Tonight, I got to see a preview of Wreck-It Ralph in 3D.

If you want the short of it, it’s now one of my “Top 10″ Disney animated films.

The long of it, however, is best explained for a number of reasons. And you can start with the poster:

Basically, this is Toy Story for video games. What happens when the arcade closes for the night?

This movie has a TON of cameos, making Captain N: The Game Master look pale by comparison. You can spot dozens of games in the 30 year time progression of the arcade, from Star Wars to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to a virtual “Who’s Who” of classics. That’s nothing to say of the cameos of characters running around in “Game Central Station”. These two scenes alone are going to cause a lot of frame by frame scanning when it comes to home video. One cameo moment actually shocked me how “true to character” they were. I won’t reveal anything, but there are a few delightful nods. Surprisingly, however, is how devoid of Nintendo this movie is. Yes, Bowser is in there, and there are two other nods, but Nintendo was Read the rest of this entry

I’m still getting the hang of this new site. Trying to see what I can do, actually attempting to follow through on making my site’s Twitter more, er, “twitty”, and apparently getting feedback from a lot of people who simultaneously love my website, yet seem to feel that I either need to lose more weight, earn more money now, or find an attractive bride from a third-world country.

….

I just can’t seem to please everyone.

But here I am regardless to talk about gaming, and more in this aspect, classic gaming. I’ve focused a lot on modern consoles and upcoming releases, but my real fondness does lie in the realm of classic gaming, and one of those aspects that I greatly enjoy collecting:

The video game catalog.

The collage that you see here is actually a small sampling from my personal collection. I’ve amassed a number of these over the years from buying unopened games, eBay, and other classic gaming venues. It’s an interesting look at how early gamers got a taste of what was to come for our favorite consoles and computers before the internet was even a remote factor in our gaming lives.

I would like to say not much has changed from then Read the rest of this entry

This is not so much a post about any news in specific, as it is more of a what’s been going on in my world of gaming.

I’m still getting used to the Lynx. Actually, I took it upon myself to disassemble the unit and clean it. I really don’t like doing things like this, as it feels like some terrifying experiment that could go horribly awry, but there were some fairly sizable particles of dust on the inside of the screen, and they weren’t going anywhere. Fortunately, I found this guide, and it helped to ensure that I did everything properly. Not something that I hope to do again in the near future, but it was effective. Now, to find a way to better buff out some of those screen scratches. If anyone has suggestions, I am willing to listen.

Playing Atari games actually made me think of the old arcade days, and how different a time it was for gaming back then. You really don’t see arcades like those in the 1980′s-1990′s anymore, even ones that are still around today. They still lack something. As I played S.T.U.N. Runner on the Lynx, Read the rest of this entry

I couldn’t resist a particular eBay find, especially for the price:

I found an Atari Lynx for $20.

The system is in pretty good shape, with only a few minor (but manageable) screen scuffs, and a copy of California Games in tow. Considering how much these usually run for, I found it a good deal.

I also decided to pick up Batman Returns for the system, as it looked amazing to me at the time, so one can hope it lives up to being envious in Babbages all those years ago.

It’s an interesting system overall. It’s about the size of a brick, so it definitely feels meaty in the hand, and of course, backlighting technology in the early 1990′s wasn’t as sophisticated as it is today, but at least it’s serviceable and adjustable.

So now that I have it, does anyone have any recommendations as to what games are good for it? I’ve seen a few interesting looking titles, and the system is fairly full of popular arcade classics of the time, but I’m hoping that some of my old-school brethren can give some solid suggestions.

Personally, I think it’s a much cooler system than the original Game Boy, but like Read the rest of this entry

It’s crazy (for me, anyway) to think that “The Great Atari Vs. Intellivision War” was over 30 years ago. 30 years. Some of you folk weren’t even born yet, and video games were out and about, fighting for living room dominance. You’ve probably seen or heard of some of these games. They look like cave paintings in comparison to today’s games, or a basic Lego set.

And yet, they are still fighting it out.

There have been two volumes of Atari Greatest Hits and one Intellivision Lives! – The latter had lived in “Development Hell” for the longest time, yet saw the light of day last Fall. These games were all recently released on the Nintendo DS for about $20 a title. Atari games are easy to port (usually, depending on who is developing it). Intellivision games usually come across as a nightmare, save for the excellent PC/Mac versions of the Intellivision Lives!/Intellivision Rocks! compilations. I’ll get to that in a moment, but if you like “The Old Days”, or wanted to see what the fuss was about, these three titles are really good examples.

The Atari Greatest Hits collections combined offer a huge amount of titles, Read the rest of this entry

For those of you familiar with my gaming interests and likes, the original Haunted House for the Atari 2600 was a personal favorite of mine (and still played on Game Room). It remains one of my “Top 5″ Atari 2600 titles (along with Adventure, Pitfall!, River Raid, and Yar’s Revenge), and I was a bit shocked when Atari announced a true sequel to the 2600 game this year. Curious, but cautious, I waited for the day to see this game, and with little (to no) fanfare, it has finally arrived. Does it need to remain regulated to the past, or is it worth another visit to the old Graves Mansion?

Yes, back in the day, those blocky Atari 2600 games actually had stories in their instruction manuals, and detailed ones to give a full background to foster one’s imagination for those primitive visuals. Haunted House, for its time, actually has a decent scare factor. The game can still make me jump now and then at times, which is a testament to its effectiveness.

So here we are with the new game, playing the grandchildren of the original hero. Surprisingly, there are more than enough references to the Read the rest of this entry