Tag Archives: retro gaming

Evercade: The Case for Curated Retro Gaming

Blaze’s new retro gaming handheld, the Evercade, officially launches on May 22, 2020, with the company hoping to get units in the hands of everyone who preordered by June 12, 2020 at the latest.

Since I’m planning some extensive coverage of this device and its games as soon as mine arrives — fingers crossed it’s towards the beginning of that release window, but we’ll have to wait and see at the time of writing! — I thought I’d take the opportunity to talk a little bit about this new device, why it appeals, and why I hope it ends up being a success.

Plus, if you’ve not yet heard of the Evercade, you can find out a bit more about it for yourself. Everyone wins. Hit the jump and let’s get started!

Continue reading Evercade: The Case for Curated Retro Gaming

Some Gaming YouTubers Worth Your Time

Hello, dear reader, and thank you, as ever, for continuing to support MoeGamer and my other projects with your generous, kind eyes — which, by the way, are looking beautiful this evening.

I’ll level with you, I have a busy evening ahead of me and nothing in particular planned to write about after a stressful couple of weeks in which I haven’t had nearly enough time to do everything I want… so in the interests of providing you with some sort of Content™ that you might find vaguely interesting, I thought I’d collect together some YouTubers I’ve been very much enjoying of late. Besides myself, I mean. Obviously my own channel is very good indeed and you should definitely go and subscribe. But what about other people, for when you get tired of my delightfully rich and fruity voice?

Join me beneath the fold and we’ll explore a bit… with a particular emphasis on slightly smaller, retro gaming-centric YouTubers that you may not have heard of, particularly if you’re in the States.

Continue reading Some Gaming YouTubers Worth Your Time

Dedicated to the Backlog

On Monday, LightningEllen from Livid Lightning and Kim from Later Levels revealed the first #LoveYourBacklog Week: seven days devoted to showing your backlog some love, rather than the fear and guilt it usually engenders.

I’ve never seen the backlog as a particularly negative thing. As Kim argues in her post on the subject, having a backlog means that you always have something to play — something new to experience, something new to explore. And since starting MoeGamer I’ve really relished having this huge library of titles just waiting for me to delve into in detail and write, make videos and otherwise enthuse about them.

So what is going on with this whole #LoveYourBacklog thing? Well, for starters, people are proudly displaying the size of their backlog via badges on their blogs — if you’re reading this on desktop or tablet, you should see that over on the left. And from there? Well, read on.

Continue reading Dedicated to the Backlog

Atari A to Z: Vanguard

This one was a new one on me until quite recently. I present to you Vanguard, an unusual shoot ’em up originally released by SNK in the arcades.

Vanguard is unusual because it’s not just being one thing, unlike a lot of shoot ’em ups at the time. Instead, it shifts between horizontal, vertical and diagonal scrolling at various points in the levels, and even has some rudimentary boss fights. It’s also quite unusual to find a game of this era with a proper “continue” system, particularly in its home incarnations.

While its visuals may not look like much these days, it’s a great shoot ’em up that is still worth revisiting today — and there’s an Atari 2600 version too, for those who prefer to console it up.

Follow Atari A to Z on its own dedicated site here!

Around the Network

Well, we come to the end of another week, and a monumentally unexciting one at that.

Having endured the pre-Christmas doldrums, it’s now time to get suitably discontent in the run-up to February, which my family has long regarded as the most depressing month in the whole year for some unscientific, almost certainly superstitious reason.

Still, at least there are some cool games on the way… and the things I’ve been covering here on MoeGamer have been making me happy, so… well, there’s that! Hit the jump to see what you might have missed this week.

Continue reading Around the Network

Atari A to Z Flashback: Asteroids

Asteroids is a longstanding classic with good reason: it made a solid impact on the early video games industry, and it has influenced a great many subsequent games over the years ever since.

There’s a beautiful simplicity to the sparse black and white vector graphics of the original arcade game, and it’s still enjoyable and playable today… so long as you can get your head around the whole “turn and thrust” movement system, which is something I’ve always struggled a bit with over the years!

Still, if you want to play early era space games, it’s a mechanic you better get used to pretty quick… and there’s no better place to practice than the original never-ending field of space rocks.

Follow Atari A to Z on its own dedicated site here!

The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode X (Starring Woody)

Somewhere in a dusty old attic sat a dirty, forgotten cassette tape, chronicling the experiences of both me and my good friend Woody, someone I grew up with and someone who had a defining influence on my gaming habits in the early years.

High-tech audio recovery technology has been used to retrieve the content from this cassette, which had been badly damaged by the passage of time (just ignore the fact we talk about having a Nintendo Switch and stuff like that) but was just, just still salvageable.

Or perhaps I just made a boo-boo with the recording of this conversation and decided to run with it. No, no, no, that couldn’t possibly be the case.

Continue reading The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode X (Starring Woody)

Atari ST A to Z: Missile Command

Here on Zardon, we are peaceful, we don’t like to fight. Here on Zardon, we work hard, and try to do what’s right. We would never be the first ones to stage an attack. But when someone shoots at us… we shoot back!

Kudos (and condolences) to you if that means anything to you; it’s from the official vinyl adaptation of Atari’s Missile Command by Kid Stuff in the ’80s — which someone has graciously uploaded to YouTube in its entirety here.

We’re here to take a look at the Atari ST version of Missile Command from 1987, however. This is a port I didn’t know existed until recently, but given Atari also published solid ST ports of Moon Patrol, Asteroids Deluxe and Crystal Castles, it’s not surprising. Is it any good, though…?

Follow Atari A to Z on its own dedicated site here!

The MoeGamer Awards 2018: The Least “Retro” Retro Game

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of “alternative” awards that I’ve devised in collaboration with the community as an excuse to celebrate the games, experiences and fanbases that have left a particular impression on me in 2018. Find out more and leave a suggestion here!

This award was suggested by The Night Owl from The Late Night Session.

Retro gaming can be a bit of a minefield at times.

Sometimes you’ll return to a game you absolutely adored in your youth only to discover that it’s an unplayable garbage fire by modern standards, for all manner of reasons.

And sometimes you’ll pick up a game that you really enjoyed in years gone by, only to discover that age has been extremely kind to it — and it’s actually even better from a modern perspective than it was originally. I’ve come across a few games like that recently, but if I had to pick one, ooh, ooooooh….

And the winner is…

Continue reading The MoeGamer Awards 2018: The Least “Retro” Retro Game

The MoeGamer Awards 2018: Best System to Collect For in 2018

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of “alternative” awards that I’ve devised in collaboration with the community as an excuse to celebrate the games, experiences and fanbases that have left a particular impression on me in 2018. Find out more and leave a suggestion here!

Over the last couple of years, I’ve become very enthusiastic and passionate about my gaming collection, and my infinitely patient and wonderful wife has done a fantastic job of configuring two of the rooms in our house to display said collection — the living room contains all the reasonably current stuff (basically PS1 onwards) while the upstairs study is a “retro room”, consisting of Atari 8-bit, Atari ST and Philips G7000 Videopac games.

I’ve been adding to my collection from all angles over the course of the last few years. But if I had to pick one system that I’ve enjoyed collecting for the most this year? Not necessarily the cheapest, but one that is enjoyable to collect for? That’s what this award is about.

And the winner is…

Continue reading The MoeGamer Awards 2018: Best System to Collect For in 2018