My gaming Week #5

Another retro gaming week flies by. Here’s what I’ve been up to.

Gyruss – Atari 2600 (1980)

Usually, my go to system for a spot of Gyruss (other than the original/Mame version) is the conversion written for the Commodore C64, but this week, thanks to a bundle of eBay VCS carts (The Harmony cartridge is great, but I do love my retro box art!) , I’ve be enjoying the simple delights of the Parker Brothers Atari 2600 release. Basic it might look, but for a 2600 game it’s surprisingly nippy and has one of the best musical scores I’ve ever heard on the VCS.

In Gryuss, you move your ship through 360 degrees around the perimeter of the screen and blast away at the enemy ships fanning out from either the centre of the screen or from the left or right – Think Galaxians wrapped around a tube.

I think that grey blob is me…honestly it looks better when it’s in motion

Intense tube blasting calls for an intense soundtrack and compared to other conversions, Parker Brother have cranked up the tempo on the 2600 with Bach’s signature tune.

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I’ve also been checking out the Gyruss on another system too and it’s a version I’ve not actually played until this week.

Gryuss – Nintendo NES (1988)

Compared to the Atari 2600 this one certainly looks a stunner with its colourful and chunky Konami threads. The NES version also adds a few new elements not found in the arcade original including boss attack rounds, a new super weapon and a remix of the original soundtrack. It’s a cracking version of Gryuss all right, even if somewhat on the easy side. However, I’ve only scratched the first few planets so lets see if it has the same lasting appeal of the original.

 

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Another early game from Jeff Minters and one you’d usually see playing on my Vic-20 or C64 but this time around, I found the crisp visuals on the ZX Spectrum version simply too good to miss.

Voidrunner – ZX Spectrum (1987)

I found this version of Voidrunner purely by accident really as I was messing around with iXpectrum, the ZX Spectrum emulator on my iPad and needing an example game to play around. Because I’d been dipping in and out of Jeff Minters Llamasoft website recently (I’m keeping an eye out for more news on the soon to be released follow up to Goat Up) I found myself at the software library area where Jeff has many of his early games available as free downloads.

 

Voidrunner is a arcade shooter that shares similarities with Gridrunner and Matrix (which itself take influence from the the arcade game Centipede). The game contains a centipede like trail that makes its way down from the top of the screen towards you at the bottom. As you fire on it, the centipede breaksinto smaller pieces which travel in different direction making the whole task of destroying it ever more difficult. To make life even more difficult, there’s a horizontal laser beam that cuts down from the top of the screen to destroys you if your ship happens to cross it’s path.

It’s been fun to play on my iPad but I’ll be digging out one of my Speccys soon as this one deserves a proper joystick.

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Lunch break gaming this week has been so absorbing at times with this next game that I’ve actually forgot to stop and eat my lunch.

Zombotron – PC/web

http://armorgames.com/play/12000/zombotron

Guns, Zombies, Robots, ragdoll physics and unscripted moments of sheer awesomeness, you can’t help but have fun with this one.

‘Welcome to the planet «Zombotron», inhabited by human-mutants or just stupid zombies. Nobody knows where they come from and what they eat. But we know one thing – they are ready to destroy everything that moves.’

You control our hero via W,A,S,D with mouse for aim and mouse button for shooting, plus the E key for inventory. I’m still a Q,A,O,P type of chap but as I play more and more of these web games I’m getting kinda used to them bit by bit…I just wished more web games would have redefinable keys!

 

The aim of the game is simple to survive the ten levels and get from the start to the finish. Along the way you’ll need to solve a handful of puzzles as well as take out a fair share of squishy zombies and not so squishy robotic defense systems. Kills and opening treasure chests will reward with gold coins which can be used to purchase weapons, ammo, medkits and armour.

You start off with a puny pistol, but it’s not long before your packing shotgun, assault rifle, grenade launcher and rail gun. Ammo might seem a bit stingy at first but once you reach some of the later levels ammo conservation doesn’t become such a problem. Besides, although it’s fun to simply blast everything in sight, each level is littered with items that you can use (or not) as make shift weapon or trap. For example, push a crate from above on to the heads of an unsuspecting zombie, roll an explosive filled barrel down a slope mowing everything down in its path or shoot it in mid path at the right moment to cause maximum, and gory, damage. Alternatively sit back and watch zombie vs robot duke it leaving you to pick off any survivors.

There are also bonus missions to complete too – although not necessary to complete a level, including collecting certain things or doing certain actions. For example complete a level using minimal gun ammo.

I’ve had (and still am) having so much fun with Zombotron and now that i’ve completed it i’m hungry for more….woo, sequels!

Here’s the trailer.

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I round this week up with a pocket collection of classic Atari arcade games that have been given a new paint job.

Atari Classic Collection – Nintendo DS

This DS cart comprises of some pretty accurate arcade ports -

Centipede

Lunar Lander

Gravitar

Pong

Breakout

Missile Command

Warlords

Asteroids

Dragster

Tempest

Each game has also been made to take advantage of the DS touchscreen and stylus control which apart from Missile Command/Breakout pretty much sucks – Tempest with a stylus is just plain awful! However, you an still use the D-Pad and physical buttons which work perfectly (apart from Missile Command) and having a pocket version of Gravitar, Lunar Lander and Asteroids is why I brought the cart and much better than say Mame on my iPhone.

But thats not all. The thing I like most about this collection compared to other Atari compilations is the remixed graphic mode for each game.

Asteroids

Gravitar

Breakout…oh wait, that looks the same.

Happy gaming!

Nolan Bushnell ET treasure hunt.

Here’s a great image of the Nolan Bushnell digging for those infamous ET game cartridge c/o http://www.joystiq.com/2013/02/15/wrup-bushnell-digs-for-e-t-cartridges/.

O.k so he’s not actually doing that, but it’s a  fun photo caption  all the same.

Speaking of Atari, look what Mrs StiGGy brought  me back from her shopping expedition.

Retro Gamer Magazine’s – Atari Book – 40th Anniversary Special.

A 40th anniversary Atari special from the makers of Retro Gamer

The Machines
- In-depth features on Atari’s greatest hardware.

The Developers
- Interviews with the people that made the games.

The games
- The top 25 games for the Atari 2600, along with ‘The Making Of’ features for all the classics.

40 Reasons why we love Atari
- We explore why Atari is so fondly remembered.

Also inside…

The Machines
- Atari 2600
- Atari 5200
- Atari 800 XL
- Atari 7800
- Atari ST
- Atari Lynx
- Atari Jaguar

The Developers
- Atari Inc
- Atari Corp
- Nolan Bushnell
- Allan Alcorn
- Howard Scott Warshaw
- Bob Polaro
- David Crane

The Games
- Top 25 Atari 2600 Games
- Pong
- Sprint2
- Asteroids
- Missile Command
- Battlezone
- Tempest
- Pitfall!
- Miner 2049er
- Star Wars
- Dandy
- Crystal Castles
- Paperboy
- Dungeon Master
- Roadblasters
- Chip’s Challenge
- Alien Vs Predator

https://www.imagineshop.co.uk/

Atari dead…again?

So the headlines say, but to be honest the original Atari company died many years ago and it all became a little bit convoluted after that. If like myself and you’re not sure which part of Atari is in trouble (or not) and how that relates to Atari of old (or not) its well worth reading this great article at Ars Technica that covers the history of the Atari company and the many companies that have owned a piece, sold a piece or just buried a piece.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/01/todays-atari-bankruptcy-latest-in-a-long-history-of-corporate-deaths/

Box of memory.

I’ve been going through a few more bags ‘n’ boxes brought back from my parents loft as it’s so much fun to rummage around all my old junk. Some I’d thought lost many years ago and one such item I’ll be keeping much safer this time.

Contents of my latest swag bag.

A couple of Zoids instructions manuals and pages from what looks to be Games Workshops tabletop game – Bloodbowl and one of it’s expansions Death Zone. I’m pretty sure the Zoid models are still up there some place so I’ll make another trip up there again soon.

 

 

 

Me and my mates used to play Bloodbowl quite extensively back in the day. It a tabletop American football type game played usinfg teams from fantasy worlds of humans, elves, orcs and monsters. Rules included the use of a wickedly spiked ball, chainsaws were often commonplace and so was raising the undead for a field kick

On the offensive but need some help? – no problem hire a giant.

 

Originally, Bloodbowl was an all carded game completed with cardboard pitch and carded characters (on plastic bases) but a few years later it was updated and was supplied with plastic miniatures representing Human and Orc teams and, if memory serves me correctly , a three piece polystyrene pitch. Games Workshop produced a whole range of additional teams and individual players to collect and paint and I recall making my own Skeleton team based on a £4.00 cheap box set of Warhammer Skeletons figures that I’d  cut off the weapons and use a fan heater to half melt the plastic so that I can bend and mould them into various kicking, running, catching and charging positions. Add some custom paintwork and my Skeleton Horde was ready for action!

Well whaddayaknow, Bloodbowl is still being sold  today….eek, it certainly wasn’t that expensive back in the day!

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1140161&_requestid=1997155

Oh I remember this one vividly, my old rule book for Dungeons and Dragons.

I think this D&D book game precedes the famous red box set containing rulebook/DM rulebook and a collection of oddly shaped multi sided dice. I’m pretty sure that’s still up there too.

D&D gaming was huge during the late 70′s, early 80′s and many a dungeon was explored with friends (and a huge intake of sugary crap no doubt). Not something you’d admit about  playing back in the day as it was uber-geeky but now i wear it as a retro badge of honour….or should i still keep it quiet

 

How many rules!

Oh dear, I thought this was thrown  out  many years ago – William Shatner’s Tek War PC game.

‘The ultimate in Futuristic 3-D gaming Action’  Hmmmm!

Well I can’t honestly remember why  I brought this pile of old tosh but it was probably something to do with the fact that a) back in the day, churn out an FPS game and some sucker will buy it? (i guess something’s never change) or b) against all the game shopping, I reached in to forbidden bargain bin and took a gamble.

Tekwar, based on the novels by Capt Kirk (and also the short-lived TV show…which I actually quite liked (mental note to seek out a few episodes )) and is all about a wrongly imprisoned ex cop, brought out of cryo stasis, to do something for a giant corporation run by TJ Hooker.It’s highly likely, that missions will result in boldly going where citizens have gone before and shooting the crap out of some Tek pimping perp. Well, it’s been so long since I’ve played this, i have no idea what the plot it. All i recal is that it was bad…real bad…and not it a cool ‘real bad’ type of way either!

Well, I’m game for a laugh and if the CD is still readable, i’ll see if i can getting it running on DOSbox tomorrow.

Moving on….very quickly…

…and onto the best find today and more of a personal from gaming past.

Way way way WAAAAY back, when my parents  brought me my first Commodore 64 for Christmas, it being second hand was a great play by my parents as it came bundled with boxes and boxes of games. I’m guessing that the previous owner,  judging by the sheer amount  of text adventure games included , was a bit partial to adventuring and thus became my introduction to the computer world of D&D.

Amongst all those games was a book –  It was nothing more that a simple notebook you can find in a stationary store but this one was filled with  hand written solutions and detailed maps for many of the adventure games.

The front cover and some of the artwork drawn by the owner. I’ve always wondered who D.Hewitt might have been and you tell that he/she really put some love into this book.

Notes, maps and detailed solutions. A holy grail for the text adventurer!

..and on some of the blank pages at the back of the book, some rather crude Star Wars doodles by yours truly. If I could go back now, I’d slap myself for doing this

So D Hewitt, wherever you are and if by miracle, you happen to come across these pictures on the internet, please get in touch as i’d like to reunite you with your book and say thanks for making my Christmas oh so special all those years ago and to tell you that  your C64 is still very much alive and still in use to this day.

http://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/my-very-first-commodore-64-lives-again/

Over the next week or so and  armed with my new secret weapon, I’ll be crawling a few C64 adventures which up until now have laughed off my puny challenge. 4 sided dice at the ready

Best and worst selling Retro gaming consoles.

Aus retro gamer have put together a rather interesting graph that looks at total units sold worldwide on a number of gaming consoles from 1972 – 2002.

I’m not sure where the figures are from but they seem pretty consistent with various other sources.

I knew the NES far outsold the Sega Master System, but I didn’t realise the gap would be so huge.

Look at poor old unloved Commodore CD32

Sony just kicked ass didn’t they!

What no Vectrex? Actually I can’t locate a figure for the total number sold. Anyone help with this?

Panasonic 3DO – 5 million (wiki) If they only had lowered the initial asking price!

Commodore GS – erm, probably not very many and you’ve very lucky if you have one as they’re quite the collectible these days.

Amstrad GX4000 – seven , no not seven million, just seven I’ve got one myself, but less said the better

Happy New Year

 

Have yourself an Atari Club Christmas.

Check out these pages from the 1982 Club Atari Christmas catalogue.

Woody gets more wood….mmmm stylish.

 

 

I’m actually loving all of these gift items. Bring ‘em back Atari!

 

 

 

You better have been good this year as Santa has plenty of E.T. cartridges left

 

 

Want!

 

 

Atari at Christmas

Clever folk them guys n gals at Atari. Think I’ll tick Centipede and the Trak-Ball and then leave a few copies of the advert strategically placed about the house

RCM Members gaming weekend.

Just got back from another damn fine weekend of retro gaming goodness at the Retro Computer Museum.

Despite a nip in the air, +40 classic computers, consoles, one projector and a collection of eager gamers was all that was needed to raise the temps and to get everyone enjoying themselves. There was a couple of new faces this time around which is always nice to see as well as the ‘usual suspects’ for guaranteed laughs and fun.

I’ve not taken a great deal of photos this time around as I was rather enjoying quite a bit of gaming on the Saturday including copious amounts of Soul Caliber on the Dreamcast. Here’s a handful of the quick snaps I made in between bouts.

This weekend was a chance to take a good look at some of RCM’s new toys like this Memotech MTX 512 complete with Rememorizer addon board which provides additional VGA output, SD card storage and 512k of extra RAM. With this much tech, I’m pretty sure our MTX 512 can now recreate our own Kelly LeBrock

The ZXpand on the ZX81 still continues to impress and at one point we had one of the old ’81′s running at 20mhz! The game ‘Mayhem’ still continues to be an event favourite and high score sessions to beat Stu’s 72 points where attempted. I think Soph came closest with 60 odd points.

JT was happy to test fit one of his SwinSID C64 SID chip replacements into one of RCM’s breadbins and take it for a test drive. Big thanks for letting me have one of these puppies myself. It’s currently sat in my C64 next to me playing a bumper crop of High Score Ballads from CSDB . More on the SwinSID later on.

I also managed to pick up another homemade SD2IEC for my Commodores as my own has developed a bit of a fault. Hopefully the chip will be of use to you JT?

Mike brought along his Android based MK808 mini computer which is so small it makes the Raspberry Pi look huge…and to think, something that small can run pretty much all console emulators (even PSX) full screen in hi def! XBMC runs beutifully on it as well as PC games like GTA3. Add to that all those lovely Google apps and for around £45, i’m highly tempted to get one of these myself. I’ll be researching a bit more on the Mk808 these coming days as its a real tinker’ers tech toy!

What was also impressive was Sophie’s new Atari Mega STE. Some of the demo’s running on this boxy monster were veeeery impressive. This was the first time I’ve seen a Mega STE before and despite it looking a bit ugly, was quite an impressive piece of kit it was. Soph was telling me it’s one of those rare items that pop up from time to time and she’d managed to locate this faulty unit on eBay in Germany which was being sold for next to nothing as it was faulty. Having won the item, said fault turned out to be very was minor and is all in working condition again. Top marks Soph!

Sunday was all about relaxed, chillin and having a natter and I spent a while trying out a someones Android tablet – one of those very impressive – now it’s a netbook, now it’s a tablet Asus Transformers thingymebobs. We wanted to see if we could get Mame and other emulators working with my iCade. After detecting via Bluetooth and pairing successfully we tried a few emulators but couldn’t get it to work . Even mame4droid, with native icade support wouldn’t work. In the end, we downloaded a simple joystick app, mapped the controls of the iCade as keyboard inputs and used this configuration to set the control type for each emulator. This time it worked, and really well too. In fact, just as well as on the iPad with no lag or connection issues after that initial hiccup. With Christmas coming, and if you’re an Android owning retro gamer. Maybe think about adding one to your list to Santa?

Messing around with the iCade, messing around with the MSX.

Amongst the games played this weekend, there was a couple that seemed to stand out for me so i’ve added them to my list further exploration.

More digital pinball courtesy of ‘Ruiner’ on the Atari Jag. I’m still tempted to get a Jag now, even if it’s just for this one game.

Moon Cresta on the Dragon 64 (via multicart). Suprisingly a very faithful port of the arcade original…on a Dragon!

Strider II – Sega Master – I’ve not played this one before and was instantly hooked. Will be tracking down my own copy of this fun little run and gun sequel.

Soviet Strike – Playstation. I haven’t really played any of the ‘Strike’ games since Desert Strike on the Sega Megadrive but this 3d-ish incarnation on the Playstation was actually rather fun.

More Soul Caliber but not before resting ones aching wrists. Thanks to Levs for bringing the arcade sticks in, much better than standard controllers. Am now on a mission to find myself one!

Even better connected to the projector and the lights off.

All in all a rather splendid weekend of gaming with friends new and old. That pretty much wraps it up for gaming events this year and it was nice to have the last of 2012 finished off at home at the retro computer museum.

Here’s to more next year.

Retro Gaming Weekend at Derby – Saturday

Phew, a very looooong day today but one that has seen many, many laughs and a whole bunch of retro gaming goodness with friends old and new.

A cold, dark, wet and very  early start for the RCM admins as we needed to meet up at HQ early enough to pack up around 30 computers/consoles, associated games, attachments and monitors, transport them all to the event in Derbyshire and have anything set up  before the doors opened at 10am.

We must be getting good at this after all these years as we soon had everything organised, loaded up and ready to roll within record time. Who says bloke’s aren’t organised!….o.k, I got slightly lost on the way to the venue because I’d forgotten the postcode

We were met on arrival by our hosts Chris Snowden & Shaun Bebbington and got stuck into to setting up the three rooms with everyone’s favourite gaming gear.

Yet another TV for the pile Jim.

 

In this room we had the MB Vectrex, C64, ZX81, Atari 2600, PC Engine, Amiga 1200, Commodore 64GS, Atari 800, Nintendo Gamecube…

…and not forgetting the VIC-20

Into one of the areas linking the next room we had the BBC Master, Nintendo N64 and a Sega Megadrive/Sega CD setup and Karls Everdrive SD cart playing a rather funky looking port of Angry Birds…on a Megadrive!

I didn’t get chance to take a good look at this today but will certainly be giving it a try when I’m back there tomorrow.

The next room housed an Xbox 360, Nintendo Virtual Boy (was being a bit stubborn at the beginning due to a loose mains cable but we managed to get it going in the end), various  hand held electronic games, SNES, NES, Sony PSX, Atari Jaguar and Chris’ iCade with Mame and various emus.

Finally, we had one of the smaller rooms housing a Sega Dreamcast, PS2 with twin steering wheel setup (I rather enjoyed a spot of 2-up rally action with Jim this afternoon), Amstrad CPC 664 and a Sega Master System.

There was also, various Commodore C16/Plus 4 hardware set up from Chris  humongous collection. All in all i think that there was something here for everyone and so with the doors opened and a few eager retro gamers ready to get going, we had a coffee and got cracking.

As the event was being held on the outskirts of Derby City centre and only a stones throw away from where Core Design had their   office, I thought ‘When in Rome’, I’d re-play some of the games they produced including Lara Croft – Tomb Raider, Chuck Rock and the AGA-Tastic Banshee. The latter is  a game I didn’t really play a great deal when it first came out but had since rediscovered it a few years again. It’s certainly one of the finest looking Schmups on the Amiga.

 

A good start to the day

I don’t stand a chance of getting anywhere remotely close to the type of scores that Jackie was racking up on Drop Zone on the Atari.  A real pro in action! Note the cartridge in the the C64GS…it’s a  port of the classic C16 version of Kickstart.

Max was kind enough to show me his (wip) port of Cosmic Ark to the C64. Damn well addictive, can’t wait to see the finished results.

Well, my score on Mayhem on the ZX81 is improving, but my 51 is no match for Stu’s 65. The challenge has been set for tomorrow

After lunch and getting to know a few other folk that arrived this morning and then the now obligatory Soul Caliber tournament  on the Sega Dreamcast. I was also looking at some of the emulators running on the DC, and noted the how well they ran from CD and in particular with VGA box, how crisp they looked. Mental note to investigate further on my own setup.

Checking out some homebrew games for sale. Mmm Commodore games!

Andy sampling a bit of Commodore Plus/4 homebrew gaming with Adventures In Time

Impressive (but unfortunately not complete) this next game plays and looks very similar to Amalyte on the C64 and has an amazing  soundtrack thanks to the use of the SID chip addon cart that Chris has for his Plus/4. I forget the name of the game (X3no, Xe3o?) so I’ll take another look tomorrow and capture some footage.

One system that I don’t really play a lot on is the Atari Jaguar. Apart from the odd game of Tempest, I rarely sit down to explore some of it’s other titles and RCM has got quite a few so I thought I’d take a look at some of them this afternoon. I was certainly impressed by Power Drive Rally, Cybermorph and the conversion of Syndicate so that’s another note to take a closer look into the Jag.

More homebrew and I spotted a few new cartridges for the C64/C64GS including one of my favourites, the truly bonkers –  Quod Init Exit. <see previos blog post - http://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/c64-homebrew-quod-init-exit/

That pretty much wraps it up for day one. As always, bags of fun when the RCM chaps get together and nice to meet and chat with a  few new people. Bring on day two!

Oh and one last thing..Beam Rider on the ZX81 – That little black box continues to surprise.

Awesome-ness!

Atari 7800 – Jinks

I must still be at the honeymoon stage as I’m finding a game that many regard as the worst on the Atari 7800, is actually quite fun.

Jinks

For a while now I’ve been on the hunt for a Atari 7800 console and one came up on eBay, that looked in great condition, was at a reasonable price and was complete with a few game cartridges. Both Joust and Robotron cartridges are among these which is main reason why I’ve been after a 7800 (and silver is a great colour for a console ) but there’s also a few titles I haven’t played before on this platform. So, Jinks is crap, they say?

Well is doesn’t start off very well as the burb on the box doesn’t really give any real clue to the game so forget about the exploration party, probe going haywire and deadly cat and mouse game, this is simply Breakout..and Pinball…sorta!

The object of Jinks is to use you bat…sorry, exploration craft, to bounce your ball..eh hmm, I mean Probe into various objects to destroy them and gain points. Clear the sprawling level of all objects to gain maximum points before stage exit right and on to another level (four in total).

You control your craft using left/right similar to that in any other Breakout game but you can also move it up and down to help bounce your ball over various objects.

Your bat is triangular shaped, flat on one side and angled on the other. It can be flipped around by hitting the fire button which allowing you ‘some’ control over the direction and angle your ball will bounce.

The controls can take a little while to get used to and it’s this reason why the game is often slated I think…either that or the sheer eyeball frying graphics. Best turn the TV colour/contrast down on this one! The 7800 is an old system, but even so it was able to recreate some pretty impressive arcade conversions. Jinks is a mess.

Clearing the stage at the beginning of a level is fairly easy as your ball will more than likely hit a target. However, as objects are destroyed, mopping up the last few can become quiet tedious as you try to get your ball going in the right direction and angle…actually, angles are limited so more often than not it’s sheer luck! Oh and hitting the other fire button will shake the screen. Handy if your ball is stuck in a endless loop? To add to the challenge, there’s also a few moving objects scattered around each level which should be avoided if touched with your craft will shrink making thinks that little bit more difficult. Touch is again and it’s game over.

So…Jinks doesn’t seem to be offering much does it. It sounds crap, looks crap and has crappy controls, yet it’s actually a rather fun game to play that tugs on your impulses to clear each level.

I certainly wouldn’t pay a premium to have it in your Atari 7800 collection (Jinks is a very common cart and doesn’t demand a high price) but its one you might wish to check out if you happen to come across one.

It reminds me of an old Amiga game I used to play many years ago which I thought was called something else. As it turns out after a little research, it was actually a port of Jinks!…I thought something was familiar!

Mini Star Wars Arcade Cabinet at Play:Expo 2012

One of the highlights for me was seeing and getting chance to play on Dave Brown’s miniature replica arcade machines. The Star Wars upright forms part of Dave’s collection which also includes  Donkey Kong and Defender bartop machines as well as a twin joystick emulation centre control type thingie which was connected to a projector and was bags of fun…so much so that I’m seriously thinking about building my own.

However, back to the Star Wars cab. This thing is truly awesome and is completely scratch built by Dave to resemble the original Atari upright cabinet albeit in about half scale.

A a thing of beauty!

The workmanship on the molding around the screen is fantastic and perfectly detailed just like the original. You can see that a lot of work has gone into this.

Inside the mini cabinet houses a PC which is running Mame to play both Star Wars and Empire Strikes roms back on to the 7″ screen.

The decision to include a full size reproduction yoke control was a good move as it ensures that both games play really well. I think I got a few laughs whilst playing this at the weekend as I was wearing my X-Wing Rogue Squadron T-Shirt at the time

Lock S-Foils into attack position, StiGGy Five standing by…etc etc.

Here’s a quick video of someone playing it on Saturday and then me having a go one handed whilst I filmed and played Empire Strikes back.

If anyone has any more details on Dave’s cabinets and any build photographs I’d love to hear from you.

Retro Remake: Black Widow

Urgh!, Spiders…not a huge fan myself and as it’s October, those little (big) critter like to drop in for a chat and to scare the living snot out of me and poor Mrs Stiggy. We had one in the bathroom the other week and I kid you not it was so big I could see it smiling at me. Thankfully in this country we don’t have some of those really nasty ones especially those that you wouldn’t want in your sleeping bag on a camping trip.

But I do like a spot of Black Widow though, the classic 1982 Atari arcade game that is.

 

 

I was playing this superb twin stick shooter just the other week on that modern/retro arcade cabinet I came across (see previous blog post - http://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/retro-arcade-hunt-result/) and so yesterdays unveiling of a pretty spectacular PC remake was most welcome….unlike that one living in my Mame cabinet

The freeware remake is by Sokurah and is yet again, another superb example of a vector based remake to add to his equally superb back catalogue.

Options galore including multiple degrees of vector graphic glow, re-definable and tweakable controls systems including twin analogue stick control pads (my USB Logitec Rumble Pad2 works perfectly with it ) just to get it looking and playing just how you like it.

With afterglow set to ‘Normal’

No afterglow.

Gameplay is the same as the arcade original including the eggs and helpful but money stealing bug slayer.

I’ve been trying to capture some footage with HyperCam2 on my PC but for some reason I can’t capture any sound and the .avi file playback appears as if running at twice the speed no matter if I change the capture fps. Weird, but until I can fix that, I’ve found this gameplay video on Youtube…although, I think the afterglow was set to max here and so you’ll miss some of the detail.

Defend your web at all cost!

If you like this, I highly recommend checking out Sokurah other vector remakes including everyones favourites  Omega Race, Rip Off, Star Castle, Space Fury & Zector.

http://tardis.dk/wordpress/?page_id=854

 

 

Atari 2600 Raspberry Pi

A fun afternoon with my Raspberry Pi, Atari 2600 Stella emulator, paper, glue, scissors and a vintage Atari joystick.

Handheld Raspberry Pi console projects.

Two veeeery nice Raspberry Pi handheld console projects. Inspiring stuff indeed!

Raspberry Pi – Atari Lynx

Raspberry Pi – Nintendo Gameboy

I thought about doing something like myself with an old Gameboy case I have. Nothing as exciting or technical as this though, I was just going to use it to house an external 2.5″ harddrive.