Retro Gaming Australia

Because nothing says “hey check out this awesome new system” like a video game based on a game show.

Streets of Rage 2 is one of the finest beat ’em ups of all time, combining impressive graphics, an amazing soundtrack and some bone crunching action into a single package. You’ll find few Sega fans who don’t list Streets of Rage 2 as one of the finest games the company has ever published.

In honor of Super Metroid being all of 30 cents on the WiiU Virtual Console (buy it – no excuses!), we present to you the Japanese ad for the game. It’s nice and subtle compared to the US ad, which talks about Super Metroid being difficult enough to turn you into lamb cutlets. You should all totally hunt down a Super Famicom version of Super Metroid for its superior box art. There is also a full English language option.

Remember when Microsoft used to make games? I’m hard on Microsoft’s initial first party offerings for the Xbox, but Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding was one of the few good things Microsoft put out. Amped has a massive soundtrack and custom soundtrack support, near-instant loading of its massive game world, and most importantly, some pretty neat snowboarding action.

When Australians think of old video game commercials from TV, this Game Boy one is usually among those that are brought up, just due to its sheer absurdity. It’s actually one in a series of similar ads which we’ll post over time.

Alex Kidd in Miracle World is a Master System game which should need no introduction. Secret Commando, on the other hand, went by a different name in every territory – Secret Commando in PAL regions, Ashura in Japan and Rambo: First Blood Part II in North America.

Bubble Bobble is one of the all-time classic arcade platformers, so it’s no surprise that it exists in some form on every single console and computer format released in the 30 or so years since.

E.T.’s Rugby League is quite possibly the first video game developed around the Australian rugby league competition. It was commissioned for development by Ozisoft, who enlisted the help of World Class Rugby developer Denton Designs to adapt their existing rugby game into a rugby league game. It was endorsed by Cronulla Sharks legend-turned fishing show host Andrew “E.T.” Ettinghausen, and carries the official licenses of the New South Wales Rugby League and Australian Rugby League.

One of the reasons that Sony wasn’t seen as much of a threat in the video game sector when the PlayStation was being prepared was because most of their output on consoles and computers up to that point was rubbish. One such game was ESPN Baseball Tonight, which attempted to leverage the name of the biggest sports television network on a rather poor baseball sim.

Frogger is on every goddamn system ever, but it’s still pretty damn neat. This particular ad is for the VCS/2600 release.