The best selling game of all time, “Wii Sports” changed video gaming forever and seven years later on the Wii U, “Wii Sports Club” makes those classic games even better. Buyer beware however- your wallet may hurt a tad if you’ve been on all these rides before.

For those who have stuck by Nintendo for its entire new millennium run, you won’t find yourself running for updated versions of classics that have stood the test of time, but will enjoy the online capability added to the games and the other various bells and whistles. Those who have young kids have never experienced “Wii Sports” however will find themselves falling in love all over again.

The surprises are few for veterans of the series, but golf especially, is a pleasant one.

Simply put, the golf game in “Wii Sports Club” is probably the coolest and most realistic of the games available in the series to date and in spite of its stiff learning curve, can provide hours of fun.

The GamePad integration is easily the game’s biggest selling point. Unlike the other titles in the series that play remarkably like the older games they are based on, golf requires gamers to put the GamePad on the floor and use the Wiimote to swing at the ball at the GamePad screen. Simple and intuitive, your swing strength and posture are all measured on the GamePad screen.

As long as you don’t have a hefty cat, large dog or wild toddler that’ll stomp out your GamePad, the tablet integration is a welcomed plus to a game that used to be considered the worst game on “Wii Sports.”

That being said, the learning curve here is no joke. For that reason, many gamers won’t last more than a few rounds. Those who stick with it though and use the various mini-games, which stress different facets of the game such as driving, chipping and putting, will get the hang of things in time.

Things change a bit once you get to bowling however. With the changes made to golf, you’re expecting some type of second-screen experience while on the alley and what you get instead is a new coat of paint on a classic. Although bowling on the Wii U in “Wii Sports Club” is an enjoyable endeavor, it appears to be the same mini-game we fell in love with seven years ago, if not for a few tacked-on, but nifty features.

Graphically, the game looks incredibly similar to the updated version of the game in “Wii Sports: Resort.” Because of that, you’ll instantly become comfortable with the presentation of the game, but you won’t be wowed. If you’ve played the game in its other versions before, the “Wii Sports Club” version won’t be a memorable experience.

Luckily for Nintendo, the addition of mini-games and online play is what makes the game worthy of the $9.99 price tag. Online features and mini-games that help you make spares and Miiverse messaging make the experience a fun one that is free of drama and annoyances you’ll often find while playing your favorite first-person shooter online. The new version of the classic 100-pin game also will manage to steal your attention for a few hours.

The tennis game in “Wii Sports Club” is kind of a compromise of bowling and golf. Although there’s no second-screen experience, the control has been fine-tuned and the graphics are better. It’s safe to say this version of tennis while appeal more to hardcore gamers and will even cause you to break a sweat.

But a first glance, it’s easy to ponder how similar tennis on “Wii Sports Club” is to the other versions of the game on “Wii Sports” and “Wii Sports: Resort.” After a few games however, you’ll notice several key improvements that make it the best of the Wii Sports tennis games to date.

There’s a lot to do in tennis, from silly mini-games to online play. Although this is nothing new for the series the camera and controls have been super tightened to the point where you’ll want to play more than you did before. This has everything to do with the control. In older versions of the game, players could simply swat the Wiimote in any direction and the game would register a swing and a volley vest would ensue.

This time around, the Wii MotionPlus control is so much more intuitive that it’ll recognize your hand’s posture and will make sure you take the correct swing, or else. For example, if a ball comes at your forehand and your hand is positioned in the backhand position, you’re not going to be able to get the ball over the net. This seemingly small improvement makes what is often considered the redheaded stepchild of Wii Sports titles easily one of the more enjoyable ones on “Wii Sports Club.”

All in all, with a host of improvements to their predecessors, “Wii Sports Club” manages to win you over. Even in the case of bowling, where there aren’t many new things brought to the gameplay table, the online options make for a more modern and well-rounded gameplay experience.

The Good: All three games that are a part of “Wii Sports Club are an upgrade over their original versions. They look better, play more responsively and have more features.

The Bad: Considering the fact that “Wii Sports” can be found for less than $10.00 on any used game shop on the web and the Wii U features backwards compatibility, the game isn’t exactly cost-effective.

The Bottom Line: If you’re a fan of “Wii Sports” or Wii Sports: Resort,” “Wii Sports Club” is a game you will play by yourself and with the friends and family. The addition of online play adds a new element to the fun as well.

The post Retro Review: Wii Sports Club appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

With the release of the M64, most hobbyists concern themselves with the technical aspects of the machine. How does it compare to the Analogue 3D, or original Nintendo 64 hardware? Worthwhile questions to be sure, but I prefer to try and evaluate the console on its games and how they play. To start out, let’s take a look at Xeno Crisis, one of ModRetro’s four inaugural launch titles for the console. As is the case with the Chromatic, ModRetro isn’t just releasing hardware, they’re also publishing physical software that we can buy in cartridge form and own forever, instead of being tied to an online account.

Xeno Crisis is on-brand for ModRetro in that Xeno Crisis is a retro throwback title made by an Indie developer, Bitmap Bureau. But it’s off-brand for the M64 in that Xeno Crisis isn’t a throwback to the crude 3d modeling that defined the fifth generation of console gaming. Xeno Crisis is a top-down room-to-room shooter game with arcade sensibilities much closer to the fourth generation. Designed for the Sega Mega Drive (Bitmap Bureau is an English company after all), Xeno Crisis looks fantastic in the 16-bit style. But it doesn’t exactly push the limits of 64-bit hardware.

And to be entirely frank, Xeno Crisis warrants a bit of a re-evaluation at this point. Coming out in 2019, it’s nearly old enough to be a retro game in its own right now. With new games on older platforms being less of a novelty now, its flaws are that much more glaring. The lack of native save files, for example, particularly rankles as one of the Nintendo 64’s few advantages over its CD based competitors was save batteries. Even if you argue that the difficulty curve of Xeno Crisis, and the whole gameplay tradition it represents, should eschew the very concept of save files, I can think of no good reason why this version of the game doesn’t at least save the high score. There’s almost certainly a save battery on the cartridge that just isn’t being used.

On the topic of difficulty too, Xeno Crisis is too tough for its own good. The problem is less that the game is particularly unfair so much as the enemies are unreasonably tanky. Xeno Crisis is borderline unplayable unless you make a point of getting the weapon power up upgrades as quickly as possible. If you don’t, even on the second level, every room becomes a marathon because it just takes too long to kill anything such that soon there are a dozen enemies breathing down your neck. With the ones that have projectile moves, the game feels less like an action shooter and more like a bullet hell, which isn’t the best genre to play with friends.

For what it’s worth, Xeno Crisis does play better with a friend, as the added firepower goes a long way to preventing enemies from quickly amassing an outrageous numerical advantage on the field. The revival mechanic is also much appreciated as a way to keep less skilled friends in the game when they keep dying. Annoyingly, this mechanic doesn’t function in the boss rooms. It would be no more overpowered there than it is anywhere else and serves little purpose except to force your teammate to watch as you struggle to survive the boss’s attack pattern long enough to achieve marginal damage against its huge health bar.

Cheat codes might have helped, but I couldn’t get the Nintendo 64 ones I found online to work. Incidentally, they really should have been in the manual anyway, and that’s such an obvious asset to having a physical edition I’m honestly surprised they weren’t in there. While there is an easy mode accessible from the options menu, it doesn’t help as much as you’d think either, because the creators of Xeno Crisis don’t seem to quite understand why the game is hard. An extra hit point and slightly less spread on certain attack patterns doesn’t help that much with overwhelming numbers of tanky enemies. Xeno Crisis badly needs to even the scales with more firepower. Despite featuring a bevy of special weapons that do just that, the drop rates for them are quite low. Annoyingly, the game will often provide useless medpacs or grenades.

It also rather awkwardly forces the player to empty their guns at the end of a room instead of giving them a free reload, or else they run the risk of running out of ammo at the beginning of the next room with the ammo pack more likely than not spawning in a place overrun by enemies that can’t be killed owing to the lack of bullets. This isn’t even a critique of the difficulty, it’s just a basic quality of life improvement. A similar one would be displaying the bullets, grenades, and hit points of the space marines when the game is paused, instead of making this yet more information that’s all too easy to lose track of in the ongoing chaos.

From what I can tell, despite Xeno Crisis being a ModRetro branded rerelease, this is just the 2019 version of the game that Bitmap Bureau themselves released on Nintendo 64 cartridges a few years back. It’s possible that there’s a contractual reason why ModRetro wasn’t allowed to modify Xeno Crisis, although it’s disappointing in any case because it would only take very few tweaks to significantly improve this title to a genuine party game. Even something as mildly ambitious as upping the coop play cap from two players to four players would upgrade Xeno Crisis from a mere gimmicky rerelease to a genuinely impressive update that warrants the fifty-dollar price tag. The Mega Drive might not have been able to handle that much action, but the M64 certainly could, and again, one of the central features of the Nintendo 64 was making a big bet on four player couch co-op play being the future of gaming.

This particular version of Xeno Crisis is one of the better ones, incidentally, if only because it takes advantage of the goofy yellow C buttons to allow players to easily shoot in a different direction than the one they’re facing. Despite eight direction movement being standard, I often found myself wishing Xeno Crisis only had four directional movement since the roll move, essential for getting out of danger, almost always defaults to diagonal movement even when using the control pad. This might just be an issue of the M64 Pro Controller being too sensitive for its own good. Whatever the cause, more controller customization options would have gone a long way to improving Xeno Crisis, a game that’s good for what it is, but could have been genuinely great with just a bit more polish.

The post Testing the M64: Xeno Crisis appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

There’s one type of genre that I loved playing in the arcades and more so on my home console, and that is the shoot em up genre! You know the type, enemy waves coming at you at all sides, your ship blasting across the landscape with adrenaline flowing as you try to survive and wipe them out. Well there’s one such game that I have fond memories of, and that was Namco’s 1982 vertical scrolling arcade shoot em up game Xevious. A game that I not only played and loved back on the Amstrad CPC, but it was one of those games that I also have fond memories of playing with my dad when I was a kid. So why is this game getting a mention? Well, read on and find out for more ;).

• Programming & SFX: Nemo
• Graphics & Design: Richard Gatineau (alias TotO)
• Music Tools: Julien Nevo (alias Targhan)

The post Xevious 128k – Arcade classic Xevious gets a 128k edition for the Amstrad CPC via Easter Egg appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

The differences weren’t accidental. Hardware limitations, business models, and social settings all pushed designers toward different definitions of “skill.”

Arcade Design Favored Fast Reflexive Skill

Coin-operated machines needed players to spend money quickly and often, which meant sessions had to be short, intense, and immediately punishing. Designers built tight difficulty curves that rewarded memorization and precise execution rather than long-term planning. Every mistake carried a visible cost, since another coin was always required to continue.

This economic pressure created a very specific kind of strategic depth—one built on reflexes, pattern recognition, and split-second decision-making. Fighting games exemplified this shift most clearly. Players crowded around cabinets to test matchup knowledge in real time, turning arcades into public arenas where mastery was performed rather than practiced in private.

Home Consoles Enabled Longer Strategic Sessions

Without the coin-per-minute pressure of arcades, home consoles gave designers room to build longer, more layered experiences. Save systems and passwords allowed players to experiment across hours or even weeks, refining strategies through repeated attempts without financial penalty. This shifted strategic depth away from pure execution and toward planning, resource management, and systemic thinking.

That same principle — accessible tools supporting deeper strategic thinking — extends well beyond retro gaming. Competitive card and strategy games carry the same DNA. Players exploring skill-based competitive formats today often look for structured resources that help them study decision trees and probability. For instance, Poker Solvers run GTO calculations across hand ranges and bet sizings, giving players a private analytical space to refine decisions at their own pace — exactly what home consoles once offered retro gamers.

Console-era strategy also became more social in unofficial ways, through split-screen contests, informal tournaments, and shared community knowledge passed along through guides and word of mouth.

How Digital Tools Refined Competitive Strategy Games

The gap between arcade intensity and console depth has narrowed significantly in recent years. Retro-focused industry coverage shows the arcade sector staying commercially relevant, with one 2026 review noting the arcade market’s continued growth driven partly by renewed interest in retro-style competitive venues. That resurgence isn’t purely nostalgic; it reflects genuine demand for shared, skill-based social experiences that home platforms can’t fully replicate.

Fighting games remain the clearest bridge between both worlds. A recent retrospective on Street Fighter II’s arcade legacy highlights how the game moved competitive arcade culture away from solo scorekeeping and toward direct human rivalry, a shift that also influenced how console fighting games structured matchups and balance years later. Digital tools since then—from networked cabinets to home training modes—have continued refining how players study and internalize strategic patterns.

Legacy of Both Formats on Modern Strategy Gaming

Arcade cabinets and home consoles never fully converged, but their influence clearly overlaps in contemporary retro culture. Bar-arcade hybrids and themed venues have brought cabinet-style competition back into social spaces, while console and handheld ecosystems continue emphasizing long-form strategic depth. A recent review of arcade releases noted that 2023 arcade output stayed within its typical annual range, suggesting steady, ongoing investment in cabinet-based design rather than decline.

What emerges is less a rivalry and more a shared inheritance. Arcade cabinets taught players to think fast under pressure, while home consoles taught them to think long-term and experiment freely. Modern competitive gaming, whether digital or physical, still draws from both traditions—proof that strategic depth was never confined to a single format.

The post Arcade Cabinets vs Home Consoles: The Battle for Strategic Depth appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

For 229.99 USD, the M64, which also comes in a variety of colors, has full compatibility with the original 64 and supports video output up to 4K. Wired and wireless updates also plan to add new features to the console. As well, new games are planned for the console as well.

As per their development blog on June 26, ModRetro showed the arduous testing they put the console through before release, which they believe makes the M64 something special.

Are you planning on picking up the M64? What games would you play on it first? Sound off in the comment section below.

The post M64 Now Available From ModRetro appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Did you know at the time when Pac-Man fever was released, that it would be such a smash hit?

No not at all. We were just hoping it would get played locally and help our jingle business.  When we were in L.A. doing some TV shows we were driving through Beverly Hills when our song came on the radio. We looked at each other and laughed when Gary said, “Not bad for a couple of guys from Akron.”

Where did you meet your partner Gary Garcia?

Gary and I met in junior high school in Akron, Ohio. We played in several local bands including The Outlaws and The Rogues.

What was the first song or album you created together? 

The first song we ever recorded together was called “Gotta Hear The Beat.” with the artist name Animal Jack. It was meant to be a joke aimed at the record business, but it received radio play and ended up being released on 3 different record labels.

What is your favorite kind of music today and how do you compare music to the 1980’s?

I lean towards pop, rock, blues, and R&B but pretty much most music if it’s good no matter what genre. I’ve even grown to love some opera music. I don’t really compare today’s music with the 80’s. Music evolves, and styles change and I’m cool with that.

What are some of your other favorite songs you have created?

I liked two cuts we did on Steve Carlisle (singer on WKRP In Cincinnati) called Don’t Hang Up and You Told A Lie. I especially love the adaption we did for the Footprints in The Sand poem. But I think my favorite was E.T. I Love You. It was an emotional song with beautiful music and words. Unfortunately, it got caught up in record company politics and licensing issues that cut short its successful release.

Do you remember your first video game / arcade you played and what do you remember about it?

First video game I played was Pong. We were playing in an Atlanta hotel bar. I remember thinking how cool and different it was.

If you can design your own video game, what would it be about and who would be the main character?

Actually, we are working on a mobile game right now which I am not at liberty to reveal. Keep checking our website for details when it will be released. www.bucknergarcia.com.

What are your opinions about today’s generation of video games?

I think many are too violent, but the technical/graphics effects are amazing.

Do you believe some Video Games are too violent and lead to violence in America today?

As I previously mentioned, yes, I do think some of them are too violent. Whether that contributes to the violence in this country or not I don’t know but I do think they can desensitize kids towards violence. On the other hand, when I was a kid, we played army and shot each other up with toy guns quite convincingly but it didn’t turn us into mass murderers, so I think there is a lot more to the violence then just kids playing video games.

Did you ever think when you were younger you would be on a Video Game Trading card?

No never! I was humbled by it and grateful to Walter for including me.

Have you ever received any media coverage for your appearance on the Trading Card?  If so where?

Not so far but fans love the cards. I always have a few with me at personal appearances to autograph and hand out.

When did you first meet Walter Day and where was it at?

I met Walter in 2014 at The Southern Fried Game Room Expo in Atlanta. He presented me with a cool poster that is framed and hanging on my office wall along with several others.

If you could describe Walter Day in one word, what would that word be and why?

Kind.

What is your favorite movie you have created music for and why?

Wreck It Ralph. To sit in a theatre and see your name in the credits of a Disney movie is beyond words

When writing the Pac-Man Fever song, were there other versions before the final result?

Yes, there was a set of original lyrics that we ended up not using. I wish I had saved them but other than a few minor changes the chorus remained consistent from the beginning.

How much did you play Pac-Man back in the day and is it still a favorite of yours?

I played it a lot in 1981 and 1982 but slacked off as time when on. I have never been really big on video games. Gary was into them more than me and was better at them although because we were both very competitive anytime we played against each other it could get crazy.

You have written other video game music on the Pac-Man soundtrack, other than Pac-Man Fever, which one was your favorite?

I loved Donkey Kong and Froggy’s Lament, but my favorite is Ode to A Centipede

If you could own one arcade game or pinball game, what would it be and why? 

Asteroids. Love the action and SFX.

What does it take to be a successful musician today?

Practice, patience, persistence with a little talent and a lot of luck.

What games today do you play and what are your favorite genres of games?

The only video game I play consistently is Solitaire on my phone. My favorite game is Backgammon

What was your favorite decade from the past and why?  60’s, 70’s? 80’s 90’s?

I would have to say the 80’s for the obvious reason but the 70’s would be a close runner up. My least favorite was the 90’s.

Who is your favorite video game character, other than Pac-Man, and what makes that character special?

I like Ralph (from Wreck-It Ralph). He’s a nice guy with a good heart and hasn’t shot anybody

What springs to mind when you hear the term ‘Video Games’?

I think mostly of the classic games although I do like to play some of the games on my mobile phone like Angry Birds.

Are you still involved with music today, and what role do you play?

I continue to write pop songs because I love to do it, but I have been working on some Contemporary Christian music too lately that I like a lot.

Where do you see the music industry in the next 20 years? 

I really don’t know. I guess it will be up to the robots.

Where do you see Video Gaming in the next 20 years?

I think the sky is the limit. I hope the entertainment value increases but not the violence.

www.bucknergarcia.com

This is one of an ongoing series of articles based on the Walter Day Collection of e-sports/video gaming trading cards – check out more information at thewalterdaycollection.com.

The post Video Game Trading Card Spotlight – Jerry Buckner appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Players know what a lightsaber should sound like and how an X-wing should move.

The earliest Star Wars games had none of that inherited design language.

During the franchise’s first decade in video games, there was no accepted formula. Star Wars could be a text adventure, a survival shooter, a vector-graphics cockpit ride, a lightsaber duel reduced to two floating shapes or a Japanese platform game where Darth Vader transformed into a scorpion.

Before Lucasfilm Games became the central creative force behind interactive Star Wars, publishers treated the license less like a unified game universe and more like a box of expensive toys.

Everyone grabbed a different piece.

The results were inconsistent, occasionally baffling and often brilliant.

The Star Wars Game That Wasn’t Star Wars

The story starts before the first officially licensed Star Wars video game.

In 1979, Lance Micklus created Dog Star Adventure for the TRS-80. As Old School Gamer’s feature on Dog Star Adventure and the foundation of text-based gaming explains, Micklus published the game’s source code in SoftSide magazine.

The legal camouflage was not subtle.

Princess Leia became Princess Leya. Darth Vader became General Doom. The Death Star became the Dog Star. Players explored the station through typed commands, rescued the princess and dealt with obstacles including a robot fussy enough to reject a cold hamburger.

It was clearly Star Wars with the labels peeled off, but it also showed how quickly the film had entered the imagination of early computer users.

There was no official design template to follow. A programmer saw Star Wars, understood that computers could support a different kind of adventure and built one entirely from text.

Publishing the source code made the game even more significant. Other programmers could study and alter it.

The first important Star Wars-inspired computer game was something people could type in, inspect and rebuild.

That feels appropriate for an era when software itself was still being invented in public.

Parker Brothers Finds Hoth

The first officially licensed Star Wars video game arrived in 1982.

Parker Brothers chose The Empire Strikes Back for the Atari 2600 and reduced the Battle of Hoth to its cleanest mechanical idea: fly left and right, shoot approaching AT-ATs and delay the destruction of Echo Base.

It sounds brutally limited, because it was.

It was also exactly the kind of limitation that produced strong Atari games.

Rex Bradford’s design had no room for dialogue or cinematic detail. The walkers were blocky mechanical beasts that required repeated hits, gradually changing color as they absorbed damage.

The player could not win the war. The goal was to survive and hold the line.

Old School Gamer’s Atari 2600 Encyclopedia entry on The Empire Strikes Back captures why it worked. The controls were responsive, the challenge was immediate and the image of a snowspeeder attacking an AT-AT remained recognizable after being squeezed through the Atari 2600.

That game established a pattern early Star Wars titles would follow repeatedly.

They rarely recreated an entire film. They selected one scene, vehicle or visual idea and built an arcade loop around it.

A Lightsaber Game Without Sword Fighting

Parker Brothers followed with two very different releases in 1983.

Return of the Jedi: Death Star Battle placed the Millennium Falcon against TIE fighters and the unfinished second Death Star.

Jedi Arena went smaller.

Inspired by Luke’s training aboard the Millennium Falcon, it turned lightsaber practice into a competitive Atari 2600 game. Two players controlled training remotes indirectly, deflecting energy bolts toward an opponent’s shield.

It was the first Star Wars video game built around lightsabers, yet it contained almost nothing modern players would identify as lightsaber combat. There were no combos, dramatic duels or dismemberment settings waiting to upset somebody.

There were two abstract figures, a floating remote and a great deal of confusion.

That is not an insult. It is the point.

The designers were experimenting with how one small element from the films might function using a joystick and one button.

Sometimes that produced a classic.

Sometimes it produced Jedi Arena.

Atari Builds the Cockpit

Then Atari’s 1983 arcade game changed the scale of the fantasy.

Designed by Mike Hally and developed from an earlier prototype called Warp Speed, Star Wars used glowing color vector graphics and a flight yoke to place players inside an X-wing.

The game moved through TIE fighter combat, a surface attack and the trench run.

For the first time, a Star Wars game did not merely reference a scene. It tried to recreate the sensation of being inside it.

The cabinet mattered almost as much as the software.

The sit-down version enclosed the player in the machine. The yoke, digitized voices and bright vector display did the rest.

For a few expensive minutes, the player was the pilot.

Atari followed it with Return of the Jedi in 1984, switching from first-person vectors to an isometric raster perspective. In 1985, The Empire Strikes Back returned to vector graphics as a conversion kit for existing cabinets.

Even Atari could not settle on one way to represent the trilogy.

Depending on the game, Star Wars was a cockpit simulation, an isometric obstacle course or an upgrade installed inside yesterday’s arcade machine.

One Arcade Game, Many Home Experiences

The arcade cabinet created another problem: how do you bring that experience home?

The answer depended entirely on which home the game entered.

Versions appeared across consoles and home computers with wildly different capabilities. Some preserved the vector presentation. Others rebuilt the action around the hardware.

By the late 1980s, conversions had appeared on systems including the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST and Amiga.

The title on the box could be identical while the experience inside differed sharply.

A licensed game was not one fixed product delivered across standardized hardware. It was a family of related interpretations, sometimes connected mainly by packaging, music and optimism.

A child playing Star Wars on an Atari 2600, a Commodore 64 owner loading a cassette and an arcade visitor sitting inside the vector cockpit could all say they had played “the Star Wars game.”

They were describing very different memories.

The Game Lucasfilm Never Released

Not every experiment reached store shelves.

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi: Ewok Adventure was developed for the Atari 2600 but cancelled before release. The player controlled an Ewok on a hang glider, dropping rocks on Imperial forces and attacking the base on Endor.

The controls became its undoing.

Programmer Larry Gelberg wanted the glider to dive, climb and catch thermals realistically. Marketing wanted something simpler. Gelberg refused, and the game was shelved.

Old School Gamer’s article on Ewok Adventure tells the story of the surviving prototypes and the disagreement that killed the release.

The game reveals a tension running through the entire decade.

Should a Star Wars game simulate the thing shown on screen, or simply make that thing easy and exciting to control?

Developers are still arguing about that.

They just use more expensive PowerPoint presentations now.

Namco Sends Luke Somewhere Else Entirely

If the Western Star Wars games were inconsistent, Namco’s 1987 Famicom release proved the license could become even stranger in a different market.

Released only in Japan, Namco’s Star Wars was a side-scrolling platformer that borrowed from the film without feeling obligated to remain there.

Luke visited planets that were not part of his journey in A New Hope. Darth Vader appeared repeatedly through bizarre impostors capable of transforming into a scorpion and a shark.

It is difficult to imagine that surviving a modern licensing approval meeting.

Yet the game makes sense within the Famicom market of the time. Platform action was familiar, recognizable characters mattered and strict cinematic accuracy was less important than producing something that worked as a Nintendo game.

Old School Gamer’s history of the Nintendo Famicom shows how quickly the system became home to major franchises and arcade-style adaptations. Namco reshaped Star Wars for that environment.

The result was not the film in cartridge form.

It was Star Wars translated into the language of Japanese 8-bit design, with all the mutations that apparently required.

Before There Was a LucasArts Style

Lucasfilm founded its own games group in 1982, but initially built its reputation through original projects including Ballblazer, Rescue on Fractalus! and Maniac Mansion.

Star Wars continued to pass between outside publishers and developers.

That created a strange situation. The company making some of the most inventive games of the 1980s was not yet defining what a Star Wars video game should be.

Old School Gamer’s feature on Lucasfilm Games looks at the studio that would eventually become inseparable from interactive Star Wars.

The transition happened gradually.

The 1991 Star Wars game for the Famicom and NES involved Lucasfilm Games and Beam Software, while other versions reached the Game Boy, Master System and Game Gear.

The Master System’s unusual life outside North America and Japan meant that even this newer generation arrived differently depending on where players lived. In one market, the console was disappearing. Somewhere else, it still felt like a discovery.

Then the identity sharpened.

Super Star Wars arrived in 1992. Star Wars: X-Wing followed in 1993.

The games began to feel less like isolated experiments and more like pieces of a growing interactive universe.

LucasArts had not eliminated variation.

But it increasingly became the center of gravity.

The Wild Years Still Matter

The first decade of Star Wars gaming has no tidy progression from primitive to sophisticated.

Dog Star Adventure did things Atari cartridges could not. Parker Brothers found elegant loops inside individual movie scenes. Atari’s arcade team created a cockpit fantasy so convincing that later technology did not automatically make it obsolete.

Namco produced something only Namco in 1987 could have produced.

Some games were excellent.

Some were painful.

Some were barely Star Wars at all once the box art was removed.

Together, they show a famous license before it had learned to police its own identity.

Modern Star Wars games inherit a library of sounds, interfaces, genres and design expectations. The early developers inherited three films, a pile of merchandise and a question nobody had answered:

What exactly should a Star Wars game let the player do?

The complete list of every Star Wars video game ever made now stretches across arcades, computers, consoles, handhelds, mobile devices and virtual reality.

Looking back at its chaotic beginning makes one thing clear.

Star Wars did not enter gaming through one perfect adaptation.

It arrived as text, vectors, cartridges, cassettes, cancelled prototypes and several versions of Darth Vader that probably should not have been sharks.

Before LucasArts took control, nobody knew the rules.

That was the fun of it.

Author Bio

Søren Kamper is the editor of Star Wars: Gaming, an independent site documenting the history of Star Wars video games, from unofficial experiments and early arcade releases to LucasArts classics, modern titles and fan projects.

The post Before LucasArts Took Control: The Wild First Decade of Star Wars Games appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Micro Machines NES Title Screen

As with any popular kids’ property, a video game was sure to follow. Galoob partnered with European developer Codemasters to turn the mini micros into a video game racer. They already had a relationship with Codemasters as Galoob was the North American distributor of their popular Game Genie video game enhancement device.

Unlike most European game development of the time, Codemasters created Micro Machines first for the Nintendo Entertainment System, then ported it to various computers and consoles. Due to the ongoing legal battle that Galoob was involved in with Nintendo of America over the Game Genie, it never received Nintendo’s Seal of Approval. Codemasters released a couple of different unofficial carts for the game, including a gold cartridge (similar to the Tengen releases) and smaller black carts.

The game itself actually started life as a racing prototype called California Buggy Boys, programmed by Andrew Graham. It was an overhead racer featuring dune buggies. Codemasters founders David and Richard Darling saw an opportunity to turn the prototype into a licensed Micro Machines title.

The toy line’s small size inspired the environments for each race. Instead of treating the cars as full-sized vehicles in a standard racing game, Codemasters set each race in everyday surroundings, but on a toy-sized scale. One race takes place in a bathtub. Another takes place on a pool table. Yet another takes place at a breakfast table. The surroundings for each track reflected their theme. The bathtub track is outlined with tiny soap bubbles. The pool table track is denoted with cue chalk and pool balls. And the breakfast table track is created with lines of breakfast cereal, with sticky honey hazards along the way.

Micro Machines NES Screenshot

The game incorporates a variety of vehicle types from the Micro Machines line and doesn’t limit itself to cars. While we do get standards like sports cars and four-wheel drive vehicles, there are also speedboats, helicopters, and even tanks. Racing a Formula 1 car around a billiards table, dodging pool cues and skipping in and out of the pockets, is truly a unique experience. Even though the route around the courses is clearly marked, it isn’t a strict barrier. Racers are allowed to race outside the lines, to a certain extent. If you go too far out, you will be returned to the track.

The single-player racing challenge pits the player against three computer opponents. As you progress, the tracks will become increasingly harder. In order to progress to the next track, you must come in either first or second place. If you finish third or fourth, you will need to rerun the race in an attempt to improve your standing. You have a total of three chances to run a track again. Once you use all of your chances, it’s game over.

The game also includes a two-player head-to-head mode. Instead of a split-screen race, the two-player race takes place on a single screen. At the beginning of the race, there are 8 colored lights at the top of the screen. Each player has four lights in their color. During the race, if one player gets a full-screen length ahead of the other, one of the lights will change to their color. This will go back-and-forth until one player has managed to change all 8 lights to their color, thus winning the race.

Micro Machines Amiga Screenshot

As I pointed out at the beginning of this article, unlike most European games at the time, the NES console version was developed before the game was ported to any other consoles or computers. Two years after the initial release, versions for the Sega Game Gear, Sega Mega Drive, and Commodore Amiga were released. While it isn’t the most graphically advanced of the initial 16-bit versions (that would be the Mega Drive version), I have a personal affinity for the Amiga version, as it was the port that introduced me not only to this game but also to Codemasters as a developer.

The next year saw the release of the Sega Master System, MS-DOS, and Super NES versions. One of the most distinctive releases would follow the next year, with a full release of the Philips CD-i system. It is unique among CD-i games as it wasn’t transformed into a multimedia title, which is where the system excelled, and where game development on the system was most focused.

The final two versions released were a monochrome conversion of the original Game Boy in 1995, and then a version for the Game Boy Color in 2000. This version was actually released in a combo cartridge with its sequel, Turbo Tournament.

Codemasters would continue to develop and co-develop new games using the license until Micro Machines World Series in 2017. While sequels like V3 and V4 brought the game to more modern systems (at the time) and were moderately successful, the mobile-focused World Series failed to revive the brand. Additionally, Codemasters’ corporate identity was evolving as it focused on titles such as GRID and the DiRT series. At that point, additional Micro Machines games were no longer developed.

If you’ve never delved into this franchise, give the original Micro Machines a try. It offers a unique perspective and is accessible on almost any platform thanks to modern emulation.

The post Micro Machines: Pocket-Sized Racing appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Our next Trading Card Spotlight features Zach Kaczor, who is displayed on card number 99, from the Superstars of 2011 Collection.   Zach is one of the youngest gamers to appear on a Video Game Trading Card.  When the card was produced, Zach was 11 years old.   He took over the world record on the arcade game Ice Cold Beer which was first achieved in 1984.   His score was 350,000 which still holds today as the current world record on Twin Galaxies scoreboard. Zach also loves the current games of today like Call of Duty and other games for the XBOX.  He holds the world record on Gunstringer for the XBOX 360.    Zach is proud to be a part of the gaming community and hopes ones day to set more records and be a top gamer for his generation.

Are you still involved with gaming today, and what role do you play?

I used to be, I was one of the original Minecraft servers that existed right when the game was being released to the public. That ran up until about 2014-15 when I quit and had other people run it for me. I would like to believe I had an important role in the way servers were ran and continue to run. I often interacted with many other server owners of larger communities and would often find ways to manage and handle large amounts of people. It was a fun learning experience.

The post Video Game Trading Card Spotlight – Zach Kaczor appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

It’s time to have an Amiga party as throughout the Commodore Amiga Facebook they are celebrating  the ‘International Amiga Day 2026’ for May 31st, which celebrates over 30 years of Amiga fun! The retro community want to keep the Commodore Amiga name alive and what better way to do that than an anniversary to the day dedicated to that great system with all the games being played, and hardware being used from the A500 to the A1200, to the CD32 to the A4000. If you lived during that era of gaming then it was one of the greatest moments in our retro history.

In 2014 when the party came to be, it turned out to be a global event with people from all around the world turning on their retro systems either to play them once more from their childhood or just to give them a new look with a mod or retrobright. However with fantastic news came sadness as the original creator Dragon “Gyu” Gyorgy sadly passed away at the beginning of 2015. He was both a friend to me and to many others, so with this news, lets not just celebrate the Amiga but celebrate the great Dragon Gyorgy who was the inspiration behind the original Amiga day.

On Amiga Day do any of the following Amiga activities:

• – You must switch on at least 1 Amiga computer.
• – You must run at least 1 Amiga game (emulator is accepted).
• – You must „whiten” a yellowed Amiga.
• – You must give your non-working Amiga to a technician, who can make a working machine out of the non-working ones. Lather on the reborn working Amiga must be donated.
• – In case you are a technician you must make at least one Amiga working from non-working Amigas.
• – If you have an Amiga T-Shirt, you must wear it.
• – If none of the above you can make a photo of yourself with an Amiga and share it with your friends on any social networks.
• – Or whatever Amiga related activity you like…

The post International Amiga Day – The day has come to celebrate the Amiga! appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.