The immortal John Hancock here and for the last two days I’ve been testing this and that’s the Morph 2K analog video scaler and what I did is I tested 18 consoles and classic computers that I had available still in my collection and going to give you my results. This is not like a thorough technical review.I Just wanted to show you, hey, what’s working? This is the cables I used. This is what it’s showing. And just to show people out there, this is what it’s currently doing. They sent me a review unit pre-production and I’m going to show you like the firmware update of that. I had some issues updating the firmware with this. I did reach out with them on Discord and if there’s an update to this video, I’ll try to do it at least in a short video form. But anyways, wanted to show this just like, hey, I have these consoles.  This is what it’s doing and show you my results and just going to give you an overview. If you’re looking for more thorough overview, you can go to like Retro RGB or Metal Jesus Rocks – were two great reviews of this, but I have some different consoles than them. Sit back, relax. Here we go.

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Title 仮画像Arcade Archives 2 TEKKEN 仮画像
Platform(s) Nintendo Switch 2 / PlayStation®5 / Xbox Series X|S
Price $16.99
Genre Fighting
Rating ESRB Everyone 10+ (Mild Violence)
Player(s) 1-2 (local 2-player versus gameplay)
Release Date June 25th, 2026
Official Website https://www.arcadearchives.com/en/

The “Arcade Archives” series is developed with the concept of faithfully reproducing classic arcade games. It also
includes convenient features such as difficulty and screen settings, rewind, rapid-fire, and multiple save slots. In
addition, players can compete for the best scores with players around the world through online rankings.
“Arcade Archives 2” adds a new “TIME ATTACK MODE” to the lineup of “ORIGINAL MODE,” “HI SCORE
MODE,” and “CARAVAN MODE” included in the Arcade Archives series. In “TIME ATTACK MODE,” players
compete to clear the game as quickly as possible, regardless of the score achieved. VRR (Variable Refresh Rate)
support has also been added, allowing gameplay to be reproduced even closer to the original arcade experience.
Please enjoy these iconic arcade games that defined an era with the “Arcade Archives” series!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hamster_corporation/ X: https://x.com/HAMSTER_Corp
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/HAMSTERCorporation Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hamster.corp/
Hashtag: #arcadearchives

The post HAMSTER Corporation | “Arcade Archives 2 TEKKEN” Releases June 25 on Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X|S appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

While definitely not “retro” by the standards of Old School Gamer, we bent the rules a little bit so we could talk about Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, because it is both one of the coolest crossover titles as well as one of the strangest. However, even among the endless number of school aged mercenary stories that are common in JRPGs, there are those games that are truly bizarre. From Japanese Idols possessed by ghosts to a dungeon-crawling condom salesman, the following is a sample of some of the weirdest games that this already unique genre has to offer.

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The story of Sonic the Hedgehog is the story of the 1990s. Born of a brilliant union between cutting-edge console technology and of-the-era super radical attitude, Sonic’s iconic design and in-your-face personality quickly solidified him as a bonafide pop culture icon, a flagbearer of everything hip, cool, and of course, fast.

Now, 35 years later, iam8bit & SEGA are teaming up to celebrate Sonic’s massive impact on gaming with a once-in-a-lifetime commemoration. This is the Sonic the Hedgehog 35th Anniversary Legacy Cartridge Collection. 

These Legacy Cartridges are more than mere collectibles; they’re the definitive physical archive of Sonic‘s debut and first follow-up. They are Sega-Genesis Compatible cartridges, boasting new and original translucent colored cartridge shells.

The packaging itself is a site to behold, too. With custom design and restoration by Jango Snow Art & Design, they are meticulously crafted tributes to Sonic‘s history.

And to really capture that nostalgic feeling of cracking open a new game, we’ve also included a full color, premium instruction booklet packed with restored artwork and all-new forewords from Sonic experts.

Pre-orders are live now, so you gotta go fast!

Note: A limited quantity of cartridges can be manufactured and shipped within 2026.

These will ship in waves in the order they are received:

– The first wave of orders will ship in Q3 2026.

– The second wave of orders will ship in Q4 2026.

– Remaining orders will ship in Q1 2027.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (35th Anniversary) – Legacy Cartridge Collection

Sonic 35th

The Legacy Cartridge Collection features a series of premium, refreshed reproductions of classic retro video game cartridges.

Highly collectible, limited edition and thoughtfully designed with nostalgic embellishments, the Legacy Cartridge Collection features a wide range of beloved titles like Street Fighter II, Mega Man X, Mega Man 2, Earthworm Jim, Xcavator, Battletoads, Disney’s Aladdin and Disney’s The Lion King.

The post Introducing the Sonic the Hedgehog 35th Anniversary Legacy Cartridge Collection appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Thankfully, we live in a world filled with options. Not only has the game been re-released on multiple platforms over the years, but you can also currently
buy the game on Steam and play it on your computer of choice. Then, of course…

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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 are very different books. While the Pokémon volume functions primarily as a sort of encyclopedia, Morris is comparably restrictive about what she considers to be a “true” Silent Hill game, limiting her analysis to the four numbered entries, Homecoming, and Downpour.

Morris doesn’t spend a lot of time explaining why she doesn’t consider Origins to be a central title when everyone else does. Ironically, based on her descriptions of the other six games, it seems that the main problem with origins is that it’s too concerned with the lore. Despite all the Silent Hill games being connected to, well, the creepy, foggy community of Silent Hill, only the first and third games in the series have a meaningful story connection. And even that’s technically a plot twist. Silent Hill is more a vibe than a place, a sort of haunting that works its way inside-out from the terrors of your own mind, presenting a nightmare world that doesn’t even look the same to anyone else.

This sort of thematic ground is pretty common for any fans of the series. The Boss Fight book exclusively about Silent Hill 2 makes a similar sort of argument, just in more detail and focused entirely on Silent Hill 2’s own narrative. Like that text, The History of Silent Hill is stuck in an awkward place in that dissecting the themes pretty much requires spoiling the whole story, and the author can do little except beg the reader to play the game if they haven’t already. The History of Silent Hill does have happier new than the Boss Fight book did in regard to playing Silent Hill 2 on modern hardware, though, in that Morris is adamant that the 2024 remake is an exceptional conversion made by people who clearly understood what the original game was trying to do. Not to be confused at all with the 2012 remake, which ruins it by among other things, not managing the fog properly.

For the other five games, Morris recounts not just the thematic horror of the stories but also how they tend to play out in practice from a gameplay perspective. Her bestiaries of the monsters in these games describe how they act, how they can be killed, and what this says about the subconscious nightmares of the main character that imply or spawn such creatures. This isn’t exactly a player’s guide, mind you. Morris develops her interpretations of these games by stripping them down to all their individual elements, development, plot, characters, monsters, endings, and uses her generally accurate descriptions of them to create a greater thesis about what these games are actually about.

It’s a good analytical technique if only because it can help job the reader’s memory about how these games looked and felt when it may well have been ten or twenty years since they actually played them. Of course, the fickle nature of memory itself is a pretty predominant theme in these games, with the warped worlds the players encounter all being a direct case of distortions in these mental records. Laid out end to end like this, it’s easy to see how all six games are connected in more profound ways than just the lore. Morris even lays out a fairly convincing argument as to how Silent Hill 4 is unfairly maligned, as both gameplay and storywise, all of its strange departures from the formula are perfectly within the larger ethos of Silent Hill.

The post A review of The History of Silent Hill appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

To celebrate today’s launch, Retroware has released a new demo launch trailer. Watch as the fame-hungry hero Simon whips his way across the Transylvanian countryside, shatters skeletons, and makes the undead legions wish they were never reborn in the trailer below.

The TASQ demo puts the entire Bram region at players’ fingertips, complete with the full intro cutscene that brings newcomers up to speed on the events unfolding in the distant land of 15xx Transylvania. Players can choose between two play modes:

• Adventure Mode — Explore the Bram region at your own pace, speak to villagers, and work your way toward the cursed Bram Mansion.

• Action Mode — Skip the small talk and go straight to Bram Mansion.

Both modes offer plenty to discover, including:

• 8 subweapons and utility items to collect

• An alternate route through the region

• A hidden minigame

• And more secrets waiting to be found!

The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest is coming soon to Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.

The post The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest Demo Is Now Live on Steam appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Click here for the KICKSTARTER

Clocking in at more than 20 minutes, the new video features a clown car full of creative insight from the Mega Cat Studios team, exploring the game’s origins, inspirations, art direction, and audio design. The developers discusses how classic action films of the 1980s and 1990s influenced Lethal Wedding’s over-the-top action, how the cult classic SNES and Genesis shooter Zombies Ate My Neighbors helped shape its chaotic co-op gameplay, and the technical tricks used to push Genesis hardware to its limits.

The vlog also takes viewers behind the scenes of the game’s audio production, including collaboration with Team Fat, the legendary composers behind Zombies Ate My Neighbors, and dives into the surprisingly nuanced challenge of creating the perfect video game shotgun.

The new dev vlog arrives as Lethal Wedding’s Kickstarter campaign pushes toward several stretch goals, including exclusive cover art from LucasArts veteran Bill Tiller, an OST CD featuring selections from Team Fat, and console ports for Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation.

Click here for the KICKSTARTER

About Lethal Wedding

When a drug ring of criminal clowns crashes a bachelor party and kidnaps the groom-to-be, it’s up to the bride and her mother-in-law to mount a rescue. Players will battle their way through psychopathic circus performers, bazooka-toting bearded ladies, and murderous mobsters across over 30 levels of carnage, all while juggling mother-daughter issues, wedding planning, and…literal jugglers.

Team up with a friend for intense couch co-op gameplay, and beware the innovative Vow System, which keeps the stakes high by challenging players to complete randomized objectives before reaching the end of each stage. You know what they say, “till death do us part!”

Will you and your partner make it to the altar? Prepare to Bride Hard when Lethal Wedding is live on Kickstarter now, and find out if you can survive the ultimate test of loyalty.

Key Features:

• Get committed in two-player couch co-op mode

• Arm yourself with ridiculous weapons like the explosive gun of roses, banana SMG, and bunny-shooting hare trigger

• Commit to optional vows that introduce high-risk, high-reward challenges through the innovative Vow System

• Customize your character with over 25 upgrades

• Crash your wedding, shoe stores, clown drug dens, and the circus in over 30 levels of carnage

The post Lethal Wedding’s New Dev Vlog Pulls Back the Curtain on the Genesis Co-op Shooter’s Creation​ appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

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 story from the Boss Fight norm in that it’s hard to isolate individual influences. For the most part, Margini describes “Rockstar” at large as responsible for the game’s design, though he does make it clear that Rockstar was fairly infamous for brutal treatment of its employees in this time period.

Despite this modern aesthetic, Red Dead Redemption has a fairly credible case for being a retro title in our hearts because, as Margini’s father notes, it’s the game where you can ride a horse. Yes, technically speaking, Red Dead Redemption is a riff off of the Grand Theft Auto genre of open world gameplay. But as Margini articulates in this book, Red Dead Redemption is also a reconceptualization of the entire Wild West genre. When reading a novel, or watching a movie, the idea of the Wild West representing freedom is an abstraction. Yet in Red Dead Redemption, you can actually play as the isolated gunslinger in an open world where you can do pretty much whatever you want. And where does that get you?

Well, as it turns out, not very far. The great joke of Red Dead Redemption, in Margini’s telling, is that its hero John Marston, actually has very little real control over the bleak, cynical world he lives in. Sure, he can do anything he wants in the open world and even has a pretty badass bullet time power to boot. But no matter what Marston does, in the long run, he double-crosses his own allies and is doubled-crossed in turn by the feds. He realizes the general hopelessness of his own situation and not only fails to stop his own cycle of violence, but we the player even get to watch that cycle continue after his own death.

These are layers to the open world genre that were not common in 2010 and still aren’t really all that common today. The unsettling implication of this story is that Marston is more being played than he is playing the game. And this is a legacy that goes back to the Western genre in general. Margini’s Red Dead Redemption book, despite being part of a line of general video game explaining books from Boss Fight, actually tends to function better as an introduction the abstract concept of the West for people who might not really know all that much about it. Red Dead Redemption itself assumes (probably correctly) that its players have at least some idea what the West is, if only through pop culture osmosis. But they’re less likely to understand the theoretical underpinnings.

Margini’s analysis on this front is accurate…mostly. Margini buys into a lot of the myths about the myths of the West that can distort some of its interpretation. The depiction of native Americans, for example, assumes a longstanding one-dimensional presentation of their appearance in the Western genre, when in fact the dark, almost comically ambiguous native American quests in Red Dead Redemption aren’t as far off from “classic” Western stories as you’ve probably been led to believe. Margini also completely misses the general cynicism of the Mexican revolutionary quests are some of the game’s most genuinely racist sequences, playing into stereotypes of Latin American cultures as being incapable of non-corrupt leadership.

Mind, Margini’s impressions are so widespread I can’t exactly fault him for presenting them as uncontroversial. He cites his sources, and his analysis in his own right is pretty on-point. His writing understands the difference between John Ford and Sergio Leone, and dives back as far as weirdly homoerotic quotes from the landmark Western novel The Virginian to make his arguments. But at the end of the day, it’s not the citations that give Margini’s book its emotional heart. No, it’s his very sincere effort to understand why, of all the games his father has ever seen him play, it’s the one where the player character can ride a horse that struck a chord with the old man.

The post A review of Red Dead Redemption from Boss Fight Books appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

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 recently, JOTD has finally released the eagerly awaited Ghosts’n Goblins AGA for the Commodore Amiga. An enhanced version for the Amiga 1200 and above bringing it more in line with the Arcade classic.

Left Original / Right AGA

Originally the game was being worked on by Skyzoo73 in the Scorpion Engine. However with his blessing as the game wasn’t going to go any further, JOTD continued his work from scratch without the Scorpion Engine all fully transcoded with a final release today. In fact not only does the game look graphically superior compared to the original OCS version by Elite which was already very good, but it now features music by IM76, and as noted by JOTD previously “kicks ass with new new things like interrupt-based blitting and corkscrew”

The post HOT NEWS as Ghosts’n Goblins has arrived as a Commodore Amiga AGA edition via JOTD! appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.