his sizzling approval!

You can grab the digital version right now via itch.io for US$4.99 (which is an absolute steal!), or for the more traditionalists among us, Galencia will be available on physical media from Friday, November 17 via Protovision Games, just take a look at these tangible temptations:

  • Cassette (without box) €10.00 – comes on a green cassette with a j-card that can be flipped around for an alternative cover picture. The tape comes in a neon green jewel case (front side is fully transparent, only back is neon green).
  • Cassette (boxed) €30.00
  • Disk (boxed) €30.00
  • Cartridge (boxed) €40.00
  • Disk and Cartridge Special Edition (boxed) €50.00

All boxed editions of Galencia will come in a fully printed cardboard box with custom inlays to hold the disk, tape or cartridge, which will also include:

  • a full colour manual with 16 carefully designed pages (A5 sized),
  • Galencia coaster with a scratch free glass surface,
  • Bee key ring that can serve you as a trophy when you battle against vermin,
  • Big Galencia sticker that you can stick on your disk sleeve if you have the disk version; and
  • While stocks last – the first 200 boxed version orders will receive an additional small Galencia sticker!

With the Disk and Cartridge special edition, both physical media will be in the one box with all of the above inclusions, plus a space amulet that is much needed in higher levels of Galencia, as it has been reported to promote good fortune!

Oh yeah, the game works on both PAL and NTSC C64 computers, with all physical editions containing the tape and disk digital images. If you don’t have a C64, then emulation is fully supported through VICE.

So what are you waiting for, go and pilot the 1981 Galencia Fighter to restore order, before it’s too late!

The game is never over!

The eyes have it!

Credit where credit is due

Tough choice – will you grab Galencia on cart?

On disk?

Or on tape? The choice is yours (you can’t go wrong!)

Time to squash some bugs!

Go on, get blastin’

image source: Jason Aldred – Galencia HQ

 

Commodore 65: Rarer Than Rocking Horse Poop!

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Back in February 2015 we told you about the Commodore 65 (C65) that sold for a then record of AUD$26,915.

Fast forward to today (November 9, 2017), and the latest C65 on eBay (serial number 000016) has sold for a whopping (and now new record price) AUD$123, 449! Geez we could buy a lot of pinball machines with that money.

Interestingly, the listing was deleted from eBay after the auction ended – time to speculate starts now!

 

image source: eBay

 

The C64 Mini Is Coming In 2018

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Just in case you have been busy drooling over the SNES Classic Mini, you may have missed the news that the greatest 8-bit computer, the Commodore 64, will also be joining the Mini stable!

Slated for release in 2018, The C64 has told us that this reborn C64 Mini will feature high-def output via HDMI, a pixel filter for pixel perfect graphics, 2 x USB ports, a classic style joystick (like the Comp Pro!) and most importantly, 64 built in games!

The list of included games cover every kind of gaming genre, including sports titles like California Games, awesome shmup action via Armalyte, and platforming shenanigans on Impossible Mission II, just to name a few!

2018 can’t come fast enough!

image source: The C64

 

NES Paint Over: Touching Up The Classics

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Have you ever wanted to touch up your favourite NES games? Perhaps make them brighter or make the graphics pop? Well, a talented digital artist by the name of Andrés Moncayo, has done it!

Andrés has digitally painted over some of the most iconic NES games like Duck Hunt, Contra, Double Dragon II: The Revenge and Zelda II – The Adventure of Link among other fan faves. Andrés has ensured that his versions keep the spirit of the original games.

We don’t know about you, but we absolutely reckon Andrés has nailed these touch ups! If you would like to see the rest of Andrés Moncayo’s NES paint overs, go and check them out here.

source: Andrés Moncayo

 

Superman 64: The Worst Video Game Ever Made

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By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.

When I was a kid, I was so ecstatic when I read that Nintendo 64 was releasing a Superman game. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it and play it.

Fortunately, my friend down the street bought Superman 64 before I did. I was lucky enough to never spend a dime on the controversial game made by Titus Software.

Superman 64 begins with Lex Luther telling you “You will never find your friends in this world…” That confused me. The game isn’t set in Metropolis, it’s set in Luther’s “virtual world.” You would think that the natural setting for a game starring Superman would be Metropolis. Too many cooks in the creative kitchen at Titus Software perhaps?

The dumb, unimaginative plot of the game has you (as the Man of Steel) go through a simple maze in Lex’s “virtual world” to save Superman’s friends. All you do for most of the game is fly through an unbearable number of rings that get tedious after ten seconds. Why did anyone think that this would make for an appealing game? It has the kiss of death for a console game: it’s boring.

It’s incredibly hard to control Superman’s course of flight at times. If you have Superman at the centre of your game, you would think developers would’ve had a surplus of ideas that they could incorporate into the game to make it exceptional. The game was released in 1999; there were a lot of back issues of Superman for them to pull appealing ideas from.

At one point in Superman 64, you have to pick up a police car and carry it to the end of a street…real exciting stuff. During one mission, you have to blow random tornadoes away with your super breathe. And yes, I just wrote that sentence.

“LEX WINS.” I got so sick of “LEX WINS.” And you hear Lex do some creepy, stoner-like chuckle every time he wins. Then, in all of that excitement, you have to fly through more rings. There are no instructions for how to fly or breathe your super breath. There are moments in the game where you have a timer, and then, during other stages, there’s no timer at all. It also takes a long time for Superman to get back up when he is knocked down. That was frustrating, and nothing about Superman’s ability to take a punch should be frustrating.

There were moments during Superman 64 where you would get stuck in corners of the game and it would take a moment to find a way to fly again. When I played this frustrating game, I had no idea that Titus Software hadn’t actually finished it. I found that out much later. But just from the confusing game play and the strange, green haze in Lex’s “virtual world,” it was obvious that Titus developers had a little trouble in the developing stage of Superman 64.

If flying through rings surrounded by a green haze sounds like a fun gaming experience, you may enjoy Superman 64? As a huge Superman fan and gamer, this game was a big disappointment. Titus should have never let this game see the light of day.

 

Unofficial Super Mario 64 Maker Released for the N64

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Just in case you were visiting Mars and just came back to Earth, there is now an unofficial Super Mario 64 Maker for Nintendo’s 64-bit beast! The brainchild of this awesomeness is Kaze Emanuar, the coder extraordinaire!

For those gamers itching to let loose with their Super Mario 3D level creativity on the N64, you better grab your trusty Nintendo 64 controller and get busy! For instructions on how to do all this stuff, go here (and click on show more).

Don’t believe us? Then you better take a gander at this!


source: Kaze Emanuar

 

Atari Star Wars: Ultimate Arcade Game Based On The Franchise

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Star Wars, the arcade video game may have just celebrated its 34th anniversary, but did you know how much it cost to make and what George Lucas thought of the game?

The Star Wars franchise has been going from strength to strength for 40 years and there is no sign of its star power going supernova. Atari may have waited a few years to make their awesome vector based coin-op game on the great franchise, but it was definitely worth the wait.

Released amid the American video games crash, Atari’s Star Wars (1983) was a godsend for operators and players alike. With its distinct sit-down cockpit and upright versions invading amusement centres, Atari’s Coin-Op division created a buffer from the wreckage of the industry around it. Starting out as Warp Speed, Atari’s Mike Hally quickly changed the game title to Star Wars once Atari secured the license – and the rest as they say, is history.

Looking at the Atari Star Wars bill of materials, it is unbelievable to fathom that the arcade unit cost was a mere USD$1,249 back in 1983, which is (approx.) USD$3,090 in today’s money, which is still damn cheap! The arcade version was given the seal of approval from Mr. Star Wars himself, George Lucas with a plaque that reads, “A special thanks for creating THE FORCE behind so much fun”. Once inside the cockpit, Lucas was smitten and the game went gangbusters, selling thousands of units, making Atari (or more accurately, Time Warner) a ton of money!

The FORCE will always be with Atari’s classic coin-op. Always!

Atari Star Wars – cockpit concept sketch (source: arcade blogger)

The bill of material! (source: atarigames.com)

Cockpit prototype (source: atarigames.com)

The finished product! She is (still) a beaut!

Atari execs watch in anticipation as George Lucas takes a test fly! He likes it! (source: video-game-ephemera)

George getting some game play pointers from Atari’s Don Osborne (source: arcade blogger)

Our preferred arcade flyer (via: the arcade flyer archive)

 

How a Mario Kart Movie Could Work

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By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.

Nintendo’s Mario Kart 64 was one of my favourite video games growing up. I played the racing game regularly after school and on weekends with my friends.

2008’s Mario Kart Wii and 2005’s Mario Kart DS are two of Nintendo’s top selling video games; roughly 60 million in combined sales. With sales like that for just two versions of the iconic game, you would think a film adaptation of Mario Kart would be in the works by a film studio. But most films based on video games have failed miserably at the box office and with critics.

I wish I could erase my memory of seeing the confusing, badly edited Assassin’s Creed adaptation that was released last December.

A Mario Kart movie could work if handled correctly. Movies based on video games have always taken themselves so seriously; especially the Resident Evil franchise. If a director or screenwriter did something fun with the world of Mario Kart, like what Phil Lord and Christopher Miller did with The Lego Movie, it could be a really entertaining film. It would have to be animated and the humour would have to be smart for kids and adults.

Although, a live-action Mario Kart could be hard to get greenlit by a major studio because 1993’s Super Mario Bros., with Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo, bombed magnificently at the box office. But an animated version, perhaps even a Lego Mario Kart, could be successful if the right filmmakers who know the Mario Kart world write a clever, original script.

A Mario Kart film about a single race through several stages could be interesting if the characters are fleshed out. The game’s world is vast; there’s a treasure trove of situations and conflicts that could make for a fascinating film.

Until then, I’m sure another instalment of Resident Evil is in the works. The franchise has made $1.2 billion worldwide. The last film was The Final Chapter… sure, we’ll see about that.

 

Our N64 Classic Mini Games Wishlist

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Dear Nintendo,

You gave us the NES Classic Mini and now, the SNES Classic Mini. We are all eagerly awaiting your inevitable N64 joining the Classic Mini ranks. With that said, could we please have the following 21 classic games installed on the upcoming N64 Mini  – thank you:

Super Mario 64 – we are 100% certain this gem will make it!

  • Mario Kart 64
  • Wave Race 64
  • GoldenEye 007
  • Star Fox 64
  • Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
  • International Superstar Soccer 64
  • Donkey Kong 64

F-Zero X

  • 1080 Snowboarding
  • Diddy Kong Racking
  • Blast Corps
  • Bomberman 64
  • Rayman 2
  • Mario Tennis

Star Wars Rogue Squadron

  • Star Wars: Shadows Of The Empire
  • Banjo-Kazooie
  • Banjo-Tooie
  • Perfect Dark
  • Yoshi’s Story

And I guess we would have to have a Zelda game on the list, not for us, for your Zelda loving fans, so let’s go with Ocarina of Time, but that’s it, no other Zelda games, please! Oh yeah, please no Super Smash Bros.!

Thank you,

Alex Boz
Editor-In-Chief @ ausretrogamer