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Retro City Rampage OST sees limited edition vinyl release

By
Matt Keller
– February 23, 2012


Retro City Rampage is due out later this year on a myriad of platforms, but for now you can enjoy the game’s soundtrack in one of two forms – digitally, through Bandcamp, or vinyl (for a limited time).

The soundtrack for the game is being created by Jake “virt” Kaufman, Leonard “Freaky DNA” Paul, and Matt “Norrin Radd” Cramer and consists mostly of NES inspired chiptunes.

The digital version is $CA7.99, while the vinyl copies will cost $CA43. The vinyl is limited to 500 copies – 300 black, 100 Green Sapphire and 100 Horizon Blue.

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Contra turns 25 today

By
Matt Keller
– February 20, 2012


Apparently today marks 25 years since Contra debuted in Japanese arcades way back on February 20th, 1987. You should celebrate by playing Contra, or by watching this video of Neo Contra.

Yes, he is running on top of a helicopter propeller.

We’ll have some sort of feature on the series in the coming months. Maybe Konami will get around to revealing that reboot before then.

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Naughty Dog reflects on the making of Jak & Daxter

By
Matt Keller
– February 18, 2012


The Jak & Daxter HD Collection is out in the states now, and will be out here next week (we might even have a review for you in the near future), and to celebrate, Naughty Dog and 2 Player Productions teamed up to produce this short documentary on the making of the series.

Pretty interesting stuff. I’ll always wonder what the second game would have been like if they weren’t so heavily influenced by Grand Theft Auto III, however.

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Pix’n Love’s History of Nintendo Vol. 2 coming March 9

By
Matt Keller
– February 18, 2012


You might remember a couple of months ago that I posted a gushing review of Pix’n Love’s The History of Nintendo Vol. 1 – 1889-1980 (which you should still totally buy if you haven’t already). Florent Gorges in-depth history of one of the greatest forces in gaming was packed full of facts you (probably) didn’t know about Nintendo, along with images of many of their pre-video game products.

The second volume of the series, The History of Nintendo Vol. 2 – 1980-1991, which exclusively covers the Game and Watch line up, will be available on March 9. You can preorder the book here.

This should be an excellent book, if the first is anything to go by.

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PS2 Classics now available on Australian and European PlayStation Stores

By
Matt Keller
– February 18, 2012


A couple months ago we ran a story about PS2 Classics like God Hand being re-released for download on the US PlayStation Store. Well after a long wait, they’ve finally come to the SCEE run stores.

We’ve got a much larger initial line up of games too, though the quality greatly varies. Games are priced between $AU4.25 and $AU15.95. Here’s the list of what’s currently available:

  • A-Train 6 ($AU15.95)
  • Arcade Classics ($AU8.45)
  • Bust-A-Bloc ($AU8.45)
  • Cel Damage: Overdrive ($AU8.45)
  • Chicken Little ($AU15.95)
  • Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe ($AU15.95)
  • Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey ($AU15.95)
  • Donald Duck: Goin’ Quackers ($AU15.95)
  • God Hand ($AU15.95)
  • Golden Age of Racing ($AU8.45)
  • Gungrave Overdose ($AU8.45)
  • International Super Karts ($AU6.25)
  • Kim Possible: What’s the Switch ($AU15.95)
  • Maximo ($AU15.95)
  • Maximo vs. the Army of Zin ($AU15.95)
  • Meet the Robinsons ($AU15.95)
  • Mr Golf ($AU11.45)
  • MX World Tour ($AU8.45)
  • Neo Contra ($AU15.95)
  • Noble Racing ($AU8.45)
  • Road Trip Adventure ($AU8.45)
  • Seek and Destroy ($AU8.45)
  • Skyscraper ($AU4.25)
  • SSX On Tour ($AU15.95)
  • WWI: Aces of the Sky ($AU8.45)
  • WW2: Battle Over the Pacific ($AU8.45)

While it’s certainly a case of quantity over quality, I recommend God Hand, the two Maximo games and Neo Contra.

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Blip Festival hits Melbourne this weekend

By
Matt Keller
– February 16, 2012

The world’s premiere chip tune festival, Blip Festival, will be making its Southern Hemisphere debut (February 17 and 18) this weekend at the Evelyn Hotel in Fitzroy. The festival has popped up all over the world since 2006 in the United States, Japan and across Europe – now it’s Australia’s turn.

Chiptune creators from across the world will be playing at the event – a combination of local talent, and many who are playing in Australia for the first time.

You can read more about it at the official website.

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Reminder: Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition goes offline soon!

By
Matt Keller
– February 14, 2012


Just a friendly reminder that The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition will no longer be available after February 20th.

The game was released as a part of the 25th anniversary celebrations for the Legend of Zelda series last year. It’s an upgrade of the original Four Swords which was released on the same cart as the Game Boy Advance version of A Link to the Past.

It’s bloody good too, so get it before it disappears!

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Daedalus: A new Neo Geo MVS to AES converter

By
Matt Keller
– February 7, 2012


I’m sure many of you are aware of the sheer cost of owning a Neo Geo AES collection. Sure, you can pick up a few early titles on the cheap, particularly if you just go for the Japanese releases, but if you’re looking for popular titles like Metal Slug, or later releases like Garou: Mark of the Wolves, your wallet is doomed.

The MVS, the arcade version of the Neo Geo, is much cheaper to acquire games for due to their abundance, but getting the games and console to run on a standard television can be a tricky task.

The Daedalus is here to fix all of that. A custom project from Neo Geo.com user DavidG, the Daedalus is an MVS to AES converter which supports just about every non-custom hardware Neo Geo release out there.

Being a custom production, the Daedalus is limited to a supply of only 100, and will set you back $CA395 ($AU367) + shipping. It might sound pricey, but this is the Neo Geo scene.

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Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection now available on Steam

By
Matt Keller
– February 4, 2012


Released for consoles a couple of months ago, the Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection was a compilation of the three Mortal Kombat arcade games: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, all uprezzed and online play enabled.

Now PC boffins can get their spine ripping fix with the Steam release of Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection for $US9.99, though it’s 15% off today.

The first three Mortal Kombat games were originally released on the PC many years ago. They’re actually pretty damn good ports too, but you’ll probably have a little bit of fun trying to get them to work with DOSBox, making the new Arcade Kollection re-release a nice alternative.

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Warren Spector up for Lifetime Achievement Award at GDC

By
Matt Keller
– February 4, 2012


You should probably all know Warren Spector. He’s had a hand in some of the best and most influential games of all time – Deus Ex, System Shock, Ultima Underworld and Crusader: No Remorse, to name a few.

Now he’s about to get more acknowledgement of his contribution to the industry in the form of a Lifetime Achievement Award at the upcoming Game Developer’s Choice Awards, held at the 2012 Game Developer’s Conference.

GDC General Manager Meggan Scavio said Spector’s career to date “exemplifies the exact qualities that a Lifetime Achievement Award recipient should possess.”

The 2012 Game Developer’s Conference starts March 5.

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SMS Quest: ninjabearhug vs. the entire SMS library

By
Matt Keller
– February 1, 2012


YouTuber ninjabearhug has decided to take on a lofty goal of finishing every PAL game released on the Sega Master System (a complete guide to which I wrote like ten years ago), and will be documenting the quest with a series of videos.

There are 269 PAL releases for the system, and he’s got all of them in his possession, so we can safely assume that this will be done on the original hardware.

The first game up is The Ninja, which you can watch above.

Every system has a few great games, but the Master System has some real stinkers. So good luck, ninjabearhug!

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First Game Gear games rated for Virtual Console

By
Matt Keller
– February 1, 2012

Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble and Shinobi could well be the first Game Gear games headed to the 3DS Virtual Console, as both games have recently been rated by the ESRB for release in North America. Both games were exclusively designed for the Game Gear upon first release. Triple Trouble was later released in a variety of Sonic collections, but Shinobi stayed exclusive to the system.

Nintendo announced at last year’s Game Developer’s Conference that Game Gear and Turbografx/PC Engine titles would be headed to the 3DS Virtual Console, but little was said of these plans in the months since.

No release date or pricing information is available at this time, so watch this space.

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Dark Reign appears on Xbox Live Indie Games

By
Matt Keller
– January 29, 2012


Out of seemingly nowhere, a port of the 1997 classic Australian-developed real-time strategy game Dark Reign has appeared on the Xbox Live Indie Games service.

For 400 points, those of you that can actually play Xbox Live Indie Games can enjoy this excellent real-time strategy game. Those of us who live in Australia and don’t have secret US Xbox Live accounts will have to go without.

The port appears to have been done as a technology test by a studio called Magnetar Games.

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Retro gaming handheld “GameGadget” coming in March

By
Matt Keller
– January 27, 2012


GameGadget is a UK-developed, open-source handheld that plays “a variety” of classic games which are downloadable from an online store. Details of those games are currently scarce, but what we can tell you is that the GameGadget handheld will be going on sale in the UK in March through distributor Blaze Europe.

For £99.99, you get a handheld with a 3.5″ LCD screen (320×240), four face buttons, two shoulder buttons and a D-pad. Under the hood, the machine is packing a 433mHz dual core CPU, 64MB of RAM and 2GB of flash memory, with expandable storage through SD cards.

An interesting little device, if a little pricey. One would think that the price of the software and the quality of the emulation will make or break the system.

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Sonic “SatAM” series now available on DVD in Australia

By
Matt Keller
– January 26, 2012


Back in the early 1990s, there were two Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon series, the fun-filled, bright and appallingly animated Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and the well-animated, plot-driven, overly-serious furry bait Sonic the Hedgehog: The Animated Series, known by fans as “SatAM” due to its original Saturday morning timeslot.

Now you can get the latter series on DVD in Australia thanks to Beyond Home Entertainment. While it has previously seen release in R1, those sets are somewhat difficult to find and can be quite pricey on secondary markets.

The series is being released over two sets that will set you back $AU19.95 each. You might be a little disappointed if you’re a dedicated fan of the series, as there are no special features, and the episodes, while complete, are presented out of order.

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