Oct 172012
 

Ready for another 24 hours of NES madness?!  Yup, Pat the NES Punk & his fearless sidekick Ian are gearing up for their third NES Marathon!  As per usual, donations benefit Child’s Play Charity.  It goes without saying that we at VideoGameMuseum.com love two things: the NES & watching Pat suffer!

It’s with those goals in mind that we’re returning as a sponsor, and we invite you to make a donation and to tune in as well.  Please join us this Saturday, October 20, 2012 at 3 PM EST/12 PM PST for the 3rd Annual NES Marathon!

Aug 042012
 

Compared to the Neo Geo MVS arcade machine, my beloved childhood Nintendo seemed like an ant among giants. In the small Michigan town where I grew up, the only arcade in town was at the local roller rink. I was simply in awe of the MVS, and perhaps even more perplexed by the idea that some kid, in a galaxy quantum leaps away, could have a home version of the Neo Geo.

At the recent 2012 San Diego Comic-Con, I was delighted to meet Jason Rau! Not only does meatbun.us create fantastic retro gaming themed clothing, but Jason Rau is also one of the few people I’ve met who had a Neo Geo AES as a kid / young adult!

Check out this video if you also dreamed of owning Neo Geo’s home version and if you’d like to learn about the radness that is MeatBun.us. These guys make some pretty stink’n creative retro-gaming-inspired art…that conveniently takes the form of lovely t-shirts.

Aug 012012
 

So, you’re playing Double Dragon and get thumped on by a big dude named Abobo…

Do you lie awake wondering about Abobo’s back story?
Do you ask yourself if Abobo is actually ALSO fighting to save someone he loves?
Do you daydream about whether or not Abobo could fit into a Megaman suit or about whether or not he could hold his own as one of the Contra guys?

Well if you’re answered “YES” to any of these questions, you’re not alone! All the answers and more lie within Abobo’s Big Adventure!

Seriously, who would be crazy enough to rewrite NES gaming history around the Double Dragon character Abobo?! Clearly insanity and brilliance go hand in hand, because Abobo is both bad & rad enough to knock the socks of the 8-bit generation!

Our thanks to Nick and Roger from Abobo’s Big Adventure for doing an interview with us at the 2012 San Diego Comic Con!

Interested in building your own Abobo’s Big Adventure arcade cabinet?  These guys were kind enough to include instructions here.

Jul 232012
 

Any X-Men fan knows that Magneto+metal makes for a pretty serious foe…one that very few of us would be crazy enough to tackle.  Given pinball machines’ usage of steel balls, that makes him a nearly perfect villain for Stern Pinball’s newest machine.  Not only is it X-Men themed with great graphics, but its play field seems to consist of tons of great Magneto themed game play twists!  While thumping away as our favorite super heroes, we experienced enough challenge to keep pinball wizards busy at their local bar, arcade, or in their beloved game room for hours.

Additionally, I’m not sure which impressed me more, seeing a new X-Men pinball machine or realizing that Stern Pinball is still dedicated to developing new machines.  It was great to meet Waison (Go Blue!) at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con.  You’ve got to hand it to these guys for keeping pinball alive and growing!

If you haven’t already, check out this new machine at http://www.sternpinball.com

 

Oct 202011
 

Apparently Pat the NES Punk is crazy enough to do it again!  Saturday is his 2nd Annual NES MarathonLast year he played through the entire NES collection with a buddy Ian for 30 hours straight.  When talking with Pat about this years marathon, he noted that last years was pretty tough, “I was awake for like 40+ hours.  After the marathon I actually fell asleep during dinner.  For the next two days, everything was in slow motion.”

This year’s NES Marathon will be a little more sane.  Pat explained, “I’ll be playing through 100 great games.  There will be some events and surprises like an exclusive game review by the Angry Video Game Nerd.”  Online viewer turnout for the first NES Marathon was fantastic with 60,000+ viewers.  Just like last year, the goal of this marathon is to raise money for the charity Child’s Play.  Pat & Ian will be thumb-mashing with the hope of raising $15,000.  Please tune in and donate at NESMarathon.com on Saturday, October 22, 2011!

 

Oct 142011
 

Either someone put a flux capacitor into my Honda Accord, or a group of collectors in Southern California just gathered for some serious retro gaming. My wife Amber and I just attend our first SC3 meeting. For those of you who are new to the Southern California Classic Collectors group like me, let me fill you in. A bunch of private collectors bring together a fantastic, and I mean freak’n fantastic, assortment of their retro arcade machines and home consoles. For $10 each, Amber and I had unlimited playtime on machines like Zoo Keeper, Cosmic Chasm, Jungle King, Paperboy, Tron, Satan’s Hollow, Gorf, Burger Time…and the list goes on!

Our favorites were easily Warlords and Turkey Shoot! I’d love to meet the guy who invented Turkey Shoot. If you’re unfamiliar with it, here’s the deal. Turkeys are robbing banks, and you have to shoot them before they get sacks of money off the screen. Naturally, you get hand grenades and, yes, a “gobble” button. If that wasn’t great enough, after you die, a fan blows real feathers in front of the screen. Yup, awesome.

Warlords was pretty great too. I’m a big fan of Rampart and would simply describe Warlords and a fast-paced mix of Rampart and 4-player Pong. This seemed to be one of the most popular and socially interactive machines on the floor! Great machine!

We had a little sale table at the event. It was great to sell some video game repair tools and to chat with other collectors. However, I was happy to know that people at SC3 function on an honor system with buying and trading. That meant we didn’t have to camp out at our table and spent a majority of our time out on the arcade floor!

Mike Kennedy of GameGavel.com did a pretty great raffel in which every ticket holder got a prize.  Well done Mike!

SC3 was a hit, and we’re already looking forward to the next one!

 

Jul 312011
 

As frustrating as it was to get tickets for this year’s SDCC, we had a fantastic time! Seriously, who doesn’t love seeing a grown man dressed as an Ewok? Or how about all your favorite stuff turned into life-sized Legos statues?!  There was plenty of rad and geeky stuff! As per usual, the place was a freak’n zoo. So, if you couldn’t make it yourself, the good news it that we took a ton of photos, and you get to enjoy them crowd-free.

COSTUMES: Hands down, my favorite thing about Comic-Con is people watching. The costumes are fantastic!  Naturally, these costumes raise the question, who would win in a fight? Inigo Montoya or Kratos?

GAMING: Naturally, the gaming booths were my top priority.  Overall, the gaming section seemed a bit smaller than previous years and was fairly spread out.  Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception looked just as beautiful as the previous Uncharted games.  Dragon’s Dogma caught my eye, and I enjoyed a bit of hands-on time with it. It felt like a typical hack & slash, and looked nice graphically.

LEGOS:  Somehow life-sized Lego statues just make life better.  Highlights were a Lego Boba Fett, Batman, Green Lantern, Sponge Bob, Captain Jack Sparrow, etc.

BACK TO THE FUTURE: When I was about six years old, I remember betting a cousin 50 pushups that the hover boards in the Back to the Future movies were real.  Seriously, I was positive that some filthy rich kid could go down to Toys R Us and buy one (probably the same kid who could afford a Neo Geo).  Let me tell you, it was a real treat for the six-year old inside of me to see the original hover boards from the movies.  There were a ton of movie props on display as well as the original DeLorean!  Needless to say, seeing all this stuff up close, my heart was beating at about 88 mph!

We only managed to do one day of the San Diego Comic-Con this year, but we covered a ton of grown in the few hours we had to dedicate to Saturday’s show.  See below for the rest of the photos we took.  I’d especially recommend checking out the Star Wars permanent marker art Volkswagen car and the Iron Maiden lunchbox…yup, an Iron Maiden lunchbox… Oh the glory of Comic-Con!

Jul 272011
 

Curious about the history of 3D gaming? Here’s a fantastic interview on 3D gaming history by Jason Reed at Wizard World’s Anaheim Comic Con 2011! This interview highlights the following 3-D video game milestones as well as Nintendo’s early roots in motion gaming:

  • 1983 Vectrex 3D Imager
  • 1987 Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Square Enix’s 3D Anaglyph Glasses for the games 3-D World Runner & Rad Racer
  • 1987 Nintendo Famicom, 3D System
  • 1988 Sega Master System, 3D Glasses
  • 1995 Nintendo Virtual Boy

Interview with Mark Weber of videogamemuseum.com from Highlight Media on Vimeo.

We’d like to thank Jason for the overwhelming surprise of putting this all together. The quality of this video and interview speaks for itself. Well done and many thanks!