Retrogaming

Ten years ago, SNK's cult-favorite handheld landed in America.

Homebrew games for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance.

Reviews of the greatest video games of all time, from classic to modern games.

In Japan, shortly after the introduction of Nintendo's Famicom (Japan's version of the NES), the electronics giant NEC entered into the videogame market with the introduction of their "next generation" system, known as the PC Engine (PCE). The PCE boasted a 16-bit graphics chip capable of displaying up to 256 colors on screen at once, at a number of resolutions. Although its CPU wasn't much more powerful that of the NES, its spectacular graphics chip and six-channel sound bettered the Famicom in every way. It utilized a sleek new card format (PCE games are either HuCards or Turbochips) to hold its software, rather than bulky cartridges. It was also the first console to boast a CD-ROM drive, for full orchestral soundtracks and even (gasp!) full motion video. The PC Engine was immensely popular in Japan, outselling the Famicom by a significant margin.

Chuck Peddle is an inventor, engineer and entrepreneur of highest class. His rich early history mirrors that of Commodore; hugely important successes through the 60's 70's and early 80's, followed by late 80's and 90's turmoil.  Today he, like Commodore, is in an exciting new phase developing fresh technology concepts.

Long before there was a Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii, there was the Magnavox Odyssey, the world's first home videogame console. But the story of videogames predates the Odyssey by six years. It begins in 1966 when a television engineer named Ralph H. Baer sat down at a New York bus station and entered history.

Welcome to World of game Mids, collection of game music in MIDI format. Midi format was very popular in PC games especially within years 1991-1996, so this site would enjoy every fan of PC game music (or PC game mids) from these years.

When I played the Sega Master System for the first time in Macy's in 1987, I had already owned the NES for about three months. The first game I played (or watched, I can't remember) was Choplifter. After seeing how amazing the graphics were compared to the NES, I knew I had to have the SMS A.S.A.P. Shortly after, I bought one in Crazy Eddie and it became my favorite system for the next two and a half years (until the Genesis and Turbo Grafx 16 came out). While it never really became popular, due to almost no third party support and the near-monopoly the NES had (which outsold it by about 12 to 1!), it had some truly outstanding now-classic games, and the graphics and accessories (liquid crystal 3-D glasses and the best light gun at the time) were way ahead of their time. Sadly, I still dream about what could have been if things had went right. Anyway, it's going to be extremely tough to come up with a top 10 list, but here I go...

My goal when researching this was to make it so any games or MIDI files I played in windows sound like I remember them sounding on my old 486's SoundBlaster Pro 2.0.

I realized the other day that I've finally read my last "Best 10 arcade games of all time" list. They're very limited, and they tend to have the same games, listed over and over. Usually I don't agree with the choices, either. The games that I've been most passionate about over the years are generally ones that don't make it onto such lists. So here, without further ado, is an off-the-cuff list of the Best Arcade Games Ever. These are the games that, had I room, I would purchase and rebuild for a home arcade, as I wouldn't get tired of playing any of them.

The RetroGaming 101 series is aimed at gamers who are just starting out in the classic gaming scene or are curious about an older console that they don't know much about yet. Those of you that are especially knowledgeable about the featured console, I encourage you to add any information that you think would be beneficial into the comments section. If you are new to the featured console, and still have questions, you can also use the comments section and I will do my best to help you out.

When Gunpei Yokoi was tragically killed in a road traffic accident in 1997, he left behind a portable video gaming legacy the likes of which we're unlikely to ever see again.

Our resident TG-16 expert, marurun is back at it again (after writing TG-16 101). Much like on the 101 article, he did an awesome job writing just about every word in here. I just rearranged a few things and added some comments. Special thanks to the denizens of the forums at fellow enthusiast site pcenginefx.com. They also acted as a sounding board for our ideas for this article and contributed quite a bit of additional information and ideas.

Many DOS games stopped working reliably when DOS was removed from Windows, starting with Windows XP. The sound could be missing, the speed could be wrong, or the game might not work at all. Windows Vista apparently doesn't play DOS games at all. Almost all DOS games play perfectly in an emulator called DOSBox, which is available for Windows, Linux, OS/2, BeOS, and Mac OS X.

April 18, 2008 - For a system that tanked against the NES, the Sega Master System sure has some fans. After Tuesday's RetroCity podcast, I heard from a lot of listeners and readers that harbor nothing but good will toward Sega's 8-bit console. The Master System is also now on the Virtual Console, getting some long overdue love from gamers that may have passed over the console due to the vastly superior marketing of the NES or, well, the awesome-ness of Super Mario Bros.

The Classic Gaming Review Archive 2.0

Part One of Four

Throughout the history of video games, there have been many titles that did not make the transition from one region of the world to another. The games that have been translated have often been transmuted from their original form before ever reaching their new markets.

In order to listen to the music (*.ogg files) on this site you will need a player that supports Vorbis like Winamp, Media Player Classic, or VLC.

With the recent announcement of Genesis games being playable on the Revolution, I thought this would be a wonderful time to review some classics. Ever since Super Mario Bros was released on the NES, the platformer has been a constant genre in the video game industry. While many of the platformers were simply Mario clones, the 16-bit era was kicked off with Sonic the Hedgehog and never looked back. The Genesis had an especially great selection of interesting and unique platformers that helped Sega compete with Nintendo and the more powerful SNES.