The Pop-Culture E-Zine
Going deep into our vault for more intoxicating nostalgia for the month of July, we uncover some cult classic JCVD LaserDiscs, tabletops that go pew, pew, pew, a Neo Geo AES, a Sonic VHS tape (remember those!), some old school gaming patches, a Star Wars rip off for the Bally Astrocade and everything in between!
Go on, take a look, but scroll slowly to take it all in! Happy Retro Gaming to you all!
From NFTs selling for millions to other ephemera going for ridiculous amounts of money, we now find video games entering this realm of the ludicrous money!
In the last week we have had two record breaking auction sales of Nintendo video games, first it was The Legend Of Zelda (NES) selling for US$870,000, only for this record to be broken a few days later by the US$1.56 million fetched by Super Mario 64 (N64)!
Now don’t get us wrong, both of these games are great, but come on, these prices are scary as hell! Anyway, as long as there are buyers with deep pockets, then stuff like this is going to go for mega bucks! So if you have some old-school games in mint condition, get them rated and hit Heritage Auctions, you never know, you may be an instant millionaire.
We wonder what video game will break the sales record next?
image source: Heritage Auctions and CNN US
source story: The Verge
It is always a humbling experience when seeing these ‘best selling’ lists related to video games. This time, it is the franchises – the heavy lifters of their respective publisher’s bottom line.
No surprise who is on top, by a massive margin – Mario, Nintendo’s crown jewel. Mario has been a juggernaut franchise for decades! Any game containing the Italian plumber (formerly Jumpman) is almost a guarantee to make bank for Nintendo, from the Super Mario, Mario Kart, Mario Sports and Mario Party series, to Mario RPG! When looking at the list, Mario is in some good company with other massive Nintendo franchises, like the Wii simulation series and of course, The Legend of Zelda. The Wii series was a surprise, as we would have expected Donkey Kong or Metroid to be up there too.
Looking at the chart, you will notice a mixed bag of game franchises that started in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, with Minecraft being the sole representative for the 2010s! No wonder we keep seeing Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto games being made on new generation systems, they sell like hotcakes. Not content with being the biggest pop culture entity, Star Wars has done quite well in the video gaming realm too. Great to see Sega’s Sonic The Hedgehog up there and the many sports titles we have enjoyed (and still enjoy).
See any surprises?
(click to enlarge)
data source: Wikipedia
Creator of mind-blowing portable consoles, Shank Mods, has done it again! This time he has wowed us with an even more amazing creation, the Real Boy – a ‘less awful’ and more awesome Virtual Boy portable system!
According to Shank Mods, this was a year in the making, with every detail painstakingly put together to create the super impressive Real Boy, complete with red backlit buttons!
Our eyes and brain would definitely prefer playing on this Real Boy instead of our real Virtual Boy.
source: Shank Mods
We cherish our Commodore gear, from the Commodore 64 and Amiga 1200, to our Commodore watches, joysticks, CD32 and the obscure and gorgeous CDTV (aka: Compact Disc Television / Commodore Dynamic Total Vision).
Speaking of the Commodore CDTV, we particularly love its obscure controllers, the game pad that doubles as a remote control and the CD1200 trackball – both using good ole fashioned infrared (no Bluetooth here – Ed) for that true wireless gaming experience. There is also the CDTV keyboard, but that ain’t no controller, well, sort of.
The CD1200 trackball is peculiar in that it also has two DB9 joystick ports on the front so that you can hook up you fave joysticks, like the TAC-2, to play your Amiga games in comfort. However, the use of “C” batteries to power it in wireless (IR) mode is not that environmentally friendly at all. The remote control / game pad on the other hand uses “AA”, which means we can use our Eneloops for a more enviro friendly gaming session.
What obscure Commodore gear do you have? Hit us up on Twitter or our Facebook page now!
CDTV Remote Control
CD1200 Trackball
CD1200 Trackball – joystick ports
CDTV – Keyboard et al
We have featured a number of Blockbuster Video stories on here, so it is friggin cool to see our very good friend, Freakin Frankie, emulate his very own Blockbuster Video Store right in his dining room!
Before we start drooling over his setup, we have been aware of Frankie’s love of movies and his growing collection ever since we met many moons ago, but to see his vast collection in the below pics has totally blown us away – but wait, there is more……
Once Frankie put out his initial tweet about embarking on the massive task of presenting his collection of 3,500+ titles, we put down our our bowl of Cheezels and took note! The follow up tweet thread of his home video store setup was impressive to say the least! As collectors ourselves, we can quite easily say that Freakin Frankie’s Home Video Store setup is darn awesome and impressive. Frankie mentioned that he opted against double stacking (as he wanted the authentic video store feel) and decided to sort his collection in alphabetic order, which works very well for our OCD brain – now where is that Akira DVD at?!
Ok, now you can start drooling!
Frankie’s old setup
The tough part – sorting through the massive library!
Experimenting with the video store setup!
And now, the finished product – welcome to Freakin Frankie’s Home Video Store!
images used with permission from Freakin Frankie
We know this is OLD news, but who doesn’t like seeing this again?
Back in late 2018, the National Videogame Museum (NVM) in Texas (USA) tracked down the much rumoured Mini Vectrex VideoSystem. Once it was found that this was a working system, the NVM secured it as part of their Vectrex archive, ensuring all could see this lost treasure on display!
GCE designed and developed the Mini Vectrex just after being purchased by Milton Bradley in 1983. The mini system was to offer a slim alternative, much like contemporary mini console revisions of video games systems from the past. Now imagine if this actually made it to retail stores……….
We definitely could never get sick of watching the Mini Vectrex in action!
source: National Videogame Museum
When we got the email from Rob McCallum about a new MOTU related doco, we sat up and took note. We had previously backed the Power Of Grayskull documentary, which was darn awesome. So when Rob’s email advised us of the new Faking Filmation Kickstarter, we knew we had to jump on it right away!
The Faking Filmation documentary delves in the history of cartoons, with lots of attention to Filmation – the pioneering animation studio that helped start ‘Saturday Morning Cartoons’ and revolutionised weekday afternoon cartoons with He-Man and She-Ra.
But wait, there is more! This new project tackles all that cartoon goodness and wraps it around the story of He-Man mega fan, James Eatock, who has spent the last 3.5 years crafting his own unofficial He-Man cartoon called, “The Return of Faker.” James was just about to release the unofficial cartoon when he was hit with a cease and desist letter preventing him from doing it. Now, he’s on a mission to overcome this obstacle and share it with the world – how awesome is that!
If you want more Masters of The Universe documentary content, or a look at cartoon history, or you just want to see James’ amazing work (and his process to pull it off), then jump on the Faking Filmation Kickstarter right now!
image source: Faking Filmation via Kickstarter
By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is like the video game Alien 3, the game is far superior to the films that they are based on.
For a 2009 game, the graphics and gameplay are amazing. When you are playing as Optimus Prime or Bumblebee, the missions can seem rather repetitive, but it’s enjoyable. The graphics were criticised when the game was released. However, they still look impressive to me. I’ve never been a big stickler for graphics; if the gameplay is fun, I can overlook problems with the graphics. The online mode was praised by critics.
The plot of the game is that the Autobots try to hunt down the remaining Decepticons after the demise of their leader, Megatron. The Fallen is a new adversary, but the plot could’ve done without that added foe.
image source: Gaming Nexus
Of all the Michael Bay “Transformer” films, the second instalment, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” is the sloppiest and most annoying. The jive talking, little robots could be one of the most disgusting characters in recent cinema history. Who could watch that and think it wasn’t in poor taste and tone deaf? I’ve never thought that the film was a total waste like some. I think John Turturro is very funny in the movie, and some of the action scenes are impressive, if you can tell who’s fighting who. So much work went into the visual effects, too bad it didn’t have a better screenplay and story. Michael Bay is a talented filmmaker. The “Bad Boy” films and “Pain & Gain” are entertaining films, I just wish he could have made one exceptional “Transformer’s” film. The first one is fun, but it’s not a great film. With a franchise as global as “Transformers,” Bay had a lot of toys in the toybox to work and create from. Perhaps, he still has a great Transformers film in him, but I think he’s handed the franchise off to younger directors. Paramount, who owns the rights to the Transformers franchise, will never stop making films about Autobots and Decepticons.
“Fallen” is one of the best third-person shooter games I’ve ever played. There are villains I didn’t think I was capable of defeating, and I like that in a game.
The good folks at Fusion Retro Books have announced that they have a number of their books and magazine PDF collections FREE of charge for a limited time!
Go and check out the freebies and download what you like. Be quick, as this won’t last much longer! Happy reading.
source: Fusion Retro Books