Retro Gaming Australia

The site’s hiatus will end effective immediately. Things may change a little, but we’ll aim to deliver content worth reading and watching again – even if it takes an age to produce.

Thank you for your patience.

I have been struggling to produce meaningful content on Retro Gaming Australia for about two years. The demands on my time, professionally and personally, have increased over the years, and time spent working on the site takes away from things that have a higher priority.

Over the last month, I undertook an experiment to see if I could cope with not updating the site, and walking away for a while. The experiment was a success.

The site and its projects will effectively go into hibernation for a while. We will also not be appearing at PAX this year.

For many years, the majority of the Ys series has been restricted to Japan. Fortunately, XSEED has been working hard to bring many of the remakes of the series into English via the PSP, PS Vita and PC. However, one title in the series had been overlooked – Ys V: Kefin, The Lost Kingdom of Sand.

Released on the Super Famicom at the end of 1995, Ys V had arrived much too late to be translated for Western audiences, many of whom were already turned off by somewhat terrible versions of Ys III for the SNES. Ys V was remade for the PlayStation in 2006, but again, interest in the West had already turned to a new generation of consoles, and again, had largely avoided the recent release of Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim. If fans were going to play Ys V, they would either have to wait for another remake, or create a translation patch for the SNES ROM.

Translation group Aeon Genesis has done just that. After a long period of work, the group recently released their patch for the game, effectively making the entire series playable in English. The game is quite a bit different than other games in the series – button based attack and defending make it feel a bit more action-based than its brethren, but it’s still pretty neat.

Can’t seem to get onto the Australian Sony Entertainment Store today, so couldn’t confirm Soulcalibur II HD Online‘s Australian price point.

Xbox Live Arcade
Soulcalibur II HD Online – $AU26.95

Nintendo eShop (Australia, Europe)

WiiU Virtual Console
Brawl Bros. (SNES) – $AU10.40

3DS Virtual Console
Donkey Kong (NES) – $AU6.50

Nintendo eShop (North America)

WiiU Virtual Console
Brawl Bros. (SNES) – $US7.99
20% off Mega Man 1-4 (was $US4.99, now $US3.75 until 28/11)

3DS Virtual Console
City Connection (NES) – $US4.99

PlayStation Store (Australia, Europe)

New Releases
Soulcalibur II HD Online – TBC (around $AU25-30)

PlayStation Store (North America)

New Releases
Soulcalibur II HD Online – $US19.99

Discounts
Okami HD – Permanent price drop, was $US19.99, now $US13.99

Good Old Games

New Releases
Wing Commander Armada – $US5.99

Discounts
50% off Wing Commander Series
60% off a variety of first-person shooters

Xbox Live Arcade
Nothing

Nintendo eShop (Australia, Europe)

WiiU Virtual Console
Mega Man X2 (SNES) – $AU10.40

Nintendo eShop (North America)

WiiU Virtual Console
Uncharted Waters: New Horizons (SNES) – $USUS7.99
30% off Legend of Zelda titles:
The Legend of Zelda (NES) – $US3.49
Zelda II: Adventure of Link (NES) – $US3.49

3DS Virtual Console
River City Ransom (NES) – $US4.99
30% off Legend of Zelda titles:
The Legend of Zelda (NES) – $US3.49
Zelda II: Adventure of Link (NES) – $US3.49
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX (GBC) – $US3.99

PlayStation Store (Australia, Europe)
Nothing

PlayStation Store (North America)

Discounts
Beyond Good & Evil HD – 50% off, $US4.99 (PSPlus: 75% off, $US2.49)
Rayman 3 HD – 50% off, $US4.99 (PSPlus: 75% off, $US2.49)
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World – 50% off, $US4.99 (PSPlus: 75% off, $US2.49)

Good Old Games

New Releases
Dragon Lore: The Legend Begins – $US5.99
Wasteland – $US5.99

Discounts
Mac Mix Sale – 75% off a variety of games that will run on both PC and Mac such as Dungeon Keeper Gold, Little Big Adventure, Crusader: No Remorse, SimCity 2000, Populous and Psychonauts
Fall Insomnia Sale

Steam
Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures – 50% off, $US7.49

Microsoft has announced that Killer Instinct Classic, the Xbox One port of the original Killer Instinct which is only available as a bonus with the new Killer Instinct game, will feature two different versions of the popular arcade fighter.

One version is the 1.4 release, apparently the original arcade release, warts and all. The other version is the updated 1.5D release, which fixes a number of exploits and addressed a few balance issues. Killer Instinct Classic will also include a training mode, a CRT filter and an art gallery.

Killer Instinct Classic will be out alongside the new Killer Instinct and the Xbox One next Friday.

One of my favourite series of the seventh generation of consoles is Dead Rising. Every game in the series has featured a number of callbacks to other popular Capcom franchises, and the third game, launching with the Xbox One next week is no different.

Dead Rising featured the classic Mega Man costume, complete with Mega Buster and laser sword. Dead Rising 2 featured Arthur from Ghosts’n Goblins‘ armor and underpants. Dead Rising 2: Off the Record had Protoman’s armor. Now in Dead Rising 3, you can run around in Mega Man X’s armor.

Independent video game books publisher Read-Only Memory, the house behind the recently published Sensible Soccer history book, has launched a new Kickstarter for a highly ambitious book covering the Sega Mega Drive.

Called Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works, the book aims to be the ultimate retrospective for Sega’s widely loved 16-bit behemoth. It aims to be a definitive volume – they’ve got Sega on board to give them unprecedented access to the company’s archives and personnel. The book will include production artwork, interviews, development sketches, manufacturing plans and interviews with 20 Sega personnel, some of whom have never been interviewed before.

Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works is currently only available in hardback with a pledge of £30 (plus £15 for international shipping) with an expected delivery date of June 2014.

Nintendo eShop (Australia, Europe)
None

Nintendo eShop (North America)

WiiU Virtual Console
Wario’s Woods (NES) – $US4.99

3DS Virtual Console
Wario’s Woods (NES) – $US4.99

PlayStation Store (Australia, Europe)

New Releases
The OddBoxx (Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee (PSOne Classics), Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus (PSOne Classics), Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee HD, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD) – $AU29.95

Discounts
Beyond Good & Evil HD – $AU5.78 (PSPlus: $AU4.34) – 60% off
Space Channel 5 Part 2 – $AU2.92 (PSPlus: $AU2.19) – 60% off
Space Invaders Extreme (PSP) – $AU5.78 (PSPlus: $AU4.34) – 60% off
The Seed: Warzone (PS2 Classics) – $AU2.94 ($AU2.65) – 60% off

PlayStation Store (North America)

New Releases
The Adventures of Cookies and Cream (PS2 Classics) – $US9.99

Discounts
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona – $US9.99 – 50% off
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2 Innocent Sin – $US9.99 – 50% off

Good Old Games

New Releases
Wing Commander 5: Prophecy Gold Edition – $US5.99

Discounts
Activate Autumn – 60% off Activision titles

Steam
Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior Bundle – $US3.74
Serious Sam HD Double Pack – $US4.49

The Play It Again Project is a game history and preservation project that is dedicated to preserving Australian and New Zealand-authored computer games from the 1980s. It’s a collaborative effort between a number of Australian universities, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, the New Zealand Film Archive and the Berlin Computerspiele Museum. Today they launched a project to document and exhibit the history of Oceanic game development – The Popular Memory Archive.

Backed by the Australian Research Council, the Popular Memory Archive aims to explore the stories behind the people and the games of the early home gaming era, interviewing the creators of many of the pivotal games from the local scene, but also gathering the memories of the people who played them.

“The game culture in the 1980s was highly participatory, hands-on and often characterised by a do-it-yourself ethic which is why we are aspiring to create a history of games as they have been used and experienced,” said Associate Professor Melanie Swalwell, one of the driving forces behind the project.

The Popular Memory Archive will also play host to monthly panels with guests from the early game development era, covering topics such as copyright and game collectors.