Nintendo Power

 

Just a short post to say that 156 issues (beginning with Issue 1) of Nintendo of America’s official, long gone magazine, Nintendo Power are available to read online and download from https://archive.org/details/NintendoPower1988-2004 - a very cool slice of gaming magazine nostalgia!

Retrogaming Magazines

If you thought the golden age of gaming magazines was over think again! There are now numerous excellent titles dedicated to various kinds of retrogaming so I thought I’d make you aware of some of the best below :

Retro Gamer - Published monthly and available in most branches of WH Smith this is the best title of the lot in my opinion, a 114 page A4 publication covering all aspects of retrogaming including guides, ‘making of’ features, letters, reviews and much more, it’s a must read for any retrogamer and a magazine I truly look forward to dropping through the letterbox each month as part of my subscription!

Ninty Fresh - From the same publishers as the excellent ‘SwitchPlayer’ this is published four times a year and covers mostly retro Nintendo although there are some modern day Switch reviews included too, there have so far been three issues and each issue has a main theme, the last issue was Pokemon themed and the next issue will have a Zelda theme to it.  Each issue is put up for funding on Kickstarter, the campaign for Issue 4 has now finished but the campaign on Kickstarter for Issue 5 will begin in due course.  Current and back issues are available from https://nintyfresh.net/

Crash - The iconic ZX Spectrum magazine returns as a bi-monthly 60-page publication featuring news, reviews, features, letters and pretty much everything the Spectrum fan could want! 

Subscriptions available at https://www.patreon.com/crashmagazine and current and back issues from https://fusionretrobooks.com/collections/crash-magazine

Zzap 64 - The equally iconic Commodore 64 magazine returns also as a bi-monthly 60-page publication again featuring news, reviews, features and letters and everything for the C64 fan!

Subscriptions available at https://www.patreon.com/zzapmagazine and current & back issues from https://fusionretrobooks.com/collections/zzap-64-magazine  

Another publication is also planned - an Amstrad CPC magazine called AmtixCPC - subscriptions now available from https://www.patreon.com/amtixcpcmagazine

Fusion - A monthly publication covering a mixture of retrogaming, current gen gaming, toys, indie and tabletop - it’s a excellent and varied read each month and one I really look forward to - highly recommended!

Subscriptions available at https://www.patreon.com/fusionmagazine and current and back issues from https://fusionretrobooks.com/collections/fusion-magazine

If you have a subscription to the digital magazine app Readly - digital editions of Fusion, Zzap 64 and Crash have just been added.

Retro Format - And last but not least this is a relatively new publication having had only 2 issues so far although issues 3 and 4 are coming soon, a good quality varied read and again highly recommended.

Subscriptions and current and back issues available from https://www.retro-format.com/retroformat.php

180 (ZX Spectrum) Review

As a teenager I cut my gaming teeth on a ZX Spectrum +2 (the one with the built-in tape deck) and by far the game I played the most was a really fun darts game called 180 so was really pleased to be able to play it again after all these years on my Anbernic retro handhelds (review of the RG351V coming soon) and it’s still as good as it was back then!

As you can see from the screenshots above you start at 501 and are playing against different computer opponents of varying abilities, the graphics for a Spectrum game are excellent and I always used to smile when the dog walks along every so often and cocks it’s leg against the bar! Aiming the dart before throwing (see left picture) takes a bit of practice but soon you’ll find the sweet spot and be hitting treble 20s in no time!  

The music in the game is really catchy too and something you’ll find yourself humming afterwards although sadly I can’t get the audio when playing on my retro handhelds which is a shame.

This is a really great game and still one of the best darts games I’ve played on any machine and one which has truly stood the test of time, time to dig out that old Spectrum and tape deck from the loft!   TRJ Rating : 4.5/5

Playing with Power : The Nintendo Story

Ever since my SNES, the first Nintendo machine I owned I’ve been a loyal and avid Nintendo fan having owned pretty much every machine since then so was excited to discover a new five-part documentary on the complete history of Nintendo from it’s humble beginnings as a playing card manufacturer right up to the present day and the Switch.

The series is called “Playing with Power - The Nintendo Story” and is available on the free streaming site, Crackle at https://www.crackle.com/playing-with-power-the-nintendo-story *

It’s an excellent and fascinating series too covering pretty much every aspect of Nintendo’s existence and is a must watch for any Nintendo fan.  

The descriptions of the five episodes are detailed below :

* = Just to make everyone aware Crackle is a US-only website so to watch this series you will need a decent VPN - the best one I’ve found and is the one I use is ExpressVPN which offers a free 7 day trial before you’re billed.  

Also being a free site Crackle does insert commercials during the episodes which is irritating but should not distract from your enjoyment of this excellent documentary!

TRJ Rating : 5/5

GameGear Micros Review

Anyone who has an interest in handhelds will remember the Sega GameGear, Sega’s attempt to rival the GameBoy which wasn’t the success they were hoping for mainly due to it absolutely eating batteries!

Now, to mark 60 years of Sega they’ve released a set of five GameGear Micros, unfortunately in Japan only, fortunately though I managed to obtain the set of all five and I absolutely love them although they’re not without their issues.  Firstly they are really cute but ridiculously small, so much so that they come supplied with the ‘Sega Big Window’ a screen magnifier which clips over the machine, this does improve things slightly and is kind of essential otherwise it is very difficult to see the screen.  

They come in five colours - black, red, yellow, blue and white, each machine has four games installed, however being a Japan only release not all of these games such as the Shining Force series are accessible to a Western audience unless you can read Japanese, however there are enough games on the different machines that are Western friendly including : Sonic the Hedgehog, Outrun, Puyo Puyo 2, Sonic Chaos, Columns, Baku Baku Animal and Gunstar Heroes.

By far the best of the five machines is the white unit which has four GameGear and Master System Aleste shoot-em-up titles installed : Aleste, Aleste II, the brand new Aleste 3 and PowerStrike II, being shoot-em-ups they are highly enjoyable and playable for a Western market and if you’re going to get any of the GG Micros I’d recommend the white one although it’s worth noting that except for the occasional sale on eBay the white machine is usually bundled as part of the PS4 or Switch Aleste Collection.

To sum up these are a very cool idea despite their issues and highly collectible for retrogaming fans, I’m very glad to have managed to get hold of the full set although would have like to have seen a slightly bigger machine with many more classic Western GameGear titles installed, one day perhaps…….TRJ Rating : 4/5