Retro News - Latest News - Page 24

Listener contributions, confusing homophones and Team Fortress 2 secrets revealed!

Oh hi, didn't see you come in there. Stay a while, and listen! Turns out we've got some fine musicians in the audience as we take a look to some listener-created tunes. We've also got a few select choices from The Megas, The World Ends With You, and the song that Akira Yamaoka would like blaring as he leaves this..

Run the gamut of emotions

A slice of Zelda humour that doesn't play on the well-trodden "it's dangerous to go alone" joke is worth a hundred Rupees, so this series of paper animations that portray Link as an unruly creep is worth about ten times that amount. From smashing up a man's house to exacting his revenge on Navi at last, Link's adventures in 2D are well worth watching right..

Clamshell design inspired by compacts

The most recent Iwata Asks article is a fascinating insight into the development of the Game & Watch series, showing off unseen design documents and now revealing the origins of the system's iconic style that lives on through Nintendo's current and next-gen handhelds. But where did the folding feature originate? In the gaming world's most natural partner of..

DK master honoured

Former holder of the Donkey Kong World Record and Nathan Fillion lookalike Steve Wiebe is about to receive another accolade by being inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame. Mr Wiebe, who once held the score record that now rests with Hank Chien, is being recognised for his arcade accomplishments and will join 28 other famous faces from the world of gaming,..

Black and white and oh so right

Currently enjoying a resurgence due to many rereleases on DSiWare, Nintendo's portable Game & Watch consoles are the subject of the latest Iwata Asks over at Nintendo Japan's site. Most of the development team, minus the late Gunpei Yokoi, dropped by on Mr Iwata to chat about these seminal titles and hardware and brought along some unseen documents detailing..

Western developer up for a sequel

Square Enix's Super Nintendo RPG Chrono Trigger is a masterpiece of storytelling and revered by Nintendo fans around the world, and Western developer Obsidian Entertainment thinks it could do a good job of updating the series. The studio behind Neverwinter Nights 2 and the upcoming Fallout: New Vegas has recently signed up to develop a new entry in Square Enix's..

Japanese Super NES shirt all kinds of cool

If you like your gaming t-shirts, there's no finer feeling than finding fancy new threads, and thanks to the ever-increasing popularity of Nintendo you're never likely to be short of choice, and here's another one to add to your shopping list. Based on the classic Super Famicom, the "Ultimate 16-Bit Machine", the shirt looks fairly ordinary from..

Japanese musician performs some impressive beat-coin-boxing

We've seen some interesting 8-bit musical adaptations before, but Japanese beatboxer Hikakin has done the reverse, emulating classic Mushroom Kingdom melodies with nothing more than his mouth / throat combination. It's Rahzel meets Miyamoto in this incredibly impressive display of vocal virtuosity. Check out his recently posted video and..

Peter Cullen reminisces about lending his vocal talents to the world's most famous plumber

Legendary voice actor Peter Cullen - who has recently lent his talents to Activision's upcoming Transformers title War for Cybertron (also known as the slightly less threatening Cybertron Adventures on Wii) was interviewed by Wired.com the other day and revealed some interesting insights into providing..

Watch your favourite 8-bit sprites do the 360

It's always nice to see programmers recreate retro gaming in some way or another and Jay Pavlina's 'reinterpretation' of the iconic Super Mario Bros. was easily one of the coolest things we'd seen in a while. Cesar Enrriquez (cezkid) has taken a slightly different approach as he has steadily been recreating various video game characters from the 8-bit..

Prototype console hidden amongst socks

Nintendo's interest in 3D graphics stretches far back in time, from the days of the Virtual Boy to the newly-unveiled 3DS. They may have been the only two 3D machines to reach consumers, but that doesn't mean they're the only ones Nintendo cooked up, as an interview with CEO Satoru Iwata reveals. During development of the GameBoy Advance the company added a..

Miyamoto clears things up once and for all

Following on from the E3 announcement of Donkey Kong Country Returns, it seems that something Shigeru Miyamoto had said in the past about the SNES original has re-surfaced. In a recent interview with IGN, Miyamoto cleared up the situation surrounding claims that he didn't like Donkey Kong Country, despite his involvement in the game's development. The..

The unholy three-in-one

Those of you with sharp memories will recall that we reviewed the Retro Duo console a few months back and were quite impressed with the system's power to grant new life to dusty old Nintendo cartridges. We've since been sent yet another of these "clone" systems to take a look at, but this time there's a twist - instead of just playing SNES and NES titles, the..

In the second and final part of our N64-themed making of, we look at the critical and commercial impact of one of Rare's best action titles

One of the most refreshing aspects of Jet Force Gemini was the way in which the player’s progression throughout the various levels was handled; initially, the only character available is Juno, but eventually other heroes are added to the roster, each faced..

All the way from 1990

Twenty years ago, Sega showed off its bold new mascot for the first time at the Tokyo Toy Show. He may only have been two months old, but Sonic the Hedgehog was already walking and wagging his finger as these scans from 1990's EGM 13 show. Even with twelve months of its development cycle left, it's remarkable how much of the game's iconic graphical style was nailed-down:..

Not what fans want to hear

Rare was undoubtedly one of the brightest stars back in the Nintendo 64 era and with two top-quality first-person shooters alone tucked under its belt, a selection of compelling 3D platformers and of course, the much-loved Donkey Kong 64; it must have been difficult for Nintendo to let go and eventually sell its stake in the company. It must have been even more difficult..

In the first of a two-part feature, we go behind the scenes on what is regarded by many as the N64's finest action title

Back in the late ‘90s being an N64 owner was a testing experience. Having to listen to your Playstation-owning chums constantly droning on about Lara Croft and Solid Snake was enough to put any Nintendo devotee in a bad mood, but the general lack of quality software towards the..

It's real: see it with your own eyes

Yes he can; no he can't. Yes he can; no he can't. Anyone who grew up with the NES will know this as the sound of the playground's "is it possible to jump over the flag?" argument that ran all over the world. Now those who were on the "yes he can" side should pick up their phones and ring old enemies to rub salt in the wound: Mario, in fact,..

Super Castlevania IV's brilliant soundtrack is coming back from the dead

Castlevania producer David Cox has tweeted that the upcoming PS3/360 title Lords of Shadow is to feature classic tunes from older instalments of the series - more specifically the fourth title, which appeared on the SNES in 1991. Here's the tweet: Today I heard the waterfall music from Super Castlevania 4 fully orchestrated..

Space, monsters and boss battles, oh my

It's been a while, space cats, but NLFM is back with another mighty handsome selection of the finest chip and game music around. This time we're splitting chip tunes and swirling epics right down the middle, with equal parts fantastic on both sides. NLFM generally focuses on music from games playable on Nintendo consoles and handhelds, which, thanks to the..

Spot the references in this one

Mark Ronson's made a bit of a name for himself remixing and revamping other artists' tracks, so it's no surprise to see the video for his new track Circuit Breaker take inspiration from other sources. Nobody expected it to borrow so heavily from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, though. With a distinctive-looking overworld, green-capped hero and what looks..

The Capcom vein runs deep

It's always sad when a developer leaves a company responsible for giving us one of the more original and much-needed shake-ups in the Wii's library of games, but it's also interesting to see where they end up going. Shigenori Nishikawa, director of MadWorld, is to leave Platinum Games for a position at Tango, Shiji Mikami's Tokyo-based development studio. Mikami was one of..

Nintendo, Hudson Namco and Konami all get in on the act

A good fan-made video brightens up the dullest of days, but one that sees Kirby digest a monkey, Link fire a bazooka and Michael Jackson appear as the ultimate end boss? It's like your birthday and Christmas all at once. That's The King of Famicom for you, a fan video showing classic characters squaring off with some rather unusual powers to..

The OneUps take guitars, organs, flute to classic soundtrack

Since Super Mario Kart launched on the European Virtual Console just a few weeks ago we've had those catchy ditties stuck in our heads all over again. Imagine our joy, then, when we stumbled upon a fully re-recorded and rather lovely-sounding soundtrack from The OneUps. Taking ten classic tracks and giving them a pleasingly laidback,..