Retrospectives/Investigations
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Import Tuner Challenge
With the Xbox 360’s 20th anniversary barreling towards at an unstoppable pace, I thought it’d be fun to get ahead of the inevitable nostalgia wave and look at one of the interesting smaller releases from the early 360 era: Genki’s Import Tuner Challenge. One of the…
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Trains Vs Zombies: A Surprising Arcade Showdown
It’s 1997 and we’re at the AOU show in Japan, feasting our eyes on all of the exciting up-and-coming arcade attractions on display. Over at Namco, the imminently-released Tekken 3 is an obvious headliner, but there are plenty of other goodies too — not least…
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Deus Ex: Invisible War
I like Gog.com. Not only does it have a massive library of old games available in DRM-free packages which will play nicely with modern machines (even, generally, those running Linux); but their sales often remind me about games I haven’t played in years – generally…
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Ooky Spooky: Muppets Haunted House Adventure
Its Halloween! The time when our attention inevitably turns to oOky sPOoky titles. For this Halloween, let’s look at one that lays a little bit outside the usual. With an FGPA Core, a truckload of podcast coverage and the sudden discovery of the immense breadth…
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A Hedgehog and a Mouse: Sega, Disney and a Surprising Attempt to become an Amusement Giant
On social media, old pictures from London’s Sega World are an easy way to harvest some quick engagement. Post the image, chuck in your ‘remember that time when Sega ran a theme park?’ caption then sit back and wait for the likes numbers to rise.…
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Complete Carnage: 32-bit Console hardware and the reshaping of the industry
Recently we looked at the Sega Saturn and whether it was killed too prematurely by Sega. Though these days the Saturn’s renewed popularity means we regularly ask what could have made the console a success, there’s one question that should probably ask first: Could the…
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“The Saturn is not our future” Sales, Costs and the Demise of the Sega Saturn
2023 Update: The recent (and highly dramatic) leak of documents and emails surrounding Sega of America’s 1997FY marketing plan adds some important context to the question of how much the Saturn cost Sega. One particularly juicy little nugget is this snapshot of Sega of America’s…
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180 Free games: Analysis of a Cover Tape Collection
It just so happened that a few weeks ago I had to move my original Zx Spectrum collection out of storage. Faced with a huge plastic crate filled to the brim with cassettes, it suddenly struck me how ridiculous it was that we had some…
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“Lol, Get a Raspberry PI”
Whenever one of those fancy retro mini consoles is announced there’s always an inevitable comment someone posts in response: Why Don’t You Just get a Raspberry Pi and emulate on that? Some dude on the internet But what happens when you listen to this advice?…
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32-bit Audio Fight Club: The Saturn, the PlayStation and the End of the Chiptune Era
The first rule of 32-bit Audio Fight Club is that you don’t talk about 32-bit Audio Fight Club. Actually, that’s not quite true: the first rule of 32-bit Audio Fight Club is that…well…you probably wouldn’t even think to talk about 32-bit Audio Fight Club. Or…
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Strider: The Unfortunate Mr Hiryu
In gaming there are the origin stories we all know – like the origins of Mario and Sonic the hedgehog – but there are many more characters who remain relatively obscure – like the stars of most microcomputer budget games or Japanese cassette titles. More…
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Retrospective: Headhunter
Uh oh, Christmas is inevitably a time for misty-eyed nostalgia isn’t it? Oh well – at least its the perfect time to look back 18 years to the festivities of 2001, back to the first time I played Headhunter on the Sega Dreamcast. The back-half…
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I wasn’t enamored with the Sega Dreamcast
Originally, I wasn’t enamored with the Sega Dreamcast. In fact, it’s a bit strange I even remember my first encounter, really: While my first encounters with new hardware generations were generally outlook-changing, my first look at the Dreamcast was a bit of a damp squib.…
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Nothing New in the Villlage: The 35 Year Old Ancestors of Untitled Goose Game
Everyone loves the Untitled Goose Game. I love the Untitled Goose Game. If you haven’t played the untitled Goose Game, you should play the Untitled Goose Game: A stealth game that follows in the footsteps of Metal Gear Solid and Hitman, Goose Game’s masterstroke is…
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Joystick Wagglers: Were Left Handed Control Sticks an Industry Conspiracy?
Have you ever wondered why arcade control sticks were always placed to the the left of the buttons? To be honest I’d never given it much thought until I saw this tweet the other day: Have you ever noticed that no matter what arcade game…
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The Surprisingly Modern Cult of Horace
All good things come to an end. In my case this turned out to be the relatively cushy storage solution i had for all of my old Spectrum gear. Still, silver linings and all that: One of the big advantages of having to get your…
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Carjacking down Memory Lane: Returning to The Getaway’s Digital London in 2019
This article was originally posted over at https://www.gametripper.co.uk. Why not head over there and see what lovely articles they have ready for you to read right now? (well, after you’ve read this one obviously) When is a game not a game? The usual response to…
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8-Bit Showdown: How popular were the Master System and the NES in the UK?
When it isn’t doing is it’s upmost to sabotage Western democracy, one thing that can be said for Facebook is that it does have some of the friendliest retro communities on the internet. A few weeks ago one particular discussion caught my eye: how popular…
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The Xbox 360 Will Never be Retro (a tedious classification post)
Ok, I’ll have to admit it – as someone who fits in the relatively uncommon venn diagram between history and retrogaming, I probably let myself ponder the question of what exactly retrogaming IS a little too much. Why does it matter? after all, it’s just…
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Retro Review: Chase HQ (Zx Spectrum)
On reflection, it’s probably a minor miracle that the world ever persuaded us that £40 to £50 cartridge games were the way to go. Back in the early 90s, you could probably count yourself lucky if Father Christmas slyly dropped one or two video games…