Not only did John come up with a unique theme for an arcade cabinet, but he also went the extra mile literally "sculpting" custom pieces for his build.
In a move some might say more foolish than bold, RetroBlast frontman Kevin Steele is handing over the keys to the RetroBlast.com website to a bunch of slack-jawed ...
Spheres of Chaos was originally released for the Acorn Archimedes in 1992 and the author (Iain McLeod)has been updating it as well as porting it to modern systems every year since. It's been described as a trippy Asteroids-style game with some Robotron thrown in for good measure. Sounds like an ideal candidate to play on your home arcade machine!
Ian has announced that a completely new version of Spheres is in development (Spheres of Chaos 2008) and to celebrate he's made Spheres of Chaos available to everyone as freeware. To download, visit SpheresOfChaos.com .
Entrepreneur Nolan Bushnell has been busy the last few years adding one more venture to his belt. Coin-Op TV recently caught up with the father of Atari at his latest uWink franchise opening in Hollywood to pick his brain about the restaraunt chain that focuses on 'social gaming'.
There's a ton of excellent pinball restoration info on the net and in various books and DVDs. As a complete newcomer to the pinball world, I find a lot of this to be overwhelming. So, to help document my first pinball experience and hopefully help out a few clueless pinball newbies like myself, I'm starting a new blog section here on RetroBlast called 'The Pinball Noob'.
While working on my first pin (a Stern Quicksilver), I'll be videoing everything I do up close; this is mostly for my own benefit so I can figure out where every teeny little part is supposed to go when the time comes for me to re-assemble it all, but at the same time I figure these videos may be helpful for others to see how (and how not) to do things.
If you're a seasoned pinball shopper I doubt that you'll find anything useful here - but feel free to poke and laugh at me as I undoubtedly make a complete balls of everything I touch.
"In the early personal computer days, recording artists included hidden computer programs on vinyl records -- you recorded the LP to tape, then put the tape in your computer's cassette drive. Here's a nice history of the practice, with screenshots of the programs in action and links to emulated versions.
A gigantic step up from encoded text files were actual games included in the grooves of records. In 1984, The Thompson Twins released 'The Thompson Twins Adventure Game' in both regular vinyl and flexi disc formats."
Somehow, this totally escaped me. Of course, maybe it was the fact that I didn't own a Thompson Twins album back then, but that's just a minor snafu.
I've been playing the Japanese version of this for a while now, and I gotta tell ya, of all the "evolved" type titles that have come out recently, this is probably one of my favorites.
"Diana Thompson hears Space Invaders in her head. She hears them in her sleep, marching ever downward, clomping ever closer. She hears them on her way to work. She hears them at work. And when they stop, for even a second, when there's the slightest glitch in their relentless stomp, when their incessant dun-dun-dun-dun hiccups, she hears that too. Thompson has worked at Gameland in Lake Geneva, Wis., for 12 years. Most days, most hours, especially during the off-season, she's alone with this cacophony of ancient coin-operated arcade games—beeping and wheezing and clanking and blasting and marching. And maybe a customer or two. And that's about it. Each blap and zap bleeds into the next and congeals into a digital orchestra, and like a conductor with a keen understanding of dense compositions, her ears prick up at the tiniest bum note.
The news just gets weirder today folks. RetroBlaster Ron threw this one over the fence at us. Some guy in Philly, we'll call him "Bill" has posted a Craigslist.org ad for a Popeye Cabinet that he's turned into a Terrarium. Yep, that's what I said.
Seeing as how the ad will probably be pulled in the near future, rather than link to it, I'll just quote it here for your reading enjoyment:
"I have a Popeye Arcade Terrarium That i started to build with Digital Temp, a 12in black light, and reg daylight and ceramic heater that are on timers, A heat pad exhaust fan to circulate the air, all on a power strip so you have to plug in one plug. As it is right now you can put in geckos a small snake etc.... just add substrate, I put in coconut bedding and had live plants in there and they did good . It is not finished on the outside, it dose have all the buttons and quarter slots, no computer hardware inside. All you need to do is Spackle and paint, I'm moving and there is to much going on, If you want me to Spackle and paint it let me know or if you want to change it yourself let me know. MAKE AN OFFER O.B.O. I will put up more pics A.S.A.P. or call at 215-806-xxxx -Bill"
Good luck with that Bill. You're going to need it.
Why?!?! Why in the world would you use a classic arcade game for this demonstration! They could have at least used a Whack-A-Mole or something like that.
Keep an eye on those glitzy celebrity blogs shortly, I'm sure you'll come across headlines like "Leo To Grow Nerdy Beard".
According to The Hollywood Reporter, a movie about the glory days of the video game industry is about to start rolling, with it's primary focus around Nolan Bushnell. Anyone that's read about the Atari heydays knows that this has the potential to be quite the rollercoaster.
It's still a little early to call, but with the writers of the current indie sensation "Bart Got a Room" and starpower of Leonardo DiCaprio, this really could be a winner. We wait with bated breath.
Thanks to Richard Ragon of HanaHo Games for the tip off.
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Arcade cabinet restoral
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There's a ton of excellent pinball restoration info on the net and in various books and DVDs. As a complete newcomer to the pinball world, I find a lot of this to be overwhelming. So, to help document my first pinball experience and hopefully help out a few clueless pinball newbies like myself, I'm starting a new blog section here on RetroBlast called '
