Retro Gaming Australia

A couple of months ago, we wrote a review of The History of Nintendo Vol. One – 1889-1980 – and we loved it. That book is the best researched and fleshed out investigation of Nintendo’s pre video game history available.

So you can imagine that we were feverishly anticipating the release of the other books in the series. The History of Nintendo Vol. Two – The Game & Watch Games, has just been released in English by Pix’n Love Publishing, and it’s damn good, too.

The second book picks up where the first left off by venturing into the development of the Game & Watch. The book is split into four segments, the first chapter details the development of the Game & Watch technology, the games and its impact on the market, the second is a detailed breakdown of every Game & Watch game (of which there were more than 50) and variant ever released, the third is an examination of clones and variants inspired by the Game & Watch, while the last segment focuses on post-Game & Watch LCD games released by Nintendo. (continue reading…)

We at Retro Gaming Australia would love to see more retro-inspired rewards in the Australian Club Nintendo Stars Catalogue. So, it is fair to say we were a tad jealous when we spied the Japanese Club Nintendo offering original polo shirts featuring designs from some of our favourite Nintendo titles.

For 550 points each, members can reward themselves with a polo shirt for which they can choose both the colour (from a selection of eight) and logo from one of six which represent Animal Crossing, Game & Watch, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros.

Personally, I’m partial to the pink shirt with Animal Crossing’s Rover as the logo.