AUSRETROGAMER

The Pop-Culture E-Zine

You are here: Home / Archives for retrogaming

retrogaming

The ZX Spectrum Is Reborn As The Next

By

All you one-eyed C64 lovers licking your wounds after the cancelled Commodore 64: For the Love of a Machine Kickstarter (Ed: which we are still devastated about), please look away now!

Just when those smarmy Speccy owners were popping the champagne in celebration of the rubber key computer’s 35th anniversary, the ZX Spectrum Next makes its appearance on Kickstarter.

source: ZX Spectrum Next on Kickstarter

Not only do Speccy owners celebrate a huge milestone for one of the most enduring computers, but they also have the opportunity to grab a brand-spanking new ZX Spectrum Next! With a brains trust that reads like a who’s who, including original Sinclair computers designer Rick Dickinson, the Next is in fine hands.

A day into the £250,000 crowdfunding campaign, the Next will definitely come to fruition with the goal well within reach – the question remains, how high will the pledge amount go?!


source: Henrique Olifiers

 

Hyper Player Attack!

By

Cor blimey, what a phenomenal week it has been for the ausretrogamer crew!

Not only did we feature in two articles in issue 266 of Hyper Magazine, but our very own ‘Wizard Of Aus‘, Alex Boz was also interviewed by the team at Player Attack!

Hip hip hooray for retro gaming!

Retro Gaming: A Link To The Past interview @ Player Attack

Social Hardware and Digging Up The Past, To Preserve The Future feature articles from issue 266 of Hyper Magazine

 

Top 5 Games Charts: February 2000

By

As the second month of the new millennium rolled around, we realised that the doomsday Y2K bug was a furphy and we pumped up the volume to All Saints‘ ‘Pure Shores’!

By February 2000 the PlayStation was showing its age, but it was still host to many great games – hello Crash Team Racing! If you were in the Nintendo or Sega camps, February 2000 was a good one, as their respective consoles, the Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast, were definitely not short of ace games.

So let’s put on some Christina Aguilera and take a look back at what games made the top 5 charts on the PlayStation, Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast in February 2000. See any you like?

PSX_150x150 1) Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (Eidos)
2) FIFA 2000 (EA)
3) Crash Team Racing (Sony)
4) Tomorrow Never Dies (EA)
5) This Is Football (Sony)

 

N64_150x150 1) Donkey Kong 64 (Nintendo)
2) WWF Wrestlemania 2000 (THQ)
3) Super Smash Bros. (Nintendo)
4) Rainbow Six (Take 2)
5) Rayman 2 (Ubisoft)

 

1) Virtua Striker 2 (Sega)
2) Shadowman (Acclaim)
3) SoulCalibur (Namco)
4) Jimmy White’s 2: Cueball (Virgin)
5) UEFA Striker (Infogrames)

 

 

SKYCURSER Is Coming Soon To Shoot Up Your Arcade

By

Who says that the arcade is dead? If you are sick of seeing redemption machines at your local amusement centre, then perhaps the new horizontal shoot’em up, SKYCURSER will draw you back for some good old fashion blasting!

Griffin Aerotech’s SKYCURSER takes players through some gorgeously drawn worlds in which they must battle mutant hordes to save the planet. SKYCURSER has a total of four missions with a reward scoring system that keeps things quite competitive.

The game runs on a platform called Airframe and its creators have also promised free game updates. A year ago, the Griffin Aerotech team expressed hopes that the open-source nature of Airframe would attract other independent designers to create games for arcade cabinets and controls. This means that operators could potentially swap several games on the same Airframe using only a USB stick, which brings back memories of swapping those good old Neo Geo MVS cartridges.

There’s a Pro (USD$700) and Deluxe (USD$1,200) version of the kitted game, each coming with necessary software and hardware while the Deluxe has additional conversion art. The game is also available in a dedicated arcade cabinet ready to hit the floor (USD$3,499). Conversion kits are expected to ship by June 2017. For information on purchasing the game in a dedicated cabinet, click here.

The arcade industry needs more of these good old fashioned arcade games, like SKYCURSER, to draw back the 80s and 90s kids (now adults) into arcade centres for them to have fun while introducing their own children to the kind of games they played at their age many moons ago.

image source: Griffin Aerotech

 

Atari Lynx: The Games That Never Were

By

The Atari Lynx was and still is a great handheld. Imagine if Atari had McWill’s LCD mod back then, they may have given the Sega Game Gear and possibly the Game Boy a run for their money (Ed: OK, perhaps not the Game Boy)!

If you were into arcade style games, then the Atari Lynx was your platform of choice. With games like Double Dragon, Klax, A.P.B., Battlezone 2000, Rygar, Hard Drivin’, Joust, Xybots, Paperboy and the awesome Rampage, Robotron and S.T.U.N. Runner, the Lynx was not short on quality action titles. Actually, we could have added a laundry list of other games, but we thought you’d get the picture with a subset of titles.

During the commercial lifespan of the Atari Lynx, there were a roster of big name titles that never saw the light of day. We could only imagine the impact these games may have had on the commercial viability of the Lynx! Just in case you were wondering, here are a few of the cancelled games from 1992 that we reckon could have catapulted the Lynx on the path to success:

Rolling Thunder

Vindicators

Geoduel

720°

Cabal

There were quite a few other cancelled games, but we thought we’d limit the list to ensure that we didn’t enrage you all. Actually, quite a few cancelled games did make it out when Hasbro, the owners of the Atari properties at the time, released the rights to develop for the system to the public domain, but that was well after the Lynx was considered dead (Ed: we did appreciate Alien vs Predator and Raiden)!

Ah, the beautiful Lynx, if only you were given a proper and fair chance by your creator!

 



PAPRIUM: A New Brawler On The Sega Mega Drive

By

Strike Harder, Beat Stronger!

Do you yearn for a Streets Of Rage-like game for your old trusty Mega Drive (Sega Genesis to our American friends)?

Well yearn no more! WaterMelon Games, the development crew that makes cool retro games like Pier Solar, are back with their latest (and possibly greatest) 16-bit killer game, PAPRIUM (aka: ProjectY)!

PAPRIUM is a post-apocalyptic, outrageous head-kicking brawler made in the spirit of classic beat’em ups like Double Dragon, Final Fight and Streets of Rage. This brand new Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) game is being built from the ground up and is expected to smash on your 16-bit Sega console in 2017!

PAPRIUM has been lovingly crafted at WaterMelon’s Magical Game Factory using Investor’s votes and suggestions, which have helped shape the game! Make no bones about it, this game has been developed by a team driven by true passion and 16-bit excellence.

PAPRIUM is the biggest Sega Mega Drive game ever made (over 80-MEG!), featuring multiple game modes, speed (uncompromised 60fps!), 24 levels and up to 5 selectable characters! Come at us PAPRIUM, we are waiting!

We have pre-ordered ours, so if you want to do the same, go here.


source: WaterMelon Games

PS: Thank you to Anthony Durso for bringing PAPRIUM to our attention!

Origins Of The Sega My Card

By

Produced from 1985 to 1987, the Sega Card (known as My Card in Japan) wasn’t just created as a cheaper format to conventional game cartridges, oh no sirree!

The great Hideki Sato, creator of Sega’s SG-1000 console (and all other Sega consumer hardware) felt that the original game cartridges resembled small black tombstones when inserted into the console. Sato felt that an upgrade to the game cartridge media was required. This drove him to create the cute little pocket-sized alternative, the Sega My Card – games on microchips embedded in 2mm thick credit card sized plastic.

The compact design allowed game collections to be carried around with ease (instead of lugging around the much larger carts). Sega also experimented with a re-writable EPROM version of the My Card, which could be overwritten with new games at specifically-equipped kiosks (for a fraction of the usual retail cost), much like Nintendo’s Famicom Disk System, which arrived a year later.

Sega would eventually return to cartridges for higher memory capacity, while NEC would later use the My Card design pedigree for their PC-Engine HuCards.

The tombstone-looking carts

My Card VS Cartridge



The Rise And Fall Of SNK

By

Back in May 2002, US digital cable channel G4 (aka: G4tv) aired the video gaming documentary series, Icons. For four seasons Icons focused on the key people, companies, products, history and major milestones in the world of video games. In season five, which was its last, Icons broadened its scope by featuring general pop culture content.

From the many Icons video gaming documentaries, we loved their look at SNK Corporation (season 3, episode 12), from its humble beginnings to becoming an arcade gaming behemoth with their Neo Geo products, only to see it all crash and tumble a decade or so later.

Step back in time and get a dose of some video gaming history!


source: KonamiGamer

DISCLAIMER: We are well aware that SNK lived on via Playmore, but this article focuses on the old SNK Corporation that produced arcade games and home gaming systems.

 

Retrogaming Designer Jewellery

By

Are you a gaming nerd that is into their designer jewellery? If you are, then you’ve come to the right place.

We have seen many DIY gaming related jewellery on Etsy and other e-stores, which are pretty cool, but they don’t come close to the jewellery we have drooled over by Han Cholo.

With the Han Cholo collections (which there are many), there are designer and officially licensed products to choose from, like the official Sonic The Hedgehog 25th anniversary class ring and the awesome Sonic sneakers pendant!

Being gaming nerds and general pop culture geeks, we found ourselves trawling many of Han Cholo’s collections, from the cool Gamer stuff (hello Sega Mega Drive controller necklace) to the many Star Wars rings and Masters Of The Universe keychains and pendants. We just wish we had more than ten fingers and one neck!

The Sega Mega Drive / Genesis controller is close to our heart

Mario would be totally jelly of this ring!

If the Sonic ring is not your thing, then the Sonic sneakers pendant may tickle your fancy

The dark side of the force is strong with this ring!

Whoa, Daft Punk ring! No way!

Voltron!

We have the keys to our castle

By the power of Grayskull!

Battle Cat is fierce!

The perfect piece for the arcadians!
image source: Han Cholo


Atari ST: Accidental Musical Workhorse

By

Atari STIt became the music sequencing tool of choice for countless musicians, almost completely by chance. The Atari ST, Atari’s 16-bit successor to their long running 8-bit computer range, was launched almost 32 years ago, and Dr. Steve “Heartbleed” Bagley shows us his own extensive collection!


source: Computerphile on YouTube

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

msausretrogamerMs. ausretrogamer
Co-founder, editor and writer at ausretrogamer – The Australian Retro Gamer E-Zine. Lover of science fiction, fashion, books, movies and TV. Player of games, old and new.

Follow Ms. ausretrogamer on Twitter