The Evercade is an interesting new retro handheld we’ve been closely following at OSGM HQ for the last month or so. Starting off as something mysterious, it was soon revealed to be a completely self-contained console that would play retro games – but most importantly, that those games would be sold on glorious, glorious cartridges.
Soon after, we learnt that Atari would be releasing a cartridge collection that would consist of twenty 2600 titles. If the Atari 2600 isn’t your thing, however – let’s says you were too young for that console but not that young in the overall scheme of things, the two latest announcements might tickle your fancy. Appealing to those who enjoy what the late 80’s and early 90’s had to offer, it’s been announced that Interplay and Data East will release their own collections.
I learnt last week that Interplay was still a thing with the proclamation that a limited edition, combined SNES cartridge of the first two Earthworm Jim games could be pre-ordered from iam8bit (and it appears that a few still seem available, by the way). Well, if that isn’t appealing, you can now at least play the first Earthworm Jim on the Evercade. That particular collection also includes ClayFighter, Battle Chess, Boogerman: A Pick and Flick Adventure, Incantation and Titan.
On the other end of the spectrum, I learnt this week that Data East is also still a thing. Well, kind of. After they stopped developing games in the late nineties and tried to diversify – selling negative ion generators for one, they eventually went bankrupt in 2003. All their IP’s were then sold off; mostly to a company called G-Mode. Anyway, this cartridge will consist of Bad Dudes, Burgertime, Midnight Resistance, Side Pocket, Karate Champ, Joe & Mac 2: Lost in the Tropics, Fighter’s History, Two Crude Dudes, Magical Drop II and Bump ‘n’ Jump (known as Burnin’ Rubber in Japan). Very nice!
It’s also been made known on the socials that on the 27th of May, not only will two more cartridges be announced from existing publishers and their prices (which is definitely a question everyone is wondering) but yet another new publisher will also be revealed. Exciting times.
Here’s the official website, which I’d highly recommend checking out on Monday if the Evercade is a device that interests you.
Growing up while the fifth generation of consoles reigned supreme meant that Brendan missed out on much of the 80’s and early 90’s of gaming the first time around. He either lacked the cognitive ability to play them, as naturally, he was a baby - or he simply didn’t exist yet. Undeterred, Brendan started a blog called Retro Game On in 2011. This followed his exploits as he collected and played everything he could get his hands on no matter what the release date. While RGO is mainly YouTube focused these days concentrating on video reviews and historical features, the itch to do some old fashion writing never went away. More recently, Brendan has been a staff writer for the gaming website, GameCloud, mostly focusing on the indie gaming scene in his locale of Perth, Australia.
