Australia's Retro Gaming and Pinball E-Zine
Care to use Twitter on your Game Boy? Perhaps you would rather use Microsoft’s Office applications on Nintendo’s little coloured beast? I know, you want to Skype your friend with vintage equipment!
Ah yes, welcome to good use of retro gaming gear Japanese style! You got to hand it to the Japanese, they know how to refashion old equipment and make you notice it. I wish I was this clever. Now hand me those SNES headphones and scroll through these epic pics!
source: matome.naver.jp
Those great people at PAX Aus 2014 have finalised the schedule of tournaments, panels and quiz shows. If you would like to view the entire schedule, head on over here.
For those that are keen to know when and where the retro gaming tournaments and panels will be on, look below and lock in the times and dates in your diary!
Classic Gaming Tournaments
Classic Gaming Panels
image source: PAX Aus
Who said cats don’t retro game? Based on these video gaming inspired cat scratchers from If Industries, it is quite clear that felines enjoy some old school Atari and Nintendo action! Um, need I say more? Of course not! Scratch away baby!
Don’t worry, those people at If Industries haven’t forgotten about you either. You can now hold up your pants in style with these awesome arcade belt buckles. They even light up! So, are you a 25c or a 50c kind of arcade gamer?
source: if Industries
It may have started life on a napkin back in 1986, but it wasn’t officially released to the gaming public as the world’s first 16-bit colour handheld till October 1989 (Ed: the Atari Lynx was officially released on September 1 1989, but it wasn’t available for retail till October of that year). The Epyx Handy, which would eventually become the Atari Lynx, celebrates a significant milestone – it’s another year older and it is still kicking nostalgic goals!
The Atari Lynx may have been decimated in market share by the Game Boy juggernaut, but it’s place in history is undeniable. It didn’t bask in the same glory as Nintendo’s little pocket rocket, let’s face it, no other handhelds did, but with 16-bit colour graphics, support for hardware scaling, great arcade conversions and the ability to link up with friends, the Lynx was still a force to be reckoned with. With two system variants, the Lynx provided many hours of fun – as long as you were stocked to the teeth with AA batteries.
We wrote about the Lynx’s history (Ed: you can read that here), which in typical Atari fashion was quite colourful, with lots of twists and turns. This feature celebrates everything about the mighty 16-bit colour handheld – its hardware revisions, its awesomest games and some very interesting facts.
The Lynx was truly ahead of its time. Long live the Atari Lynx!
Hardware Comparison:
Game Cards – Curled vs Flat:
Awesomest Atari Lynx Games:
Interesting Atari Lynx Facts:
Hey PAX Aus peeps! Maps are now available for the 2014 event! Make sure you come around to our Classic Gaming area for a nostalgic hit.
For those of you that like panels, you can catch a few of us from Retrospekt, Retro Domination and yours truly at the Best [retro] video games you’ve [probably] never played panel on Saturday, November 1st at 11:00am in the Kookaburra Theatre. Oh yeah, Weird And Retro has a couple of awesome panels too, so be there or be a pixelated square!
PAX Aus 2014: October 31 – November 2, 2014 at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre.
Click map to enlarge
What do you do when the company you make video games for does not want to recognise nor pay you royalties for your efforts? You become disgruntled and leave that company with a few of your programmer co-workers and form your own company. Well, that is pretty much how Activision was created – to break the shackles from Atari and recognise the programming geniuses behind some of the most beloved video games of all time.
In creating Activision; David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller, and Bob Whitehead became the world’s first third-party video games developers. So thank you to the courage of these men, we can only speculate (Ed: shudder to think!) what would have happened if we didn’t have a third-party video games developer community.
Activision has changed over the last three and a half decades, as has the video games market, but its legacy will not be forgotten. We still love playing their creations from all those years ago, from Pitfall! and River Raid on the Atari 2600, to breaking joysticks with Decathlon on the C64. Ah, those were the days. Happy 35th birthday Activision!
As featured in the French art book, Geek-Art: An Anthology: Art, Design, Illustration & Pop Culture, we have found these very cool illustrations of fictional classic video game boxes adapted for films and TV shows.
We love the hand-written notes on the packaging – a very nice touch. With so much awesomeness to look at, we can’t pick a favourite. Can you?
source: Penney Design
There is no point in pretending that I am a fan of downloadable content (DLC) – just for the record, I am not a fan! However, I can’t deny that it is the way of the future, unfortunately.
There is a sense of gratification when holding something precious like old school video games in your hands. That tactile pleasure is not the same as hitting the ‘Download Now‘ button. As solid state media becomes extinct, the pleasure of holding games in your hands and looking at the back to “check out the graphics” will become a thing of the past – something to tell your grandchildren.
Just like books adorning your personal library, there is an intoxicating atmosphere of nostalgia when you are able to view and touch your retro gaming collection. There is a sense of cultural importance in preserving these collections. Be proud of your gaming cartridges, diskettes, tapes, CDs, cards, DVDs and Blu-Rays. They may be going the same way as the dodo bird, but our passion for preserving these artefacts will ensure that they are enjoyed for generations to come.
Despite the growing popularity of game music and chiptunes, there hasn’t been a comprehensive effort to chronicle their contributions to modern music and gaming culture. The Players’ Score: A Videogame Music Documentary aims to explore the relationships, developments and communities videogame music has fostered through live interviews with prominent videogame cover bands, chiptune artists, and the composers who inspire them in order to demonstrate the cultural and personal impact of videogame music.
Spanning the globe, participants have come from North America, Europe, and even Japan, with more artists being confirmed daily. Here is a brief selection of the artists who will be featured in The Players’ Score – A Videogame Music Documentary:
– Austin Wintory (Journey, The Banner Saga)
– Bit Brigade
– Danimal Cannon
– Danny Barranowsky (Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac)
– Grant Kirkhope (Banjo-Kazooie, Kingdoms of Amalur)
– Grant “Stemage” Henry (Metroid Metal, LonelyRollingStars)
– Hiroki Kikuta (Secret of Mana, Koudelka, Shining Hearts)
– Jake “virt” Kaufman
– Jeremy Soule (The Elder Scrolls series, Guild Wars series)
– Manami Matsumae (Mega Man, Shovel Knight)
– Mega Ran
– Morgan “Crashfaster” Tucker
– Norihiko Hibino (Metal Gear Solid series, Bayonetta)
– Starbomb
– The Megas
– The Minibosses
– The Triforce Quartet
Many more artists have already been filmed, and more will be announced as they are confirmed.
Show your support by spreading the word and pledge towards The Players’ Score – A Videogame Music Documentary.
Let’s all start with a collective sigh of disappointment. Why the disappointment? Well, after getting quite excited over the announcement that Takara Tomy A.R.T.S. would release special console Transformers to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the robots in disguise, there has been another delay in their availability.
The Mega Drive Megatron was originally slated for a September release, but that has now been pushed out to October. Optimus Prime (featuring original Playstation) won’t see the light of day till 2015 (no exact date known). On the positive side, the delay should give you extra time to save – these Transformers won’t be cheap (~$103AUD).
For now, you can drool over the photos of these awesome console Transformers!
The sleek Megatron!
Megatron in the flesh
Mega Drive Megatron in disguise
Optimus Prime Playstation!
Where did Optimus go? All I see is a Playstation!
image sources: Takara Tomy ARTS and TFormers