Category: games

Analogue Mega Sg arrives a week early

Console Gaming
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Analogue was announcing that their new Mega Sg, a FPGA-based Sega Genesis clone, would be shipping in April. But I was pleasantly surprised to receive mine, preordered a few months ago when they were announced, early last week, only a day or two after early bird reviews started hitting my favorite YouTube channels.

It’s pointless for me to do a review after GameSack and My Life In Gaming so thoroughly covered every conceivable aspect of the system, but I’m pleased and impressed that Analogue delivered this not just on-time, but a week early. And really, when they told me April, I was expecting it would be more like mid or late April, which makes this about a month early. In an age of crowdfunded preorder projects that are always later than projected, this impresses me. Kudos to Analogue.

Atari VCS hardware refresh announcement… lol

Atari, Console Gaming
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So, Atari… remember them?

Yeah, they’re still at it. After about a year of relative silence from the VCS project, the other day they made a Big Announcement, which is that they are delaying the project to late 2019.

Surprise! No, not really. Everyone pretty much called this before they finished their initial round of crowdfunding.

But, so as to be able to spin this delay as a positive thing, they are changing the hardware specs to a more powerful system. Still not world beating hardware by any means, not that it ever needed to be. And more is always better, I guess. But I don’t think the actual hardware is all that relevant to this product. Really, it’s just taking a commodity small form factor AMD64 architecture system, and putting it in a nice looking case that evokes the classic, original Atari VCS. Basically, Atari can place an order with AMD to produce the boards and chips, and install them in custom designed cases that they can pay an injection mold company to manufacture, and pay someone else to assemble them.

Atari’s real job is to focus on the software, the operating system, user environment, and the games. Especially the games. And their announcement was, again, suspiciously silent on these topics.

We know the OS will be a linux distribution, with some kind of customized desktop environment designed to provide a good user experience as a game console.

We know that they will include some emulator(s) to enable playing of classic Atari-era games. We know that there are already dozens of platforms that already do this, so while it’s nice, and to be expected, it doesn’t seem to me that this is a compelling reason for anyone to buy an Atari VCS. Atari Classics have been repackaged and resold on every platform for decades, since the NES and Game Boy. While keeping these games around and still available is great, if you already have them on an older system, Atari have to do something extra-special to make them compelling to consumers to make them want to buy them again, like online leaderboards, social media integration, video streaming integration, something. And we’ve heard nothing about it for about two years since they made their crowdfunding goal.

We know that Atari wants to provide modern reinterpretations of classic Atari games. Apart from Tempest 4K, we haven’t heard anything. And Tempest 4K is already out, and has been for about a year now, on the PlayStation 4 and other platforms. Non-exclusive updated classics will not move units. Why would anyone spend $300 on yet another console when they can just buy the game for a console they already own?

We also know they’re supposed to be shipping modern reinterpretations of the classic Atari CX40 joystick, a modern-looking gamepad with Atari aesthetics, and (one would hope, but I have yet to see anything about this) some kind of paddle controller, but there’s been no mention of these either.

So, another year has gone by, and Atari just announces that they’re revising the hardware specs, before they even got the original hardware specs out the door. And we still have no idea what’s going to run on this system, beyond vague “It will run Linux” and barely anything, really next to nothing, about the actual games. Which is the whole reason anyone buys a game console, to play the games.

This is sad, and exactly what I expected from the beginning.

I would have really enjoyed a resurgent Atari with new games based on classic IPs, too.

Google Stadia: impressions

Console Gaming
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Google recently announced a new game platform, called Stadia, at the 2019 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, CA.

It can run though any device that is capable of running Chrome, which means that they already have a huge install base ready to consume. This should make the service very lucrative, potentially, as there’s almost barrier to trying the service out. It streams over high speed internet, meaning that there’s no need for any hardware beyond what is necessary to run a web browser, nothing new to buy, well, except for the gamepad. Which, see below.

Streaming

I’m immediately disinterested in any game platform that I can’t own in the traditional, tangible sense of own. Streaming games do not appeal to me. I like physical media, I like the ability to go back and play old games that I own, whenever I wish. Streamed content is always in the control of the vendor, and is subject to updating, being discontinued, and so on. There’s no guarantee that streaming resources will continue to stream forever, and it’s virtually certain that at some point the stream will either “run dry” or stream something different than original.

The downside (I guess) of traditional owned-media is that over time you accumulate a vast library which becomes difficult to store and manage, and may deteriorate over time. If you don’t like it, you can always sell it, trade it in, give it away, or throw it in the trash, so I don’t really see why that would be a downside, but if you’re a collector like I am, you like the fact that you can keep old tech and go back and use it 10, 20, 30, even 40 or more years after it’s no longer being supported, as long as the devices that drive it continue to function or be repairable.

But that’s just me. There seems to be a lot of evidence to suggest that a convenient, well-managed service would be popular and profitable with consumers who don’t all care about history and preservation as much as I do. Look at Netflix. They are doing very well, and while people are occasionally bummed out when Netflix drops a movie from its offerings, that doesn’t seem to stop them from having a profitable business selling subscriptions to a service. If Google nails the execution, there’s no reason to believe they won’t likewise be as successful, if not more.

The controller

A very standard, generic looking dual analog stick gamepad. Initial impressions are that it doesn’t look especially comfortable in the hand compared to the competition. Google didn’t need to innovate here, gamepad design is pretty mature today, even if companies like Nintendo continue to dare to try new ideas (Switch, Wii U, Wii). Still, I’m not sure why Google would emphasize their controller given that it is so very unremarkable in its design. Given that the controller appears to offer nothing new, one wonders why Stadia wouldn’t simply leverage any/all existing “standard” dual-stick gamepads.

To answer that question, there are two additional buttons: a youtube integration button, and a help button. The help button enables gamers to request help with overcoming some part of the game, somehow, without having to leave the game. Which, I guess is appealing, but man, I’m gonna miss the brutal, unforgiving difficulty, and the completely arcane hidden secrets that you can only figure out if someone tells you what to do, so you had to go buy a book or magazine that made you want to kill yourself from the NES and Atari era. I guess the help button takes the place of the magazine, but it’s just not going to be the same. The youtube button makes it so easy to set up a gamer streaming channel that everyone in the world can do it, which means billions of youtube channels that no one will be able to wade through to find the good ones. Probably. This will likely also kill the professional youtuber/patreon beggar gig that so many of the popular streamers have been doing for the past few years. I guess that’s maybe a bit harsh, naive, and premature, but the bottom line it will become very competitive and difficult to differentiate yourself from other random streamers, so the ones that will stand out will have to be unbelievably good and work very hard to attract and keep an audience.

Do we need another gaming platform?

I’m intrigued by anything Google does, and they have the resources and innovative thinking to do things that few other companies can. That said, I’m not really seeing a need for yet another new game platform. Whether Google can differentiate itself from Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Steam, etc. remains to be seen. While it’s hard to bet against a company with the resources that Google has, they’ve had notable failed ventures in the past: Wave, Plus, etc. and have been known to discontinue even popular projects (Reader) leaving fans with little recourse. Will it work? Probably. Even if it doesn’t, it’ll probably be a few years before Google pulls the plug on it or pivots to something else. But it seems like they’re serious about competing in this already-crowded sphere.

It will be interesting to watch.

The Writing on the Wall

What really strikes me about this is, if Google can stream applications as powerful and resource hungry and demanding as videogames, instantly, anywhere, they can do that for any software. What does this say about IT departments in every other company on the planet? We’re pretty much obsolete at that point, aren’t we? It might be a good time to think about early retirement, and finding a second career. Maybe a livestreaming channel.

Game review: Tetris 99

Nintendo
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I bought a Nintendo Switch about a month ago.

Since buying it, I’ve only played one game, so far: Tetris 99.

I’m a long-time fan of Tetris. I played it on my NES ever since 1989. I’m decent, but not great at it. My skill tops out around level 13 or so in the NES original. I can cruise comfortably up to about level 9 or so. My best efforts these days are about 1/4 what it would take to qualify for the Tetris World Championships, as I found out when I was at Portland Retro Gaming Expo last October.

Chances are excellent that you need no introduction to Tetris. It’s only the most famous and successful videogame ever. Blocks fall, you rotate and drop them to complete lines and clear them from the well. Everyone is born knowing this now.

Tetris 99 takes the classic mechanics and puts you up against 99 other players in a battle royale. It’s amazing how quickly a new tournament can get ready. It seems that at any given time, there is always at least 100 Tetris 99 players ready to go within a minute’s notice.

That’s incredible. I don’t know how it’s possible, but you never seem to have to wait more than a minute or two for the next game to start. Nintendo has sold 8.7 million Switch consoles since launch. The subset of Switch owners who are playing Tetris 99 at any given moment must be considerable. If we assume every Switch owner is playing Tetris 99 24/7, that works out to 6250 tetris players per minute of the day. Obviously, Switch owners are playing lots of different games, and not playing 24/7, but even so, the fraction who are playing Tetris 99 might well be around 1/62 of the total install base. So, just maybe, it really is plausible that in the real world that you can get 99 players for a pickup game at a minute’s notice. But I’m still amazed that it’s consistently the case every time I want to play another round. Perhaps they’re filling slots with bots? I wonder.

The tetris gameplay is fine. I wouldn’t say there’s any major problems with it. If I want to nitpick, though, I could think of a few things:

First, it’s a bit too easy at times to accidentally hit Up on the control cross, and instantly hard drop your block right where you didn’t want to. Maybe I’m just clumsy, maybe my hands are too big to work with the joycon. But I’ve also played a lot with the Pro Wireless controller, and I still have issues. And from what I’ve read, it’s not uncommon.

Second there’s no tutorial or guide built into the game, and this seems like a real oversight. In the NES era, Nintendo’s first-party games always had outstanding manuals, with higher page count than any other publisher, and high quality content inside. While Tetris may need no introduction or explanation, the competitive aspects that they’ve introduced could use some explanation. Sadly, this is lacking.

Fortunately, you can still get a good experience from Tetris 99 by just playing Tetris, overlook the new features and still have a fun time. That said, it’d be good to appreciate the new features and understand them!

So, to fix the missing manual, here’s what I understand:

  • On either side of the Tetris playfield, you see mini thumbnails of the 99 competitors.
  • You can (in theory, less in practice) tell how well you’re doing relative to the competition by seeing the stack size, see who’s in trouble, and see their Badges. Typically, I’m too busy worrying about the next falling block to look around and check on 98 other opponents.
  • When you complete lines, it sends garbage rows to whomever you’re targeting: 0 if for a 1-line completion, 1 for a 2-line completion, 2 for a 3-line completion, and 4 for a 4-line completion.
    • The garbage rows don’t pop up under your opponent’s stack immediately — rather there’s a timer that counts down, to give a player fair warning.
    • If you have incoming garbage, and you manage to complete rows while the timer is counting down, it will deduct the incoming garbage so you don’t have to deal with it, rather than sending garbage to your targets.
  • Targeting isn’t explained in the non-existent manual, and this is the thing that players should really understand in order to fare well in the battle. Using the right analog stick, you can select between:
    • Random (the default option), randomly attacking one of the 99 opponents out of whoever’s still left,
    • Attackers, counter-attacking those players who are targeting you,
    • Badges, targeting players who have a lot of badges, or
    • Killshots, targeting players who are close to elimination.
  • Eliminating a player awards you with Badges, and the more badges you acquire, the more “damage” you deal out when you complete lines.
  • If you eliminate a player who has badges, you claim their badges and add them to your own. So it’s smart to target players who are close to eliminated, and players who have a lot of badges, to maximize your badges. It can also be effective to counter-attack your attackers, and perhaps dissuade them from targeting you, or if not hopefully eliminate them before they eliminate you.
  • You can also target an individual game using the left analog stick. Who you’re targeting is denoted by the lines connecting the bottom of your playfield to one of the opponents’ playfields in the background. Or maybe that’s who’s targeting you, I’m not quite sure. Sometimes I see multiple lines targeting me, and it’s unclear what’s going on.
  • Hard Drop: This feature isn’t in OG Tetris, but if you’ve played a modern implementation, you’re probably already used to it. Press up to instantly drop the piece in play to the botton and lock it into position. This enables much faster play, which is essential to competitive battle. It can take some time to get used to it, if you’ve never used it before. But if you’ve played a modern Tetris in the last, I don’t know, 15 or so years, maybe, chances are you know about this already. There’s also a convenient “ghost” block that shows where the piece will lock into position if you hard drop it. This is really helpful and will enable you to be more precise and cut down on mistakes.
  • Hold block: Another handy feature that wasn’t there in OG Tetris. This is a holding cell that can be filled with a piece, taking it out of play until you need it. Press the left shoulder button to add the current active piece to the Hold. Press again to swap the held piece for the current piece. Grab those I-blocks when you can, and hold them for when you’re ready to deal out the damage with a 4-line Tetris move. Or put a piece that’s currently a problem on hold, and play it later when you’ve got a clean landing spot for it.

One thing about the Targeting feature, I find that after a certain point I’m pretty much only able to focus on positioning my next block, and can’t devote any mental capacity or time to retargeting. It’d be neat if targeting were also possible through Controller 2, so that a second player could assist me by targeting opponents intelligently while I focus on falling blocks. Wouldn’t that be a cool 2p-coop mode?

My only other nitpick with Tetris 99 is that there’s only one background music for the game. Technically there’s one track for when you’re in game, and one track for between games. But I would have really liked to have seen a variety of tracks, remixing and revamping the old classic Tetris BGM, and giving me some variety. Having the same song for every game gets repetitive and feels skimpy.

I’ve managed to place as high as 4th in round, but more typically I tend to finish in the top 50-20 range. It just depends on how good of a game I’m having, and how many players are targeting me.

After taking this picture with my smartphone, I discovered that the Switch has a built-in screen capture button with social media integration. Slick!

I doubt I’ll ever be able to win a round, though, as the game becomes impossibly fast for me when the second speedup happens, with 10 players remaining. When this happens, I’m hopeless and bound to make mistakes quickly, busting out in short order. Still, it could happen if I get into the Top 10 with an extremely clean stack and my opponents are all close to KO.

While I wouldn’t say that Tetris 99 is worth the cost of the entire console, I will say that it’s definitely worth the price of the subscription to Nintendo’s Switch Online services. Considering that Tetris 99 is a free game, but cannot be played without the subscription, it’s just what Nintendo needed to get people to sign up. At $20/year, it’s not expensive, and well worth it for Tetris 99 alone.

New “Link’s Awakening” triggers debate on remakes

Nintendo, Uncategorized
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It seems a lot of forum activity has been generated by yesterday’s announcement by Nintendo about the remake of Link’s Awakening on the Nintendo Switch.

In short, it seems that a significant number of fans are not in favor of the remake for one reason or another. Mostly this can be summed up as: “It’s not the exact same game as the original.”

Which, is true. The remake completely changes the graphics style, from the old 2-D look of the Game Boy original to something almost claymation-like, using a fixed 3/4 perspective, but with 3D models done in a cartoonish style. It remains to be seen what other changes are in store, and whether they are good or bad. It’s rather likely that the game will play differently in some respects, whether due to differences in the game engine, or changes in the design of the game.

I happen to love the way the new graphics look, so this doesn’t bother me. I liked the original graphics, too. And if I want to play the original game, I still can, and so can anyone with a the original hardware or a decent emulator.
But it seems that, among Zelda fans, there’s a certain segment who prefer the graphics to look “serious” — like Ocarina of Time, Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild, etc., and not “cartoony” like Wind Waker or Four Swords Adventures. Somehow, original LoZ pleases both camps, and Link’s Awakening is in the vein of LoZ and Zelda 3: A Link to the Past. And I guess the new look for Link’s Awakening is too cartoony for them. This does not bother me. I like good art direction, and that can be “serious” or “cartoony” or something else.

It’s certainly true that many attempts at re-making some original classic game fail to capture what was special about the original game. It’s tempting to try to re-imagine something that was very, very good, thinking that adding something more will make it even better. Often that’s not the case.

Certainly, there’s a built-in expectation that a remake has to live up to, which a fresh new game doesn’t, and this can offset whatever advantage the remake had in being based off of a familiar, known, successful game. It can be very easy to mess up by deviating from the original in the wrong way. For example, updating the graphics in a style that fans don’t like, or likewise with the music. But worse would be a major change in the story, something that violates canon or continuity, or is just a change that upsets fans by breaking an unwritten contract to keep the game authentic to the characters and world that Fandom has already accepted. And perhaps the gravest mistake would be failing to ensure that the controls feel tight and responsive and give the game a good feel, ideally something virtually identical to the original. There’s nothing like tasting someone else’s attempt at your favorite recipe that your mom made when you were a kid, and no matter what they do it’s always just slightly off in a way that, even if it’s not bad, it prevents you from accepting it. I think that’s ultimately what makes fans of the original all but impossible to please when it comes to embracing a remake.

But that’s not to say that remaking a game is always a bad thing. I don’t view a remake as an attempt to replace or supplant the original. Rather, I look at it like in the way I look at theater: A playwright can write a play, and it can be performed by an original troupe of actors. And other theater companies can put on productions of the same play. Some may try to do it exactly the way the original was done, following a tradition, while others may stray and experiment. Some will be good, some will not. But it’s not like people shouldn’t continue to put on performances of Shakespeare just because purists who were fans of the original will find something not to like about it. And of course people should continue to write new, original scripts. The entertainment industry is large enough, and the audience is large enough, to sustain both.

Ultimately, it will come down to how the game plays. It’s only fair to judge the remake based on what it is, and not what it’s not. And to be clear, it will not be:

  • The same as the original.
  • A brand new, original game.
  • Different from the original in exactly the way everyone would like it to be.

Will it be worthy? That remains to be seen, and will be a matter of opinion and consensus. But I’m excited about it.

I’m buying a Switch, and other reasons I’ll be a happy gamer in 2019

Nintendo, Uncategorized
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So a bunch of great announcements from Nintendo came earlier today. For me, the highlights are:

Link’s Awakening Remake

Yeah, Breath of the Wild blew everyone away at launch and sold a few million systems, and I’ll admit I was very tempted to rush out and buy a Switch when it was released.

But I’m not an early adopter and I wanted to wait and see if the system would be a success, particularly after seeing how Nintendo struggled with making the Wii U realize its potential. So I held off.

I like 2-D Zelda more than 3-D Zelda, because 2D > 3D, as far as I’m concerned. And this Link’s Awakening remake looks fantastic.

I’m actually maybe more excited about this than I am about finally getting to play BotW soon.

Super Mario Maker 2

I told myself at the time, I would buy a Switch if they had Super Mario Maker for it. For a while I debated getting a Wii U so I could play both Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Maker, but I decided I wanted the real, full BotW experience with the improved controls made possible by the Switch’s joycon technology.

I’m glad I waited, now. I didn’t have to wait, I could have predicted even then that we’d see a SMM at some point on the system; it was just too popular not to be a thing. But now that it’s announced and official, I can’t wait. Really looking forward to designing some Mario levels in June.

Tetris 99

Battle Royale Tetris, awww yeah!!!!

Non-Nintendo news

Well, actually I’m not quite done with Nintendo news, but these next two are NES homebrew releases.

Full Quiet

First, Full Quiet has got me all hot and bothered to put some more hours on my AVS console. I backed the Kickstarter, and got to play it and talk to creator Tim Hartman at Portland Retro Gaming Expo back in October of last year. I’m pleased to say that this game is already looking incredible, and it should be out later this year. Even if it’s not, and release slips another year, it will be worth the wait. This is not one to miss.

Without exaggerating, I will say that this may end up going down as one of the greatest releases on the NES. And considering the greatness of the NES library, that’s a truly staggering accomplishment.

From talking to Tim, I’m aware that his game will also be released on Steam, playable on PC though emulation of the NES hardware, which means that even if you don’t own a working NES for some reason, you can play this game. And you should.

MicroMages

MicroMages should also be shipping sometime in 2019. This game bears a resemblance to Towerfall, the 4-player archery arena battle indie sensation from a few years ago, but runs on NES hardware, and is pretty fantastic in its own right.

FPGA retro consoles

If that’s not enough, I’m also looking forward to the delivery of the Analogue Mega SG, a FPGA-based, HDMI-output implementation of the Sega Genesis, and the Collectorvision Phoenix, a FGPA-based, upgraded ColecoVision plus.

I can’t imagine that I’ll have enough free time to play all of these nearly as much as I’d like to, but I still can’t wait, and I can’t believe all the good stuff that’s happening in the world of gaming, so much of it the product of cottage industry efforts devoted to keeping older systems relevant. 2019 is going to be a fantastic year.

Atari 2600 games with noteworthy audio

Atari
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The Atari VCS was not known for its audio capabilities, yet it had a distinctive sound all its own, thanks to the chip known as the TIA, or Television Interface Adaptor. The sounds it was capable of making were pretty primitive, and mostly harsh. Buzzes, rumbles, and static dominate its sound palette, adequate for crudely simulating the sound of explosions, gunshots, running machinery, and things like wind and crashing waves. It was capable of making some bleeps and pew-pew laser sounds, too.

The majority of the games released for the Atari 2600 did not have proper background music. BGM didn’t come into its own until Nintendo released the NES in the US, about 8 years later. Most games were so limited in their ROM size that they simply could not include proper background music, although many games included at least a short looping audio background, or introductory music. Later cartridges sometimes overcame these limitations by including additional sound chips, such as the POKEY sound chip.

Pitfall II: Lost Caverns

Perhaps the best audio of any Atari 2600 game, and certainly the best at the time of its release. Pitfall II contained a full soundtrack, with dynamic changes to the background music, which changed in response to in-game events such as finding a treasure or touching an enemy. This was a true innovation and seemed years ahead of its time.

Mountain King

Music is a key mechanic in this early platform adventure game. During the search for the Flame Spirit — a mostly-invisible, flickering entity that you must find in order to appease the Skull Spirit who guards the Crown that is the object of your quest — a musical score plays, and its volume is a key to finding the Flame Spirit. The song gets louder as you get closer to it.

Later, when you obtain the crown, a chiptune arrangement of Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King plays, which creates tension and excitement as you now have to race to the top of the mountain with the Crown.

Moon Patrol

Moon Patrol featured a full background music track, one of the earliest games to do so.

Blueprint

Has a background music track.

Journey: Escape

Contained a musical interlude between levels that was based on the bass line from the band’s hit single, Don’t Stop Believing.

Crystal Castles

Features musical interludes between levels and during certain game events. The musical pieces are digital arrangements of classical music pieces.

Dig Dug

Another game which had one of the earliest background music tracks. The music responds to the events in-game, in a few ways: if you stop moving, the music will sortof pause and play a somewhat annoying tone that is intended to get you to move again; if you die, the music interrupts and plays a death music; when the level is down to the last enemy, the music speeds up. The Atari 2600 port does a reasonably good job of re-creating the music on the Atari’s much more limited audio hardware.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Adapted the theme music by John Williams from the movie.

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

The title screen features a tune adapted from the movie theme.

Popeye

The song Popeye the Sailor Man is played when you grab the spinach power-up, and signifies the length of time that the power-up is in effect, giving you the strength to beat Bluto.

Gyruss

JS Bach’s Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor made this arcade tunnel shooter especially memorable. The Atari 2600 port adapts this music for the more-limited console hardware, but does a surprisingly good job with it, considering these limitations.

Ms. Pac-Man

A musical introduction kicks off the game.

California Games

An adaptation of the Kingsmen’s Louie, Louie is featured on the title screen and throughout the game.

Frogger

Frogger uses 3 or 4 different tunes for its background music, and they are catchy.

Pressure Cooker

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

If you avoid getting hit for a length of time, the Star Wars theme music plays, signifying that the Force is with you, and that you are temporarily invulnerable.

Stargate

Stargate uses audio for cues to alert the player of off-screen actions. When a Lander (enemy) captures a human, a “yelping” sound is heard to alert the player that they are in need of rescue. The player can use the radar scope at the top of the screen to spot the Lander who has a human, and fly to their location to attempt the rescue. If the player is nearby the Stargate and flies into it, they will be teleported to the location of a human in danger, if there is one.

Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator

ST:SOS plays a few notes that will be familiar to viewers of the TV series.

Yar’s Revenge

Yar’s Revenge doesn’t feature a background music track, but does have a throbbing, pulsating hum, and a great explosion sound effect, both of which contribute significantly to the mood.

Homebrews

Thrust+

Features a full chip tune for the title screen.

Star Castle Arcade

Features a full chip tune for the title screen.

Further reading

2600 music guide

Collectorvision Phoenix demoed at Portland Retro Gaming Expo

Console Gaming, Uncategorized
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I attended the Portland Retro Gaming Expo this past weekend, and enjoyed myself very much.

One of the many highlights of the show was getting to try out the new Phoenix console from Collectorvision.

Having seen it in person and tried it firsthand, I can say that it is the real deal, and is absolutely worth the money they’re asking for it on kickstarter.

The campaign is a bit behind the pace with their funding goal, and they need and deserve support. Just 1000 pre-orders are all that’s needed to successfully fund the project and make the system a reality.

You can back the project here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1408938247/collectorvision-phoenix-an-fpga-colecovision-conso/description

For just $200, you get an enhanced, 100% compatible, 100% accurate ColecoVision with HDMI output, built in Super Game Module and FA-18 mods, cartridge slot and SD card slot, original and SNES controller ports, and a ps2 keyboard port. Collectorvision announced Atari 2600 compatibility, and plans for supporting other vintage game systems such as the Adam and MSX.

ColecoVision is an underrated and underappreciated console, both in its heyday and today. With graphics capabilities between the Atari 2600 and the NES, it has a small but very loyal following, and a decent library of original games and an active homebrew community releasing new games. It’s a great time to get into the system if you are vintage gamer.

CollectorVision Phoenix: A modern, premium FPGA-based ColecoVision compatible retro console

Console Gaming
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Help CollectorVision reach their crowdfunding goal and make the Phoenix a reality!

Earlier this week, CollectorVision announced the crowdfunding campaign launch for their Phoenix console on Kickstarter. CollectorVision has in the past developed modern homebrew games for the 1982 ColecoVision videogame console, and in addition to that have partnered with OpCode games, developers of the ColecoVision Super Game Module expansion, which augments the system with more RAM and improved graphics capability.

I’m very excited about this system. ColecoVision was a great system, which died too young due to the videogame industry crash of 1983. It offered graphics nearly on par with the NES, a full year before the Famicom was released in Japan, and delivered home ports of early 80s arcade games that offered greater fidelity to the originals than was possible on the Atari 2600.

The Phoenix’s feature list is amazing: FPGA hardware implementation for 100% compatibility and fidelity with the original system, HDMI-out video, SD card slot, built-in Super Game Module and F18A enhancement hardware, 10 built-in ROMs of modern ColecoVision homebrew games, DB9 controller ports for original ColecoVision controllers, as well as SNES controller ports for compatibility with more common/comfortable SNES gamepads, and even a PS/2 keyboard connector. There’s even been talk of including an FPGA core for support of Atari 2600 games, much like the original ColecoVision’s Expansion Module 1 adapter for Atari 2600 games.

This is a dream system, and considering that, its price tag of $200 is very reasonable. Compared to the RetroUSB AVS system and the Analog Super NT, the Phoenix will fill a nice in retrogame preservation and it deserves to make its crowdfunding goal of $230,000.

To hit this goal, CollectorVision will need about 1000 backers to sign up. The kickstarter campaign is off to a somewhat slow start, however — three days into the campaign, they’ve only managed to secure $28,000 in pledges. Usually, a system like this would be fully funded in the first day, or even the first hour of the crowdfunding campaign going live. If the campaign received steady contributions every day at the level they have for the first 3 days, they would make goal, but it’s most typical for kickstarters to get most of their funding on the first few days, and the last few days. So I’m worried that they will not hit their goal. 

Perhaps retro gamers are wary of crowdfunding for yet another modern retro game console. People enthusiastically backed Ouya to the tune of $8 million dollars several years ago, and the recent AtariBox/Atari VCS crowdfunding was also successful in reaching goal, but only made $3 million dollars amid serious doubts about the current company calling itself Atari’s capabilities to deliver on what it has promised, and alleged mis-representation of their prototype hardware.

I don’t have any insider knowledge of CollectorVision, but everything I have seen from them about the Phoenix looks good, and I have faith that they care capable of delivering on their promises, if they can make their fundraising goal. Their hardware really exists, and all they need is capital for manufacturing. If you have fond memories of the ColecoVision and the early-80’s era of videogames, definitely check out the project, and consider becoming a backer.

New Phoenix console by CollectorVision announced

Console Gaming
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This week a CollectorVision released a pre-release announcement for a new videogame console, called Phoenix.

CollectorVision Phoenix
CollectorVision Phoenix conceptual drawing courtesy of CollectorVision.com

Phoenix is a Field Programmable Gate Array-based clone of the 1982 ColecoVision videogame console, featuring old-school input ports for compatibility with authentic Coleco controllers, and HDMI-output for modern HDTV sets. It promises to be 100% compatible with the entire ColecoVision library, including newer homebrew games that have been released in recent years — even those that depend on the Super Game Module expansion by OpCode Games. The Phoenix will have the SGM circuitry built in to its FPGA. The console will have a cartridge slot for plugging real ColecoVision games into, as well as a SD card slot for loading ROMs. Curiously, it will also have input ports for SNES/SFC controller, and for PS/2 keyboards.

This is an exciting development for ColecoVision fans. The system is very similar in concept to the AVS, a FPGA-based NES clone that RetroUSB released in 2016, and the Super Nt, FPGA-based SNES clone by Analogue.

The announced price point is expected to be “around $200”, so right in the same ballpark as these upgraded clone systems. As an owner of the Super Nt and AVS, I’m very happy with both systems, and so am very excited about this news.  

The ColecoVision is underappreciated in the history of videogames, as it came out just before the Crash of ’83, and was knocked out of the market after only a few short years by the NES, but Coleco still has a following even today. The system had a solid library of games which featured better graphics and sound than the Atari 2600, its main competitor, and Mattel’s Intellivision, its closest technical rival. The games were not quite as sophisticated as the action/adventure style of games that the NES introduced, but there are many standout ports of classic early 80’s arcade titles for the system — including Donkey Kong, Zaxxon, BurgerTime, Gorf, Frenzy, Pepper II, and others.