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Retro extravaganza!

Download all 21 issues of DC Comics’ Atari Force, one of the more ah, interesting Atari licensing deals of the 1980s. The original pack-in issues (telling a previous story) are also available.

Scott Evans, curator of AtariGames.com, recently uploaded the CAX 2009 Atari alumni discussion panel. Available in 5 parts, Arcade Heroes has bundled them all into a single post.

The birth of an industry: Ralph Baer and His All-Purpose Boxes.

For the ZX Brits: 25 Years of Crash.

Pinball Hall of Fame’s new home.

On Tuesday, November 3rd, Tim Arnold’s Pinball Hall of Fame reopened in its permanent location, a 10,000 sq ft former tile store across from the Liberace Museum here in Las Vegas.

I dropped by last night a few minutes before closing, and took a handful of photos of the new space.

Full story, after the jump »

American Laser Games

In 1990, five years after the birth, boom, and death of the arcade laserdisc craze, a small spin-off company called American Laser Games released Mad Dog McCree, a live-action laserdisc light-gun game.

Mad Dog McCree was based on Robert Grebe’s I.C.A.T. (Institute for Combat Arms and Tactics) system, a police trainer built around an IBM PC, a modified handgun, and a series of pre-recorded scenarios that could be selected at will by the training officer.

From Game Chronicles, here’s how ALG’s laserdisc arcade setup worked:

All nine games were filmed on location in New Mexico and Chicago. Once filming was complete, it was then edited and transferred to laser disc. ALG designed a RAM/ROM software board that could attach to the Amiga 500 computer. This board provided the game software that controlled the Sony LDP-1450 laser disc player. The hardware was the same for all nine games with the exception of the RAM/ROM board and the laser disc. The guns used in all of the games were aluminum casting with a photo-optic diode. When the trigger was pressed, the computer whitened the screen for an instant to allow the diode to detect a particular pixel on the screen. This action registered a “splotch” on the screen for the game player to see. It also told the computer to make the laser disc player scan to the correct scene (either the game player getting shot or the bad guy getting shot).

Moderately successful in the arcades, American Laser Games then looked to the home market, focusing development efforts on Trip Hawkins’ unsuccessful 3DO console, and then the PC market, until a 1999 buyout by Her Interactive (itself an earlier spin-off of ALG).

One year later, Digital Leisure, the current holder of the Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace franchises, acquired the development and licensing rights to the entire American Laser Games catalog. They then published light-gun compatible PC versions of most of the ALG titles — unfortunately, cooperative play was omitted, and all of the Digital Leisure home releases were single player experiences only. That is until this year, with the release of the Mad Dog McCree Gunslinger Pack (featuring Mad Dog McCree, Mad Dog McCree 2: The Lost Gold, and The Last Bounty Hunter) for the Wii. B-movie gaming at it’s finest.

And now here, just for you dear reader, are some of the highlights of the American Laser Games library…

Full story, after the jump »

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It’s burger Friday! Today’s pick: Burger Bar. It’s gonna be delicious.

The Dreamcast User Top 100 Poll. Give Rez and Typing of the Dead some love.

Who’s Buying, a Jet Set Games side project, is now in the App Store. Go buy it and get drunk. [Bonus: try and see how many concurrent balls you can get going in a single player Multiball session]

Keeping The Cabinet Alive, an interview with the owner of Austin’s Arcade UFO.

Another bonus chapter from Matt Barton and Bill Loguidice’s Vintage Games is now available: The History of Robotron: 2084 – Running Away While Defending Humanoids.

EVO 2009, Tournament Day 2.

“Despite your manners, I like your style. Let me buy you a drink.”

Full story, after the jump »

EVO 2009, Tournament Day 1.

I’m awfully sorry, Guerra family.

Full story, after the jump »

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Michael Abbott speaks kindly of Afrika, the photo safari simulator by Rhino Games arriving stateside this summer.

How High Can You Get? Killing the Killscreen by Donkeying with Kong.

Not sure how I completely missed this… EA’s The Saboteur looks fantastic! Go watch the E3 trailer.

The Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines. Hmm, a comparison of arcade trends in different regions of the world would make for an interesting article. [via Arcade Heroes]

Evo 2009, July 17-19th

Don’t forget, kids, the Evo 2009 Championships are in less than a month!

Hosted at Rio Las Vegas and taking place July 17-19th, you don’t need to be a tournament participant to spectate, and there’s a ton of gaming to be had in the free-to-all BYOC area. While the Madonnas won’t be ready in time, I may bring along the Divers Dreamcast and Neo-Geo cabinet.

For an idea of what to expect, check out the photos from last year.

Madonnas come home.

Picked these up locally today: two Irem Madonnas, Japanese candy cabs from the late 1980s. They look to be in fairly rough shape, but neither is dented or damaged, so they should be one of the easier restoration projects on deck.

Compared to other candy cabs, there’s relatively little information about these online. Guess not too many of em made it over to the States. Next step is tracking down a couple decent 25in monitors.

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Looking forward to a weekend of beer, tools, sandpaper, and paint. Oh, and a date with my wife.

TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball, the fascinating story behind Pinball 2000, is now available on both iTunes and Netflix. You can buy the dvd, too.

The Making Of: Asteroids. Keep doing these stories, Edge! [via Arcade Heroes]

Scribblenauts: How a Nobody Game Became the Talk of This Year’s E3.

And finally, a Harvard psychiatrist explains Zombie Neurobiology.