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DreamcastRacketboy’s Retro Gaming blog has a great round-up of the 2D fighting games that appeared on the Dreamcast during its short life.  The Dreamcast managed to build a catalog of fighters that still hasn’t been matched on any of the next generation consoles, particularly if you were into the SNK/Playmore style of gameplay. The Dreamcast probably had the most King of Fighters variants of any console, and many of the later SNK games like Mark of the Wolves were awesome refinements of the 2D genre. Also of note was the madly infuriating but beautifully drawn Guilty Gear. While ports and sequels to these games can sometimes be found on next generation consoles, and older Street Fighter games have received historical collections, the games coming out on the Dreamcast at this time probably reflected the peak of the genre.


Read More | Racketboy.com’s Retro Gaming


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Super Mario

Mario, Bowser, and the Princess have officially acheived iconic status. We mean, you just know that once you get your own postage stamp, you have certainly made it. Over in the Land of the Rising Sun, a bunch of Super Mario Bros. characters from the 1980s hit will all get their own 80 Yen stamps. Expect to see them released in Japan at the end of May.


Read More | Vision Inc (Google Translated)


DescriptionNintendo today announced that over 1,000 Sega Genesis and (Hudson/NEC) TurboGrafx games will be available for download to play on the Revolution’s Virtual Console. This rounds out the offering to date—a pantheon of legacy systems including games from the NES, SNES and N64 systems.

Perhaps even more exciting was the announcement that game developers can choose to distribute their games expressly through the Virtual Console, (as opposed to relying on an expensive hardcopy distribution model), opening the floodgates to smaller, independent developers and increasing the potential gamespace by an order of magnitude at the very least.

The new forms of innovative software that can be created by any size developer will be made available for download via Revolution’s Virtual Console service.

Nintendo has held for some time that their goal is not to compete directly with the graphics or pure processing power of the Xbox 360 or the PS3, but rather to target an entirely new demographic, currently untapped—mainstream everyone—those intimidated or otherwise turned off to video games. Too much of the non-game-playing public finds themselves longing for the days of Space Invaders and Pac-Man, intimidated by the extreme graphics and complex gameplay found in the current generation’s offerings. A console that can play tens of thousands of simple classics and (hopefully) hundreds of new, creative offerings using a completely different, wholly intuitive controller could very well do some amazing things to the market as a whole.

My only hope is that we’ll see some of the great third-party SNES classics released for the Revolution. Chrono Trigger and Earthbound would suit my fancy just fine. (That, and that they don’t rename the Revolution something completely ridiculous. I’m looking in your direction, “Nintendo Go.”)

We’ll be live at E3 in May, bringing you our hands-on coverage of the Revolution, so stay tuned.


Press Release | PR Newswire


Latest Gear Live Videos

Super Princess PeachIf you have been looking for some old-school Nintendo side-scrolling action, you may want to check out Super Princess Peach, which launched today. This is the game that takes Peach, and puts her in the role of heroine for the first time since Super Mario Bros. 2 for the NES. In Super Princess Peach, the Princess uses her emotions to fight her enemies. When she is happy, she floats. If she gets mad, she becomes a flaming torch of lady-anger. Even her sad tears can be used to her advantage. The mood swings come as a result of her usual rescuers, Mario and Luigi, ending up inthe clutches of the baddies this time around. We like the graphics style of this one, and knocking Bowser upside the head with a parasol shouldl serve as a nice way to tide yourself over until the New Super Mario Brothers drops on the DS.


Read More | Nintendo Press Release


LemmingsAh, the fond memories of playing Lemmings back in the day. In fact, I can recall playing the game over a decade ago, along with Oregon Trail. If you’re looking to try your skills at the classic Lemmings title, click the link below. Good luck manipulating those little buggers and preventing them from falling to their untimely demise.


Read More | Elizium


Dreamcast Xbox Live ArcadeAccording to a Microsoft insider, you can expect to see upwards of 50 Dreamcast games show up on XBLA within the next couple years. The insider also suggests that a group of games will be released at a time and will retail for $10 each.

While this is just a rumor, we’re buying it. It makes a lot of sense, and we could definitely picture Microsoft and SEGA working something out. Now we’re just waiting for Crazy Taxi…


Read More | Xbox 360 News


Revolution Controller Revolution Advanced has put together an extremely comprehensive feature on the history - or rather evolution - of video game controllers. The article spans from the Atari 2600 controller all the way to the Nintendo Revolution remote control. It’s almost hard to believe how far controllers have come since the industry’s inception - but then again, technology has really advanced over the years. On second though, the controller featured at the bottom of the list, the Revolution controller, is arguably one of the simplest controllers ever made. Thoughts?


Read More | Revolution Advanced


NES Commercial Feeling the urge to immerse yourself in more Nintendo nostalgia? The linked original 1984 Nintendo Entertainment System commercial may just do the trick. The commercial features R.O.B., the Zapper (Nintendo’s gun), and Duck Hunt. While I owned an NES, I never got my hands on a R.O.B. so I was a little surprised when I saw it in the commercial - it honestly was a smaller than I pictured it. I was also amazed to see how many bonuses the machine came with - two controllers, a Zapper, Duck Hunt, R.O.B., and more. All of a sudden, the Xbox 360 Premium and Sony PSP Value Pack don’t seem to pack that much value.


Read More | techeblog


Nintendo KeychainsHow’s this for nostalgic? 8-bit character key chain with controllers that make noises attached.

NCSX says:

The next time you’re at a Miyamoto signing, bring one of the Dot Graphics Sound Keychains and press it continuously while you’re queuing up to make a complete nuisance of yourself. Once you’ve reached the head of the line, press it once more as if signaling victory and have Miyamoto sign the back of the joypad to increase its value ten-fold. Or something like that.

Each keychain features an old school character motif and a Famicom controller attached to a ring. Press the “A” button on the controller and a jingle will sound off. Just one jingle. You’d think with the technology available to manufacturers nowadays, a few more jingles wouldn’t exactly kill their bottom line. Click on the links below to listen to each sound (WAV file).

These puppies retail for $13.50 each - not bad at all. I’d probably buy one or two if I wasn’t spending so much money on the retro Xbox Live Arcade games.


Read More | NCSX


ET AtariKeith Schofield has put up a very entertaining and humorous music video documenting the E.T. video game. E.T. was made for the Atari around the time the movie was made, but the game was rushed to market. It was so bad that no one wanted it, so Atari ended up burying copies of it in the desert. Just go watch the video already.


Read More | ET Music Video


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