J.R.R. Tolkien, Jules Verne, and the World of Myst
My son is gradually working his way toward the end of the book “The Return of the King,” the swan song to J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic Lord of the Rings series. The series is a perfect fit for his personality. He’s obsessed with fantasy and adventure and the creation of new...
A Land Without End: Games With The Largest Open Worlds Ever
In an article published in 2017, author Mark Manson called life "the largest open world game known to date". Come to think of it, he was right - except, of course, that it's not a video game. But did you ever think of just how big Africa really is - it's the second...
Video Game Trading Card Spotlight – Norman Caruso
Our next Trading Card Spotlight features Norman Caruso, who is displayed on card number 2702, from the Superstars of 2017 Collection. Norman is the creator of “Gaming Historian”, A documentary series on YouTube. His goal is to explore the history of video game...
PaRappa The Rapper
It’s very strange to think that PaRappa the Rapper is now an old school game, but 23 years have passed since it was released in Japan and 22 since it debuted in the rest of the world. The game was the brainchild of Japanese musician Masaya Matsuura, who had enjoyed...
Ten More Games Announced for the Genesis Mini
Sega has been touting their new miniaturised Genesis for a while now, and while there’s a lot of excitement around the fact that they’re the ones actually manufacturing it (unlike a third party such as AtGames) the final games list is ultimately what everyone cares...
Golden Era Competitive Gamer Joel West Passes – By Walter Day
On November 28, 2018, the legendary video game champion, Joel David West, passed into eternity. Though many of his friends knew he was wrestling with health problems aggravated by diabetes, everyone was surprised and stunned when he passed away. It seems that in...
Lost Super NES Adaptation of 90’s Board Game Discovered
This game’s Atmosfear is a real NightMare.
Intruder Alert…Intruder Alert! – By Kevin Butler
NAME: BERZERK MANUFACTURER: STERN ELECTRONICS YEAR: 1980 TYPE: VIDEOGAME TEAM LEADER: DESIGNED AND PROGRAMMED BY ALAN MCNEIL Berzerk is a two-dimensional maze-style game that involves you attempting to escape killer robots in a never- ending gallery of mazes. Somewhat...
Tetris and Joseph Saelee – By Joel West / Completed by Brian Szarek
Welcome to another installment of a column dedicated exclusively to Old School Gamers and Old School Games from the Golden Age of gaming. These gamers, back in the day, had to physically use a coin or token to start a video game. The earning of these coins was mostly...
The Ren & Stimpy Show Presents: Stimpy’s Invention
August 11, 1991 It’s a date that should be etched in the annals of time. It’s like July 20, 1969 (the date of the first moon landing), but much more important. It’s the day that The Ren & Stimpy Show first debuted on television. There aren’t enough superlatives to...
Pratt At the Arcade: The Darius Series – By Adam Pratt
Instead of trying to cram everything about a genre into one article, this time I am going to focus on a particular series within the realm of the shoot ‘em up. It is one that started off in arcades and was done in such a way that the home ports never could capture the...
Old Atari on Switch and New Atari on 4 Switchers – By Ryan Burger and Rice Pryor
New Atari-related releases are coming fast and furious, from many different directions recently. AtariAge. com has been publishing tons of new games, many of which were first released at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo and to the public quickly afterwards....
Introducing Evercade, a Mysterious New Retro Handheld
Access the mysterious Evercade website and the first thing that will grab your attention is the text; “EVERCADE - A BRAND NEW HANDHELD CONSOLE WITH UNIQUE MULTI-GAME RETRO CARTRIDGES FROM LEADING GAMES PUBLISHERS AND CONSOLE PLATFORMS”. It says a lot, but then again,...
Jersey Jack Announces Willy Wonka Pinball at MGC – By Brad Feingold
After passing out specially made Willy Wonka Candy Bars to mark the occasion at the first night of the Midwest Gaming Classic in Milwaukee, Wi, Jersey Jack opened the doors and let the special guests into the presentation room to announce their latest pinball that...
Coffee Crisis – Grab a Cup and Kick Alien Butt!!! – By Brad Feingold
“The evil alien Smurglien race has taken notice of Earth’s fancy World Wide Web and have begun stealing its WiFi. In doing so, they have hacked their own version of the internet and hid it deep within the Earth’s web-based systems, calling it the Smurnet.” Now that’s...
Convention Update: Nov 2018 – Jan 2019 – By Old School Gamer
RETRO GAME CON SYRACUSE, NY - BY CONOR O’BRIEN The sixth Retro Game Con was held November 3-4 at the Oncenter in Syracuse, NY. Despite grey skies and cold rain, hundreds of attendees showed up at the venue. Some attendees came in costume and many were gamer parents...
Video Game Preservationist Auctions Off Unfinished Akira Prototype
Tetsuooooooooo!!!
Flip Grip: Bullet Heaven – By Rob Faraldi
Shmups (short for “shoot ‘em ups”) were a mainstream genre decades ago, but have since become a persistent niche. Some of the more popular and notable shmups include Radiant Silvergun, Ikaruga, M.U.S.H.A., and Raiden. Certain classic consoles including TurboGrafx-16,...
Mortal Kombat: Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme
You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Twilight Zone! Picture if you will a video game...
A Killer App: Star Raiders – By Bill Lange
Star Raiders, the iconic computer adventure game, was created for the Atari 400/800 home computer line, in fact, it was created at the same time as the development of the computers. It was programmed by Atari hardware designer Doug Neubauer. Neubauer was also on the...
Brett’s Old School Bargain Bin: Asteroids and Beamrider – By Brett Weiss
The theme for this installment of Old School Gamer is simu- lation games, but I’m still on a shooter high from the last issue, so I’m going to spotlight two more shooting games that are easy on the wallet, yet fun to play. If you’re cool with cartridge only, Asteroids...
The Origins of the Name “Pac-Man” Indecent to Iconic – By Ethan Johnson
All old-school gamers should be familiar with localization by now. Whether that is the censorship of Nazi symbols in Bionic Commando or the hilarious cutscenes of Zero Wing, things can change for better or worse when crossing the Pacific. It is fair to say though that...
Video Game Trading Card Spotlight – Ellis Rowland
Our next Trading Card Spotlight features Ellis Rowland, who is displayed on card number 42, from the Superstars of 2011 Collection. Ellis is proud of his world record at the arcade game Eagle. His score of 274,970 was posted on the Leaderboard on July16, 2011 and...
ToeJam and Earl
Last month, the world was gifted with ToeJam and Earl: Back In the Groove. The game was funded by a $500,000 Kickstarter campaign with help from Adult Swim, and comes out roughly 28 years after the first game in the franchise was released. To celebrate the release of...
Just for Qix: Behind Enemy Lines – By Michael Thomasson
Near the end of 1980, Atari released the first-person combat simulator Battlezone in arcades. With its twin stick controls, overhead radar, and innovative plastic periscope, it mimicked an early construct of today’s virtual reality set-ups. Since the viewfinder...
The Last Official Release: Neo Geo Pocket Color – SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash 2 (2001)
Greetings, those enamoured with retro consoles, and welcome back to The Last Official Release. Here, I scrutinise, study and examine the last official games released on your favourite consoles. Today, I finalise my journey through the universe of Neo Geo, but I’ve...
RetroPlace.com – A New Community to Collect With – By Brad Feingold
The staff of Old School Gamer has possibly found a new home for keeping track of our console game collection online and we recommend you check them out! This dynamic site, Retroplace.com, is built utilizing an amazing database that can do so many things. I can easily...
Driver and Driver 2 – By Conor McBrien
W hile most classic driving games would make players participate in races, stunts, or demolition derbies, Driver has players do things like helping crooks flee the scene of a bank robbery or delivering a stolen car to a chop shop. In Driver and Driver 2, you play as...
Horowitz’s History – 32X – Star Wars Arcade – By Ken Horowitz
One of the marquee titles for the launch of the 32X was Star Wars Arcade, a conversion of the Sega coin- op game. Based on the climactic Death Star battle of Episode IV, it set players in the role of Luke Skywalker as he made his classic run to destroy the massive...
The Curious Case of George Plimpton in the Video Game World
We’re still relatively close to April Fool’s Day, so I’m going to take a slight detour from my typical blog posts. Instead of writing about the history or gameplay of an an old school video game, I thought we’d take a look at the curious case of George Plimpton in the...
Nintendoes: SEGA Games on the NES – Shinobi
Go ninja, go Ninten, do!
Old School Gamer Magazine Exclusive: Inside ‘Out of the Park Baseball 2020’
Old School Gamer Magazine chats with Out of the Park Baseball 2020 lead developer Markus Heinsohn, who lets us know what makes this version of the game a special one. A simulation and stat lover’s dream come true, this year’s OOTP Baseball the best in the series. Old...
Atari VCS 2019: More exciting hardware news to report!
With the March AMD Ryzen upgrade announcement still fresh, the Atari VCS team spent four days at GDC in San Francisco where we met with numerous content providers and creators, distributors and others, before heading south to spend a full day with our engineering team...
Video Game Trading Card Spotlight – Keith Swanson
Our next Trading Card Spotlight features Keith Swanson, who is displayed on card number 60, from the Superstars of 2011. Keith is also featured on cards 972 and 1825. Keith is the world record holder of the arcade game Gorf (3 ships). His score of 1,129,660 was set...
Duck Hunt
I am not a hunter. As a general rule, I don’t enjoy guns (with the exception of water guns and Nerf guns). So, it’s a bit odd to think just how MUCH I loved the game Duck Hunt. It could be that it’s one of the first games that I ever played on the Nintendo. Getting an...
The Walter Day Report: The Art of Shooting – By Walter Day
Yes, there is an “art to shooting” in video game playing. Essentially, managing your bullets, especially when you are only given, more or less, one bullet at a time. This pertains particularly to the legendary games of the classic arcade era. In this article, I have...
Fox’s Game – The Greatest Video Game You’ve Never Played – By Shaun Jex
Later this year, Disney will open Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, a theme park experience set in the world of Star Wars. Amongst the coming attractions is Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, which puts visitors in the Millennium Falcon. Guests will have specific jobs which...
The Last Official Release: Neo Geo CD – The King of Fighters ’99: Millennium Battle (1999)
Why, hello there, retro gaming friends. Welcome back to The Last Official Release – Old School Gamer Magazines incomparable source of what the final games released on your favourite consoles were. I’ve covered quite a few systems previously (linked below) if today's...
Just for Qix: Thunderforce – From the Home to the Arcade – By Michael Thomasson
It is a rare occurrence when a home console game makes its way to the video arcade, but that is what happened with the horizontal- scrolling shooter Thunder Force. Like a reverse chain of events, in the literary world it would be equivalent to a book being...
Piko Interactive Announces New Games for Classic Atari Jaguar Lineup
Piko Interactive, an independent video game publisher, has started accepting pre-orders for twelve new titles. These titles represent brand new releases for many consoles such as the Nintendo 64, Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari Jaguar, Sega Genesis, and Game Boy...