Retro Gaming Australia

With new projects in progress all over the place, I admittedly haven’t been keeping up with the latest retro news – for that I apologise. We’ll try to get back to weekly Retro Readings again soon, but in the mean time, this double edition will have to do.

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Interview: Frank Trzcinski at Sega-16

You may remember a couple of E3s ago that Sega announced they were reviving Vectorman for the PlayStation 2. It was an announcement seemingly out of the blue, but the project appeared to be troubled early, and ended up on the chopping block quite quickly. Lead production designer Frank Trzcinksi sheds some light on the development of the game in this interview.

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Sonic Heroes Beta (GCN/PS2/Xbox), Phantom Dust Beta (Xbox), Virtua Boy Tech demos featuring Virtual Boy Mario Land (VB), Devilman Beta (NES), Rip Squad (Arcade), Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge (GBA), Tarantula (PSX/SAT/PC), Gex Beta (3DO/PSX/SAT), Vette: San Francisco Thrills (PSX), Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner Beta (PS2), Fear Factor Unleashed (PS2/Xbox), Video Kid (SNES), Halloween Capsule (MD), Kyle Petty’s No Fear Racing (N64), Trigun: The Planet Gunsmoke (PS2), Offensive (PSX/SAT), Conker’s Bad Fur Day Beta (N64) and Melty Blood: Actress Again Beta (PS2/Arcade) at Unseen64

A solid fortnight’s worth of reading from Unseen64. I always die a little inside when I am reminded of the cancellation of the Trigun game for PS2. It’s a shame Virtual Boy Mario Land never came out – might have helped the system live a little longer. The Conker’s Bad Fur Day beta information is quite interesting – I wonder if anyone will ever snag the elusive Twelve Tales beta?

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Adam West, Video game journalist at 1Up Retro

Frank Cifaldi over at 1Up dug up this little piece Adam West wrote about video games in the July 1983 issue of Videogaming and Computergaming Illustrated magazine. It’s quite a refreshing view too, especially given that Mr West would have been in his 50s at the time.

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Super Nintendo Light Gun games and First Person Shooters at Racketboy

Contributor Ack presents a guide to the SNES’s limited range of light gun and FPS games. There’s a few more of the former than I had realised. A good starting point if you’re looking to find out more, but like most Racketboy articles, you’ll have to continue researching to get the full picture.

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Survival Horror 101 at Racketboy

Ack presents a beginner’s guide to the survival horror genre. Once again, a good starting point, but if you’re looking for a thorough history of the genre, look elsewhere. The article barely touches the more significant games in the genre, mostly name-dropping the big titles, though there is a nice list of the things that make a good survival horror game.

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Zone of the Enders 2 Retrospective at Eurogamer Retro

While it pushes the boundaries of what many would consider to be “retro” at this point in time, ZOE2 is arguably one of the best games on the PlayStation 2, so you should check out this article to find out why you need this game.

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Fahrenheit Retrospective at Eurogamer Retro

Eurogamer takes a look at Quantic Dream’s last gaming outing, doing a rather good job of mocking the title’s late gaming insane streak.

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SSX 3 Retrospective at Eurogamer Retro

Few will look on the “evil empire” era of Electronic Arts with fondness, but the odd good game did come out of the mega-publisher in the earlier half of this decade. SSX 3 was one such title.

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Nintendo Age May e-Zine at Nintendo Age (Registration requried)

This month’s Nintendo Age e-Zine has a particularly good in-depth look at what constitutes a sealed PAL NES game, which is a must-read if you’re into the whole sealed collecting thing. I guarantee that it will surprise you (guarantee not valid – RGA Legal).

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Dr Franken Reproduction now available at The NES Dump (via NES World)

Dr. Franken was a fairly decent Game Boy title which was meant to also come out on the NES (I understand the game was almost complete), but never did. For $US50, you can now buy a reproduction version of the game, complete with box, dust cover, manual and a protective slick.

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Recent Virtual Console Releases: Kirby’s Fun Pak (SNES) for 800 points

I just played through Kirby’s Fun Pak last week – it’s really quite good. Certainly one of the better Kirby outings.

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