When The Last CRT Display Goes, It’s The End of An Era…

Posted on June 28, 2012 by geelw

I hadn’t thought about this much as frankly speaking, I’ve actually not been paying too much attention to the classics I grew up with until recently. They can take care of themselves in terms of their familiar gameplay and assorted visual styles holding up, but things are certainly a lot more grim on the technical side. Nostalgia is indeed wonderful when it does what it does and makes you smile, but today’s gamers are getting the shorter end of the stick despite having better, faster (and yes, more expensive) ways to play games.

Sure, today’s fast-moving technology is great and all, but sometimes “vintage” is more acceptable for some things for a few very key reasons. According to a press release I got from the fine folks at Dream Arcades yesterday, the lack of new CRT’s is probably going to affect their bottom line at some point (and sooner that they’d like) and will probably signal the death of another central core of vintage gaming history…

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Gallery: Atari Lynx & Jaguar Libraries

Posted on December 23, 2011 by geelw

Hmmm. I’m missing a bunch of Lynx stuff here (commons like S.T.U.N. Runner, Hard Drivin’ and a few others) as well as some manuals. But I think I may have sold off a bunch of games a few years back thinking I’d replace them at some point. The manuals for most of the loose cards are most likely in one of the bins here packed with assorted game stuff, but it’s going to take time to get through all that stuff. As for the Jaguar games, I had a few more as well and I found my Cybermorph manual after I took the photo, but I can’t locate the cart. I need another Jaguar anyway, as I sold one to a guy in Japan about nine or so years back and the other one I was planning to buy got snapped up before I could get to it. Anyway, Alien vs. Predator is still the best overall game on the platform, but I also like Tempest 2000, Power Drive Rally, Iron Soldier, Super Burnout and for some crazy reason, Hover Strike. I always wanted to try Towers II: Plight of the Stargazer for the Jag, as I found the PC version for a buck on closeout and while I hated the controls, the game was a pretty interesting RPG. I’d played the Game Boy Color Towers game (which was pretty cool) some years back and it actually “feels” better than the PC game did in terms of navigation.

Babycastles. Brooklyn. Sunday. NEW Atari 2600 Games (!) Be There.

Posted on November 10, 2011 by geelw

I won’t be there, thanks to too much work to do, but maybe YOU can go and tell me what a blast you had.

Sunday, November 13th

Innovative Leisure: New Atari Games, curated by Ian Bogost.

Celebrating a new art games arcade at Death By Audio
6:30 – 9pm ||| @ DEATH BY AUDIO (South 2nd & Kent Avenue)
FREE ||| ALL AGES ||| TALKS BY IAN BOGOST, SONNY RAE TEMPEST

More info after the jump! Continue reading →

How Atari Can Really Take Advantage Of The Digital Age

Posted on September 12, 2011 by geelw

While the company has seen its share of ups and downs (and a few sideways moves) over the past few decades, there's something about Atari that makes me hope they'll be around in some form for as long as people are around to play video games. Primarily a publisher for a good deal of the past decade, since 2004 they've been tapping into their history to produce a few different plug & play console variants in the Atari Flashback line. These units feature not only many classic games, but unreleased as well as homebrew tittles have managed to make it into the mainstream thanks to the small but dedicated team contracted to put the Flashback project together. As good as these systems are, I think Atari can bring things to the next level in a really cool way.Read more »

Review: Venetica

Posted on January 13, 2011 by geelw

Platform: PS3 (also on Xbox 360, PC)

Developer: Deck 13

Publisher: Atari

# of Players: 1

ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

Official Site

Score: C+

As a huge fan of role-playing games developed around the world for at least 20 years, one thing I've learned is how to appreciate the best parts of every game no matter the overall quality. Simply knocking a new title for what it doesn't have compared to similar entries within the genre is a wee bit too easy for some critics that fail to see that not every game needs to be “state of the art” nor “perfect” to be an enjoyable experience. US gamers never saw retail releases of imperfect Euro-made epics and non-epics such as Hard to Be a God, Vampire World, or Dragonfire: Well of Souls, but each of these (plus many others) have appeal as singular experiences thanks to levels of immersion distinct to each game. Deck 13's Venetica is another one of those really interesting games with similar rough spots that keep it from becoming an instant classic. However, once you overlook its quirks, it's an ambitious project that features an attractive and interesting lead character as well as a few nice twists to the standard RPG formula.

Test Drive Unlimited 2 Gallery: Atari & Eden Want To Keep You Indoors For A While…

Posted on December 26, 2010 by geelw

If you've never had the chance to play the original Test Drive Unlimited on the Xbox 360*, you missed out on one of the more addictive pure driving games on current generation consoles. While you could in tons of events in offline or through the innovative M.O.O.R. (Massively Open Online Racing) system, the real thrill (for me at least) came in hitting the road in any car and just driving around Oahu for hours. Uncovering every inch of highway for one of the tougher Achievements was a blast and it was pretty cool to see lots of people played the game in the same way. With Test Drive Unlimited 2 hitting PS3, PC and Xbox 360 on February 8, 2011, here's a look at some of Eden Games' nicely rendered cars from a few angles. I'll add older screens to this gallery sometime next week.

TDU2 takes place in Ibiza and an upgraded version of Oahu from the first game (accessible once you've “leveled” enough), so it's going to be a must-play for me, as I'm insanely curious to see what's new, what's changed and how well the overall game experience has turned out.

Random Release News (Or If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be DLC Day…)

Posted on August 31, 2010 by geelw

Yikes – plenty of new games and games news hit the inbox today, so instead of individual postings, a rapid-fire approach is in order. In general, August is flying out with a big ol' bang and September is rolling in with an even bigger set of booms. Here we go with part one:

Missile Command Is 30 (And I Feel Old…. But There’s A Sweepstakes To Make It All Better)…

Posted on February 27, 2010 by geelw

Yikes. I can actually remember playing plenty of Missile Command in assorted arcades back in 1980 and onward! Atari is certainly celebrating their classic (and making me feel ancient) by not only letting you young whippersnappers play the original version and a really cool remix, they’re also holding a nice little contest where the grand prize is a restored MC arcade cabinet. So go poke around and enter, already. Feel free to check out their other playable arcade and Atari 2600 classics as well.

Review: Zaku

Posted on January 12, 2010 by geelw

Platform: Atari Lynx

Developer: PenguiNet

Publisher: SuperFighter Team

Players: 1

Rating: E (Everyone)

Official Site

Score: A+

Dust off that Atari Lynx* and get ready for some hardcore shmup action – Zaku is finally here and it’s an instant classic that you don’t want to miss. SuperFighter Team and developer PengiNet have cooked up a solid and spectacularly tough 4 Meg chunk of horizontal arcade shooting set in 16 stages set over five worlds packed with big-eyed cartoon enemies and wacky screen-filling bosses that will give you candy-colored nightmares on each of its difficulty levels. The game is a near-perfect throwback to the days of classic 8 and 16-bit shooters and every level, every second of the game oozes quality, if not sheer programming genius. How this is running on the Lynx and looking as great as it does is a wonder, but it truly shows just how powerful (and under appreciated) the hardware was (and is).

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Zaku Update: Ready to Launch 10/24/2009

Posted on October 17, 2009 by geelw

Well, alrighty then! Super Fighter Team has announced that its NEW PengiuNet-developed Atari Lynx game, Zaku, will be available for purchase on October 24, 2009, the same day the game makes its debut at this year’s Classic Console and Arcade Gaming Show in Cleveland, Ohio (see below for the full details).

And whaddya mean “What’s Zaku?” Hey! Go click that link above for the official site, then read my preview and interview with Super Fighter Team’s Brandon Cobb to see what I’m all hopped up about! At $40 US + shipping, this one looks like money well spent if you’re a Lynx owner.

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