I was scanning through a few old computer magazines and was reminded that Epyx Computer Software had a run of games with featured covers that followed a particular design. They were pretty cool back but I didn’t realise how many more games featured the same retro neon disco look.
Here’s a few of them -
Do you know of any more that I might have missed?
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
I was just eyeing up the cover for this months edition of Retro Gamer magazine (#112)…and admittedly letting off a little groan after reading the the cover text ’30 Greatest Power ups of all time’ – I’m not a fan of these pointless lists that RG seem to run from time to time…anyho, enough about that, I’m sure it’ll be a cracking issue, but it reminded me to check in with eBay at a particular back issue I’ve tracking this week.
It’s issue no.2 and is the only issue that’s missing from my RG magazine collection. Woo, Commodore feature!
It’s a good job I checked too as there was only a handful of minutes left before the listing ended. With no bidders either, I managed to get it for a mere 99p. Very happy me as it’s not often early issues go for such a low price and even more happier that my collection is now complete.
It always make me smile when you see a computer and video game advertisements from the 70′s and 80′s. They all seemed grouped into only a handful of themes.
The celeb endorsement.
Bill
another Bill
a Bill you don’t want to make angry
..and Isaac, who would probably have preferred to be called Bill
Back to the future.
The serious businessman’s computer for doing serious things and wearing ties.
Oi, get them sleeves rolled down, we’re serious business men.
and it’s worth every penny. And I know, I’m a serious businessman.
I’m a serious businessman as well, I just fancied wearing different coloured trousers today.
The incredibly super super happy family.
They should put sparkles on our teeth.
Hah, you won’t be smiling when Minestorm hands you your ass.
Look, Timmy’s fraggin!
Which one of us is actually playing Mario?…Shut up and keep smiling.
The man’s man club. Moustaches at the ready.
Pfffffph
Snigger
Super fly awesome-ness
Retro cool
Joystik Magazine – 1982/83.
I’ve not come across this gaming magazine series before although I gather it was very popular in the US despite its short lifespan of just ten issues. I found PDF scans of them at http://archive.org and was immediately intrigued when I saw the cover of issue #1 and mention of Robotron:2084.
Joystik magazine focuses mainly on arcade coin-op games and was in circulation during the golden and silver age of arcade gaming so there’s a whole heap of retro gaming goodness
here and its quite novel to read about them from a prospective when all these classics were brand new or still in development.
Within the well styled pages and plentiful arcade art you’ll find a stack of features including game reviews and interviews with game creators who might have been unknown back then but who are certainly nottoday.
Eugene who? 
There’s also a ton of advise that is still relevant to the retro gamer of today with the articles that focus on player tips and strategy to many of the popular games of the day. Suck at Pac-Mac (I certainly do), then this should really come in handy!
Zaxxon tips anyone? Look at the awesome-ness artwork.
This should be useful too as they’ll be a plenty of Robotron action at a couple of this years classic gaming events.
One down, nine more issues to go. Snow all you like, I’m not going anywhere now:)
Commodore Free issue # 66 is out for download and yet again, is chock full of all the good stuff for all you Commodore users.
This particular issue is rather special for me as it contains a review by Peter Badrick about the RetroDerby GnG event that myself and my colleagues from the Retro Computer Museum attended.
<see previous posts - http://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/retro-gaming-weekend-at-derby-saturday/ and
http://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/retro-gaming-weekend-at-derby-sunday/
If you missed out this year, event hosts Shaun Bebbington and Mr C16 – Chris Snowden are planning on holding similar events next year and I’m sure they’ll be announced in future issues of Commdore Free. Alternatively, I’ll post here.
A great read this month, and again, tons of new homebrew game info and articles – I particularly enjoyed the feature about tape piracy and its effect (or lack of ).
Outstanding work again CF team and if the jolly fella happens to stick a new shiny tablet device under the tree this year, treat it to a bit of Commodore love this Christmas and check out the tablet friendly epub and mobi (and PDF) editions or Commdore Free.
Hehe, warning! – There’s a picture of yours truly on page 35/36, That RCM Zip Stick joystick, Amiga & Banshee got a bashing that weekend!
Busy morning with a few chores around the house but now for fun. I’ve got my (WinUAE) Amiga sat there slowly formatting a Compact Flash card to follow on from yesterdays post, I’ve just put my real Amiga back together again after giving it a clean, there’s some retro synth tunes playing out in the background courtesy of Soundcloud so all i need now is a retro game fix. As luck would have it, Curstie’s just returned home and plopped the latest issue of Retro Gamer Magazine on my geek desk…Perfect timing from a super perfect wife 
It’s the Christmas edition, although sadly the cover image doesn’t reflect the festive season like previous years that tips hat to classic computer magazines Zzap64 and Crash (Come on RG, we want Santa hats 
) Instead we have this non christmassy, yet pretty cool Wil Overton cover containing a collection of iconic Nintendo game characters – here’s hoping that its not to tie in with another article on the latest incarnation of Nintendo IP’s on modern consoles… phew thankfully it doesn’t look like it!
Despite the lack of a festive cover, issue 110 is chock full of all the good stuff and there’s some truly great looking articles this month.
We have an in-depth look at Bullfrog and the games that they produced. Syndicate, Theme park, Magic Carpet, Populous and many more are all here.
There’s a four page feature about the making of Sensible Soccer including plenty of interviews and even some gaming tips from Jon Hare himself…I’m not sure about the recommendation to use a Speedking joystick though..flippin awful stick if you ask me.
There’s a nice tribute to Mike Singleton and the games he helped to create. I must fire up Lord of Midnights one of these days as I’ll admit, I’ve not actually played it before (shame on you StiGGy) – although Midwinter was one of my Amiga favourites (phew, good save StiGGy!).
Finally after all these years, they’ve managed to corner Jeff Minter and badger him for an interview. This should be a damn fine read and so i’ll save that one until last.
Yay, some Christmas content with a look at 25 festive themed games. ..well, snow themed in some instances but hey, it Christmassy…sortta.
There’s a feature on the evolution of video game music which contains interviews with many musicians including those from the glory days of the Commodore 64.
Yay, perfect timing now that I’m playing the new version on my iPad – the making of Baldurs Gate (PC). Fantastic stuff.
There’s some rather interesting looking homebrew games featured in this months column, especially the ZX Spectrum offering. Will check this out soon.
Wow, it’s hard to believe that the SCUMM engine is 25 years old!…. and a perfect excuse for a look as some of Lucasarts classic adventure games that were built around it. More of this please RG!
…and finally, we’ve got the usual bag of great content including ‘Back to the 80′s and 90′s’ (sadly not December) and a stack of game reviews. Oh an an update on the new Elite game too.
Kettles on!
Surely not? Rise of the Robots on any platform was a monumental of bag of rusty scanners and if you parted cash for it back in the day, then like myself, its probably something you’d like to keep quiet about…and certainly not to admit it to the intern….dammit!
Today, the only thing that Rise of the Robots is any use for is as a booby prize for game competition s (still enjoying your copy Mike?) and it’s still interesting to look back at the classic gaming magazines of the day and reread some of the hyperbole that seemed to go on for ages and ages until the darn thing was finally released.
C&VG online periodically look back at classic issues of their own printed C&VG magazine and it was their latest article that prompted further investigation as it seems that the Nintendo SNES version of ‘Super Rusty Spanners’ received a whopping 91% when reviewed.
Hidden gaming gem or bribe?
You can find the article here
Incidentally, this issue also has a feature about the proposed 32X-like addon for the SNES, which of course never materialised,and a look at some of the games released around this time. Check out some of the prices for early SNES/Megadrive cartridges…where did we ever find the money!
Back to Rise of the Robots, I’m curious about this SNES version and as i’ve never played it before thought i’d at least check it out (with one hand on the power switch as we don’t want to go through all of that trauma again).
Yep, it’s bad…very bad…in fact, I don’t want to talk about it
I’m in Amiga heaven at the moment as Commodore is Awesome are hosting PDF scans of practically every issue of Amiga Format magazine. I was an avid reader of the mag during the 90′s and tried not to miss a single issue (most of them are still with me today). Sure, Amiga Power was the mag for gamers, especially with those cover mounted floppy disks, but Amiga Format was certainly the bigger brother of all Amiga mags, containing an unusual large amount of pages for a computer magazine at the time and covering all aspects of Amiga use, both personal and professional.
It’s this particular magazine that really sparked my interest in personal computing and the Amiga as a device to for so many uses beside gaming. I guess as a result, influencing my choosen career path in I.T. to this day – damn you Amiga Format
Thanks to Commodore is Awesome I can now carry around these great tablets of Amiga goodness on a more modern tablet.
There’s some pretty impressive kickstarter projects out there for retro gamers at the moment (my eyes are in the Beneath a Steel Sky sequel, and the remake of Elite) and here another that popped up yesterday from Chris Wilkinson of Retro Fusion magazine.
This one definitely gets my backing so lets hope there’s enough funds to see this great idea turn into reality.
Full project details can be found here – http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/47744432/the-history-of-ocean-software-by-retro-fusion
I was browsing through a few back issues of Edge magazines online and I happen to come across this great Tron cover. I’m not entirely sure if it’s from a video game box or was commissioned specific for the magazine. Either way, a great cover and one I thought would make a nice iPad wallpaper. Hopefully Edge doesn’t mind that I’ve stripped the picture of magazine clutter for my own use?
It’s a shame that there’s only two issues available but these digital editions of Video and Arcade Games magazine are such great reading for retro gamers especially as they were written at a time when some of the best classic coin-op games were hitting the arcades.
I always like to browse through these old magazines especially articles that preview games that we all know today have become legendary titles. Games like Robotron, Defender, Centipede, Joust and Berzerk – All unknown titles at the time, released onto the gaming world with a large degree of risk..would gamers take to them?
Each magazine is chock full of nostalgic articles including editorials on the birth of gaming hardware, a look at up and coming home gaming hardware (MB Vectrex), reviews of the latest arcade games, tips on mastering games like Robotron & Q-Bert among others and a fascinating story about the creation of Space War. Very good reading!
You can read them both Here
One more day off work to relax before going back tomorrow and after all that beach walking the other day it’s great to put ones feet up and relax with a good book. But before all that, a little light reading with something perfectly suited after that Robotron-O-Fest weekend.
Retro Gamer Magazine 107.
As well as celebrating 30 years of Robotron:2084, there’s also a look at other milestones like 25 years of the Street Fighter, 30th anniversary of Pitfall and 35th birthday of the Apple II…..man do I feel old
There’s also the ‘making of’ Major Havoc, another classic I’ve been playing at the weekend and Battle Squadron, a great Amiga shooter that I’ve been revisiting thanks to an iOS port.
I also picked up this thick Retro Bookazine
This one was tucked behind Retro Gamer magazine and it was the classic Oli Frey cover depicting Marsport (Amtix! magazine #2 – Dec ’85) that drew me to take a closer look.
These bookazines are collections of 1-2 page articles taken from the ‘Retro’ section of GamesTM magazine and bundled together as a feature book. This is Vol 5 and the first one I’ve actually purchased. I’ve seen the previous volumes on the newsstand before but never thumbed through for some reason.
The features on the Batman games, Panzer Dragoon, Police Quest and my favourite FMV game Under a Killing Moon ensured a swift purchase. Maybe I ought to track down the previous volumes?
So…kettle on and off we go. Nanana na naa Batmaaaaan!
The free digital retro gaming magazine – Retro Gaming Times has recently celebrated it’s 100th issue and as always, contains some truly great features and reviews. One article in particular this month, starting on page 14, is rather interesting as it focuses on lawsuits filed for and/or against two classic games Donkey Kong and Pac-Man.
You can read the magazine online or as I do, download the PDF version at -
Edge magazine has posted a fantastic article about the making Dropzone and contains an interview with the games creator, Archer Maclean.
I’ve always enjoyed Dropzone on the c64. For me, it’s a tough game requiring cat like reflexes and the skill to smack that space bar in an instance for that life saving smart bomb – although as a kid I’d use my foot leaving my hands free on the joystick/button. On the Atari 800 this game rocks!
