atarianer

Fans of the classic Nintendo Entertainment System might be familiar with its Japanese counterpart, the Nintendo Family Computer (aka the Famicom.) If you dig classic ’80s games and classic ’80s cars, you might dig this too.

This awesome 1987 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am looks just like a giant Famicom on wheels, complete with controllers on the doors, and a cartridge slot on the roof. The only thing that would be better is if you could actually plug it into an old CRT television and play.

Sadly, after digging around on the Internet, it turns out that this car doesn’t actually exist, and is just a fantastic custom skin done in Forza 6, which just goes to show you how amazing video game racing visuals have gotten. They certainly fooled me:

共有中　【車種】1987 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am GTA　【検索】FAMICOM 　
forza6お持ちの方はよかったらお使いくださいませ　#Forza6 pic.twitter.com/CHMR3Ea3LY

— sima ken (@t__ken) December 16, 2015

[via GamesYouLoved on Instagram]

It’s probably safe to say that the least liked character in the Fallout 4 realm is Preston Garvey. He’s super annoying. His laser musket is also super lame. I mean there are weapons everywhere and he keeps using a freaking musket you have to crank to load. I think Preston needs to at least upgrade to the automatic laser rifle.

I’m a fan of that weapon and this real life replica of the rifle by Chris Wolfe is spot on. It doesn’t just sit and look pretty either, you can actually pick the beast up and when you pull the trigger, it spins, lights up, and makes the sound effects from the game. Check it out in action in the video below:

If you have the artistic skill and hardware to make one of these yourself, there are full plans available.

[via NerdApproved]

A Japanese company has just created a line of large, lightweight dinosaur costumes and wants to open a Jurassic Park style attraction called Dino-A-Live (presumably like Walking With Dinosaurs?) filled with the beasts. The new suits are made of carbon fiber and foam and a 26-foot long t-rex weighs around 84-pounds, light enough for a single operator to control inside. No word how many varieties of dinosaurs they're creating, but I have every intention of-- "Boning them all." I didn't say that. "But you were thinking it." What, do you live in my brain now? "Sure do." Awesome, search for the memory of where I left my car keys. "Found it." Okay, now watch it and tell me where they are. "They're....in your ass." Ahahahahhaha, you watched it! Keep going for a video of the dinos in action.

Jeder kennt die Weihnachtskrippe mit Jesus, Maria, Josef, dem Stall und den heiligen drei Königen, die über die Feiertage für die nötige sakrale Stimmung sorgen sollen. Eine moderne und durchaus witzige Interpretation ist diese Hipsterversion...

Trainer in Pokémon GO haben fortan die Gelegenheit, Ditto zu fangen. Ditto ist ein Pokémon mit einer formlosen Gestalt und der Fähigkeit, Aussehen und Fähigkeiten anderer Pokémon nachzuahmen. "Das bedeutet, dass jedes während dieser Zeit gefangene Pokémon eigentlich Ditto sein könnte, welches seine wahre Gestalt erst offenbart, nachdem es gefangen wurde. Wenn Ditto in einer Arena trainiert oder kämpft, nimmt es außerdem das Aussehen, den Typ bzw. die Typen und die Attacken des ersten Pokémon an, das es sieht, und behält diese, bis die Arenakämpfe vorbei sind."

Weiter zum Video

Well, this left me lost for words. I was a fan of Nostalgia Nerd's videos and channel anyway, but the recent retrospective investigation into the Atari Jaguar is mind blowing in its depth and quality of research. He also references my Club Drive article in the video description, so extra brownie points there! In all truth though, while there are many, many videos documenting the Jaguar on YouTube, many of them paint the system in an overly negative light whereas this one is almost completely neutral and recounts a lot of factual information intercut with advertisements, expo footage and clips taken from classic TV shows like Games Master and Bad Influence. Ah, Andy Crane and Violet Berlin...if ever a presenting duo need to be reunited for a brand new series of Bad Influence, it's those two.

Perhaps the most well-known Jaguar retrospective on YouTube is The Angry Video Game Nerd's take, which is almost completely negative in tone. Hilarious yes...factually accurate? Not so much. The section that claims the Jaguar CD is prone to breaking down if you so much as look at it has a lot to answer for; with even more people now incorrectly believing the thing is as fragile as a the paper crown from inside a particularly cheap Christmas cracker. Note: it isn't. Mine fell off a shelf and it still worked perfectly.

Anyway, enough from me - here's Nostalgia Nerd's video:

Phil Spencer verfolgt das Ziel die Zusammenarbeit mit Nintendo weiter auszubauen und würde gerne ein Mario Titel auf einer Xbox Konsole sehen. Es ist noch nicht so lange her da haben Microsoft und Nintendo eng miteinander gearbeitet um Minecraft für die Wii U zu realisieren. Laut Phil war man zunächst ...

The post Phil Spencer verfolgt das Ziel die Zusammenarbeit mit Nintendo weiter auszubauen und würde gerne ein Mario Titel auf einer Xbox Konsole sehen. appeared first on Nintendo-Switch.eu.

Wir (und ein Gaststar) kommentieren eure liebsten DS-Spiele. Vor zwei Wochen haben wir euch nach euren liebsten Spielen für den Nintendo DS gefragt. Ihr habt geantwortet und nun kommentieren wir (mit ...

The Atari Jaguar very nearly played host to a port of of Midway's Mortal Kombat 3, and rumours suggest that it was actually finished before being cancelled. Unfortunately, the hole left in the system's library by the disappearance of John Tobias and Ed Boon's highly acclaimed 2D brawler was only partly plugged by copycat titles like Ultra Vortek and Kasumi Ninja...and the less said about the latter, the better. While Ultra Vortek was actually a highly competent alternative to Mortal Kombat, Kasumi Ninja is best remembered as that fighting game with a pitiful frame rate and a Scottish character (called Angus, naturally) who had the uncanny ability to emit fireballs from beneath his kilt. I wish I was joking.

Another title that planned to take advantage of the popularity of Motal Kombat style fighters was Thea Realm Fighters, from prolific Atari Jaguar developer High Voltage Software. Featuring familiar digitised graphics and even employing the skills of various Mortal Kombat character actors, Thea Realm Fighters promised over 20 different playable combatants, a lengthy arcade mode and some of the finest background parallax effects ever seen in a home console game. Alas, Thea Realm Fighters was quietly withdrawn from release schedules in late 1995 when it looked like the Jaguar was finally being put out to pasture, and since then very little has ever been seen of this almost mythical fighter in anything but grainy YouTube videos. Thea Realm Fighters looked like another lost Jaguar game, but a recent discovery has changed that status somewhat.

As detailed in this thread at Atari Age (and also discussed here at Assembler Games), the demo version of Thea Realm Fighters that was shown at the 1995 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has been discovered and released online. The demo features only a handful of characters and stages, and is playable using either an emulator or an Atari Jaguar Skunkboard. According to reports at Atari Age, the Skunkboard version runs a lot better than an emulator but we caught up with the collector behind the rom dump, Nicholas Persijn. I asked Nicholas about his reasons for releasing the demo - a demo for which he paid a considerable sum - and he told me: "I'm always looking for ways to expand the Atari Jaguar fan scene. This has been a personal holy grail for years and when I finally got my chance, I couldn't keep it for myself." 

You'll find some (emulator) footage of the game in action below, and while it may not look overly impressive remember it is only a demo. The version of the game that was in a more complete state at the time of cancellation is believed to be a lot more impressive, but has never been released online. However, for Jaguar fans and hunters of games or digital artifacts previously thought lost to the mists of time, the discovery of a playable version of Thea Realm Fighters is very exciting. As with the recent discovery of N64 racer Rev Limit, Thea Realm Fighters represents a very real possibility that even more unreleased games will be found and released in the future.

Atari Jaguar Thea Realm Fighters (emulated) Gameplay

{youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-SHRmHWbNQ}

Link: Thea Realm Fighters Atari Age Thread

Der Beitrag Audio CD: Star Wars – The Ultimate Soundtrack Collection (10 CDs + 1 DVD) – 23,97 EUR erscheint auf DVDTiefpreise.de/com • Schnäppchen für Blu-rays/DVDs/Games & mehr….

Teut's World: Internet - and Games: I remember accessing the internet before the internet was born. With dial up modems. BBS they called those and you could type with other mem...

By Rob Wanenchak  |  Twitter  |  Flickr

With every new generation of video game consoles have come games that are more complex, polished, and photorealistic than those before. Modern games feature increasingly advanced graphics and carefully-crafted narratives, and gameplay is no longer necessarily complemented by active imagination in the same way or to the same degree as during video gaming’s earliest days, when graphics were primitive and game stories were elementary (if they existed at all). A game publisher’s marketing and design departments were often tasked to try to fill some of the imaginative gaps left by limitations of the early technology.

 

 

I’ve eagerly awaited the publication of Art of Atari since I first read about author Tim Lapetino’s in-progress book project many years ago. As someone who grew up with Atari (but somehow never owned another console until a PS3), and as someone with an admittedly lacking fantastical imagination, the artwork that accompanied Atari products made an enormous impression on me as a kid. I’m fairly certain that I would never have, on my own, envisioned the kind of elaborate and wondrous imagery depicted on Atari merchandise given the content of the games themselves. It’s the talented artists and designers under Atari’s employ who deserve the credit for allowing me to dream of ideas and worlds bigger than those generated by glowing phosphor lines on a CRT screen, and Art of Atari does a spectacular job in affording them the recognition and credit they well deserve.

 

 

Art of Atari is aesthetically striking in a number of ways. It’s big, heavy, colorful, and exudes the feeling of a quality, professional product. The Deluxe Edition with its cartridge-emulating leather-bound cover and heavy-duty cardboard slipcase is artwork in itself, if you ask me. These were clearly not produced by some fly-by-night publishing house — it’s professional quality through and through. The subject matter necessitated high-quality printing in order to show off color, texture, and other subtleties in the artwork, and the book certainly delivers on that front, using extra-white paper to really make the imagery “pop” off the page. The page layout and graphic design work is both bold yet minimal at the same time; it grabs the reader’s attention while allowing the content room to speak for itself.

 

 

Upon opening the front cover the first thing one sees are Atari game screenshots that grace the front and back endpapers (i.e. the pages affixed to the covers’ insides). I was struck by how this seemed to be an inversion of the usual way of things — here, the artwork finally gets to take the spotlight while the games are relegated to be outside window-dressing. Flipping through the book for the first time I immediately remarked on the size and detail of the artwork. The oversize dimensions of the book seem almost a necessity in retrospect; zoomed and/or inset images showing off smaller details would not have had the same kind of impact.

 

 

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Five Atari Artwork Details I Never Noticed Until Reading Art of Atari

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

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The superb quality of writing (and editing) becomes apparent to the reader even as soon as the introduction. Books on the subject of video games are often overly simplified or made too concise, but Lapetino’s prose in Art of Atari manages to be detailed and thorough without becoming long-winded. The book is a page-turner for the artwork, but the contextual substance is provided through clear, well-crafted writing that invites the reader to slow down and take in the artwork for longer than they otherwise might, while avoiding the pitfall of getting bogged down with excessive detail. Lapetino turns some excellent phrases in the process — the section header “From Pixels to Paintbrush; Crossing the Imagination Bridge” is but one example.

 

Unreleased Atari 2700 Remote Control Video Computer System (Designed by Roy Nishi)

 

The artwork that was tracked down and reproduced for this book is nearly worth the price of admission by itself. Hiro Kimura’s original (rejected) attempt at artwork for Pac-Man (2600) is not to be missed. Likewise, to see things like artwork for the unreleased Swordquest: Airworld enlarged to full-page size was an unexpected gift. Especially interesting to me were the comments and instructions left on artwork from other Atari creative team members — directions to adjust color hues, fix line work, correct placement of design features, etc. One can get a pretty good sense of the cooperative coordination that went on behind the scenes at Atari to result in the finished products. It’s easy to forget that all of this was taking place before things like modern desktop publishing, bitmap typography, and computer-aided graphic design; this was analog’s heyday of using tools like copy galleys, transparencies and overlays, paste-up art and mechanicals.

 

 

Beyond the iconic artwork, one of the book’s many highlights are the numerous individual profiles of artists and designers who contributed their skills and creativity to the Atari “aura”. For the first time, one can get a clear sense of how graphic designer George Opperman’s artistic philosophies and design aesthetic helped to shape Atari’s look and feel for consumers. Lapetino’s interviews also generated some great quotes, like Nolan Bushnell referring to Opperman as the “Matisse of Graphic Design”, while Steve Hendricks deemed him an “artistic dynamo”. There are amusing anecdotes mixed throughout — one particularly memorable example was Atari Design Director George Faraco calling “BS” on Opperman’s somewhat convoluted origin story for the “Fuji” logo. Another was the tale of how Warner Inc. paid $100,000 to do a “brand refresh” upon purchasing Atari, only to learn that the same Fuji logo for which Atari originally paid just $3,000 already had better brand recognition than Mickey Mouse.

 

 

One of the more well-known bits of Atari corporate lore is how many of their game programmers felt underappreciated and undervalued; the famous alleged quote from Atari president Ray Kassar about how programmers were no more important to Atari than the assembly line workers putting cartridges into boxes was a perfect distillation of that attitude. Art of Atari makes it abundantly clear, however, that the design team members and artists were both highly regarded and well-paid, and that this treatment “went against the grain” of the tendencies of most Silicon Valley companies. The creative teams were largely encouraged by senior Atari staff to do what they wanted; having lots of funding afforded them this luxury, of course. All told, it was refreshing to read that the artists and designers largely looked back at their time and experiences with Atari in a very positive light.

 

Left: Atari Industrial Designer Regan Cheng (Atari 5200, 1200XL) Right: Iconic Atari artwork for a folder

 

So, what’s not to like here? Initially I thought that a better effort could have been made to procure game boxes in better condition for the box scans, but on further reflection I decided I liked the slight patina and edge wear on some of them. The price stickers on Adventure and Miniature Golf were the only things that I think ultimately detracted from their presence. That said, to actually scan game boxes and not just use mock-ups ended up being a nice touch that gives the images some depth to them; they feel more “real” to me. I also think a caption like “Artist unknown” for artwork with unidentified artists was warranted (rather than have nothing at all listed), but these are ultimately pretty minor complaints. In terms of content, I suppose the only thing that I’d really like to have learned more about were some of the reasons behind the design evolution. The progression from the bright rainbow-colored boxes to the silver-styled boxes is explained away in a photo caption as being related to product line differentiation, but no further detail is given. Atari Corporation’s cost-cutting measure of printing manuals in black and white is mentioned in passing, but I’d have liked to know what the artists and designers thought of this. Granted, the answers to these questions may no longer be knowable.

 

 

The bottom line is that Art of Atari is everything I hoped it would be, if not more. It’s a perfect gift book, especially at the price of the standard hardback edition. I’m hard-pressed to imagine someone being disappointed given its scope and sheer amount of content included. The quality of research, curation, and presentation leaves readers wanting even more — and this is meant as a compliment, not a complaint. Tim Lapetino and Dynamite Entertainment have done the video gaming community a great service with the release of Art of Atari, and this Atari gamer and collector couldn’t be much happier with it.

 

 

Discuss ART OF ATARI in the Forums

 

 

 

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Three Things I’d Never Seen Before Reading
Art of Atari

 

 
 

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Art of Atari (hardcover, 352 pages) is due for release on October 25. Also available will be a Deluxe Edition of the book, which will include a unique leather-bound “Game Cartridge” cover and slipcase, a Steam key for Atari Vault, and a frameable Limited Edition Print featuring new artwork by original Atari artist Cliff Spohn. Additional book details are available at artofatari.com and dynamite.com.

Rob Wanenchak is an Atari player, collector, researcher, and occasional armchair historian. You can find him on the Atari I/O Forums under the name Ballblaɀer, often documenting his growing game collection with photos and fun facts. You can also follow him on Twitter and over on Flickr.

The post Atari I/O Reviews Art of Atari appeared first on Atari I/O.

Our friend Ross Sillifant send us many contributions every week, with info, images, videos and interviews about lost videogames and their development, from popular and obscure software houses, for old and new consoles and PC. It would take years to properly organize this huge amount of info, but we’d like to save these random memories on the site, to be sure that they will not be lost while we wait for dedicated articles. Do you remember those “news and rumors” sections in gaming magazines? That’s exactly what this section is about! Every attempt was made where possible to check claims made by the gaming press, but as it stands, magazine claims should not be treated as fact and even memories could be washed out by the passing of time. This is the second collection from this series (here you can check the first one), it’s another part of a huge section that had to be cut from our book and in the following months we’ll add even more of the missing book content to the site.. enjoy!

Company called Photo Surrealism were showing video footage of texture demos etc for planned multiplayer space game on Jaguar called Galactic Gladiators, which promised Modem+JagCom support. I’ve never seen said vids, so no idea if coding actually started on game proper.

I asked John Romero about Jaguar Quake: “Hi Ross, I can’t really say whether the port started because I left id only 6 weeks after shipping Quake. If a Jag port was started it would have been after I left, and I never heard any rumors about it. Practically speaking, there’s no way the Jaguar could have done it. It could barely handle DOOM. Best, John”

Comments by John Carmack about how he’d of done Jaguar Doom differently: he talks also about Jaguar’s hardware limits, but there’s no mention of Quake being started on Jaguar as some have claimed over the years:
“The jaguar CANNOT make a fully textured, full screen, full resolution game that runs at 30 fps. The bus will simply not take that many accesses. The 64 bit bus will let you do really fast shaded polygons, but texture mapping is done a single pixel at a time. DOOM had to be significantly reworked to get good performance, but it wasn’t designed from the ground up to take advantage of the Jaguar. If I was designing a game from scratch for the Jag (I’m not), I would target 20 fps with a 256*180 view window in 16 bit color as a reachable goal. Doom runs 15 fps at 160*180 because the basic design is non-optimal for the jag’s characteristics. I wrote it for the pc.”

Prolific’s Return Fire 2 was also planned for Playstation 1 as well as PC. Edge Issue 58 has it previewed under PC / Playstation. PSX version was never released.

Dan mc Namee ex-Atari / lead tester on Alien Vs Predator said Fox wouldn’t let them buy the license to do a sequel or improved Jaguar CD version of AVP, they could port the cartridge version straight onto CD, but it’d had to of been exactly the same game, NO CHANGES or improvements.

From an interview with Mick West, one of the developers behind the cancelled Big Guns for Playstation:
“We did an futuristic racing game, a rally race game, a golf game, and a mech 3rd person shooter called “Big Guns”, which we eventually got Sony to let us do, and at about the same time landed the MDK gig. Big Guns was a fun game, but it kind of got designed out of existence by the Sony Producer, and eventually was cancelled. That’s a shame, but then that led to Apocalypse and hence Tony Hawk, so it’s all good.”
Source: www.grumpyoldgamers.co.uk

These would have been launch/initial wave of games for the 3DO M2 according to EDGE: Descent-Interplay. Disruptor (also planned for 3DO). Return Fire 2 (layter changed to PC/PS1, only PC version made it). Top Gun (Spectrum Holobyte-supposed to make the WIP N64 version ‘pale by Comparison’). M2 powered arcade beat em up (Williams ent). Wing Commander IV (Origin). John Madden ’98, NHL Hockey, Road Rash, Olympic Soccer (Silicon Dreams). Undecided: Crystal Dynamics, Capcom and Acclaim.

Lost Conan planned for Atari Jaguar, i asked to former dev Carlo Perconti:
“Oh, I can reply to that: We got involved developing on the jaguar after we met some key people at one of the CES show in Las Vegas (I do not recall who exactly). Lyes and I we were impressed by the concept of the GPU Jaguar, an unique list processor which could allow huge sprites to be drawn on screen and which broke the limitation of number of hardware sprites on 1 video line like We used to have back then on the SNES. So at first We decided to develop a new graphic engine based on multiple layer of sprites on PC, then through Arcade Zone We got access to one of the Jaguar Hardware and then We started to port the beginning of a “first possible” level of what We wanted to demonstrate based on a CONAN character (but really it was only to show up the engine, no license was signed yet at that time). For sure, back to that period,  We got many inspiration from the Big Coin-Up Arcade titles like Golden Axe and alike and so the main idea was to develop this type of beat-them-all games on Console while trying to take advantage of the processor list of the Jaguar.  In our demo, everything was… a sprite, there were not background per say, everything was scrolling at a different speed based on the z depth position. So it was real, our demo was real however We could not make it to a real game because Arcade Zone lost some important financial deal when SONY suddenly stopped to distribute SNES game in EUROPE (yes it was a time where SONY EUROPE was a major distributor of Nintendo game) and so the project got canceled because of lack of funding, unfortunately KickStarter did not exist yet ^^ Voila, this is the little story of a demo that could have been a game but stayed only a demo because of a bad timing.”
I assume all source code has been lost? And it never got beyond a demo? Sources claimed anything from 1-2 levels actually finished, but that wasn’t the case?
“You are assuming right… source code lost in some 40MB HDD crash (or maybe it was floppy disk LOL hard to remember because we were moving back in forth between PC and Amiga DPaint). It was not even a full 1 level finished, just the beginning like… Conan leaving the house and going into the forest and fighting some enemy waves there…. no big boss implemented, so really only a demo.”

Infogrames’ Chaos Control was originally also planned for 3DO and Mega CD. Source Edge Prescreen Nov ’93. From same Edge issue: Activisions’ Return To Zork was down as PC CD and Mega CD (planned), later a Jaguar CD version was announced. We have no idea if any work was ever started on it.

Namco’s PC Division in November 1995 announced it would be porting games such as “Rave Racer,” “Air Combat 22” and “Tekken” to PowerVR. Rave Racer PC demo was shown running in 640X480 and at 30 FPS on a Pentium 133 PC:

“Rave Racer was the third coin-op arcade game in the Ridge Racer series, and was released for arcades 1995. Rave Racer is not to be confused with the similar sounding Rage Racer on PlayStation. They were two different games. None of those games were ever released for PowerVR cards on PC and only Rave Racer was shown in a very early state of development at trade shows in 1996. By 1997, it had become clear Namco had no intention of releasing these games because they did not say a thing about them, ever again, as if it never even happened.”

Jim Bagley was working on a Sega 32X Version of STRIKER (Rage) which had goal scaling, digitized pictures, was textured etc over the MD version (which in turn was an improved port from the Atari ST Version), but the 32X died before game was finished. He also (whilst at Ignition) was doing an Xbox conversion of PS2 King Of Fighters, but there was a bug in the PS2 versions code he couldn’t find, which caused Xbox version to crash, so game was never finished.

DC-UK magazine Feb 2001 reported on playing early version of Max Steel (based on ‘popular USA Animated series’) being coded by Treyarch. Game looked to be ‘inspired by’ likes of Metal Gear Solid and Syphon Filter. They had initial concerns over repetitive nature of puzzles and also whilst you had a lot of weapons at your disposal, there seemed to be very little difference in the effects they had.

DC version of Worlds Scariest Police Chases (was due late 2000) was CANNED along with PC version, by Fox Interactive when developers, Teeny Weeny Games, went bust (PS1 version being done by separate developer).

Geoff Crammond’s Grand Prix 3 PC had a poster at the Hasbro stand at the 2000 ECTS show, proclaiming it was coming to Dreamcast, yet when asked Hasbro said it was a mistake, they were’nt supposed to be saying anything about the DC conversion at ECTS as it was too early. In the end, the conversion was canned.

Virgin Interplay announced (upcoming) PC game Evolva (Strategy game) was also Dreamcast bound, it’d been in development for 2 years already by Computer Artworks, when DC-UK magazine broke the news (april 2000). Unfortunately, this was never released on SEGA’s console. At same time, DC-UK also announced PC conversion of Deus Ex was headed to dreamcast. They also interviewed Toby Gard who was supposed to be working on a Dreamcast version of Galleon for release Summer 2000.

Rage Software announced Dreamcast versions of 2 PC games: Hostile Waters, Off-Road Redneck Racing. No idea IF work ever started on either though.

Cancelled Gears and Guys (AKA Gears & Guts) by Gremlin Interactive for Playstation and Saturn: game was a racer, with player picking 1 of 6 beefy pick-ups, then racing over 6 different off-road tracks. Circuits were based on a grid, rather than linear layout, cue shortcuts, secret routes etc. Trucks themselves reacted to real world physics. Game expected to run between 25-30 FPS. Coder was Niall Dunne. The game could have evolved to be released as Hardcore 4×4 for Playstation only.

Bioware told DC-UK (July 2000) that Baldur’s Gate was ‘In Japan as we speak’. I have always taken this to mean they sent Sega Japan a preview copy of the PC to version, to evaluate for POTENTIAL conversion to Dreamcast, rather than actual DC version sent. In same issue, Heavy Metal FAKK2 by Ritual Entertainment was rumoured to be coming to DreamCast from PC in early 2001. Also, Poptop’s Tropico was said to be Dreamcast headed as well as PC, but no release date given.

SWAT3 (Sierra) at E3 2000, Sierra refused to confirm a Dreamcast  version, yet SEGA had a DC version of Swat 3 running on its Dreamcast stand only a few meters away.

From an interview with Paul Carruthers (Acclaim, Logotron, EIDOS) we can read about the cancelled XOR on GameBoy, Turok on Dreamcast and Escape From LA PS.
“Q) Moving onto your time at Climax next, you were handed the Dreamcast conversion of N64 Turok The Dinosaur Hunter (something i’d loved to have of seen), again i wonder just how far along coding got/why it was canned and how you felt seeing yet another project cancelled?
Paul: Coding never even got started on that game. Canning games before they start or very early into production isn’t a problem and it’s quite common. It’s quite a different matter when you’ve been involved in a project for a long time and have invested some of your personality in it. I’ve been fortunate to have very few of those.
Q) You ended up working on ‘Escape From L.A’ for Virgin, which was canned, so…what platforms was it due o, how far along did coding get? and why was it canned?
Paul: PS1. We hadn’t got very far at all when it was cancelled. I got the impression that early screenings of the movie had shown it wasn’t going to be a huge success!”
Source: www.grumpyoldgamers.co.uk

There were various unreleased versions of Paradroid: from the C64 original said to be ported to the GBA by Jester Interactive, with plans for a ‘proper’ PS2 version afterwards (they’d consulted Andrew Braybrook), to Empires A1200 Enhanced version of Paradroid’90 to the aborted PC Engine version of Paradroid, which would have featured a 2-player co-op mode, a la Gauntlet.

Gary J.Foreman WAS working on a conversion of ST/Amiga Paradroid’90 to the PC Engine, whilst at Graftgold (he also converted Gods to the Sega MD for them) and said game was almost complete, just unreleased due to complications with Jap Publishers.

  

The post Random Facts & Rumors from the Unseen World | Volume 2 appeared first on Unseen64: Beta, Cancelled & Unseen Videogames!.

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Ten years ago today the Nintendo Wii arrived in North America and sparked a revolution. It captured the imagination of video game enthusiasts, brought lapsed gamers back to the table, and inspired a generation of consumers who had never laid their hands on a video game controller before.

For six years the Wii hosted hundreds of games, including platformers, RPGs, adventure titles, party games, and life sims, among many others. Several of its games are among the greatest ever made. Ten of those all-time greats are listed below. Note that this top 10 list of mine is far from comprehensive. Amazing games from Grasshopper, Vanillaware, Treasure, and Eurocom just missed the cut.

 

#10
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

It took Nintendo five years to finally unlock the full potential of its revolutionary motion controller, and it was Skyward Sword that did the unlocking. Boasting the best, most responsive motion controls of any game ever, Skyward Sword demonstrated once and for all that motion controls could be woven intelligently and masterfully into a game world without gimmickry.

Yet it came at a cost. Nintendo EAD's deep focus on motion controls prevented the development team from investing in a larger, more open world — a staple of The Legend of Zelda. Still, the game is outstanding, technically and artistically. It features the best storytelling of any Zelda game, and it provides an origin story worthy of the franchise.

 

#9
Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure

Despite high scores from gaming publications and a campaign from Matt Casamassina at IGN, which encouraged Wii owners to pre-order the game, Zack & Wiki underperformed in sales. A throwback to the point-and-click adventure games that filled the PC landscape in the early 90s, Zack & Wiki uses the Wii remote as a mouse substitute, allowing players to point and "click" their way through several pirate-themed levels, all of which are packed with brain-teasing puzzles.

One of the more interesting mechanics in the game allows Zack, a young would-be pirate, to shake his partner Wiki, a golden, floating monkey, to transform enemies into useable items.

 

#8
Donkey Kong Country Returns

By 2010, Retro Studios had already proven its skill and ingenuity in reviving the Metroid franchise. Next up was another classic Nintendo IP: Donkey Kong. By honoring Rare's legacy with the Donkey Country series and adding some twists — silhouetted levels and two-player simultaneous co-op, to name a couple — Retro left its own unique stamp on Donkey Kong Country Returns, a brilliant return to form for Nintendo's gorilla mascot. 

Both accessible and challenging, Returns is the flagship 2D platformer on a system that ushered in a renaissance of old-school side-scrollers.

#7
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

The final chapter in the Metroid Prime trilogy, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is certainly the most ambitious entry in the series and the first to appear on the Nintendo Wii. Set several months after Metroid Prime 2, Corruption is the story of Samus Aran’s continued fight against the Space Pirates and her nemesis, Dark Samus.

Unlike the previous two Metroid Prime games, which took place across several environments on a single planet, Corruption allows players to travel from planet to planet via Samus’ ship. The Wii remote and nunchuk are incorporated masterfully into Corruption: the nunchuk operates mostly as Samus’ left hand, controlling her grapple function; the Wii remote largely has the same function as a mouse in a PC first-person shooter.

 

#6
Wii Sports Resort 

It might share a title with Wii Sports, which was bundled with the Nintendo Wii in 2006, but Wii Sports Resort is light years ahead of its predecessor in terms of quality. Instead of five sporting events, Wii Sports Resort boasts 12, almost all of them winners. They include: swordplay, wakeboarding, frisbee, archery, basketball, table tennis, power cruising, canoeing, cycling, air sports, and golf and bowling, both returning from the original Wii Sports.

All events make use of the Wii MotionPlus add-on, which is necessary to play the game, and therefore respond much more accurately to player movements. Wii Sports Resort is a title that could easily be overlooked or dismissed as a sports bundle for the very young or very old. On the contrary, Resort is one of those rare games that appeals to all generations and has something for everyone.

 

#5
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

After its experiment with The Wind Waker, it was perhaps inevitable that Nintendo would opt for a more conventional Zelda adventure. Originally planned for a late 2005 release, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was postponed a year and released in November 2006 alongside the Nintendo Wii, making it the first Zelda launch title.

Twilight Princess is a loving tribute to Ocarina of Time, and pays homage to its precursor throughout the game. It's one of the most ambitious Zelda games ever made and easily the largest, taking some 60 hours to complete. Twilight Princess marks the first appearance of Midna, one of the all-time great Zelda supporting characters, and several innovations, including horseback swordfights, Wii remote swordplay, and Link’s ability to transform into a wolf.

 

#4
Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Boasting a staggering amount of content, from its online and offline multiplayer modes, to its "vault", to its surprisingly deep single-player campaign, Brawl is a special game that can be played ad infinitum. The stage design in Brawl is inspired - its score, a greatest hits collection of thirty years of Nintendo music, is unmatched, and its fighting mechanics accessible enough for novices yet deep enough for veterans. Most importantly, the game is a joy to play, alone or with a group of friends.

 

#3
Super Mario Galaxy

Over the years Mario has accumulated a long and impressive resume: plumber, tennis star, golfer, go-kart driver, doctor. In 2007, he added astronaut. In Super Mario Galaxy, Mario for the first time has an extraterrestrial adventure; a jaunt among the stars which owes a lot to Super Mario 64, but which dwarfs it in size and scope.

Super Mario Galaxy introduces an innovative physics system to accompany its spherical platform engine, whereby Mario can circumnavigate small planetoids, all the while a gravitational pull keeps him from flying off into space. The Wii remote and nunchuk are employed conservatively in Super Mario Galaxy, used mainly to perform a spin attack or to remotely collect “star bits,” colorful star-shaped gems used to defeat enemies or bypass obstacles.

 

#2
Super Mario Galaxy 2

Three years after Nintendo EAD caught lightning in a bottle with the original Super Mario Galaxy, the studio returned with a sequel that manages to match, and even surpass, the brilliance of the original. The sheer imagination on display in Super Mario Galaxy 2 is mind-boggling. It packs more ideas and mechanics into individual levels than some games do in their entirety. Super Mario Galaxy 2 might not be as revolutionary as its predecessor, but it's every bit as beautiful, creative, and fun.

 

#1
Xenoblade Chronicles

Not only is Xenoblade Chronicles the best Wii game in my opinion, it's the best game of the seventh generation. With its challenging and deep battle system, its focus on exploration and character building, and its beautifully-realized game world, Xenoblade is an RPG for the ages.

When players aren't fighting off monsters and mechanical warriors with a combination of skills, arts, and ether attacks, they can take on hundreds of side quests, manage "affinity" levels among their party members and the general population, and craft gems for weapons and armor. The huge number of things to do, see, and discover in Xenoblade is astonishing.

 

That's my list! What's yours? Sound off in the comments section below.

Full Article - http://www.vgchartz.com/article/266568/top-10-wii-games/

UPDATE: In Zloty (also auf der polnischen Website) kostet es nur 1 Zloty = ~0,23€.




Auch hier wird der Preis erst ersichtlich, wenn ihr eingeloggt seid.

------------------


Moin.

Bei Microsoft direkt könnt ihr 1 Monat Xbox Live Gold für 1€ kaufen.

Gilt nur für User ohne aktives Abonnement. Der Preis wird erst ersichtlich, wenn ihr eingeloggt seid.

Vergesst nicht das Abonnement zu kündigen, ansonsten verlängert es sich automatisch.

Vielleicht ganz gut, um im Xbox Sale von den jetzt schon gültigen Preisen profitieren zu können.

Pretty sure I played a version of Rebooteroids back in 2013 at the very first Play Expo Manchester I attended. You know, the one where I met Jeff minter for the first time and he hadn't yet taken out an injunction against me. It was on a white Jaguar squirrelled away in the retro gaming freeplay section and I distinctly remember being impressed by the silky smooth gameplay and pyrotechnic nature of the visuals.

Thinking back, it was almost like playing Geometry Wars...but not. And on a Jaguar. Was there a rotary controller too? My mind has been clouded by the subsequent years of alcohol abuse, but from what I remember it was quite good fun. in fact, below you'll find an image I've stolen from my own article from that very event. Wow...2013. Time flies, eh?
Recently, I learned that Rebooteroids - an Asteroids homage created by Jaguar homebrew development outfit Reboot - is almost ready to ship and preorders are being taken now over at Atari Age. According to the blurb, Rebooteroids has been in development for over 6 years but it's now ready to ship in early December 2016. The game promises a number of play modes and features, as detailed in the Atari Age post here:

• One or two players
• 100 unique levels!
• Five gameplay modes (see below)!
• Supports Jaguar gamepad and rotary controllers
• Settings and high scores saved to cartridge
• Share your high scores online with QR code!
• Features original music by 505 and MSG / reservoir gods.
• Customize controls for each player
• Utility menu including Jagtopia, BJL Load, Cheats, and Jukebox

Rebooteroids also has five gameplay modes:

Arcade: The standard Rebooteroids game, featuring 100 pre-designed levels for you to fight through.
Co-op: As above, but Player 1 will control the movement of your ship, while Player 2 controls the shooting via a rotating gun turret fitted atop the ship.
Skirmish: Random levels of ever-increasing difficulty.
Skirmish co-op: As above, but with Player 1 controlling the movement, while Player 2 controls the shooting.
Kombateroids: A multi-player head-to-head battleground.


Atari Age Oder Page
Reboot Game Page

If Fifa 17 has left you feeling more deflated than England’s performance against Iceland, it might just be time to return to the golden era of the beautiful game. While the likes of Shearer, Gascoigne and Seaman might be missing today, fans of Sensible World of Soccer can once again relive their youth with an all new data pack for the ‘16/17 season.

Miyamoto feiert stolz seinen 64 Geburtstag. Kreativ ist die Spielschmiedelegende immer noch! Miyamoto ist der Spieleentwickler der für die größten Spielemarken auf der Welt verantwortlich ist. Aus seinen Federn stammen unvergessliche Klassiker wie Donky Kong, Mario, Zelda, Pikmin, F-Zero und Star Fox. Heute am 16 November feiert Miyamoto Geburtstag und ...

The post Miyamoto feiert stolz seinen 64 Geburtstag. Kreativ ist die Spielschmiedelegende immer noch! appeared first on Nintendo-Switch.eu.

Throughout its four iterations, Super Smash Bros. has changed more than its frame rates. YouTuber Master 0f Hyrule put together a video showing how Mario’s, Donkey Kong’s, Captain Falcon’s and other Smash mainstays’ “Smash” attacks have evolved over the last 16 years.

Read more...

With the Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR well and truly on the way to our living rooms, virtual reality (VR) is the biggest news in gaming right now. But let’s rewind the clock some two and a half decades, back when Sony was working on the Nintendo Play Station and the inventor of the Oculus […]

DOOM II never came to the Jaguar, which - as stated in the video below - is a bit of a surprise when you think about it. DOOM is easily one of the most celebrated games for Atari's final system and DOOM II would undoubtedly have sold tonnes if it had been released for the platform. Happily, a fan project did bring DOOM II to the Jag in a fashion - a couple of different ROM hacks (called V98 and AC2011) were posted online by fans a couple of years back and now I've had the opportunity to sample V98 for myself.
According to this thread at Atari Age, the differences between these two variants is limited to the levels contained in each, and there is no 'complete' version of DOOM II for the Jaguar that contains all of the levels from the PC game. This is disappointing but with hindsight, the Jag does chug somewhat when dealing with some of the levels contained in the version I have...so I dread to think how slow it could potentially get with some of the really adventurous and sprawling later levels thrown into the mix.
The real differences here between the other console ports I own - apart from the slightly simplified levels - is the omission of the super shotgun and a large proportion (that is: all) of the newer DOOM II enemies being left out; but seeing as this is really only a fan hack of the original game, it can easily be forgiven. Missing textures, missing weapons, missing levels and simplified architecture aside, while DOOM II lasts it is every bit as fun as you remember it being. The people behind this hack have my utmost respect and gratitude. I hope you enjoy the video:

Rebooteroids is a new take on an arcade classic for the Atari Jaguar. In development for over six years, Rebooteroids is now available for purchase! Rebooteroids features 100 unique levels, plus 10 'kombateroids' levels for multiplayer head to head. You can choose from five gameplay modes, including a 'skirmish mode' whereby randomly generated levels of increasing difficulty challenge the player. Enjoy the original soundtrack by 505 and MSG/reservoir gods while you fight your way through each wave. You pilot the EWS, a small, highly maneuverable test ship equipped with a basic rapid-fire cannon. Your test ship is also fitted with a state of the art Hyperspace Engine which, if it was working, would be capable of jumping the craft vast distances. However, due to damage, it currently only has the ability to jump short range, and without a navigation lock you have no way of knowing where you will pop back into normal space. Use your controller to rotate the EWS left and right, thrust to avoid colliding with objects, and most importantly, fire to blast everything in sight! Collect bonus power-ups to increase your odds of survival. Every five waves (in Arcade mode) you'll enter a bonus round, where you have the opportunity to earn an extra life. Your high scores are saved to the cart, and you can also share them online. Rebooteroids is packed into a 4MB cartridge and includes a high-quality box and 20-page manual. Please visit the AtariAge Store to purchase a copy today!

SNK's Neo Geo is famous with gamers the world over, which is surprising when you consider that in terms of pure units sold, it barely registers on the scale. The SNES and Mega Drive – the Neo Geo's contemporary rivals – outsold it by a considerable margin, yet the system still managed to attract a loyal fanbase which delighted in the fact that the system was almost unobtainable; this sense of being a member of an elite club was all part of its intrinsic allure.

Game publisher Bethesda has been running rather high between turning PC gaming classics Fallout and The Elder Scrolls into mainstream gaming phenomenons, reviving Doom to great acclaim, the rise of the Dishonored series, and on mobile the success of the spinoff Fallout Shelter [Free]. Now it looks like their games are about to get an interesting crossover, as Zen Studios is currently teasing Bethesda Pinball with an image featuring Vault Boy:

The potential for Bethesda Pinball is endless. There has to be a Fallout table, but it'd be fun to see what they did with a Doom table, or something involving a giant dragon on a Skyrim table, maybe? There's a lot that Zen Studios could do here, and it'll be interesting to see just what they do when they reveal more...

Nintendo has just confirmed the release date and price for Super Mario Run. It will be hitting on December 15th "in United States time zones" as a free download, but the full version unlock will cost $9.99. It will require iOS 8.0 at minimum, and will be available in 151 countries at total. The 15th is indeed a Thursday, and possibly the final Thursday before the iTunes freeze (depending on when Apple freezes the store for the Christmas break) so it could be an interesting day on the App Store with a mega-hit launching. You can sign up to get notified when the exact release will be on the App Store. Nintendo has also released a new introductory video for the game:

Also interesting is the $9.99 unlock price. That will unlock all 3 of the game's modes after letting players try them out for free. $9.99 is definitely above what many freemium unlocks go for, but if any company could make it work, it's Nintendo with a Mario game. Also, with the hundreds of millions of downloads expected, the numbers could just work out. Stay tuned for more on this game, for sure.

For many SNK’s Neo Geo platform has been a distant dream due to the ever rising price tags its accompanying software demands. Unlike the many other consoles out there the system has lacked a flash cartridge or equivalent method of loading game ROMs on the original hardware, which if anything has kept both the demand and cost of game cartridges high. As of next week though, this may become a thing of the past following the unexpected arrival of the NeoSD.

Das ejagfest 2016 war wieder ein voller Erfolg. Vielen Dank an alle Besucher und Helfer. Das ejagfest in Zahlen: Unzählige Stunden organisatorische Vorbereitung, 13 Stunden Aufbau, rund 80 Besucher, 24,5 Stunden an 2 Tagen geöffnet, 2 Turniere, 1 Weltpremiere, das 16. ejagfest, zum 2. Mal in Kleinenbroich, 1,5 Pfund Kaffee, 6 Kondensmilch, 100 Stück Zucker, 8 […]

Der Beitrag Die Galerie zum ejagfest 2016 ist online erschien zuerst auf ejagfest.

"Member Chewbacca?" Befriedigt mit über eintausend Set-Fotos zu Eine neue Hoffnung, Das Imperium schlägt zurück und Die Rückkehr der Jedi-Ritter euren Drang nach Nostalgie.