Featured Posts
A review of The History of Silent Hill
Earlier this year, Pen & Sword Books released The History of the Pokémon Games, which I reviewed here. At the same time, they released the much less obviously marketable The History of Silent Hill by Samantha Morris. Similar titles notwithstanding, these...
“The Brickade” – Fully Functioning Lego Arcade Machine
Holy Moly. That is all I have to say on this one of a kind Lego build. I literally spent a half hour talking with the creators and being mesmerized by the look and feel of the arcade machine. I went to the Brick World convention in Schaumburg, IL this past weekend...
A Study of: Miracle Warriors – by Brian Lesyk
If you were yearning for a solid role-playing game in the late 80s and resided in North America and happened to own a Sega Master System console, you were certainly in the right place at the right time. As luck would have it, you were unknowingly on the cusp of being...
Atari 7800: What Went Wrong?
During the early days of home consoles, Atari absolutely dominated the market, with its popular Atari 2600 VCS and a slew of games. Five years after the 2600's release, Atari tried to mirror that success with its next-generation console, the 5200. Unfortunately, a...
Video Game Trading Card Spotlight – Nolan Bushnell
Our next Trading Card Spotlight features Nolan Bushnell, who is displayed on card number 165, from the Superstars of 2011 Collection. Nolan can also be seen on card number 821 and 1333. Nolan is the founder of Atari and Check E’ Cheese as well as over 20 other...
The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest Demo Is Now Live on Steam
Independent games publisher Retroware is excited to announce that the free Steam demo for The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest is available to download now. The demo offers players their first public hands-on look at the completely rebuilt version of the game — a...
Lethal Wedding’s New Dev Vlog Pulls Back the Curtain on the Genesis Co-op Shooter’s Creation
Creative-first publisher Mega Cat Studios has released a new developer vlog for Lethal Wedding, the upcoming 16-bit co-op run-and-gun shooter for Sega Genesis that has already surpassed 250% of its Kickstarter funding goal. Click here for the KICKSTARTER Clocking in...
A review of Red Dead Redemption from Boss Fight Books
As far as "retro" games go, Red Dead Redemption is kind of pushing it. The 2010 open world game was already released well into the modern AAA game production environment. Matt Margini's tome from Boss Fight Books implicitly acknowledges how this is a different...
The Origins of SNK’s Hardest Run ‘n Gun
Run 'n gun arcade games were a staple of the 90s arcade scene, offering players a combination of challenging gameplay, explosive visuals, and satisfying combat. Similar to side-scrolling shoot 'em ups, but a bit slower paced by comparison, this genre was ideal for...
Versions of a Burial: The Atari Landfill Excavation in Museums, Part 1
There is something quietly vertiginous about walking through an exhibition and finding yourself already inside it. Not a self you remember putting there, but a self distributed across objects, images, words; a self that arrived in the museum before you did, and which...
Dragon Warrior – by Jeremy Parish
If you’re old enough to remember the NES launch in America, you’re likely old enough to remember residual hand wringing in Washington, D.C. about the so-called Cold War “missile gap.” In the 1950s and ’60s, that doctrine stated that the Soviet Union had a numeric...
HOT NEWS as Ghosts’n Goblins has arrived as a Commodore Amiga AGA edition via JOTD!
If you played ' Ghosts'n Goblins ' the first game in the Ghosts 'n Goblins franchise on systems such as the Amstrad, Amiga, Atari, C64 and ZX Spectrum, or the more recent arcade overhaul that was released for the Plus/4. You'll be interested to know that as of just...
Sonic Spectrum Next – Sonic The Hedgehog comes over to the Spectrum NEXT via dave18
Sonic the Hedgehog has made its way onto the ZX Spectrum Next in an exciting new release titled Sonic Spectrum Next, developed by prominent retro community creator dave18. The game is a direct conversion of the classic Sega Master System (SMS) version. This ambitious...
Retro Interview: Zack Johnson Talks ‘West of Loathing’
Old School Gamer's Patrick Hickey Jr. brings out a classic out of his archive and chats with "West of Loathing" developer Zack Johnson to get the skinny on the nifty western RPG that actually plays a bit like "Skyrim." Old School Gamer: What inspired this game? Zack...
Review – Wee Ninja for the Atari Lynx
It is impossible to deny the impact Super Mario Bros had on the gaming landscape when it was released on the original NES, especially on scrolling platform games. For gamers, it set a standard to expect from new platforming games released afterward. For gaming...
The Untapped Market of Japanese Nintendo Game Boy Titles
Let’s give thanks to uncompensated fan translators. As a fan of video games developed in Japan, I am keenly aware of the sheer volume of excellent titles that have yet to be localized in English. Thankfully, when a publisher decides not to translate a certain game,...
JRPG FAN TRANSLATIONS – by Noah LaPointe
The MSX Japanese home computer system is largely unfamiliar to US audiences, and mayeven fly under the radar of many retro gaming enthusiasts. Elsewhere, it’s a different story. While unsurprisingly commonplace in its native country and in its neighbor South Korea,...
The Early History of JRPG – by Kurt Kalata
Enix’s Dragon Quest is one of the most important Japanese RPGs, as it establishes many of the genre conventions that are used to this day. But it certainly wasn’t the first of its type, as Japanese gamers had been experimenting with their own ideas on computers....
Wonder Boy Remake – A fabulous remake for the Amstrad 128k is teased again with some demo footage!
One such game I used to love was that fantastic platformer ' Wonder Boy ' designed by Ryuichi Nishizawa. A game which started its life as a skateboarding rock jumping and axe bashing platformer, that later became the adventure platformer with RPG elements Wonderboy in...
Defining JRPG – by Ben Magnet
What makes a JRPG a JRPG? Is it the sweeping stories? The protagonists with super spikey or multicolored hair? Or the simple fact that if an RPG video game was made in Japan, it qualifies as a JRPG? Most of you reading this may instantly go with the last option and...
Slick Willy — A Manic Miner Graphic Improvement Project for the ZX Spectrum
Following the stall of an ambitious project to remake Manic Miner with enhanced graphics, titled Slick Willy, developer Bob Fossil has integrated the new assets into a playable mod that can be downloaded right now. While the original, high-performance engine overhaul...
Retro Review: Typoman: ‘Braid’ meets ‘Scrabble’
Charming, yet dark, German developer Headup Games’ “Typoman” blends the puzzle and platforming genres into polished pulp of passion, forging the type of title that could work on any console, but thanks to the Wii U GamePad, is a perfect fit on Nintendo’s fledgling...
Nick Arcade: When Nickelodeon Went 16-Bit
In the early 80s, when I was just a little Gen-X gamer, I was excited to see a new game show that had started in syndication. It was called Starcade, and it was just what an arcade gaming fan like me was looking for. Parts were structured like a basic trivia game...
Block’n’Bubble II – An updated C64 game that seamlessly continues the action-packed gameplay of Block’n’Bubble.
Welcome to Block'n'Bubble II, a direct continuation of the classic action gameplay developed by natthrafn. Originally programmed by the author and published in Germany back in 1989 via Markt & Technik Special #30, this updated iteration breathes fresh life into...
This Day In Video Game History
