Retro Gaming Australia

RGA’s latest secret project is in heavy development. Not announcing what it is at the moment due to the potential embarassment of not finishing yet another project, but needless to say, you should all really enjoy it when it does launch, which I am expecting to be late Q4 2010 or Q1 2011. In amongst the work on that project, I’ve started planning out some site rehauling, including unified logins for the boards and the comments section on the blog, new banners and headers for the blog and forum, and some new content.

The first bit of new content is a series of Let’s Play videos. Let’s Play videos are a concept that mostly developed on SomethingAwful – people record playthroughts of games and commentate over them – either in a funny (usually failing to be funny) or informative manner. You’ll see the first one, International Cricket for the NES on the site today, but it’s already on Youtube if you’re keen. I’m not intending to solely cover Australian-oriented and/or developed games, but there’s little information on the Internet about these games, so it helps draw people in. I’ve never seen anyone do an LP on a sports game before either – I guess because there’s technically no story to follow, but you could probably do a good series for a season or franchise mode. I also must apologise in advance for my dull commentary – I hope that will improve with time and practice.
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The Classic Gaming Expo 2010 is on right now – hopefully someone will have a nice report on the show that I can link you to in the future. Seems like they had a pretty good show lined up this year too.
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The Tetris World Championships are happening on August 8 in Los Angeles. The event is being organised by former Nintendo World Championships winner Robin Mihara. A documentary film about the championships called The Tetris Masters: Ecstasy of Order is in production.
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Phantasy Star text adventure translations released at MIJET
Sega released a load of Phantasy Star games that never made it to the West, including these two Game Gear games, which have now been translated to English. Joy.
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Retrospective: Duck Tales at Eurogamer Retro
Duck Tales is one of my favourite NES games, and the folks over at Eurogamer Retro have a bit of a spiel on it. Of course, we can’t have a mention of Duck Tales without linking to the awesome Moon level theme music.
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Retrospective: Mario Golf: Advance Tour at Eurogamer Retro
The portable versions of Mario sports titles are, in a matter of speaking, bloody brilliant. This article is not particularly good compared with other EG retro offerings, but it tells you what you need to know about the game.
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Spinny and Spike (MD), Prince of Persia: Two Thrones Beta (PS2/XB/GCN), ClayFighter Beta (SNES), The Lawnmower Man Beta (SNES/MD), Spyral Saga (PSX), Timmy Time (32X), Ultra Copter Tech Demo (N64), Guilty Gear Beta (PSX), Full Throttle 2: Payback (PC/PS2), Virus (PSX), Area 51 (PS2/Xbox), Hell’s Deep (PC/PS2), Terminus (SS/PSX/PC) at Unseen64
The Unseen64 crew have a mass of updates for the last fortnight, but they’re taking August off to enjoy part of Summer. Interesting to see that there was a direct sequel to the Area 51 arcade game in development that was not the FPS we ended up getting.
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Virtual Console Update: Aero the Acrobat (SNES)
Another mediocre game that, like many Sunsoft releases, punches above its weight on eBay.
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Retro Reading Retro Reading

Was intending to go back to weekly updates, but it didn’t quite work out due to a lack of content – I personally prefer one large update to a couple of small ones. I’ve spent the last two weeks working on a pair of big projects for RGA. They’re not going to be ready for months, so I’m going to refrain from talking about them more in case it doesn’t work out. I’d really like to get a better design for the site too, as I hate this WordPress skin at least 10x more than you.
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Retrogaming Times Monthly July 2010 at Retrogaming Times
More monthly newsletter fun.
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The History of Korean Games at Hardcore Gaming 101
A little something different from our friends at HG101 this month – an in-depth look into the history of games developed in Korea.
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The History of Fan Translation at Hardcore Gaming 101
HG101′s also got a look at the history of fan translation projects. Keep in mind that this is a reprint of a Retro Gamer article, so you may have read part of it before if you’re an RG reader.
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Myst series, Front Mission series, Mercenary Force, , Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller and Starship Titanic at Hardcore Gaming 101
HG101 has also put together their usual selection of monthly game articles. This month, some game articles have received some much needed updates, while other obscure PC adventure games are remembered, like the Hell, which starred the late Dennis Hopper as the Devil.
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Sonic 2 XL at Sonic Stadium
I don’t normally post links to rom hacks, but this one is pretty funny, and extraordinarily well-executed. Sonic 2 XL replaces Sonic’s standard rings with onion rings – as you collect rings, he gets fatter. Collect too many and he stops from exhaustion and dies. Really nice new sprites and adjusted physics to match.
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Roman Bloodsport (Xbox), Outrun 2 Beta (Arcade), Split Realities (PSX/SS), Bug Busters: The Exterminators (MCD), Kasumi Ninja Beta (JAG), Sonic Battle Beta (GBA), Street Fighter II Concept (Arcade), Hirelings (PC/PS2), Brett Hull Hockey (JAG), Citizen X (MCD), Ultimate Brain Games (JAG), Primal Rage 2 (Arcade), Tarzan (SNES), Tekken “Rave War” Beta (Arcade), Super Burn Out (JAG), Savage Heroes (MD), Jack Nicklaus Cyber Golf (JAGCD), The Big One (PS2), Rayman (SNES), King of Fighters 99 Beta (Arcade), Screwballs Superleague (NES), Super Mario Land 2 Beta (GB), Titan Warriors (NES) and Thunder in Paradise (SNES) at Unseen64
Another big month at Unseen64, pretty heavy on the Jaguar stuff if that tickles your fancy. I thought the Melbourne House PS2 game sounded pretty cool, though – shame Atari/Infogrames really mismanaged that studio.
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Looking Back on Acclaim with Greg Fischbach at 1UP Retro
1UP tracked down former Acclaim founder Greg Fischbach to have a chat about the company’s glory days and eventual demise.
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Mario Figure Alternatives from the Past at 1UP Retro
The 1UP crew also took a look at some obscure old Mario figures in “celebration” of the Mario crew statuette sent to NOA Club Nintendo platinum members.
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The Rarest and Most Valuable Turbografix/PC Engine Games at Racketboy
Racketboy has done another roundup of rare and expensive games, this time for the PC Engine. Most PCE fans will probably know what to expect, but if you’re new to the machine, it’s a good read.
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Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge Retrospective at Eurogamer Retro
The special edition of Monkey Island 2 with (horrible) tarted up graphics and (not horrible) voice work was released on XBLA, PSN and Steam recently, so Eurogamer went back and looked at the original. As you do.
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Nintendoage June Newsletter at Nintendo Age (reg required)
More monthly newsletter fun from the NA crew.
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Recent Virtual Console releases: Ufouria: The Saga (NES, 500 points), Shadow of the Ninja (NES, 600 points)
Two quality new releases for the VC – hopefully this will cause a major drop in the price of a copy of Ufouria.
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Retro Reading Retro Reading

Poor RGA got ignored while I had a guest-editing stint over at GamePron that covered the nutso E3 week and a couple of days after. Now that’s all done with, I can get back to retro fun.

Retrogaming Times Monthly June 2010 issue at Retrogaming Times
Latest issue of the long-running newsletter is out, majority of the issue appears to be Pac-Man related articles in celebration of the character’s 30th anniversary.
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Atari 2600 pause kit now available at AtariAge
Fancy the ability to pause your VCS? For $US20 (plus shipping) and a bit of soldering fun, you can. Alternatively, if you’re totally incompetent with tools like me, you can send it to them to for installation for $US25 (plus shipping).
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Jackie Chan video games, Aquales, Laura Bow Mysteries, Mission Critical at Hardcore Gaming 101
HG101′s June update has a particularly good article on Jackie Chan’s numerous video games. The rest is more PC adventure game stuff, which seems to have dominated their coverage lately.
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The Life and Times of Jeremy Blaustein at Hardcore Gaming 101
Jeremy Blaustein is one of those pioneers in game translation, becoming a name amongst gaming fans for going above and beyond the call of duty in his translations. His credits include Snatcher, Metal Gear Solid, Suikoden II, Valkyrie Profile, Silent Hill 2, Shenmue, Dragon Warrior VII, Shadow Hearts and Dark Cloud 2/Dark Chronicle. This interview discusses Blaustein’s career, from humble beginnings to running his own companies.
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Opposite Lock/Wrecking Crew Beta (SS/PSX), God of War II Beta (PS2), Marble Man: Marble Madness 2 (Arcade), Chrono Cross Beta (PSX), Phase Zero (Jag), Popeye (MD), Guardians: Agents of Justice (PC), Test Drive Cycles (PSX), Banjo Pilot Beta (GBA), Mega Man 8 Beta (SS/PSX), Alien vs. Predator: Nightmare on Ryushi (PC), Chuck Yeager’s Fighter Combat (NES), I:5 (PS2), Extreme Wakeboarding (PS2), Burning Fists (MCD), Converse Hardcore Hoops (MD/SNES/SS/PSX), Airs Adventure (SS), Silent Space (Xbox/PS2/PC), SimCopter 64 (N64DD), Gumshoe (Xbox/PC) and Zombie High (MD) at Unseen64
Miss a couple of weeks and these Unseen64 entries pile up – all the more reason why you should visit their site regularly. Nothing particularly grand this month, but it’s always nice when someone unearths more cancelled N64DD stuff.
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Interview: Grant Kirkhope at Unseen64
Legendary Rareware musician Grant Kirkhope was interviewed by Unseen64 earlier in the month. They try to drill him for information about cancelled Rare games.
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EGM’s first screenshots of Sonic the Hedgehog at 1UP Retro
1UP seems to be spending all of its updates on Spectrum games, which I tend to prefer not to cover on RGA (since the Spectrum gets so much coverage elsewhere), but they broke their coverage of three colour games to post some screens from the first reveal of Sonic the Hedgehog from a 1990 issue of EGM.
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Games and Franchises that defined the Fighting genre at Racketboy
Racketboy contributor Ack has put together a list of the games he believes defined the fighting genre – you should be able to guess most of them before reading the article.
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Armed & Dangerous Retrospective at Eurogamer Retro
Eurogamer’s John Walker has written up a piece on the riotously funny but largely overlooked Planet Moon shooter Armed & Dangerous. Landsharks for all!
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This week’s Virtual Console release: Mario Tennis (N64)
One of the finest multiplayer games for the Nintendo 64 is now available on the Wii for 1000 Nintendo Points. Beats the $50+ you’d have to shell out for a cart-only copy on eBay, and arguably better than Mario Power Tennis.
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Retro Reading Retro Reading

With new projects in progress all over the place, I admittedly haven’t been keeping up with the latest retro news – for that I apologise. We’ll try to get back to weekly Retro Readings again soon, but in the mean time, this double edition will have to do.

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Interview: Frank Trzcinski at Sega-16

You may remember a couple of E3s ago that Sega announced they were reviving Vectorman for the PlayStation 2. It was an announcement seemingly out of the blue, but the project appeared to be troubled early, and ended up on the chopping block quite quickly. Lead production designer Frank Trzcinksi sheds some light on the development of the game in this interview.

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Sonic Heroes Beta (GCN/PS2/Xbox), Phantom Dust Beta (Xbox), Virtua Boy Tech demos featuring Virtual Boy Mario Land (VB), Devilman Beta (NES), Rip Squad (Arcade), Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge (GBA), Tarantula (PSX/SAT/PC), Gex Beta (3DO/PSX/SAT), Vette: San Francisco Thrills (PSX), Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner Beta (PS2), Fear Factor Unleashed (PS2/Xbox), Video Kid (SNES), Halloween Capsule (MD), Kyle Petty’s No Fear Racing (N64), Trigun: The Planet Gunsmoke (PS2), Offensive (PSX/SAT), Conker’s Bad Fur Day Beta (N64) and Melty Blood: Actress Again Beta (PS2/Arcade) at Unseen64

A solid fortnight’s worth of reading from Unseen64. I always die a little inside when I am reminded of the cancellation of the Trigun game for PS2. It’s a shame Virtual Boy Mario Land never came out – might have helped the system live a little longer. The Conker’s Bad Fur Day beta information is quite interesting – I wonder if anyone will ever snag the elusive Twelve Tales beta?

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Adam West, Video game journalist at 1Up Retro

Frank Cifaldi over at 1Up dug up this little piece Adam West wrote about video games in the July 1983 issue of Videogaming and Computergaming Illustrated magazine. It’s quite a refreshing view too, especially given that Mr West would have been in his 50s at the time.

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Super Nintendo Light Gun games and First Person Shooters at Racketboy

Contributor Ack presents a guide to the SNES’s limited range of light gun and FPS games. There’s a few more of the former than I had realised. A good starting point if you’re looking to find out more, but like most Racketboy articles, you’ll have to continue researching to get the full picture.

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Survival Horror 101 at Racketboy

Ack presents a beginner’s guide to the survival horror genre. Once again, a good starting point, but if you’re looking for a thorough history of the genre, look elsewhere. The article barely touches the more significant games in the genre, mostly name-dropping the big titles, though there is a nice list of the things that make a good survival horror game.

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Zone of the Enders 2 Retrospective at Eurogamer Retro

While it pushes the boundaries of what many would consider to be “retro” at this point in time, ZOE2 is arguably one of the best games on the PlayStation 2, so you should check out this article to find out why you need this game.

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Fahrenheit Retrospective at Eurogamer Retro

Eurogamer takes a look at Quantic Dream’s last gaming outing, doing a rather good job of mocking the title’s late gaming insane streak.

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SSX 3 Retrospective at Eurogamer Retro

Few will look on the “evil empire” era of Electronic Arts with fondness, but the odd good game did come out of the mega-publisher in the earlier half of this decade. SSX 3 was one such title.

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Nintendo Age May e-Zine at Nintendo Age (Registration requried)

This month’s Nintendo Age e-Zine has a particularly good in-depth look at what constitutes a sealed PAL NES game, which is a must-read if you’re into the whole sealed collecting thing. I guarantee that it will surprise you (guarantee not valid – RGA Legal).

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Dr Franken Reproduction now available at The NES Dump (via NES World)

Dr. Franken was a fairly decent Game Boy title which was meant to also come out on the NES (I understand the game was almost complete), but never did. For $US50, you can now buy a reproduction version of the game, complete with box, dust cover, manual and a protective slick.

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Recent Virtual Console Releases: Kirby’s Fun Pak (SNES) for 800 points

I just played through Kirby’s Fun Pak last week – it’s really quite good. Certainly one of the better Kirby outings.

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Retro Reading Retro Reading

You may have noticed that there hasn’t been an update for two weeks. It’s part laziness, part preoccupation with study, and partly due to the fact there’s hardly anything going on in the world of retro gaming coverage. It’s kind of annoying.

Air Raid box found, sells for buttload of money at GameSniped

Air Raid is one of those oddities produced in such small numbers that it makes collectors dribble like infants when a copy comes up. There’s supposedly less than 15 of them in existence, and all ones seen to date were sold without a box. This one had a box. Cost of Air Raid without a box – up to $3K. With box – $US31,600.

Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together (SFC) translation released at Romhacking.net

Althought it was released in English on the PlayStation, Aeon Genesis has gone back and translated the original Super Famicom release of the game into English.

Retrogaming Times Monthly #71 at Retrogaming Times

Retro gaming sites like their newsletters, don’t they? As always, RGTM covers a bunch of topics from across the ages, so check it out.

April 2010 Nintendo Age e-zine (registration required) at Nintendo Age

Another monthly newsletter/magazine type update from the boys and girls at Nintendo Age. This one actually has a bit of a gander at PAL exclusive NES titles, so it’s worth reading.

Realms of Arkania, Deception, Discworld, Touche, Bad Mojo, Shivah, Noctropolis, Inherit the Earth at Hardcore Gaming 101

The always excellent Hardcore Gaming 101 has continued its monthly updating ritural this month with a look at more PC adventure games, including the Discworld series based on the Terry Pratchett novels of the same name and the obscure Bad Mojo, where you play as a cockroach.

Mountain Sports (SNES), Perfect Dark Beta (N64), Mega Man Battle Network debug (GBA), River Raid (SNES), Rent A Hero No. 1 Beta (DC), Jon Ritman’s Soccerama (SNES), Smaartvark (MD), Crimson Skies Beta (Xbox), Solo Flight (SNES), South Park Beta (N64/PSX/PC) at Unseen64

There’s been a lot of SNES stuff at Unseen64 over the past fortnight, which is good if you’re a big 16-Bit ho like I am. Didn’t know a South Park FPS sequel was planned – seemed like a hell of a lot more sensible than South Park Rally and Chef’s Luv Shack, given that it sold a million+ units and was actually playable, even if it was not exactly an enjoyable experience.

The TV with the NES Inside at 1Up Retro

People like All in 1 systems, even if they’re not necessarily as functional or reliable as separate equipment. In the 80s and 90s, Nintendo and Sharp joined forces to make TVs with in-built Famicom, NES and Super Famicom hardware. These TVs produce the best possible picture quality for those systems, but have a number of shortcomings. This article’s kind of short on the detail, but you can find more information about these oddities elsewhere.

Retrospective: Impossible Mission at Eurogamer Retro

Classic, but ball-breakingly difficult (and quite literally impossible in some points), Impossible Mission is the source of fond memories and frustration for many gamers that cut their teeth on the variety of computer formats available in the late 80s and early 90s. Eurogamer takes an in-depth look at the game here.

The Making of Halo 2 at Eurogamer Retro

With the OG Xbox Live service shutdown just days away, Eurogamer has caught up with the Bungie team to reminisce about the creation of the service’s most played game.

This week’s Virtual Console release: Blaster Master (NES) for 500 Nintendo Points

It seems Nintendo has started listing prices again – woo! This week’s release is the classic, but ball-bustingly difficult Blaster Master from Sunsoft.

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Retro Reading Retro Reading

Another week, another bunch of games beaten. Resident Evil 3 has long taunted me with its affinity for making you run through narrow corridors while chased by a huge mutant that can kill you in a scant few hits, but I finally beat that bastard. I was hoping to be able to spend some time with Pokemon Heart Gold, but the mail service has forsaken me yet again.

All is quiet on the retro front again, unfortunately, but there are a few interesting pieces I managed to stumble across this week.

Interview: Mike Dietz at Sega-16

In the glory days of the Mega Drive, Virgin was among the best studios when it came to animation. Mike Dietz was the supervising animator at the developer back in the day, and Sega-16 caught up with him to chat about Virgin, Shiny and Earthworm Jim.

Slayers Translation Patch Complete at Romhacking.net

Slayers is a traditional 16-bit RPG, released for the Super Famicom. Like many of its contemporaries, the game stayed in Japan, but a team of romhackers and translators have worked their magic on the game to bring an English version for your consumption.

Star Fox 2 at SNES Central

Star Fox 2 was set to be one of 1995′s big SNES games, but was cancelled towards the end of the year. It was believed that many of the features of the game were worked into Star Fox 64/Lylat Wars. SNES Central has put together a fantastic article detailing the story behind Star Fox 2 and some background information on the release of a near final version of the game ROM a few years back.

Malice (PSX), Metamor Kid Goomin (SNES), Deathtrap Dungeon Beta (PC/PSX), Zoiks (PC), Akira (SNES/MD), Dominion (PC/Xbox), Fallout Tactics 2 (PC), Project Dagger (PS2/Xbox) at Unseen64

Good variety of updates from Unseen64 this week. Never knew Malice was in development for the PSX – always thought it was one of those silly looking and eventually cancelled first party publishing deals Microsoft made out of desperation in the early days of the Xbox. Interesting to finally see pics of THQ’s Akira game, even though nothing good ever came out of THQ in those days.

This week’s Virtual Console release: Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Calibre (N64) and Fatal Fury Special (Neo Geo)

Virtual Console is really starting to come along – we’ve got our first third party N64 game available on the service now. Since Ogre Battle is somewhat popular game on eBay, I’m hoping that this release drives down the price and cools the demand for a while.

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Retro Reading Retro Reading

More backlog smashing this week saw the last of my NES backlog put to rest. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is a lot better than I expected, and can be really tricky – that trip to the final dungeon caused much in the way of cussing and hair loss. I’ve still got 17 more systems to clear out, and it doesn’t help that I keep finding Dreamcast games that were left off the core list. I’ll never beat everything that we own, but I’m gonna get my money’s worth out of each and every game.

Check Out: The PAL PS1 Collective

One problem of the online retro gaming scene is that the vast majority of content is written with the American market in mind – nobody really worries too much about PAL or NTSC-J collectors. Knowing this, Defcon and AtariBuff, two of the biggest PlayStation collectors in Europe, pooled their resources together to create a database cataloguing all they know about the PlayStation in PAL regions. There’s information about every game, variants, special editions, region exclusive releases and stuff that only collector types will really care about. It should definitely be your first point of call for any questions regarding PAL PlayStation.

Enemy Zero Special Edition Crate at GameSniped

Those of you who know me well (which is probably 90% of the current reader base) know that I’m a total sucker for special, collectors and limited editions. Often I’m disappointed by the cheap crap that many publishers include with their special editions, as usually it fails to justify the price. GameSniped featured this little doozy on their site this week. That’s what I call a special edition – sure, it cost a shitload of money and Enemy Zero is a terrible game, but it had a buttload of stuff, and came in a goddamn crate personally delivered to you by the game’s producer.

Nintendo World Championships – No Reserve Auction at GameSniped

I won’t link directly to the auction, cos I get frigging annoyed when I read old posts with dead eBay links, but there’s one of the grey NWC carts on eBay. So if you’ve got a spare $6K and a burning desire for a piece of US NES history, here’s your opportunity.

1993 US Senate Committee Hearings on Video Game Violence at C-SPAN (via 1UP Retro)

Ah, politicians and video games. Here we have the hearings that sought to villify the games industry and make out like all of us children at the time were being transformed into murderers by Night Trap and Mortal Kombat. Clearly nobody in the hearing had any idea what was involved in Night Trap.

Sonic Jam for Game.Com at Sega-16

For reasons unknown (but likely money related) Sega licensed Sonic the Hedgehog to Tiger Electronics for this utterly terrible “port” of Sonic Jam to the Game.Com. It didn’t end well.

Fallout Extreme (Xbox), Hitman: Blood Money Beta (PS2, Xbox), World Rally (Mega-CD), GoldenEye: Rogue Agent Beta (PS2, Xbox, GCN), Lobo (N64), I-Ninja (GBA) at Unseen64

Kind of a dull week at Unseen64, but the short article on Fallout Extreme merits reading. Interplay really had no clue what to do with that series.

This Week’s Virtual Console Release: Milon’s Secret Castle (NES) and Castlevania X: Rondo of Blood (PCE-CD)

At last, the masses can play the one of the greatest Castlevania games in Rondo of Blood. Nintendo appears to have stopped listing the points cost of these games, but I understand Rondo is 900 Nintendo Points. Well worth the cost – hopefully this has some sort of flow on effect and I can finally nab an original copy of the game for under $150.

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Retro Reading Retro Reading

Oo-er, someone was bad and didn’t do their work on Saturday. This week, I’ve mostly been playing the Donkey Kong Land series as part of my backlog elimination mission. I think the first game had the best level design of the series, but the second and third games, which were essentially adaptations of their equivalent Donkey Kong Country games, had the better gameplay. I’m hoping to finally beat The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past this coming week – it’s been a long time coming.

Not a whole lot happening in terms of new retro articles, so I’ll start throwing in a few older articles I think are worth reading to beef things up. If you’re observant, you might have noticed that the site now has a favicon; I’m finally getting stuck into some of the design stuff, so hopefully things will start looking a little more unique in the coming weeks.

Neo Geo games coming to PlayStation Network at PS3 Attitude (thanks Brenna)

Not content to let the Virtual Console guys have all of the fun, SNK will be bringing Neo Geo games to PSN. Nothing spectacular just yet – the ESRB site names Alpha Mission II, Baseball Stars Professional, League Bowling and Super Sidekicks as the first batch of titles.

Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, The Feeble Files, Sanitarium, The Superhero League of Hoboken, Realms of the Haunting, Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja, The Cliffhanger: Edward Randy, Sword of Vermillion at HardcoreGaming101

HG101 posted their monthly update earlier in the week, and it’s heavy on the PC adventure games once again. It was nice to see them do an entry on Joe & Mac – it’s a solid little action-platformer that not too many people know about. Heck, the only time I ran into the original machine was at the Tara Cafe in 1992.

Sukeban Deka II (Mark III) and Saint Seiya: Ougon Densetsu Kanketsu Hen (FC) English translations, Tecmo Super Coach (NES) 2009-10 Season Hack at Romhacking.net

It’s always a glorious day when a translation or major hacking project is finished – most usually end with the death of relatives and/or hard drive crashes. Sukeban Deka II was apparently the last remaining SMS/Mark III game that was not available in English either officially or via translation patch, a neat little fact to note.

Omikron: The Nomad Soul Retrospective at Eurogamer

Most of the big name Internet gaming sites have terrible retro coverage, so I tend not to post any of the updates they do, but I thought this little piece on Quantic Dream’s first game was worth a look, especially since Heavy Rain was just recently released (and turned out to be pretty good, too).

The Lost Levels: Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds at 1Up Retro

1Up’s Frank Cifaldi’s twice-monthly Lost Levels column is always a good read, but moreso this time since it features one of the lost Mario games, the ill-fated Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds for the CD-i. I’d say from looking at that article and Philips’ Zelda games, we’re better for having lost this one, especially since developer Novalogic’s intention appeared to be to develop the game as cheaply as possible and funnell the budget into other projects.

Diddy Kong Racing Beta (N64), Jet Force Gemini (GBC), Kirby’s Adventure Beta (NES), Mercenaries Beta (PS2/Xbox), Rush Club (PS2/Xbox/GCN), The World is Not Enough Beta (N64), Shadow Stalker (SNES) at Unseen64

Busy week for the boys at Unseen64, with some extra stuff in addition to their usual selection of information about betas and cancelled games. I thought the Jet Force Gemini game for the GBC looked alright – it’s a shame that Rare’s GBC titles didn’t experience the level of success they anticipated.

Interview: Nick Bruty at Unseen64

Nick Bruty is one of the original members of the Shiny Entertainment team (you know, when they were good), and a founder of Planet Moon Studios. This rather brief interview mostly discusses his work on Earthworm Jim 2.

What if we had Ura Zelda for the 64DD? at Unseen64

Someone unearthed footage of the boot-up sequence from Ura Zelda for the 64DD. The uploader is not saying how he got this working, though, so don’t get too excited.

Classic Article: The Lost Levels – Sonic and the Secret Games at 1Up Retro

Frank Cifaldi looks at a bunch of Sonic games that never made it – you’ll know of most of them, but there’s a few surprises in there.

This week’s Virtual Console release: Nothing, yet again!

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Retro Reading Retro Reading

Very little new Retro Reading this week, unfortunately. I decided to spend a little time with Super Empire Strikes Back last night and this morning – don’t understand the love it got from the local press at the time though; it’s kind of crap.

Jet Sprint MX (Xbox), James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing Beta (PS2/Xbox/GCN), Wizard of Funk (PS2), Mumu Boukenki Amusing Dream (SFC), Final Fantasy XIII (PS2), Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes 2 (PS2), Little Dream (DC), Resident Evil 0 Beta (GCN) at Unseen64

The ever reliable Unseen64 crew had another packed week of updates. Nothing particularly noteworthy, as that FFXIII PS2 leak happened weeks ago, but still worth a read.

SoulStar X for 32X dumped at SegaSaturno (in Portugese)

Sega Saturno is one of those sites dedicated to tracking down and preserving prototypes, particularly of cancelled games. Their latest acquisition was SoulStar X, a planned sequel to the Mega CD game SoulStar. The sequel was planned for the 32X and the Jaguar CD add-on, so as you’d imagine, the failure of those two systems resulted in the game’s cancellation.

This week’s Virtual Console release: Nothing again!

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Retro Reading Retro Reading

It’s so quiet on the retro front this week that you could hear a nun fart. If this keeps up, I might start throwing in a few older articles from places like Hardcore Gaming 101, though I should have probably done that in the first place. The other alternative is to just post a weekly entry on how awesome Toobin’ is. My brother suggested that I should also produce a piece on the worst of retro writing, seeing as there are some pretty awful pieces coming from the mainstream gaming press. However, I feel that such writing is so bad that it doesn’t warrant being linked to.

Sealed Stadium Events at eBay (via GameSniped)

Forget Nintendo World Championships Gold, this is the real holy grail of the NES Collector. Recalled in the US after little more than 2,000 units were released to a test market (so Nintendo of America could re-release the game itself as World Class Track Meet), the Bandai version of Stadium Events has become something of a rarity. Due to the state of the majority of NES games, complete copies are hard to come by – the last went for $US13,500. A sealed copy…well, what that will go for is anybody’s guess. The current price is $18,500 – more than the last known sale of NWC Gold. Not bad for the family who found it down in the basement, having never been able to play it due to not owning the Family Fitness Fun Mat.

There’s a PAL version of the game around too but due to bigger release numbers it’s not worth any more than $US1,000.00 – so don’t get overexcited or duped if you see one.

Jalepeno Harry (PSX), Mega Man Legends 2 Beta (PSX), Airborne Ranger (SNES), 12 Volt (PS2/Xbox/GCN), Slipshod (PS2/Xbox) at Unseen64

Another captivating week of entries at cancelled game blog Unseen64. Of particular interest/amusement is Slipshod for the PS2/Xbox, another project which highlights the incompetence and unnecessary meddling of EA’s excess of producers.

Interview: Allan Findlay at The Light Sword Cypher Mainframe (via Digital Press Forums)

Strider fansite interviews a programmer who was the sole programmer on the reviled Strider Returns at Tiertex. Few interesting nuggets in there about Tiertex’s other projects, including a cancelled Fate of Atlantis game for the Mega Drive and a CD-i port of Flashback.

This week’s Virtual Console release: Nothing!

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