Ralph Baer received the ‘National Medal of Technology’ from George W. Bush.
The man knows as The Father of Video Games, Ralph H. Baer has passed away at the age of 92 on December 6, 2014.
Baer was born on March 8, 1922 in Germany. He moved to USA before World War II. He was an inventor, engineer and video game pioneer.
In the 60s he worked on a videogame console prototype called The Brown Box. This console was later released in 1972 under the name Magnavox Odyssey.
Sega Saturn was released in Japan on November 22, 1994. So this makes it the 20th anniversary for the Sega Saturn.
Sega had a week’s head start on Sony, which released the Playstation (aka PS One) on December 3. But in the in, Sony won that war with around 102 million sold PSOnes. Sega only sold 9.5 million Saturns, which is seen as a commersial failure.
The Saturn was released in USA and Europe in May and June 1995.
One of the problems for the Sega Saturn, was the hardware. All though it was very impressive, it was too complicated to program. The Saturn had 8 processor! The Sega Saturn had two video CPUs. One that handled sprites, textures and polygones (DVP1) and one that took care of the background (DVP2). It had one sound processor, some help CPUs and a Hitachi SH-2 (main CPU). The Sega Saturn was a 32-bit console.
Sega Saturn had a lot of RAM. 2 MB work memory, 1.5 MB dedicated graphics memory and 0.5 MB for sound. The resolution ranged from 352 x 224 to 704 x 480.
Sonic X-treme was maybe the most talked about game for the Saturn, but i was never released. But out of the games that was released, many was Sega arcade-ports like Daytona USA, Die Hard Arcade, Sega Rally, Virtua Cop and Virtua Fighter.
Panzer Dragoon Saga and Nights Into Dreams are games that har very high on many Top 10-gameslist.
It was also possible to connect the Sega Saturn to the Internet with Sega NetLink. Only five games supported this feature: Daytona USA, Duke Nukem 3D, Saturn Bomberman, Sega Rally and Cyber Troopers Virtual-On: Operation Moongate.
I played Donkey Kong Country a lot back in the days. At the end of this November, makes the 20th anniversary of Donkey Kong Country. The game was released in USA on 21 November. Europe followed on November 24 and Japan on November 26, 1994.
I remember it as a fun game to play, and it’s ages since I played it last time. But I have bought this game (and the two sequels) on Wii U Virtual Console (where this screenshoots are from). So I guess I’ll be playing the game in the near future.
It was not only a good game to play, the graphics was also very impresive thanks to the pre-rendered 3D graphics.
So Retro Gamer issue 135 is a bit special, at least the cover. Issue 135 comes with four different covers. Three of them can be bought in shop, while the fourth is only available for subscribrers.
Anyway issue 135 of Retro Gamer contains the following:
As always, Retro Gamer can be bought from Imagineshop.co.uk.
Nintendo DS was well received, when it was first shown on E3 in May 2004. But Nintendo had allready given a hint of the a new console as early as January the same year.
Nintendo DS was released in USA on November 21, 2004. Which mean the 10th anniversary of the console. Japan followed on December 2 the same year. While Europe had to wait until March 11, 2005 to get their hands on the Nintendo DS.
Video from E3 2004.
I was very excited about the Nintendo DS. And since a European launch wasn’t until March 2005, I bought a Nintendo DS with Super Mario 64 DS on eBay in mid-December. 3 month before the launch in Norway.
Nintendo DS was released as the third pillar. It was supposed to be a supplement to GameCube and Game Boy Advance. It turned out relatively quickly that DS took over for GBA. Nintendo DS has sold about 154 million units (all models included). This makes it the second most sold console sold ever, only beaten by Playstation 2. As a comparison, the DS sold about 35 million units more than the Game Boy.
Nintendo DS has two screens, both with a resolution of 256 x 192. The bottom screen is a touchscreen. The DS has 4MB of RAM and two ARM-processor running at 33 and 67 MHz. It also has Wi-Fi (802.11) support, so you could play supported games online. The Nintendo DS is compatible with Game Boy Advance games, which made it much easier at the time to jump from the GBA to the new DS.
This is Nintendo’s first handheld with dedicated 3D grahics on a Nintendo 64 level. It also does 2D very well.
The original DS often goes under the name DS phat, because of its size. At least compared to the DS Lite which was released in 2006. In 2008, Nintendo released the Nintendo DSi which was a small hardware upgrade from the original DS.
Nintendo DS came with some inbuild software. Pictochat was sort of a chat program. With it, you could send small textmessages or drawings to others… if they where in the same room. The idea was good, but wasn’t that much usefull since you only could send to people you allready where in contact with. It they only had used Internet…
A very usefull feature on the Nintendo DS is Download Play. With that, you could play multiplayer games with only one game cartrigde. Games that supported Download Play, downloaded the needed software to the other players (up to four). This function was also used by stores to download demos onto the DS. It was probably more in use in USA and Japan, since I never saw that in Norway. At a later time, Nintendo released the Nintendo Channel on the Wii so you could use that console to download demos to the DS.
I really liked that the Nintendo DS was regionfree. I imported some Phoenix Wright (Gyakuten Saiban in Japanese) games which was only released in Japan. And it made it easy to buy cheaper from the states too. I’m not sure, but I guess I have around 30 DS games.
So, the Nintendo DS is 10 years old. What are your memories of this console?
Did you like games like Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island when you where younger? If so, you’re in luck.
The original makers of these games and more, Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, have started a Kickstarter top make a new game called Thimbleweed Park.
The game will be like a good old point & click adventure.
To quote their Kickstarter:
Why do we want to make Thimbleweed Park? Because we miss classic adventures and all their innocence and charm.
They were fun and would put a smile on your face. We want to make one of those again and we want to do it right. We don’t want to make a game “inspired by,” or “paying homage to” classic point & click adventures, we want to make a real classic point & click adventure.
Thimbleweed Park is a game for true lovers of adventure games. This is a Kickstarter for fans who loved Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, and everything else that made that era great. It strips away all the cruft built up over the years and is distilled down to what we loved about the genre.
And what’s the game about?
Thimbleweed Park is the curious story of two washed up detectives called in to investigate a dead body found in the river just outside of town. It’s a game where you switch between five playable characters while uncovering the dark, satirical and bizarre world of Thimbleweed Park.
Lost along a dusty stretch of highway, the town of Thimbleweed Park once boasted an opulent hotel, a vibrant business district and the state’s largest pillow factory, but now teeters on the edge of oblivion and continues to exist for no real reason. It’s a town that makes you itch and your skin crawl. It’s a place no one ever looks for, but everyone seems to find.
You can back Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick and their new game Thimbleweed Park on Kickstarter.com. The project ends on December 18, 2014.
It’s been a long an bumpy road for the Retron 5 console. Released back in June in the US, a European launch have been absent. But finally, Hyperkin have got the CE certification for Europe. But it seems you have to wait a bit more for them to make and ship the European units. At least, it’s a huge step forwards.
Here is their small pressrelase on the matter from Facebook:
We’d like to announce that the RetroN 5 has received CE Certification. A European release date will follow.
In the coming months, we will initiate new European packaging, new units manufactured with said packaging, shipping them overseas, and awaiting customs for approval.
We greatly appreciate your support.
Not long ago, I bought the book Commodore 64 Book: A Visual Commpendium and thought that was great.
Then I found out that the author of that book had made a new Kicstarter for a book called Commodore Amiga: a visual Commpendium. It was not hard to back that project and I look forward to read the Amiga book.
Go to Kickstarter.com for more info and back this project. It has allready been founded and the project ends on November 12.
I like the 3D conversion of classic Sega games on the Nintendo 3DS. As usual, the Japanese gamers allready have more Sega 3D Classics than us in Europe (and the US for that matter). And they will get more.
On December 18, 2014 the Sega 3D Fukkoku Archives (aka Sega 3D Classics Collection) will be released in Japan on cartridge. The collection will have 6 games (previously available as downloads):
As a bonus, the Master System/Mark III version of Space Harrier 3D and OutRun 3D will be included.
If you have a Japanese Nintendo 3DS (regionlock sucks), the game can be pre-ordered from Play-Asia.com [affiliate-link].
For screenshots and more info (in Japanese), check Sega.jp.
Issue 134 of Retro Gamer is out and this is some of the things to read:
As usual, Retro Gamer can be bought at Imagineshop.co.uk.
