Retro - Timeline
Thursday24th Feb 2022
News 'Gex' The Forgotten '90s Video Game Mascot Might Be Making A Comeback
Update: Square Enix has now filed a trademark in Japan, too
Update [Thu 24th Feb, 2022 15:55 GMT]: Square Enix has now filed a trademark for Gex in Japan: Original Story [Fri 17th Dec, 2021 02:05 GMT]: Gex - one of the many forgotten video game mascots of the '90s - could potentially be making a comeback. Following on from Square Enix...
Retro How A Remarkable Street Fighter Port Soured The Relationship Between Capcom And Nintendo
"You're sitting on $4 million to $5 million in inventory cost"
Much has been written about how the N64, for all of its amazing games and technological advancements, was something of a misstep for Nintendo – especially after a decade of amazing success with the NES, Game Boy and SNES. Nintendo famously decided to go with expensive cartridges...
News Bitmap Books Celebrates The Legacy Of Final Fight, Streets Of Rage And More With 'Go Straight'
"The ulimate guide to side-scrolling beat 'em ups"
Once upon a time, the belt-scrolling beat 'em up was the king of the gaming world. Titles like Double Dragon, Final Fight, Golden Axe and Streets of Rage were some of the most successful and popular of the period; arcade titles would generate incredible revenue while home ports (and exclusives, in...
Wednesday23rd Feb 2022
Random 22 Years Ago Today The Nintendo 64DD Had More Online Features Than Switch
Randnet Disk offered an impressive range of options
The Nintendo 64DD remains an intriguing part of the company's history, with the expansion ultimately being short-lived and limited to the Japanese market. Though it wasn't a commercial success after frequent delays and an arrival that fell too close to the GameCube, it nevertheless helped to pave...
Monday21st Feb 2022
Feature Is It Worth Importing A Japanese 3DS For These Virtual Console Games?
Save money on import classics before it's too late
As we all know the 3DS and Wii U eShops are closing down, taking with them countless classics in all genres. It's a decision that's understandably left many of us scrambling to find our old passwords and make those last minute purchases, finally turning those 'Maybe next time' purchases into a...
Thursday17th Feb 2022
News Thousands Of Dollars Of Rare Factory-Sealed SNES Games Unearthed After 27 Years In Storage
TMNT! Evermore! Chrono Trigger! Sunset Riders!
When a video game store in Nebraska closed its doors for the final time in 1994, its entire stock was packed away and placed in storage, waiting for a new owner. Now, almost 30 years later, the stock has been unearthed and documented – and YouTube channel THISISGAMEROOM was there to record it. As you...
Friday11th Feb 2022
Review EarthBound - A Quirky, Cosmic Adventure Bound To Warm Your Heart
Mother!
This review originally went live in 2016, and we're updating and republishing it to mark the arrival of Earthbound in the Nintendo Switch Online Super NES library. Fuzzy pickles! Back in 1995, this second instalment of Shigesato Itoi's much-loved Mother series (as it's known in Japan) only received a western release in North America, where...
News Did You Know The Game Boy Advance Could Make Video Calls Back In 2004?
With a rather expensive accessory, of course
Back in 2004, the idea of making a video call with your mobile phone felt like the future. 3G was just taking off and several phones were sold on this feature alone – even though the image quality was often terrible and it was impossible to get a signal strong enough to use it often. Although it...
Thursday10th Feb 2022
Random Undertale's 'Megalovania' Was Inspired By Square's Super Famicom RPG 'Live A Live'
Yep, the one getting the HD2D remake treatment
Toby Fox has more talents than his name has syllables, and one of those talents is composing for video games — including his own, Undertale. And if you've heard any of the Undertale soundtrack, it's likely you'll have heard Megalovania, the bombastic retro-flavoured background music to a very...
Wednesday9th Feb 2022
News The Arcade Emulator MAME Is Now 25 Years Old
MVG takes a look
Video game emulators aren't always seen in the best light, but they actually play an important role when it comes to video game preservation and the revival of classics on modern hardware. With this in mind, MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) has just turned 25 years old, after making its debut on 5th February 1997. If you're...
Monday7th Feb 2022
Random Who Needs 3DS? You Can Now Play Super Mario In Holographic Form
...it's just nowhere near as convenient
Remember the first time you saw a Nintendo 3DS running? The glass-free 3D effect was truly mind-blowing, and there's still a part of us that is deeply sad that the technology proved to be something of a dead-end. Still, if you've got a hankering for something along the same lines and you have exceptionally...
Random Wordle Is Now Playable On The Game Boy
Portable power
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you'll know about Wordle. It's a web-based word game created by Josh Wardle in which players are given six attempts to guess a five-letter word. Coloured tiles tell you if your guesses are correct or not. It has taken the world by a storm, so much so that The New York...
Sunday6th Feb 2022
Memory Pak Star Fox 64, My Incredible Introduction To The World Of Nintendo
Not Mario or Zelda, and my affection for the series will never end
Soapbox articles give our team a chance to share some personal perspectives; today it's the turn of Tom Whitehead to talk about the 64-bit game that sparked his love affair with Nintendo... I'm old enough to say my first gaming system was a ZX Spectrum, which is a big yikes. We had...
Friday4th Feb 2022
Gallery Unpacking Retro-Bit's Mega Man: The Wily Wars Collector's Edition
It's mega, man!
Not so long ago, we reported on the news that Retro-Bit was reproducing the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis version of Mega Man: The Wily Wars, a collection of the first three NES Mega Man games that originally launched way back in 1994. It was a Japanese and European exclusive at the time and is quite rare – which is why Retro-Bit's...
Random Check Out This Adorable 'Coat' For Your SNES
It's cold outside
If there's one video game accessory that's been unfairly ignored over the decades, it's console clothing. We live in a world where people will happily dress up their pets without any fear of rebuke, so why not their beloved gaming systems, too? It would seem that, once upon a time in Japan, someone thought this might catch on...
News This Device Could End Up Being Essential For All Retro Gamers
Save the hero! Save the saves!
If you've got a large collection of physical retro games, then there's a good chance you've come across the issue of internal batteries failing over time. Systems such as the NES, SNES, N64 Mega Drive / Genesis and the entire Game Boy line made use of internal batteries to keep save data alive, and once those...
Wednesday2nd Feb 2022
Video Remember When You Needed A Cable To Trade Pokémon?
Cable tied
Trading has always been a key component of the Pokémon franchise, right the way back to the launch of the original Game Boy games. Nowadays, of course, trading is handled wirelessly, but back in the '90s we had to use cables to link up consoles and share 'mon – and it's that period of time that this recent My Retro Life video focuses...
Tuesday1st Feb 2022
Video Ex-Rare Staffers Kev Bayliss And David Wise Are Sharing Their Secrets On YouTube
Music and art combine
Not so long ago, we reported on the news that former Rare staffers Kev Bayliss and David Wise had formed 'Salmandos', an "exciting new project" that celebrates their careers in the industry. As part of this, the pair have created DK Creations, a YouTube channel that sees them sharing their secrets and generally looking back on...
News This Man Needs Your Help To Create The Best 24kb Game For The NES, Ever
"Really important, spoiled people are counting on you"
Langel Bookbinder is a man with a vision. He's looking to bring his low-fi shooter GunTner to the NES in the form of a physical, 24kb cartridge – and he's trying to do it via a crowdfunding campaign. GunTner's a shmup, but one that's filled with wild and wacky enemies. Here's a brief...
News Buy This New Game Boy Advance Title And You'll Be Supporting A Worthy Cause
"If each of us helped one other, then that would make a difference"
Luma is a new GBA puzzle title that's coming out this year – and if you purchase a copy, you'll be bringing a little bit of light to this dark and uncertain world. How? Well, Mark Watkin, who has ported the C64 original to the GBA, is donating a portion of the sales to the Mid...
Saturday29th Jan 2022
Feature Game Boy's Perfect Pixel Art And Our Obsession With Reclaiming It
Grey and green never looked better
The Game Boy is an iconic piece of gaming hardware, but the quest to elevate and celebrate its games has continued over the course of more than 30 years. Backwards compatibility with the later Game Boy line enabled us all to replay the OG library on updated, improved screens and the quest to present 8-bit retro...
Friday28th Jan 2022
News N64 Classic 'Blast Corps' Finally Gets The Official Merch It Deserves
Clear a path to the Fangamer store!
Those of you old enough to recall the early days of the N64 may well remember Blast Corps, a unique action title by Rare that sees you clearing a path in front of a runaway nuclear missile carrier. It's one of the more unique offerings in the N64 library, but it's also a game that seems to have been cruelly...
Random An AI Broke Tetris On NES, And It’s Compelling Viewing
Tetromi-woah
There are a lot of talented programmers that devote their efforts to showcasing and taking retro games to new heights, and Tetris is about as iconic as it gets. In a video posted last Summer - that we cam across this week courtesy of Gizmodo - programmer Greg Cannon shared a playthrough of the NES version in which his AI plays so well,...
Thursday27th Jan 2022
Random Unearthed 1998 TV Report Blames Nintendo 64 For "Gaming Addiction"
"I refer to him as a Nintendo junkie"
Ever since video games became a thing, we've seen parents worry about their offspring becoming hopelessly addicted. However, in a world where screentime is possible literally anywhere in the world thanks to the rise of the smartphone, it seems quaint to recall that, way back in 1998, the media was losing its...
Random Now This Is What You Call A 'Super' Game Boy
9 screens, and it's still blurry
Back in the days before massive LCD displays, mankind had to settle with the idea of linking up banks of CRT TVs to create that 'big screen' vibe – and now, a hacker has achieved the same kind of effect using Game Boy displays. In his efforts to reverse engineer the Game Boy's crude greyscale LCD display, kgsws...
News This Cancelled N64 Title Is Giving Us Serious 'Akira' Vibes
...mixed with a dash of 'Tron' for good measure
One of the great tragedies of all time is that Akira – one of the most influential anime and manga series – has never received a decent video game adaptation. Sure, people have tried, but the resultant efforts always seemed to fall short of the greatness of Katsuhiro Otomo's masterpiece. It turns...
Tuesday25th Jan 2022
News WaterField Is Back With An Analogue Pocket Carry Case That Costs A Cool $129
Space for your console, dock and much more besides
Remember when we reported last week that WaterField Designs was creating the Analogue Pocket Pouch? Well, the bag maker is back a week later with the Analogue Pocket Pack, "a folio-style case that organizes and protects the Analogue Pocket console, dock, power brick, cords, cartridge adapters, and...
Monday24th Jan 2022
News Dystopian Game Boy Adventure 'The Machine' Gets A New Demo
Give it a try in your browser
You can't keep the Game Boy down, with the humble handheld still getting used for various projects while its game library also grows. A small number of dedicated developers and publishers embrace the challenge of working with the system, and now you can sample one particular upcoming release - The Machine. Announced...
Feature Nintendo Life's Biggest Gaming Regrets
Forgive us, Reggie, for we have sinned
Here's some news: We are not infallible human beings here at Nintendo Life. Hard to believe, but true. We don't all sit on a throne of priceless Spice Orange GameCubes and rare SNES games, although a fair few of us have been known to collect a few
News Metroid Prime Dev Confirms That Nintendo Blocked The Addition Of Super Metroid To The Game
...but it paved the way to the inclusion of the original Metroid
A few years back, it was reported that Super Metroid almost made it into Metroid Prime but Nintendo decided against it because the emulator used was an unofficial third-party one. In a conversation with Kiwi Talkz, Metroid Prime developer
