Retro News, Retro Features - Page 26 of 49

Video game violinist supporting Bentley Jones in London

Promotional organiser Japan Underground returns to London this month to bring its eclectic mix of live music and Japanese culture to the capital's nightlife. Japan Underground at The Kingpin Suite at Bloomsbury Lanes, London on 28th May will be headlined by British J-Pop star Bentley Jones, the first British artist to be signed to a major..

Taking the warp pipe

Nintendo fans who've always dreamt of becoming their favourite 8- and 16-bit characters may have their wishes granted soon, as a hotel in Alabama is preparing to combine a theme park with cosplay in July. The Radisson hotel in Huntsville, AL will play host to the strictly unofficial "attraction experience" during PersaCon, a cosplay convention taking place between..

Nothing to do with ordering extra cheese

How many rotund heroes can you think of? Okay, it doesn't actually matter how many you can think of, the only chubby hero that matters for the sake of this article is the one and only Mario, and Shigeru Miyamoto explains why the plumber looked the way he did when he first appeared on our screens. During the Steel Diver edition of Iwata Asks, Miyamoto spoke..

The hitherto untold story of the UK's finest SNES-focused publication

As much as it pains us to admit it, print media is slowly coming to the end of its relevance in the video game industry. Although some pockets of resistance still exist and continue to fight the good fight, the truth is that magazines have been usurped from their position on the...

How two unassuming British programmers succeeded inside the halls of Nintendo

As a nation, the Japanese have gained a reputation of being particularly insular; despite their wholehearted acceptance of many aspects of western culture, they tend to regard their own products, traditions and population as superior. Bearing this in mind, the success of Dylan Cuthbert and Giles Goddard – two British..

Faux wood effect is for losers

Ever wished your video game console would blend a little more effectively with your IKEA home entertainment unit? Or have you long desired to purchase a Neo Geo system that blows away the competition when it comes to aesthetic appeal? Look no further, friends — the Wooden Neo Geo MVS is here. Produced by Analogue Interactive — a group committed to creating..

How to get that authentic retro look from your modern flatscreen TV

Sometimes, outdated technology has a quality which seemingly defies description. For example, those of you that are old enough may harbour a strange nostalgic affection for the monochrome Game Boy’s blurry LCD screen, even to the point of spurning the updated Game Boy Color because its improved display doesn’t exhibit the same..

Full disclosure: it's in Swindon

Nintendo fans have a better grasp on handheld gaming than many, but Swindon Museum of Computing in England is about to plot the history of the portable with a new exhibition. The new 'Gaming on the Go' exhibition charts 35 years of handheld history, starting with Mattel's 1976 Auto Race, a game running on a reprogrammed calculator chip with 21 LEDs for a display..

There's nothing it can't do

Forget about actually having the GameBoy turned on to make music; the video below proves that its components can sing in their own right. While we've seen countless Nintendo beatboxers, it's far less common to see the machine itself take centre stage, but that's precisely what's happened here. YouTube user MrSeberi has turned the humble GameBoy into a musical instrument,..

See a classic in a new light

We've already seen hints that Super Mario on 3DS will include the famous Tanooki suit from Super Mario Bros. 3. What would the entire game look like in 3D, though? Let user Kevin Zeeff show you. As part of Zeeff's "Game Cubed" series, Mario's best 8-bit adventure has received a retro 3D makeover, and while it's not exactly up there with the graphics on Super..

The quest for the perfect picture

Getting a pin-sharp, colourful image on a modern gaming console is about as hard as falling off a log. Both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 support HDMI output for true HD gaming, and although the poor old Wii is still stuck in the land of 480p, it’s still capable of kicking out a pretty decent image via component. However, getting the same quality from older..

Surprise, a control port!

Custom consoles are all the rage these days, and the Nintendo 64 is particularly ripe for fan-made hardware revisions. The portable machine below might look oddly familiar to those who've seen the iNto64, but it's got an ace up its sleeve: a controller port. The combination of N64, screen and control port means split-screen...

According to Wesker, things are just warming up

In celebrating 15 years of Resident Evil, Capcom has released a trailer that takes us back to where it all began, as well as where the franchise will be taking us in the not-so-distant future. Narrated by Albert Wesker, the trailer compiles footage of games both old and new. From the upcoming high-definition versions of Resident Evil 4 and Resident..

Minitroid tech demo now available

It must be one of those enigmatic laws of the universe, that if you shrink something, anything, then it instantly becomes cute. Thanks to three Metroid fans, that's exactly what they've done in their interpretation of the retro platforming series. The Metroid Database has unveiled the Minitroid tech demo, developed by programmer Tokinsom, artist Betatronic, and..

With a twist, or shall we say "spin"?

A Mario game from Capcom? That's what Japanese arcade gamers will be playing, although it's not exactly what you would expect. Capcom has announced its medal machine New Super Mario Bros. Wii Coin World has hit arcades in Japan. Based on New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the cabinet supports four players and the object...

One pastiche you don't want to mess with

When the trailer for the fictitious film The Brothers Mario was released, it gave us a good chuckle at how many video game and cultural references were crammed so beautifully into the space of 5 minutes. How might a sequel turn out? The Country Club shows us how. Another exclusive from The Game Station, The Brothers Mario 2: Kong Country depicts previous..

Not with a whimper, but a bang!

So 3DS is out in places other than Japan now, hooray! But just because its successor is stealing the spotlight, that doesn't mean the DS is content with resting on its two-dimensional laurels. Why, it's not even April yet and it's already seen at least five fantastic games this year with some fantastic music to go along with them. In this episode, we celebrate those..

Road to joy?

On rare occasion, a game so revolutionary will appear that not only will it receive the usual much deserved critical acclaim, it’ll become responsible for the creation of an entirely new genre. Take Super Mario Kart for instance — the title single-handedly responsible for the birth of the console kart racer. Following its huge overnight success back in 1992, it doesn’t come as..

We recap the event and sit down with "the most important person in video gaming right now"

In the documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, Steve Wiebe travels to FunSpot Arcade to put a stop to all the naysayers disputing his record-setting Donkey Kong skills. To the amazement of everyone watching, he achieves the first ever kill screen...