Retrospective

Retrospective: Weird And Retro Kombat at Timezone

July 23, 2018 By ausretrogamer

Who remembers Timezone?

Timzone was the place that first blew my mind with Mortal Kombat. It was a Sunday morning last century (crap I’m old!) when we walked into Timezone in the Capitol Centre (now called Dandenong Plaza) to see a group crowded around an arcade machine. That was the day I got instantly hooked on the digitised fighter that was the original Mortal Kombat.

As we watched the bloody challenge to completion, we were treated with a Sub-Zero Fatality! My mind was instantly blown. That led to a lot of coins fed into that machine until my fave fighter of all time arrived some time later: Mortal Kombat II – and the rest, as they say, is history.

Here I have two of the super rare Mortal Kombat II Collector Kards that I got from Timezone in Dandenong back in the day, along with a super-kool TZM (Timezone Magazine) issue No.8 (May 1994) that was kindly gifted to me by Aaron ‘blahjedi’ Clement at PAX Aus 2017.

Anyone else remember these?

– Serblander / Weird and Retro

source: Weird and Retro via Facebook

Retrospective: E3 1996

June 14, 2016 By ausretrogamer

With E3 2016 being the biggest news this week, we thought we’d rewind the clock twenty years, back to 1996 when Nintendo, Sega and the newest player on the console block, the Playstation were the headline acts.

After wowing the crowds with their hardware the previous year, Playstation ensured that the 1996 E3 event was going to be even bigger and better by announcing a price drop to get the console into more homes, sending shivers down the spines of the old guard, Nintendo and Sega. Not to be outdone in the gaming stakes, Sony Computer Entertainment introduced everyone to Crash Bandicoot, who would go on to become a PlayStation mascot (and get remastered for the the PS4 20 years later!) and Lara Croft, whose appearance in Tomb Raider was the first step towards becoming a cultural icon.

At this second ever Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Sega was showing off the latest and greatest games for their Saturn in the hope of making a dent in the Playstation’s armour. With games like Virtua Fighter 3 (which was ultimately cancelled), Fighting Vipers, Virtua Cop 2, NiGHTS into Dreams, Panzer Dragoon II Zwei and Daytona USA (among others) from their own stable, Sega was ensuring that heads would be turned towards their 32-bit beast.

Third-party Saturn games were also announced by Acclaim (Alien Trilogy, Battle Monsters, The Crow: City of Angels, Dragonheart and Space Jam), Ubisoft (Rayman 2), Capcom (Marvel Super Heroes), Crystal Dyanmics (3D Baseball, Ghost Rider and Legacy Of Kain) and Konami (ISS Deluxe and NBA Hangtime).

Sega also wanted to show that there was still (some) life left in their 16-bit Mega Drive (Genesis) by showing off Arcade Classics, Sonic 3D Blast, Vectorman 2, X-Perts and X-Women (which never saw the light of day!). Perhaps Sega should have given up on their 16-bit console (and it’s many add-ons) and concentrate their might on the 32-bit battleground. Ah hindsight, it’s always 20/20.

And then there was Nintendo. The Kyoto giant chose the 1996 E3 event to showcase their latest hardware, the Nintendo 64. Nintendo chose to up the ante in the ‘bit’ wars by leaping over their two main rivals with their 32-bit systems. Basking in the glory of their 16-bit success with the SNES and full of confidence, Nintendo chose to stick with cartridges rather then the now-accepted CD format. To ensure that the Nintendo 64 was going to pull-in the crowds at E3 that year, Nintendo had a number of launch titles available to experience – Wave Race 64, Pilotwings 64, Star Wars: Shadows Of The Empire and Super Mario 64. New hardware needs a ‘killer app’ that captures the public’s imagination and makes consumers snap up a machine – Super Mario 64, just like Super Mario Bros did for the NES, did exactly that! With Mario entering 3D for the first time, Nintendo no doubt were the best in show at E3 1996.

What product will wow us and become best in show at E3 2016?

sources: [IGN | Sega Retro | Playstation.blog]

Retrospective: A Tale Of Dick Smith’s Wizzard

May 9, 2016 By Aaron Clement

It was the 1980s, Dick Smith Electronics (DSE) stores were packed with people and stocked to the gills with an extensive range of components and electronic gadgets. We’re going back to a time when the brand’s adventure-seeking namesake was setting records with his helicopter, or pulling practical jokes on the nation with plans to bring icebergs to Sydney harbour. Video gaming hadn’t crashed yet, and during this time the home computer market was also starting to take root, with Commodore, Acorn, Apple and friends all competing for market share.

Due to the “off the shelf” nature of a lot of these early systems, you’d often see electronics manufacturers clone a popular system and release them under their own brand. DSE weren’t immune to this, ranging a number of rebadged or clone systems like the Dick Smith Cat (an Apple IIe clone), the System-80 (a Hong Kong made clone of the TRS System-80 Mark 1), or the VZ200 (VTech System 200), all sharing shelf space with juggernauts like the Commodore VIC-20. And beside them all was a system I never knew existed until recently: the Dick Smith Wizzard.

Released in 1982 for $295, the Wizzard was a rebadged version of VTech’s CreatiVision games system. At a glance the two integrated controllers and general design make it similar to Mattel’s Intellivision, which was still going strong at the time. One part joystick and one part keypad, the Wizzard’s two controllers fit neatly into recessed slots on top of the system when not in use. However a major difference is that when clipped in, the controllers form a fully-functioning QWERTY keyboard (although “functional” is debatable – the full-sized keyboard add-on was a must if you wanted to do any typing!). The unique controllers look great, but much like the Intellivision, the awkward shape and the ‘floating’ nature of the joystick make for a poor experience.

Even though it was predominantly cartridge-based, $89 would land you a tape drive add-on and was essential for any budding BASIC programmers who weren’t masochistic types that enjoyed re-typing their code each and every time! In addition to the tape drive, other add-ons included a 16KB RAM expansion and a serial/printer port adapter, but with VTech discontinuing the system around 1985, planned add-ons like the disk drive and modem never actually materialised.

Press Play On Tape!

Going under the covers, you’ll notice that the bulk of the components powering the Wizzard also drove a number of other popular computers and consoles of the time. In addition to 1KB of system RAM, processing duties are handled by the ubiquitous Rockwell 6502A running at 2Mhz, which is based on the same 6502 chip found inside the VIC-20, Apple II and BBC Micro! Video output is covered by another stalwart of the time, the Texas Instruments TMS9929, coupled with 16KB of video RAM. Found in systems like the Sega SC-3000, Colecovision and variants of the MSX, this chip enabled the Wizzard to push a respectable 32 sprites on screen at a maximum resolution of 256 x 192 pixels, all in 16 glorious colours (or 15 colours plus transparent if you want to get technical). For the sound and music, VTech chose a Texas Instruments SND76489 chip, which offers a fairly rudimentary 4 channels for software to play with, and whilst it’s no SID chip, it does the job.

The heart of a Wizzard

Another hardware oddity is the power supply. My first introduction to the Wizzard was a friend talking about how he was getting parts to rebuild a supply for this “Dick Smith thing”. The power supply is unlike any other system of the time, as it runs both 9v and 16v to the console! This means that if you break it or need to repair one, it’s going to make your life difficult – something to keep in mind if you want to hunt a system down!

Between the Wizzard, Atari 5200 and 7800, you’ve got obscure power supplies covered!

It’s only fair that given the Wizzard’s design influences the games library would also clone other popular arcade games of the time. All of the cartridge games were designed and developed in-house by VTech, although DSE did release a number of simple games of their own on cassette that required the BASIC interpreter to run. If you’re a completionist, then you’ll be happy to know that the Wizzard has only 16 cartridges in total – 14 games, a music maker and the BASIC interpreter.

The cartridges forgo complex art for a straightforward, but effective look

Retailing for $39.95 each, the line-up featured games like Crazy Chicky (Pac-man), Auto Chase (Rally X), Sonic Invaders (Space Invaders), Chopper Rescue (Zaxxon), Police Jump (Donkey Kong) and Locomotive (Burger Time). The quality varied, although most are still fairly serviceable versions of the games they’re based on. One difference worth mentioning is that several of the games (like Sonic Invaders and Crazy Chicky) actually feature cooperative multi-player modes, something Space Invaders and Pac-Man didn’t offer! Every game also came with game themed overlays for the joypads, which helped show which buttons on the joypad were required (and to drive collectors crazy in the hunt to find them!).

Mouse Puzzle challenges you to keep moving and avoid the cat. Easier said than done!

Cloning computers or games wasn’t without risk though, as sometimes the copy ended up being just a touch too close to the original for comfort. VTech discovered this with their release of Crazy Pucker, which features a round yellow blob travelling around a maze eating dots, avoiding ghosts and trying to do everything possible to avoid Namco’s attention. They failed. To avoid further legal issues, VTech would re-release the title as Crazy Chicky, turning the main character into a chicken who now laid eggs to fill the maze while avoiding the foxes trying to eat you.

Crazy Pucker on the left, Crazy Chicky on the right. Any similarities to Pac-Man are entirely intentional!

These days there’s a few ways to get your hands on a Wizzard, and none of which will get Luggage angry with you. Despite being a locally released system, they’re surprisingly uncommon to find for sale in decent condition with a working power supply (or at a reasonable price!). Games are a little more common, although tracking down both the cartridge, box, and overlays can prove to be a feat of magic in itself.

The overlays add flair, although aren’t essential

That leaves only one other option: emulation. If this interests you, I’d recommend spending some time looking at Luca Antignano’s excellent website CreatiVEmu, which is dedicated to all things CreatiVision (aka. The Wizzard). Luca has a wealth of information on the various versions of the CreatiVision, including emulators and everything else you’ll need to know to get running.

FunnyMu makes emulating the Wizzard easy, with plenty of built-in info for every game

As a Wise Man once said, “Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”, and I’m a firm believer that this also applies to classic computers and consoles. The Wizzard stands as a unique and interesting piece of Australian video gaming history, and owning, emulating, or even just reading about it ensures the Wizzard’s legacy lives on.

Thanks for keeping it alive!

Police Jump is an enjoyable take on Donkey Kong

Adding 2 player co-op to the well known classic, Sonic Invader was the Wizzard’s pack-in game

Air/Sea Attack

Featuring a drain comparable to Pin·Bot, Astro Pinball has your silverball fix covered!

Two panels either side allow usage of the controllers while the keyboard is attached

The Wizzard’s voice

Additional images and higher quality versions of the images from this article can be found here.

Special thanks to Tim H. for helping with photos, and Damian A. for his loan of additional hardware.

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Aaron Clement
Tassie based retro gaming guy. Father of 3 and married to the very tolerant Kellie Clement. Coffee powered!

Follow Aaron Clement on Twitter and Instagram

For the Love of the Game: Handheld Consoles that Defined Portable Gaming

September 26, 2013 By Nadia Hyeong

“It was magic!”—that’s how most gamers would describe it, after powering on their first handheld gaming console. At a time when games could only be played on desktop PCs or consoles, these devices allowed people to play their favorite video games while waiting for the bus, in summer camp, or at the dentist’s office. Thanks to companies like Mattel Electronics (now Mattel), Coleco, and Nintendo, they made gaming on the go and fun.

However, in a report published by the International Data Corporation (IDC) and App Annie for the 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo 2013; it shows that more consumers are willing to pay more for gaming applications (apps), compared to the stand-alone games released by Sony or Nintendo. With tech companies like Verizon supporting the mobile industry, game developers are starting to rethink their strategy to cope with the competition.

As sad as it may seem, I still believe that there are gamers out there who are still patronizing our beloved portable gaming devices. With that in mind, I’d like to share my old school handheld console experience, and how it shaped me as a gamer.

Game & Watch

Donkey_kong_game_and_watch_open(1) — source: pocketgamer

Ask people what a Game & Watch (G&W) is, and the first thing that they’ll ask is, “Is it a smart watch?”. As funny as it may seem, this is the usual answer I get when I ask this question. Since we live in the so-called Smart Age, this could be the reason why this answer came across their minds. Fortunately for me, I was able to play one of these devices and it was awesome. At first glance, you would mistake it for a Game Boy Micro, since they look alike. However, unlike its grandchildren—the Game Boy and DS family line—it only has one built-in game in it. Even though each unit only had one game to play, I had fun playing games like Parachute, Octopus, and Donkey Kong 2. Out of these three games, I liked Octopus the best. It was really challenging to dodge the octopus’ tentacles and get as much treasure as possible. Their technologies may be simple, but each game will really eat up your time and patience (sometimes).

Game Boy Color

Basically, it’s the first handheld that supported backward compatibility, which was a real innovative move by Nintendo. Aside from its standard Berry (C), Grape (O), Kiwi (L), Dandelion (O), and Teal (R) exterior colors, it had a colored screen, which was a departure from its predecessor, the Game Boy. Well, I was fortunate enough to own its Clear Black version of the Game Boy Color (GBC) and it was used heavily for gaming, maxing out its 2 rechargeable AA batteries. I actually played R-Type DX—it was relatively slower on the GBC but fun; Donkey Kong Island, Super Mario Bros Deluxe, and Dragon Warrior III. The GBC definitely gave me the gaming fix I needed, especially during those long family road trips we usually had.

PlayStation Portable (PSP)

After wearing out my trusty Game Boy Color, I had to buy something new and better. That time, I had my PlayStation II, which was basically my main gaming device. Since I was out of the house most of the time, I needed something more portable. Thanks to my friend’s urging, I finally bought a PlayStation Portable (PSP) and went for the newer, slimmer version—the PSP-3000. It was definitely an upgrade to the older PSP-1000, which my brother owned and it featured a 64MB system software. I was also able to snag the Final Fantasy: Crisis Core ice silver-engraved edition (I’m a huge Zack Fair fan!). Yes, I played Crisis Core a lot and if some gamers didn’t like its new battle system, I loved it a lot. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to complete his sought-after Genji Equipment—I was only able to get the Genjii Helm and Glove. Another game that I loved playing on the PSP was Mega Man Powered Up, and it was in 3D. The designs may be too Chibi-like or cute, but the game-play was still very Mega Man-ish. I also loved that the developers included two new Robot Masters: Time Man and Oil Man. Another great feature of the game was its Challenge Mode, which gave you one hundred more stages to complete. Until now, I’m still waiting for news if Capcom plans to release its sequel.

Since the retirement of my PSP, I now have my smartphone to get my gaming fix. Looking back, these handheld gaming devices definitely helped me become a better gamer. These portable gaming systems may have reached their prime, but they’re still icons in their own right. As the gaming industry faces a new dawn, I’m still hoping that they won’t just fade into the pages of history. Rather, take the lead into its promising future.

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Nadia Hyeong usually writes about gadgets, apps and games. During her free time, she appreciates classic rock and art. Follow her on Twitter and Twitter.

The 80’s Arcade

September 10, 2013 By ausretrogamer

The year is 1985. You walk into a smoky arcade parlour and the sounds of Galaga, Robotron:2084, Pac Man and Asteroids fill your ears. Dire Straits is blaring from the crackling sound system singing something about “Money For Nothing”.

80s_games_pacman — Source: Steve Ringman/The Chronicle 1981

You make a beeline to your favourite arcade machine. Coins are lined up on the screen as you eagerly await your turn. Once you get hold of the joystick and your fingers are poised on the fire button, excitement and joy fills your heart as you dash towards the last remaining aliens, pew pew, pew. The machine rocks and vibrates as you attempt to beat the high score. Just one more level, one more ghost, one more kick, one more blast and you will be the star of the arcade and immortalised forever on the high score table.

Those were the days before game-saves and redemption machines, when every game cost 20 cents and every life was important – an era that required true skill and nerves of steel to play.

Galaga: The Affinity Lives On

May 9, 2013 By ausretrogamer

Galaga_arcade_flyer

Those on the ausretrogamer bandwagon will be aware that I LOVE Galaga! Namco’s vertical shoot’em up trapped me in its tractor beam back in 1981 and hasn’t released me yet.

Some 30 plus years ago, while waiting for relatives to arrive at Melbourne International Airport, I noticed a tabletop machine nearby. Upon gazing at the screen, I saw a little triangular ship shooting at formations of alien spaceships streaming from the sides of the screen. My first thought was, “wow, a souped-up Space Invaders”. Once I dropped in two 20 cent pieces, I immediately realised – this was no Space Invaders. This was way better! You could shoot multiple times (as long as you had the finger dexterity), your ship could be captured in a tractor beam, and there were challenge stages to rack up those high score points. To put it mildly, I was hooked.

Galaga_4

So, what was it about Galaga that got this child hooked all those years ago? Galaga was, and still is, an uncomplicated vertical shoot’em up with the right mix of challenge and entertainment. Blasting those pesky alien spaceships gives a great sense of satisfaction.

For those unfamiliar with Galaga, here is the low-down on this beautiful game: You control the ship at the bottom of the screen, firing at Galaga enemies, moving left and right to avoid their fire and kamikaze attacks.

Galaga_2

The enemy spaceships fly onto the screen from the left or right side. Unless you can shoot them all while forming, they assemble in the centre of the screen – just like in Space Invaders. As you play the game, you quickly learn the formation patterns and can anticipate when and how the spaceships will fly out onto the screen.

There is one particular Galaga enemy ship that is special – these enemy spaceships take multiple hits before they are destroyed. If you do not destroy them, they can fly down the screen towards you and release a tractor beam to capture your ship. To free the captured ship, you must destroy the captor Galaga while it is attacking you, if you fail, your captured ship will be destroyed. When you free your captured ship, it will dock alongside your current ship, and you are thus rewarded with a dual firing weapon of mass destruction.

Galaga_3

These dual ships are especially handy for blasting away enemies during challenge stages. With your dual ship you can clear stages quickly and collect some nice bonus points. Speaking of points, every 20,000 earns you an additional life (ship); and as the game increases in difficulty, every spare ship counts.

Galaga remains a firm favourite in the gaming community, especially to those who grew up in the 80s. Since dropping in those coins all those years ago, I can safely say my affinity for Galaga has not subsided one bit. Long live Galaga!

Graphics	The star field is realistic enough to make you feel like you are flying through deep space engaging in some enemy fire.	90%
Sound	Pew Pew sound effects never sounded any better.	90%
Playability	Insert coins, move left or right and fire. Couldn’t be any easier, right?	93%
Lastability	Galaga enemy spaceships have been fired upon ever since 1981. You do the maths on the lastability of this seminal shooter.	95%
Overall	When it comes to old school vertical shoot’em ups, Galaga is at the top of its class.	95%

arcade-game-galaga Manufacturer: Namco
Year: 1981
Genre: Shoot’em Up
Number of Simultaneous Players: 1
Maximum number of Players: 2
Gameplay: Alternating
Control Panel Layout: Single Player
Controls:
– Joystick: 2-way (left, right)
– Buttons: 1 (fire)
Sound: Amplified Mono (single channel)

Galaga_Namco

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