NES 3D Emulator

There are loads of great emulators out there but there is a new emulator that allowed people to play NES games in a 3D perspective. The games themselves haven't been re-coded or altered but rather the backgrounds altered on the z-axis to give it a diorama look. The results are so-so but on some games they really pop, check out the video below of Mega Man and be prepared to be impressed!

Super Mario Coming to iOS

Nintendo are the masters of video games and some of their characters are the most iconic in the industry. However over the last few years they have been struggling due to many reasons but most prominently the rise in mobile gaming on mobile devices. The company dipped its toes into the app world with Miitomo but Pokemon Go showed the true potential of Nintendo on mobile phones and tablets. Now at the iPhone 7 event today Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong, surprised the world by unveiling Mario's first iOS Mario game, Super Mario Run. It is a runner game but it does look great. With the NX coming soon it seems like Nintendo's fortunes are changing.

Twin Peaks Soundtrack Vinyl Re-release

I have a huge thing for anything Twin Peaks. The image of Laura Palmer's cold dead face left an impact I'll never be able to forget and Bob hiding at the foot of her bed left an impact I'll never be able to escape. And scoring all this was Angelo Badalamenti's score which changed everything.

Death Waltz Recordings is re-releasing the seminal soundtrack in vinyl on 180gm "damn fine coffee" colour vinyl with bespoke die cut outer jacket and director approved artwork. The set looks stunning and I'll be looking to purchase it when it becomes available on 9th September 2016.

I have fond memories of the music as I remember discovering the series in the late 90's whilst at university. I got the soundtrack CD from my local library and played the music in Peacocks, where I had a weekend job as a sales assistant which was paying for my university costs. As the music played I remember the whole mood changing- people started giving the staff weird looks but one guy said, "Kudos for putting on something different from the usual shop muzak".

Whilst I am eagerly awaiting the new series, which will start airing in early 2017, I will reminisce on the old series with this vinyl... alongside a cup of damn fine coffee and cherry pie!

LINK- Buy Twin Peaks Vinyl OST Online

Playstation Experience: A Night Under No Man's Sky

There are a few games that I am particularly looking forward to this year and one of them is No Man's Sky, a procedurally generating space exploration sim, has me particularly excited.

PS_Experience_No_Mans_Sky_65daysofstatic

PlayStation Experience attendees were treated to an exclusive No Man's Sky concert, featuring visuals from the upcoming PS4 space odyssey and music from indie band 65daysofstatic. I have a WiiU but haven't decided whether to get a PS4 or XBone yet, this may just sway me into the Sony camp! Have a look at the concert below and enjoy!

Power Up Retro Gaming at the Science Museum

With 5 more weeks of the holidays left are you thinking of what to do with the kids, who after just one week are driving you nuts? Well you could do a lot worse than visit the Science Museum in London, which from the 22nd July to 7th August is holding Power Up, a retro gaming exhibition. The whole thing is hands on and children get a chance to play the best of video gaming from the past 40 years including Mario, Pacman and Halo.
Tickets can be purchased at the link below but why not do yourself a favour and head over. I went to this same event a couple of years ago and loved it. 

PLAY Expo Margate was pretty cool

I went to the PLAY Expo in Margate a couple of days ago and I have to say that it was an excellent experience. There were loads of original arcade machines, 10 pinball machines and tonnes of original consoles with classic games. I finally fulfilled a gaming dream and played Tempest 2000 on the Atari Jaguar and got my mitts on M.U.S.H.A. on the Megadrive.

There were 10 pinball machines set to freeplay... I was in flipping heaven!

There were lots of LAN games set up and a myriad of retro systems hooeked up ready for play.

I made a video of the event and have placed it below for your viewing pleasure.

PLAY Expo Margate

PLAY Expo Margate is a celebration of video games that is packed with hundreds of games, consoles, arcades, traders and exhibitors. I have never been before but will be going tomorrow (Sunday 24th July). I purchased tickets a few weeks ago and have been waiting excitedly for this date. Tomorrow I'll be posting my thoughts on the Expo.

R-type Anime Short

Animator Paul Johnson has created an anime short film based around the video game R-Type, the hard as nails shoot 'em up. The 90's inspired art style and deliberately dreadful voice acting is spot on and reminds me of some truly awful anime and manga I watched in my youth. In his own words:

Sucked into one of the toughest video games around, one man has to fight for his life – and the high score!
This is an homage to arcade classic R-Type and 90’s anime - with each second of animation containing around 17 drawings. 17 DRAWINGS PER SECOND!

Check out the video below!

Björk Digital Exhibition

Somerset House are hosting Björk Digital, an exhibition showcasing some of the avant-garde musicians digital and video media, featuring her collaborations with some of the world’s finest visual artists and programmers. The exhibition, which runs from from 1st September - 23rd October, is a celebration of her incredible three-decade long career. The Bjork celebration will culminate with a special, one-off concert at the Royal Albert Hall on Wednesday 21st September.

The exhibition will feature virtual reality (VR) and an interactive educational area, where her innovative apps (such as Biophilia) and custom-made musical instruments will be on show. Most excitedly I am looking forward to viewing Black Lake, an immersive film featuring panoramic visuals and a bespoke, cutting edge surround-sound system. If it is anything like the other work Bjork has done I'm sure it will be exciting, intriguing and powerful. I'm hoping to see the exhibition over the Summer and will be purchasing tickets for the concert too, all of which will be shared here!

The Simpsons: Pokemon Now?

Pokemon Go has been taking over the world, setting the app store alight and stopping traffic in Central Park over the weekend. Now it's entering the world of the Simpsons in a quite funny skit... I know, modern Simpsons, funny, but it is!

Wonderboy: The Dragons Trap Remake

During my early teens I got a Sega Master System whilst my best friend had the NES. To be honest I was a bit jealous as Nintendo's machine was far superior with an unrivaled back catalogue. However there were a couple of titles that made me proud to be a Master System owner and chief among them was Wonderboy III: The Dragon's Trap. It is a Metroidvania style game with each of the transformations allowing access to previously unreachable areas to open the world up. I am extremely excited about the game and can't wait for its release!

In the words of DotEmu:

We are working on a modern version of cult classic Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap! A close collaboration between Lizardcube, DotEmu and legendary series creator Ryuichi Nishizawa, based on Westone Bit Entertainment's original masterpiece.
Cursed into a half-human, half-lizard monstrosity by the Meka-Dragon, a lonesome adventurer is facing the challenge of a lifetime! In search for a cure, our mutated anti-hero will explore the many traps of Monster Land... and defeat many stuff-throwing, curse-wielding dragons.
How many more transformations can one hopeful body survive as it turns into a Lizard, a Mouse, a Piranha, a Lion, and a Hawk... The six different forms of our shape-shifting hero make up the cast of this non-stop action-adventure platformer!

NES Classic Mini

Nintendo just dropped a bombshell and have announced that on 11th November, the NES Classic Mini Edition ill be released for $59.99. The NES in a mini version of the classic system we all grew up with and loved but smaller, thus the mini. The system comes with a NES controller which can be used on the Wii and WiiU. It will also come pre-installed with 30 of the 'best' NES games (or so they say, I'm not the biggest fan of Tecmo Bowl but the list is very impressive indeed) and will be able to be plugged into your current fancy TV set by using the HDMI cord. The machine will not be able to play original NES cartridges and there will not be an ability to download additional games after release but still, 30 NES games for about $2 a-piece is not bad at all. The full list of games included are :

Balloon Fight, Bubble Bobble, Castlevania, Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Double Dragon II: The Revenge, Dr. Mario, Excitebike, Final Fantasy, Galaga, Ghosts ‘N Goblins, Gradius, Ice Climber, Kid Icarus, Kirby’s Adventure, Mario Bros., Mega Man 2, Metroid, Ninja Gaiden, Pac-Man, Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream, StarTropics, Super C, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Tecmo Bowl, The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

Rod Serling on Kamikazes

Rod Serling is famous as the creator of the Twilight Zone, one of the most revered and thought-provoking television series of all-time. The series ran from 1959-64 and its influence can still be felt today with many film makers, authors and people in media as a whole citing it as an inspiration.

Serling was interviewed by Australian radios Binny Lum and the conversation between them is delightful and relaxed. The anecdotes and THAT voice keep you hooked and interested, seems Serling didn't just play up for the shows but his voice was that soothing and mysterious in real life! Check out the whole interview below.

100 Years / 100 Shots

I love cinema and have a lot of affection for films across all the periods. Jacob T. Swinney seems to be a huge fan of the medium too and has created a film piece celebrating 100 years of cinema with 100 shots from different films. In his own words

A journey through the past 100 years of cinema--the most memorable shot from each year (in my opinion). While many of these shots are the most recognizable in film history, others are equally iconic in their own right. For example, some shots pioneered a style or defined a genre, while others tested the boundaries of censorship and film-goer expectations. If anything, I want this video to be a reminder as to why we all love cinema so much.

Player Two- An Emotional Short Animation About Brothers Gaming

Gaming has been a huge part of my life. Some of my fondest and earliest memories are to do with playing and seeing video games, and usually right there beside me was my brother. I remember vividly going to a friends house with my brother and playing the ZX Spectrum and my mind being blown by Super Robin Hood and Dizzy. As time moved on we got a Sega Master System and a Megadrive. The game that really bonded us was Target Renegade on the Amstrad CPC 464. We had been working through that for months but always kept on dying near the end, then one summers day, with my best friend and my brother's best friends around we finally completed the game. We went crazy at the time and even now I remember it vividly, us jumping for joy around the monochromatic green screen in my brothers bedroom.

Time has moved on and we've both got family and kids. I look back fondly at those days of yore and there is a tinge of sadness at the passing of time. This film by Zachary Antell captures that is a short 4 minute rotoscoped animation. In his own words:

Player Two is a short animation that explores the relationship that develops between two brothers of differing age growing up, and how video games foster that bond.

Do yourself a favour and watch it!

Metroid Short Animation

I'm a massive Metroid fan (except for Metroid: Other M, no-one needs that in their life) and have seen many great fan-made films and animations but this one by Rabbit Machine may be one of the finest. Although very short at just under one minute the animation catches the excitement and kinetic fury of the video game series.

Simpsons Vaporwave is Pretty Trippy

There is a genre of music that is changing the way we look at aesthetics and nostalgia, its called Vaporwave. The music movement emerged in the early 2010s from the internet and particularly the Internet communities who had a nostalgic fascination with retro cultural aesthetics from the 80s, 90s, and 00s. The nostalgia is for video games, technology, Japanese culture and advertising, and styles of commercial and popular music such as lounge, smooth jazz and elevator music.
The movement features musical and sound sampling which is often pitched, layered or altered in a chopped, screwed or glitches style. The video clips used are often filtered with a purple tint and glitchy VHS-esque distortion, giving the videos a hallucinatory and transcendental feel.

Vaporwave has been said to be a rebellion against rampant, uncontrolled capitalism, particularly surrounding its treatment of nostalgia.

I'm not sure if I buy into all that but the videos themselves are weirdly addictive and compulsive viewing, especially the Simpsons Vaporwave videos which are stunning. Check out one of the most popular examples below and look up 'SIMPSONS vaporwave' to find many more videos in this style.