Retro Gaming Australia

2013 was a challenging yet productive year in all aspects of my life except Retro Gaming Australia. I am disappointed that the website has had to suffer from lack of meaningful updates over the course of the year, but the gains in my life and career have been more significant as a result. There were some positives, but I really feel like I failed to maintain the website to the standard I desire over the course of the year.

Arguably the highlight was PAX, where we assisted with the operation of the Classic Console Area with our friends at Retrospekt, Retro Domination and Australian Retro Gamer. The lowlight, however, was the lack of updates and progress with our features and projects and the obvious effect it has had on our traffic.

To some extent, the website was deprioritised to focus on work and other personal life events, but I have also frankly suffered from a combination of writer’s block and apprehension for a good 18 months when it comes to the site. At several points I considered suspending updates on the site indefinitely, which I should probably have done instead of letting it linger.

As RGA goes into its fifth year, I am struggling with what I want the website to be. There is an internal battle that rages on in my head about what this site needs to be – whether I should write for myself, or run this as an online magazine similar to the websites I have worked on in the past. It has come clear that, as much as we’d like to and have tried, the latter is no longer an option. The time sink is too great. The original intent for it to be a bit of a community hub has not come to pass, but I’ve always been terrible at fostering that kind of thing.

I am leaning towards making the site a bit more personal – certainly I want to discuss old video games in-depth. I think the retro gaming community has become much more focused on the collection aspect – showing off what you bought, rather than why you bought it and what it’s like. Certainly it is becoming a bit exclusionary, with constantly rising prices forcing many out of the hobby. Heck, I don’t think I’ve bought more than a dozen old games (at least in physical form) since 2010. I still like writing the featured content and will attempt to continue to do so – although I struggle with the fact that I think nobody is going to read it, I should really just write this stuff for myself first and foremost, and consider it a nice bonus if someone else digs it.

So, plans for this year:

• Video Game Ad of the Day will resume, albeit at the proper frequency
• The amount of news we publish will not be what it once was. We’ll only post news pieces that we’re interested in. That’s all we have time for. There are people who do wide scope news coverage better than us.
• Feature articles are where I intend to focus the time I work on the website. There are numerous features we’ve got half written. Perhaps I’ve been too ambitious with my plans for some features and need to dial back a little.
• We’ll look at doing some impressions articles for games we’ve been playing and new retro-themed/inspired releases.
• Video. I’ll be honest and say that a lot of people do video better than us, but we are going to try to improve. We are going to get the equipment required to do better video. I’ve had major issues with syncing that will be rectified. We are looking into doing livestreaming.
• Big projects. Work on the Wiki and VGADA will continue slowly. I am not planning on undertaking anything bigger than that. We are exploring our options with regards to scanning old Australian video game magazines – there are about 200+ sitting next to me in boxes waiting for something to happen.
  

Zonk is at a basic level a futuristic incarnation of Bonk, however, the game in which he stars in, Air Zonk, is a shoot ’em up rather than a platformer. Have to admit that the PC Engine version has a cooler name, but Turbobros should be used to the PC Engine being so much better than the Turbografx.

Syndicate is pretty much one of the greatest games of the 90s – it’s a damn shame that the series was overlooked after the release of Syndicate Wars. I’ll admit that I enjoyed the FPS revival released in 2012, even though it was so far removed from everything I love about the original games. This ad is spruiking the UK release of the SNES and Jaguar versions.

Starting the new year off with a bang with this ad for the North American release of House of the Dead 2, which was stripped of its light-gun support in that particular version due to post Columbine anxiety. No such alteration was made to the PAL or Japanese releases.

For those of you who got money for Christmas: a little something to spend that money on. For those of us who are broke following Christmas: something to induce crying.

Metal Gear Solid / Special Missions Double Pack (PlayStation)

Halo 2 Collector's Edition (Xbox) – Getting harder to find copies that haven’t suffered rust damage.

Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble (SNES)

Classic NES: Dr. Mario (Game Boy Advance)

Blaster Master (NES)

Bionic Commando (NES)

Fantastic Dizzy / Rocket Knight Adventures Mega Drive 2-Pack

Mario Party (N64)

NES Dog Bone Controller

Best of Buy It Now
Probotector Five Game set – Includes the five Nintendo Probotector games

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PlayStation)

Rare and/or Expensive
T-MEK (32X) – T-MEK will usually fetch between $AU600 and $AU1,000 even in rubbish condition. $AU6,000 is a big ask, but it is new/sealed.

Stadium Events (PAL) – Nowhere near as rare as its NTSC brother, but still commands a big premium. This is above market value, but the condition is good.

Fatal Fury Special (Mega CD) – One of the rarest Mega CD games. This one doesn’t have the spine card, though. Price would be justified if it did.

StarTropics 1 + 2 (NTSC NES) – New and H-sealed

DuckTales Remastered Press Kit #13 of 150

This isn’t exactly the sort of ad that inspires one to purchase said game. One of those things that made Sony seem like less of a threat in the games industry than they turned out to be.

3Xtreme is the third and final game in Sony Computer Entertainment’s shortlived extreme sports series. The game continues the series trademark Road Rash-inspired extreme sports racing motif, but switches up the graphics from sprites to polygons – to the detriment of the frame rate.

With the smashing success of Grand Theft Auto in the sixth generation, every publisher felt the need to do a game based on criminal activity and gang culture. Of course as Ubisoft proved with 187 Ride or Die, slapping something together with those themes and throwing it out there expecting success is a pretty shitty thing to do.

It might be too late to get these things as presents, but you can always get it for yourself 😉

Grape Purple Nintendo 64

Satin Silver PlayStation 2

Sega 32X

Paper Mario (Nintendo 64)

Probotector (NES)

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo 64)

Probotector (Mega Drive)

Final Fight CD (Mega CD)

Diablo (PSX)

The Adventures of Batman and Robin (Mega Drive)

Power Strike II (Master System)

Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers is the third instalment of the Fatal Fury spin-off series Real Bout. In addition to being one of SNK’s better fighting games, it also has one of the best box arts of all time.