The Pop-Culture E-Zine
We got excited with today being Friday (Ed: TGIF!), but we got even more excited when we realised it was the fourth day of May, Star Wars Day! So, May the 4th Be With You all!
To celebrate the day, we thought we’d curate a few awesome Star Wars stories we’ve published (just click on each pic!) which should get your lightsabers glowing!
A very cool video of the evolution of Nintendo consoles by our good friends at GameSpot Today I Learned!
Before some of you say, “But where is the Game Boy, DS and 3DS?”, relax, this is the evolutionary line of their consoles, not their handhelds. Having said that, it seems like the Virtual Boy doesn’t fit in any category 🙁
How many Nintendo consoles have you owned since their Color TV-Game 6?
source: GameSpot Today I Learned
Hack or not to hack the SNES Classic Mini: that is the question and my dilemma! On the one hand, I want the SNES Mini to remain as it was intended by Nintendo, and on the other, I want to load it up with more games than you can poke a stick at!
Apart from entering the murky waters of gaming rom legalities, I also don’t want to risk bricking my cute little SNES. I am aware that the hack to load more games is well tested and there are easy to follow instructions out there, but I choose to leave my SNES Classic Mini as is – with its 21 legal video games!
I’ll admit that in the past I dabbled in the shadows of piracy by exchanging C64 games on tape in the schoolyard. Even though I thought it was cool to do this back in the day, I am now filled with regret that I had cheated the creators of making a pretty penny for their creation. The other and less moralistic reason for not wanting to hack my SNES Classic Mini is that I’ know I would suffer from being spoiled for choice. When faced with a choice of hundreds of gaming roms, I know I’d skim past a fair few of them, thus missing out on playing some real gems, and worse still, not play a load of games due to the sheer volume of choice.
Whatever your choice, you can do whatever you see fit with your SNES Classic Mini. I just chose to leave mine alone.
If you were in Vegas last week for the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) you would have been forgiven for thinking that it was the 1990s!
It definitely looks like companies are finally tweaking to the fact that retro gaming is big business. From Hyperkin announcing the mighty Ultra Game Boy to Retro-Bit announcing their partnership with Sega, it looks like 2018 is going to be a big year for retro gamers and their credit cards!
Here are our hot retrogaming picks from CES 2018:
Hyperkin Ultra Game Boy in an aluminium case will turn heads for sure!
image source: Gizmodo
Retro-bit did a mic drop by announcing that they had signed a licensing agreement with Sega to produce accessories for Sega’s Mega Drive, Saturn and Dreamcast gaming consoles! They even showed off games for the NES and SNES! These guys were on fire in Vegas!
Retro-Bit’s Sega Dreamcast Bluetooth Controller, Receiver and TV connectivity cables
Retro-Bit’s Sega Saturn controllers!
Retro-Bit’s Sega Mega Drive / Genesis Bluetooth Controllers
Retro-Bit’s Games for the NES (Holy Diver) and SNES (R-Type Returns CE)
source: Retro-Bit on Twitter
(Atari) Table Pong – If you weren’t lucky enough to snag this via its super early-bird Kickstarter price, then you will be paying three times more for it now!
source: Alex Kidman via Finder
Virtual Consoles – a recently launched website makes it possible to play legendary computers and consoles like the Apple II, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Super Nintendo (to name a few) right in your web browser.
The Virtual Consoles website offers its services free of charge: you can play on 9 old school gaming systems without installing any add-ons or plug-ins. Now that is pretty damn cool!
With the revival of retro gaming and the ever escalating costs, this site has come at the right time. “The site generally uses open-source development, so the use of emulators is completely free of charge. An up-to-date browser and an average desktop computer is all that is needed, although most of the retro computers offer good experience on tablets, as well”, says Kornel Kolma, founder of virtualconsoles.com.
Play with Spacewar! from 1962
Currently there are 9 online emulators available on the site: Apple II, Atari 2600, NES , Super NES. DOS, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum. There are also some curiosities to be found in the collection, like the CHIP-8 interpreter which ran on microcomputers of the 1970s, and the DEC PDP-1, which was introduced in 1959 – making it possible to play the original Spacewar! game online.
“We only attached games to the emulated computers and consoles if they were freeware games or had gotten approval from the copyright owner. For most of the emulators we made it possible to upload games from existing collections. Our long-term goal is to come to an agreement with copyright owners of old games and make these games available in a retro gaming online store”, says Kornel Kolma. Kornel also added, “The short-term plan of Virtual Consoles is to launch additional emulators which will run in your web browser”.
With Virtual Consoles, the game is definitely not over!
We may have missed out on the NES Classic Mini, but we were determined not to repeat the same mistake twice!
When the SNES Classic Mini was announced earlier in the year, we jumped in early to lock in our pre-order. Well, the wait is finally over and we have our grubby mits on Nintendo’s latest (and best) Classic Mini system.
Our initial impression is that it is so small and cute! Leaving the aesthetics aside, the console connects easy to any newer TV (via HDMI) with the correct aspect ratio. You can power your SNES Classic by connecting it to your TV’s USB interface – no more worrying about a power outlet. The most important part of this whole Classic Mini thingy are the games, and what a stellar list! The bundled SNES Classic Mini games reads like a who’s who of the greatest games of all time. Just when you thought Nintendo could not top this, they have also thrown in the previously unreleased Star Fox 2!
Did you get yourself a SNES Classic Mini? If you did, we would love to know what you think – hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!
Anyway, enough chatting, time to play!
*** THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED ***
Wanna go to PAX Aus 2017? Do you want an easy way to enter a ticket giveaway? If you answered yes to both of these questions, then you are in luck!
Thanks to our great friends at PAX Aus, we have 3 x double passes for Sunday (October 29) to attend one of the biggest and best gaming events in the southern hemisphere. To score one of these double passes all you have to do is tweet us your favourite retro gaming item(s) – be it a console, computer, game or accessory, we want to see what tickles your nostalgic nerve. Don’t forget to tag us in your tweet and use the hashtags #PAXAus and #ausretrogamer.
It doesn’t get any easier than that! So get cracking on photographing those retro gaming items, as entries close on October 4th at 8:00pm!
If you need convincing of how great PAX Aus is, then check out last year’s event.
For those of you that like to read T&Cs, here are the finer details of this most awesome giveaway:
PAX Aus 2017 is on from October 27 to 29 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. Tickets / Badges are available here.
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.
In 1988 Atari Corporation’s Jack Tramiel ordered work to begin on the successor to the Atari 7800 and XEGS. Work quickly begun on the Panther and Jaguar consoles – yes, the Jaguar! The Atari Panther was being developed by Flare Technology (Flare One and Konix Multisystem) and was scheduled for release in 1991, directly competing with Nintendo’s SNES and Sega’s Mega Drive.
The Panther platform was going to be a mash up of the Atari ST and Transputer “Blossom” video card, once again blurring the lines of “is it 16 or 32-bit?”. For the record, the Motorola 68000 CPU was going to run at 16MHz (compared to the Mega Drive’s 8MHz and the SNES’ 12MHz) which was going to be paired with a 32-bit graphics card running at a whopping 32MHz! On paper, Atari was doing their math(s) right!
As the Panther and Jaguar were being developed in parallel, Atari Corp. started favouring the Jaguar as it was progressing quickly and presented far more impressive and superior technology. Atari eventually decided to scrap the Panther and forge ahead with their 64-bit console. The cancellation of the Panther meant that Atari had no hardware presence in the home console market between the discontinuation of the Atari 7800 in 1992 and the launch of their Jaguar in 1993. This gap weakened the Atari brand and likely contributed to the failure of the Jaguar console.
The cancellation of the Panther was poor timing, which in retrospect Atari wishes they had pursued it to market, as it would have given both the SNES and Mega Drive one hell of a fight!
The Atari Panther blueprint!
Looking good – front, back with nice sides!
The press release that got us drooling!
image source: Atari-Explorer via Wayback Machine
By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.
Darth Vader is such a fascinating film character. He goes away for a while, and then he comes roaring back into our pop culture conscience, better than ever.
After the spectacularly imaginative ending to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Vader is once again as popular as ever. There is something gratifying about seeing people of all ages wearing Darth Vader t-shirts again.
Like the original film trilogy, Super Nintendo’s The Empire Strikes Back, released in 1993, was the best of the Super Star Wars game series.
If you were a talented enough gamer to ultimately advance to Darth Vader, he was very difficult to defeat. That’s what made the game so good. Vader was a challenge, and battling him as Luke Skywalker was really a treat when I played the game as a kid.
Empire has the best lightsaber duel of the entire Star Wars film franchise. And I don’t care what anyone says, the Empire duel between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in Empire is more dramatic and thrilling than their final duel in Return of the Jedi. Just because it’s the coda of the original trilogy doesn’t make it the best lightsaber battle; satisfying, yes, but not on par with the duel that leads to Cloud City’s central air shaft.
image source: Pinterest
The lightsaber battle in the game is very similar to the one at the end of the 1980 film. However, Vader is a lot taller than Luke in the game; he’s almost giant-like compared to the young Jedi. As a child gamer, I found Vader’s height to be a little intimidating.
I spent many entertaining hours fighting Vader; to a point where I would keep track of how long it would take me to defeat him…if I defeated him. Vader’s not messing around at the end of the game. My friends and I called it “The Vader Challenge.” It was an ideal way to reenact the battle at the end of one of my favourite films.
The rest of the game action is enjoyable, but nothing is as testing and exceptional as the duel with Vader. Battling the AT-AT Walkers on the planet Hoth is really fun as well. The graphics are exceptional and the degree of difficulty adds a layer that makes this a game young Star Wars fans should try playing if they can find a Super NES copy.
It’ll stress you out a few times, but “The Vader Challenge” at the end is worth the anxiety.