Archive for the ‘Editorial’ Category

Until recently (I’d say at least the last 10 years), living in NZ we have been subject to games being released months after their release dates, same with movies and music, it’s only in recent years that we have caught up due to things like the internet and publishers realising they can’t with hold product from us for too long otherwise we may find other ways to watch/play/listen (this doesnt always stop them from holding back though).

This will probably be the last in the line of the Thrill Of The Hunt series, I wanted to keep it strictly inside NZ but at Armageddon I had people asking questions about imports from overseas.

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WINTER GAMES ROUND UP

The world has gone nuts in the past few weeks, the Winter Olympics in Vancouver has really brought people together. Even long time bitter rivals, Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog have even put their competition aside for 2 games.

With all this kerfuffle it’s easy to forget about the non Olympic sponsored games, some of which are pretty good in their own right.

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Facets of the GamePlex

Introduction

Words by ColdBain

Foreword:

   We gamers live in a very privileged world. We have access to all the modern gaming technology, we have a raft of choices we can make, and we are supported through gaming media to make educated decisions about our purchases. In addition to that, the median is still developing, and access is still growing.

   Individuals will dedicate their lives to figuring out how to complete your new game for you and post their results on the internet for free, some will go so far as to make narrated videos for us via youtube. It is very clear the gaming industry is a complex organism and has become a legitimised past-time for many people around the world… this society, this world, this arm of entertainment I call, the GamePlex.

The GamePlex: introduction

   Gaming has become such an entrenched past-time to our societies that is nearly impossible to accurately summarise in a single paragraph what being a ‘gamer’ means. Gone are the days where people were defined by their choice of console, the distinctions have become blurred as the variety of gaming ‘clicks’ increase. Such ‘gaming communities’ are not necessarily exclusive, people will and can identify with a multitude of ‘sub-communities’, retro-gaming (the most appropriate to this article) is simply another arm under-which many gaming communities can gather and associate with one another.

   The GamePlex is a term I’ll use as a starting point. It is a term that acknowledges the complexity within the divergent gaming societies and various supporting media, as well as their pasts, present and future. The following will be a series of articles examining the various flags, terms, societies and media within the GamePlex, in an attempt to create an extensive and ongoing list of the various Facets within the GamePlex (no association to The Matrix).  Read the rest of this entry »

Merry X-Mas and a happy new year to you all, hope that jolly fat guy brought you all the stuff you wanted!

In a follow up on where to buy old games (Article:  ”The Thrill Of The Hunt“) I’m going to be looking at the wondrous dirty world of emulation, and how nowadays old games can be procured legally for new systems.

In several places I asked the question “Why do you emulate?”.  A lot of the answers that came back to me were “it’s free” or “I just can’t find the old systems and games anymore”. Well,  in this day and age, that really isn’t too much of an excuse.

With the rise of broadband, and internet enabled consoles, once again publishers and developers can turn a dime and start making money off all these old games- the industry is a business after all. With next to no costs on the outset aside from the porting or creation of emulators- one system will only require one emulator and one system has many games to play.

Today we’re going take a look at the legitimate ways you can get old games, even if you don’t own the original consoles- based on the newer systems out there, and with it being post Christmas, a lot of gamers will probably have these systems.

Click the images to be taken to their various storefronts.

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The Challenge of Old versus the New

Words by ColdBain

The Retpire Strikes Back

Time for another movie game roundup. This time I might just forgo the rating of diamonds and poo, and hopefully encourage you to check the games out based on their own merits!

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THE FUTURE IS HERE

And its HUGE.

(Seriously guys. 12 inches of shiny disc action.)

Do YOU love movies?

Do YOU love games?

How about a movie that IS a game?

*Audience* WOOOOOAH…..wait…what?

These were probably all things that were used as part of marketing in the 1980’s,  a decade or two after the great VHS vs BETAMAX war.  Laserdisc was poised to try and be the Next Big Thing in home entertainment. It boasted fully digital audio and hi resolution video, and was the size of an LP Record (another war altogether!). I fondly remember watching Star Wars at a friends back in the early 90’s, and being able to fast forward and pause, with no shaking on the screen. The principle was the same as CD’s- only BIGGER.

Movies wern’t the only place that decided to use this insanely over-sized CD to entertain people with moving images, in fact, quite a few games were released on it for the arcades,  despite its expensive hardware.

Laser Disc games are a marvel to behold. In times when a game could be knocked out in a few weeks, some of these games took up to a year or more to make, and for once the biggest job was on that of the animators (at least in the more cartoony games).  The discs themselves acted much like a DVD does, and could easily be considered a precursor to it. Press a button on a remote, and it could skip to a scene or timecode; and in this case, hit the correct button on the arcade machine and it will skip to the next scene if you times it right. Easy peasy.

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*Like "Star Wars", part one will not be made for another 20 or so years and will
feature an annoying amphibious character.

Games about movies have always been relatively unpopular. In the past we saw some pure gold (Aladdin for the Sega MD) and some utterly awful games (ET- which is rumoured to have all its carts dumped into a landfill in Neva, Texas);  pretty much the same as today.

I’ll admit to even being suckered in to a few of these (day one purchaser of “Enter the Matrix” aka: “Shiny Entertainment what were you thinking?!” and Transformers The Movie (aka “Oh god where is that last cube so I cant get 1000/1000 gamerscore”).

This is going to be a look at the few titles out there from the good old days that range from the aforementioned “diamonds in the rough” and “utter trash”.

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A few people have asked me where I get my games from, and I figured what better place to tell about how to source things than RetroActive NZ.
The reason I prefer original games has to be something ingrained inside me along the lines of not previously being able to own all these brilliant games as a
kid. I got 5 pounds in pocket money each week, and most games cost 20 or thirty and when you’re a kid, saving isnt an option. There were too many other
things I wanted.

Now I work full time, and still dont have enough for all the new games I want, but the old games are cheaper (for the most part…). They may not be easy to
find, but this is the fun of it. I spent 3-4 odd years trying to find Starcraft for the N64. I was exstatic when I finally got it. Like a kid at Christmas.
Retro Games are surprisingly easy to find in NZ, more so after finding a certain store. So here’s my top 5 tips for finding those games you loved, strictly
within NZ…not all of us trust/use Ebay.

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