retrogaming

Want: Nintendo-Era Black Box Action Figures!

July 11, 2016 By ausretrogamer

We have previously featured Dan Polydoris’ awesome Activision Action Figures creations and it seems that he is at it again!

This time, Dan has gone with the venerable Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game theme by creating a line of Black Box era action figures that would not look out of place on the shelf in your local toy store! Alas, you won’t find these at your local Kmart or Target store, but you can head to Dan’s Death By Toys store to order these luscious custom creations – but you better be quick as they are selling fast!

PS: We secretly hope Dan makes more of these action figures, especially the Ice Climber and the Hogan’s Alley figures!

source: Death By Toys

Power Glove Hacked: It’s So Bad

July 7, 2016 By ausretrogamer

Forget Lucas Barton declaring his love of the Power Glove because it was so BAD. Yep, the Power Glove was a terrible peripheral, but goddammit, it was so damn cool! What’s there not to have liked about it when you looked like a cyborg with it on!

Now imagine if the Power Glove was a useful peripheral! Imagine no more, as computer engineering genius, Nolan Moore has devised a Power Glove UHID (Universal Human Interface Device) project to overhaul Nintendo’s peripheral with modern sensors and wireless communication to provide the ability to use gesture and motion controls with almost anything you can think of, but in style!

Check out the video below of what has been achieved thus far with this oh so bad peripheral! Keep up to date with the project by visiting Hackaday.io. Thanks to Nolan, we can (at last!) say that the Power Glove is sooooo good!

source: HACKADAY

Blast From The Past: Hewson Consultants

July 1, 2016 By ausretrogamer

There were a number of big name publishers back in the day that had multiple chart toppers with an equal share of stinkers on the Commodore 64. The exception to this rule was Hewson Consultants (or simply Hewson as we affectionately called them). With absolute classics like Uridium, Paradroid, Ranarama, Cybernoid (this list could get quite exhaustive, such was their pedigree), Hewson was always going to leave a delectable and an ever lasting legacy on the C64. Their games had an undeniable quality to them which is probably why they are still spoken of so fondly even to this day, which is testament to the top notch software they pumped out for the 8-bit Commodore behemoth.

With a ton of games to choose from, our favourite Hewson title was the 1987 hit, Nebulus! We were suckers for brain teasing platform games, and Nebulus provided a mind bending experience in spades. The central character, Pogo was so damn cute and yet so very deadly – once we took control of him, we were addicted. Moving Pogo and jumping over obstacles to try and get to the top of each tower felt as natural as breathing. We remember the first time we saw the tower spin as Pogo walked left and then right, we were all wide-eyed with mouth open as if we were swallowing flies! This innovation was refreshing and executed inch perfect, which only Hewson could pull off.

To read the rest of this story, grab Reset #9 now and turn to page 28! Oh yeh, Reset is totally free!

For the latest on Hewson Consultants projects, check out their Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight now!

Press Play On Tape: The House That Melbourne Built

June 7, 2016 By ausretrogamer

The three Press Play On Tape horsemen ride into town and head straight to the house that Melbourne built. There they meet the great, Cameron “Gazunta” Davis!

As they are lead on a tour of this Melbourne House, Cam delves into his gaming past and absolutely blows away the horsemen with stories of making C64 games at age 8, badgering a TV Week editor to become a games reviewer, then the time he tested games for a living and becoming a Games Designer! Cam’s story doesn’t end there as he reveals his comic artist genius, his many published works, becoming a TV personality and finally his pièce de résistance, being the editor of the very last issue (#107) of legendary magazine, Zzap!64!

If that wasn’t enough, Cameron provides a comprehensive bio on this month’s publisher of choice, yep you guessed it, Melbourne House! Stop fiddling with the controls and press play now!

PRESS PLAY ON TAPE podcasts are available on iTunes and Podbean

The Mastertronic Archives

May 17, 2016 By ausretrogamer

Growing up in the 1980s, there was one publisher that dared to give us games at an affordable price – which meant us kids with limited funds could go out and grab some pretty good video games from Mastertronic for under (an Australian) tenner (or £1.99/£2.99 if you were in the UK)!

Mastertronic are still held very dear to many a retro gaming hearts, so when we heard about Player One Books’ Mastertronic Archives book on Kickstarter, we knew we had to jump on board to pledge our support. If the name Mastertronic triggers an ounce of nostalgia within you, then do yourself a favour and get onto this Kickstarter now!

source: The Masteronic Archives by Player One Books on Kickstarter

Top 5 Games Charts: May 1999

May 12, 2016 By ausretrogamer

We roll the clock back 17 years to see what games were hot on the Playstation, N64 and the humble PC. As you peek at the games charts below, you’ll notice some very well known gaming franchises that are still going strong till this day. But what makes it great to look back at old charts like these is the more obscure and long forgotten games, like Rollcage for the Playstation, Virtual Pool 64 on the N64, and The Simpsons: Virtual Springfield on the PC.

What ever tickled your fancy back then, scour through the top 5 games from May 1999, you never know, you still may be playing some of these gems!

	1) Metal Gear Solid (Konami)
	2) Rollcage (Psygnosis)
	3) A Bug’s Life (Sony)
	4) FIFA 99 (EA)
	5) Populous: The Beginning (EA)

	1) South Park (Acclaim)
	2) Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (Nintendo)
	3) The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (Nintendo)
	4) WCW/nWO: Revenge (THQ)
	5) Virtual Pool 64 (Crave)

	1) Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri (EA)
	2) Sim City 3000 (EA)
	3) South Park (Acclaim)
	4) The Simpsons: Virtual Springfield (Fox)
	5) Premier Manager 99 (Gremlin)

2016 Reset C64 4KB Game Coding Competition

May 4, 2016 By ausretrogamer

Dust off the C64 and grab that ideas pad where you scribbled down your game design all those years ago, as you now have the opportunity to enter the 2016 Reset C64 4KB game coding competition, AKA: the Reset Crap Game Compo!

This is going to be one mega CRAPTASTIC comp! Say what? Crap game comp? What gives? My game will be awesome! Relax, don’t get precious about it, the theme of the comp is craptastic, so the crappier the game, the better chance you have at being crowned the winner.

For those of you that want the lowdown on how to enter, just be aware that your game must not be greater than 4 kilobytes in size. Oh yeah, your game can (and should) be ludicrous, awful, bonkers and downright outrageous. The main aim is to have fun. So once you have your crap game done, make sure you email it to the Reset editor by no later than October 1 2016! So go on, get cracking, ahem, we mean coding!

For a complete list of the rules and regulations, go here. This Reset competition is proudly sponsored by:

There will be awesome prizes, including Reset physical issues for the top three winning entrants!

NG:Dev.Team Dreamy Dreamcast Titles

April 18, 2016 By ausretrogamer

Just in case you have been on a sojourn to the moon and have just landed back on earth, we have some HUGE news – those awesome folks at NG:Dev.Team have announced that due to popular demand, they will re-issue some of their past Dreamcast games in Japanese styled CD jewel cases!

If you haven’t already got them, you can grab Gunlord, Fast Striker and Last Hope Pink Bullets now to enjoy on your Dreamcast. These re-issued games are aimed at new customers but previous owners may want the CD case releases to compliment their DVD case editions of the same games.

There is a limited run of each game and the special bundle, so you better be quick! Shipping is scheduled to commence between April 20th and 25th! More details at the NG:Dev.Direct site – get ordering!

image source: NG:Dev Team

Pocket Atari 2600: Gaming On The Go

April 11, 2016 By ausretrogamer

We absolutely love DIY console mods, especially cool ones like this Atari Flashback 2 stuffed into an Atari VCS/2600 cartridge!

We are fans of old systems being shrunk down to a portable size (Ed: we all remember the portable Atari 2600, yeh?), but this creation by lovablechevy tickles our nostalgic fancy due to its pocket friendly size and use of an Atari 2600 cartridge – which are so damn cool. Before you get upset, the game on the cartridge was long dead before it was used and converted as a pocket gaming unit.

Lovablechevy states that her creation was conceived almost a decade ago with it only coming to fruition now! We say that it’s better late than never! As mentioned right off the bat, the Pocket Atari has an Atari Flashback 2 stuffed inside of a standard Atari 2600 cart with a 2.5″ screen plus an audio amp, transplanted Wii Remote D-pad and buttons, a Super Joy III controller board and 2 x 3.7v li-ion 700 mAh batteries for power (giving you 3.5 hours of carefree and very loud gaming)!

This is definitely the smallest portable Atari 2600 which fits great in your pocket without weighing you down (Ed: it’s a measly 4.6 ounces in weight!). Now, let’s play some River Raid on it *winks*

Doing The Math: The Pocket Atari plan

Cramming a lot of video gaming smarts in confined spaces!

Looking good!

Anyone for tennis?

source: lovablechevy

SNES M16 Multipurpose Arcade Combat Simulator

April 1, 2016 By ausretrogamer

It may be April 1st, but this ain’t no joke! Our good friends at The Gaming Warehouse made us aware that the elusive and extremely rare Multipurpose Arcade Combat Simulator (MACS) Basic Rifle (M16 Rifle) was for sale on Amazon at a cool price of $3,000!

Many would be asking themselves, what the hell is this? In a nutshell, it is an M16 Rifle designed (for the U.S. Army Infantry School) to simulate Basic Rifle Marksmanship (BRM) by using inexpensive off-the-shelf products, in this case, a lightgun, software and a Super Nintendo.

The Multipurpose Arcade Combat Simulator (MACS) was developed to overcome the training problems that resulted from insufficient facilities and too few instructors. While interest was primarily focused on its use as a rifle marksmanship trainer, MACS was designed so that the basic hardware could be used to provide training on a variety of weapons systems.

The MACS product was patented in 1986 by the US Army Research Institute Fort Benning Field Unit, which conducted research on training and training technology with particular emphasis on individual and small team skills in the Infantry arena.

Now, enough of this talk, we want to keep drooling over this M16 lightgun – who can spare us $3K? 😉

Connect me to that SNES!