March 2020

Retro Tuesday – 3rd March 2020

David L with The News

  • A new excellent documentary series on retro-gaming by Youtube’s ‘My Life in Gaming’ called Analog Frontiers.
  • A wonderful new book called ‘Sega Arcade Pop Up History’ with pop ups of their ‘body sensation’ arcades such as Out Run.
  • A former head of Nintendo R&D revealed that the NES flap was developed to prevent children in the drier parts of the world from short circuiting the NES through static charge.
  • Heartwarming story of Nintendo replacing a 95-year-old woman’s broken Gameboy with a brand new one.
  • Analogue is accepting pre-orders of their final run of the NT mini.
  • Xenocrisis and Tanglewood are coming to the Evercade, showing its versatility by incorporating modern retro titles.
  • Simon Smith created a NES zapper out of an old Megatron transformer. Very cool.

News from the Floor

  • ZX Spectrum Next has been released. It is the FPGA successor to the spectrum 8 bit line with advanced performance – excellent review by the Nostalgia Nerd on YouTube.
  • Sonic the movie is doing well – who would have thought listening to the fans would benefit the movie.
  • Konami Code creator sadly passed recently. He is responsible for the code: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start; which gave players access to power ups.
  • Also recently passed, Tim Skelly, the designer of 70’s/80’s Vector based arcade games including: Reactor, RipOff and Warrior.
  • Ludo C recommended the X-arcade trackball which is listed for around $40 inc shipping.
  • Megadan29 just beat Battletoads on YouTube with no lives lost.
  • Go Game Market – held on the 19th April – see Facebook for updates.

Show and Tell

  • Mal W presented his recently acquired Atari 800 XL.
  • William C displayed his Limited Run cartridge release of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back on the NES and on Gameboy.
  • Rob C presented his recently received C64 boxed RPG ‘Dragonspire’ which was part of a KickStarter project.
  • Angela H purchased 3 new old stock Atari Lynx games: Robo Squash, Zarlor and A.P.B.

$5 Pickup Challenge

  • Aleks S recently purchased a 32GB PS Vita card for $9 only to then find a 64gb card inside the PS Vita he purchased.
  • Tim G purchased an X-arcade stick for only $10.
  • Retro C got a Nyko GameBoy Worm Cam for free and was given the prize as the other contenders were over the $5 limit.

What Have You Been Playing

  • Rob C has been playing Ys I & II, which he enjoys and finds a bit more chilled out than Zelda.
  • Aleks S has been providing his daughter with an extra helping hand with Super Mario 3D Land.
  • Peter Kou. has been playing Lion King on the Sega Mega Drive, where each stage is based on scenes in the animation. The final fight is very challenging.

Angela H with Game of the Month

  • This Month – Link to the Past was considered highly by the group. Ludo C managed to complete it with his partner. Angela noted that the moment the world within the game takes a catastrophic turn, such as the dark world in Link to the Past and the destruction in Ocarina of Time, it elicits a strong emotional response that helps to draw a deeper connection to the game.
  • Voted Next Month – SNES’s Indiana Jones’ Greatest Adventures.

On Display

  • Rob C’s composite modded Atari 2600 with a Harmony cartridge playing a number of games including homebrew, on Peter Katz’s CRT.
  • Rob and Angela H brought – a SNES playing Link to the Past on a CRT, an Atari Flashback console connected to a lovely NEC CRT and 2 books on Atari called ‘Art of Atari’ and ‘Atari Flashback – The Essential Companion’
  • Marc A’s Atari Flashback console playing a range of included games.
  • Matthew P’s AtGames MegaDrive playing Columns.
  • Karl L’s MiSTer running the Atari 2600 Core.
  • Alek S’s Atari XE GS connected to a CRT running the homebrew game Assembloids as well as an Atari 800.
  • Mal W’s Atari 800 XL running a Scott Adams Adventure game connected to a Philips CRT monitor.
  • James S’s SNES Classic Mini playing Link to the Past.

High Score Challenge

Sprint 1 on the Atari XE GS won by Rob C.

Discussion

A new segment for those who wish to remain and discuss a topic relevant to the retro-gaming scene. This month was a discussion on the merits and concerns surrounding gaming ROMs.

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