Retrogaming Magazines - another update!

Yes, there’s another retrogaming magazine now available and it’s rather a good one! A monthly magazine dedicated to all things retro Sega! It’s called Sega Powered and is currently on Issue 2 with Issue 3 due out on 6th April.

The magazine is of very high quality and packed with excellent news, features and reviews, each issue is available to purchase from segapowered.com where monthly billed subscriptions can also be purchased.  I’ve been massively impressed with the first two issues so much so that I’ve taken out a subscription in order to not miss any future issues!  Very highly recommended for Sega fans! A great read!

Best retro emulation handhelds under £100

As regular readers may have noticed I’m a fan of emulation handhelds, allowing retro games for many machines to be played through an emulator, so for the benefit of those who maybe newcomers to the hobby I thought I’d do a post detailing some of my personal favourites that are available for less than £100……

Powkiddy V90

This is heavily inspired by another favourite handheld of mine, the GameBoy Advance SP.  It’s available in three colours Red (although it’s more like Orange), Yellow and just released, Black.

It is a perfect ‘pick up and play’ machine for newcomers with simple to use software and really very little to set up other than copy your roms to an SD card pop the card in the side of the machine and away you go!

It supports all the classic machines you’d expect - GameBoy, GameBoy Advance, GameBoy Color, SNES, Megadrive but also other less known machines such as NeoGeo Pocket Color and NeoGeo.

The build quality does feel a little cheap but as a starter handheld it’s ideal, currently available from powkiddy.com for around £30.

Retroid Pocket 2+

This handheld runs on Android and contains a much more powerful processor than the V90 above meaning it can emulate well more high end machines such as PS1, Dreamcast, Sega Saturn, N64 and PSP.  

It is available in a variety of colours including Black, Purple, Yellow, and a SNES inspired design to name but a few.  The build quality is excellent, the machine feel great to hold and use and the analogue stick, d-pad and buttons are all extremely responsive, the shoulder buttons on the top of the machine are also of high quality and stacked and are in the perfect position to access when playing.

The screen is a little on the small side but is still very bright and sharp meaning your games will look fantastic.

Being an Android device it does take a bit more setting up than the V90 above so probably not recommended if you’re a newcomer but if you know what you’re doing this is a great choice!

Miyoo Mini

I’ve already done a review of this terrific little handheld on this blog so please have a look at that for my full thoughts on it but I will say that this is a miniature device that looks and feels great to use with an almost bezel-less screen and excellent performance on everything up to and including PS1.

Best used with the superb OnionOS custom firmware.  Available for around £40-55

Anbernic RG351V

And lastly on this list we have the Anbernic RG351V, a device styled on the original GameBoy, available in translucent black, white and this rather fetching woodgrain effect.

As is a trademark with Anbernic the build quality is excellent and it plays all the usual machines up to and including PS1 but also N64, PSP, Dreamcast.  It is also possible to play some Naomi and Atomiswave arcade games.  This machine has been around a while so there are a few custom firmwares available for it, the best in my opinion is ArkOS offering an improved interface, extra features and improved performance.

It is quite large machine but still feels great to hold and use and is recommended if you want a device which brings back memories of the original GameBoy!

So there you have it just some of personal favourites, you may have your own but these are my own choices, whichever you choose you’re in for an enjoyable and nostalgic time!

Some classic Atari retro games have now been released and updated for the Switch!

As some of you may have read from my previous post remembering my trips to the Atari specialist Silica Shop I used to a massive fan of Atari having owned an Atari ST, Atari 800XL, an Atari Lynx and an Atari Jaguar at some point.

Well good news, some of their best retro games have now been updated, remastered and released for the Nintendo Switch! Currently available under the ‘Recharged’ banner are Asteroids, Breakout, Missile Command, Centipede and Black Widow.  As you can see from the illustrations above for Asteroids and Missile Command they offer vastly improved and updated graphics while retaining the same addictively fun gameplay that made them such classics years ago.

All the titles are available now on the Switch eShop at a very reasonable £7.99 each, in fact at the time of writing Missile Command : Recharged is available for £2.69!  If you’re a fan of any of these titles and own a Switch these are a must to add to your collection!

In addition due for release on 24th March priced at £16.00 is a remastered version of the excellent tube shooter Tempest, entitled Tempest 4000 which is looking like another very playable title, I shall be snapping this up and giving my thoughts on it after a good play of it!

In the meantime enjoy the ‘Recharged’ series on Switch!

Vita Means Life - another excellent gaming book coming soon!

 

Another book of interest to retro gamers is also coming soon, written by Sandeep Rai who runs the YouTube channel and website 2old4gaming it is a 440 page hardback book chronicling the complete history of Sony’s excellent handheld, the Vita.

This is promising to be a must read for anyone interested in retro handhelds, the Kickstarter campaign for it is now closed, I backed it and am expecting my copy before the end of April so a more detailed post will follow upon it’s arrival.

It is now available to pre-order at https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1164535506/vita-means-life-hardback-book-detailing

A Handheld History - a new book coming soon which is going to be fantastic!

 

Brandon, who’s responsible for the superb retrogaming website and YouTube channel, Retro DoDo is currently working on a book about the history of gaming handhelds, entitled ‘A Handheld History’, as you can see above the logo has just been unveiled.

It is promised to be a high quality, ‘coffee table’ book featuring contributions from many well known names across the retrogaming community.  

I am incredibly excited for this book, it is something I’ve wanted for a long time and a further post will definitely follow upon receipt of my copy later this year.  

In the meantime you can register your details at https://www.lostincult.co.uk/ahandheldhistory to receive email updates on the book’s progress.  This is going to be something pretty special!

Kirby’s Pinball Land (GameBoy) Review

I’ve always enjoyed a good pinball game and one of my favourites for many years has been Kirby’s Pinball Land on the Nintendo GameBoy.

It is an absolute blast to play with great graphics, thoroughly catchy music and lots of things to do in the game.  I used to play this a lot when I owned a GameBoy so is a real treat to be able to enjoy it all over again on my various retro emulation handhelds which all run it flawlessly.

In my opinion one of the best GameBoy games and well worth a look! TRJ RATING : 5/5

You can play all the Game & Watch machines perfectly on Mame and it’s amazing! Here’s how…..

You may have heard of the excellent MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) capable of running thousands of retro arcade machines but what you may not know is that, thanks to the incredible efforts of a talented group, you can now also play every Game & Watch machine ever released flawlessly! The images above are how they actually look running in Mame, pretty impressive!  So I thought I’d do my best to guide you through how to get these and set them up……

Firstly download and install the latest Windows version of Mame from https://www.mamedev.org/release.php

Next download the regular Game and Watch roms from https://edgeemu.net/browse-mame-G.htm - just keep scrolling down until you reach the roms beginning with ‘Game & Watch’ and download each individual rom, they’re tiny files so each will download in seconds, it’s advisable to create a folder on your PC/laptop desktop called ‘Roms’ and download them all to that.

Now download the Micro vs. System roms from https://edgeemu.net/browse-mame-M.htm - again keep scrolling down until you find the roms beginning with ‘Micro vs. System’ and download all three to your previously created Roms folder.

Lastly you will also need the border artwork so create a second folder on your desktop called ‘Artwork’, go to https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vl9O-0jIGCHHY_lrWpOwBtqTXEKsVGOY - you need only download the files beginning with ‘gnw_’ and save them all to your Artwork folder.

Now load Mame and go into ‘Configure Options’ then ‘Configure Directories’ where you need to tell the emulator the folders for Artwork and ROMs, once you’ve done this select ‘Return to Previous Menu’ and ‘Save Configuration’.  Lastly you can map the controls by going to ‘General Inputs’ remembering again to select ‘Save Configuration’ once done.   If you have a Bluetooth controller you map the buttons to this instead.  I have a tiny little 8BitDo Lite controller which works perfectly.

You should now be ready to go, simply select the machine you wish to play, press ‘1’ on the PC/laptop keyboard to start and it should run perfectly!

I’ve set it up on my Microsoft Surface Go 2 and am so impressed by the flawless performance of each and every machine, it really is like playing the real thing especially with a Bluetooth controller! It requires a bit of effort to set up but you’ll be well rewarded if you’re a Game and Watch fan like myself!