#Atari logo

[atariforce]

Atari by Blake Larson

[moonbasetycho]

[kply-industries]

[ourladyofomega]

Various Atari logos.

🖌️ George Opperman

[mamaweegee]

Have you played Atari today?

[the-barrel-man]

I’ve been getting attacked with homophobic comments and I didn’t say anything to provoke them. People assume I’m gay cuz I have a rainbow in my name with the word Activision. (On Twitter) they probably don’t know what Activision is and just see the rainbow and I became a target. Hahaha

[estbghost]

TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT YOUR ROBOT OCS PLEASEEE..... I LOVE ROBOT OBJECTHEADS PLEASSSEEEE

OOOKIEE DOKIE long post ahead everyone.

I have a Lot of robot OCs but I will focus on the ones related to Txt since he's the popular one on my blog.

Starting with Txt himself!

he is based on an old iMac (quite loosely, also ignoring the windows logo is on his sweater...) but oh i adore him so much... he was inspired based on an edit i found on tiktok using the song pop culture by madeon. that song is one of my favorites EVER. He is quite shy and is studying the robot equivalent to anthropology in college. age range is around 19-22yrs . Currently he's in a relationship with my friend's OC Atari! which is a character I also designed :) he's based on a gateway 3000.

Moving on there is also his mother O.S! (stands for operating system) I wish I had better pictures of her but she is still somewhat in a concept phase.

she is a very straight forward professional woman who works hard. her husband ( and txt's dad) who doesn't currently have a design is out of the picture. she works at a tech firm as a communications officer and is often working late in meetings. Txt does not currently live with her but he visits often. She is adamant they are not looking into getting remarried or being in a relationship in general. still quite sour about their ex husband. however this is most likely to change when she meets her coworker...

this is Chelle! she is very sweet but quite anxious. she works for the same firm but works on processing paperwork. Chelle is quite intimidated by O.S at first but warms up to them after a couple months and eventually start having coffee dates together. O.S feels quite awkward learning how to be affectionate again... they are sweet and im going craazyy over these workplace sapphics. I certainly have more but I think thats enough blabbing for one post LOL.. TY ANON FOR ASKING

[txttletale]

Wait I need you to see more insane Canadian city flags. Please look up the flag of laval, quebec

this is so fucked up .this looks like the logo for a mid-range escape room chain this looks like an atari game. this looks like a stereolab album cover

[icarus-mp3]

FUN LITTLE VISUAL DETAILS IN PROMARE - PART 1

...Brought to you by a guy who has rewatched this movie well over 40 times. My insanity for this film is boundless. Here are just some fun little stuff I noticed in Promare. (Most of the stuff I say here are just my own observations so take it all with a grain of salt)

Varys likes basketball! It's easy to miss, but at the start he is shooting a basketball into a hoop

And his locker also has some basketball jerseys inside of it (and what looks like deodorant?)

Speaking of lockers, each member of Burning Rescue has special details on their lockers!

Starting off with the outside, from right to left we have: Varys, Aina, Lucia, Remi, and then Galo (Galo's is not visible in this shot.) All of them have traces of stickers that have been peeled off.

Varys' has a hart hat and some decals, seemingly more basketball-related things. One right to the left of the hard hat has a paw print on it.

Aina's locker has a baseball cap, some rainbow/emoji stickers (one that looks like it just says Inter Net? And maybe a Barbie one?) along with some motivational sticky notes (You are STRONG) and two 'A's. Probably her initials.

Lucia's locker has the most stickers, and to me, it looks like they're mostly of different candy/candy brands. Other than the T and the "ATATA" they just look like candy stuff. She doesn't have any hat hanging there (it would probably be difficult to wear a normal hat with her hair)

(Edit: To quote a-blue-revolution, "Lucia likes videogames!!!! In that close up of the lockers you showed there's an "atata" sticker that looks EXACTLY like the atari logo" There are also some other stuff that show her video game nerdiness. Thank you a-blue-revolution!!)

Remi's locker is just a hard hat and some papers. One's on white paper, and to me it seems printed, like a legal document or something. The other is on yellow paper, and to me looks more handwritten. Who knows what these are.

Here is the outside of Galo's locker. It looks like it has Matoi decals, to the surprise of no one. Some simple characters, the side of a firefighter holding a Matoi, and the tip of a Matoi at the very top. (I'm not completely sure what the dark blue decal in the lower middle is, perhaps a firefighting outfit?)

(Edit: To quote burnt-grapes from the comments: "That dark-blue sticker in the middle of Galo’s locker is actually a Bonshō! They’re large bells used in buddhist in Japan that are typically made of bronze :] (hence the sticker’s colour)" Thank you burnt-grapes!!)

Now for the insides of everybody's lockers:

(I already showed Varys' but here it is again for reference, his hand is blocking a picture of someone playing basketball (you can see it in the next picture))

Aina has some, I think, fashion stickers? There's a figure with a hat in the top left corner, and some sort of ticket or check with what I think is a barcode on the left. To the top right of the mirror, she has a picture of her and her sister (aww). She also has a geometric poster for "Division", and another poster behind that one. My gut is saying a band of some kind?

To match the outside, Lucia's locker is filled to the BRIM with snacks, featuring some great brands such as "Cheetas," "Daritas," "Skettles," "W&W," and what I think is just straight up Milky Ways? And right where her hand is reaching one that says "Trigger." My gut reaction was that it was supposed to be a parody of "Toblerone," but the letters are brown, so it might just be a normal easter egg. She also has some books and red solo cups.

Boring documents on the outside, pinups on the inside. Interesting. Remi also has a picture of him next to a blonde-haired someone, also in a Burning Rescue uniform. (I've heard that that's his girlfriend who got turned into a crocodile, but don't quote me on that) He also has some red solo cups.

(We don't see the inside of Galo's locker, but I'm gonna take a wild guess and say it's probably more Matoi memorabilia)

Speaking of Matoi, when Lucia is working on her computer at the start of the movie, we can see she's looking at Galo's Matoi Tech suit! His Matoi/the folded up version of the suit is on the right, and how he actually fits into the suit is in the middle. (You can see the spikes on the back, identifying it as his special suit)

The computer actually shows all the suits customized for their owner's body types and the suits themselves. Right before Lucia sends out Remi and Varys, the computer shows this:

You can see, Remi's figure is very thin and lanky, and Varys can barely fit in his. Remi's ice canon is contained in his suit attachment, and Vary's is mostly just the arms, with the claw he uses to pry open the door to the scientists.

As Burning Rescue is leaving, a tiny car accompanies them. (if you look closely, you can also count the pixels in that image)

This is Ignis' car, the one he drives throughout the movie. You can see him getting out of it here:

(and a better picture of the car itself)

It seems to have a spoiler on the back. A pretty flashy car overall.

Most people know about this hidden Galo:

But there's actually a second one! As Lucia is fistbumping Varys and Remi, you can see him sulking, partially hidden by the light.

Poor guy. He wants to go so bad.

Aina has a headset with a mouthpiece, which no other characters seem to.

My guess is it's due to the helicopter. It could muffle the sound, and make it so that she can still talk whether she's inside or outside. Or it might be something to do with proximity, since Varys and Remi are both in their suits, and Lucia can have higher quality communication gear in the van that might not be available for Aina's helicopter.

(You can see Lucia and Varys don't have any)

This might just be reading too deeply into it, but right at the beginning, Vary's is launched out of a canon. Perhaps this is foreshadowing halfway through the movie when Lio gets launched?

This also shows the "shape symbolism," which is perhaps the coolest visual detail of all. According to the Wiki, squares are used to represent Promepolis, the city, Kray, Freeze Force, that general sphere. Triangles are used to represent the Burnish. And circles symbolize the freedom/the future. Once you notice that it's EVERYWHERE. The lens flares, the buildings, the clothing of characters, everywhere. And even on the canons here, you can see that Varys gets launched out of a square one, and Lio gets launched out of a triangle.

Goofy little detail is Lucia uses a joystick in the van, oddly enough. While holding it, she twiddles her fingers as if she's typing on a keyboard. Either there are sensory inputs on the ball of the joystick itself, or she's just excited.

(Here, while complaining about Galo being missing, she uses a genuine game controller to move a robot's hand. She likes video games)

Part 2

[spacecaptsteve]

did you ever expected to end up as a game developer? what was your crowning achievement in that field throught the years in your view?

No back when I was starting out games didn't feel like a thing that was made locally (even though there was Melbourne House). I studied animation back in the late 80s hoping to get to make sci-fi anime. Swerved into comics for a bit but pre-internet the distance of Australia from anything really did make it hard to work from here.

It was in the early 90s that we just decided to pigheadedly give it a go and start up our own company. So I guess that's one. 😊

Here's some more that young me would have found nuts.

Had a game published and got to work with my favorite 16-bit devs - Bitmap Bros (they half-owned Renegade who published Flight of the Amazon Queen)

EA pushing TY (Before they were a giant they were the cool kids so for nostalgia that was nice)

Activision Distributing TY 3 - ALso cool kids once.

A career achievement award from the Australian Game Developers conference. Also a few for TY's shorts.

Making Blade Kitten and getting it published by Atari (OK not the "real" Atari but it was nice to have the classic name at the start of my game.

As I like to say "Buying an Atari" when we took over Melbourne House from them.

TY 4 with Microsoft. We really did manage to get our original; IP with some big names.

Still own the rights to TY and BK.

Making Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Star Wars was a big driving force in my creative life. Also they made figures of my designs - so bonus points there.

Getting TY onto the Switch. I love being able to put the Switch logo at the start of TY videos :D

So yeah that's a big crown I guess.

If I had to pick just one, it would be that I even got to do any of this at all.

[frogshunnedshadows]

Retro Arcade Afternoon: The Write-up!

Almost the first thing you see when you enter is the giant, double-size Hercules pinball by Atari, twice as big as a regular pinball game, which I also think uses a pool cue ball instead of a regular pinball ball. It's not up & running, and I don't think it has been for years.

The first thing I did was try my hand at my favorite, Galaga. Managed to brute-force my way to 134,580 at level 21, but that was not my best playing. I think that particular machine has a flaky joystick : /

Moved over to Butterfly, IIRC, which is a Spanish-made game, apparently. Old electro-mechcanical pinball. – The first one I played that day. Love to hear the little dings and bells of the score increasing.

Gave Attack from Mars a whirl, then tried the original Frogger in an original cabinet for the first time ever. Noticed the little Gremlin logo on the marquee (above).

Tried a little Super Mario Brothers on an original cab, and then Contra (for the first time) on a Play Choice cabinet.

Had a quick go at the Back to the Future trilogy machine by Data East. Nice art, appreciate them including all 3 films.

I liked Black Knight 2000. Lotta nice flashing lights on this, and some cool art. High fives for the entire Black Knight 2000 team.

Have to call out the wild and weird playfield on the Gottlieb Haunted House – three separate levels, with their own flippers = 8 flippers on this machine. And two sets of buttons for them, which I originally could not figure out. Great backglass art.

- - - To Be Continued! - - -

[atariforce]

Atari Girl 2 by İhsan Alakuş

[acquired-stardust]

Game Spotlight #2: Mother/Earthbound Beginnings (1989)

Inspired by the Japanese release of Mother 34 years ago this week, Ash gives one of her favorite games a (very long) feature on Acquired Stardust! Much has been made of its difficulty, though modern advancements in emulation including ROM hacks (in particular we recommend the excellent 25th Anniversary Edition) and a wonderful release as part of Nintendo Switch Online’s selection of classic game offerings have reduced this particular pain point (that may or may not exist in the first place!) and provide excellent entry points into one of 1989′s, and all of gaming’s, most enduring icons.

An eerie low synth is quickly met by a gentle sequence of piano keys as the phrases ‘produced by Nintendo’ and ‘presented by Shigesato Itoi’ appear across the screen. It is at once lonely and beautiful sound that matches with the logo containing a shot of Earth from space, and it sets the tone perfectly for what is to follow after being prompted to name several characters. A text scroll begins describing an unsettling story taking place in the early 1900s, 80 years before the events of the game, set in rural America, and it is here at this incredibly early point where it starts to become abundantly clear that this game is decidedly different than many other games of its time and platform. Indeed, a clue in the very first few seconds of the game practically call it out - we have a name prominently associated with this game.

It’s hard to imagine now, but video games were not always this way. Industry wide, credit was a rare thing for developers to receive and they often resorted to pseudonyms, the identities of which they allude to often being lost to time, and often were explicitly disallowed from being credited. In fact, two of the largest video game publishers today (namely Activision and Electronic Arts) were founded in part due to frustrations with companies such as Atari that, in an effort to reduce individual footprints on games and therefore make their talent less likely to be poached by rivals, did exactly that. Nintendo luminary Shigeru Miyamoto isn’t explicitly advertised in 1985′s Super Mario Bros. as being its creator either on the title screen or in a credits sequence at the end of the game, and even contemporary Nintendo Entertainment System role playing games of the time such as 1986′s Dragon Quest only features specific individual credits at the end of the game, and 1987′s Final Fantasy only credits the game to the company that produced it rather than any individuals in the creative process.

Mother, alternatively known as Earthbound Zero or Earthbound Beginnings in the west after its more famous namesake, 1995 Super Nintendo RPG Earthbound leads with something very much breaking in tradition of early eras of gaming in that it is explicitly, unavoidably from someone. An individual with a name. It is this that is especially striking to me before we even get to the surprisingly creepy opening text scrawl that sets up the backstory of Mother.

Born in November 1948, Shigesato Itoi is something of a renaissance man who became a bit of a celebrity in the incredibly unlikely position of copywriting, which is essentially another word for ‘advertising’, and one of the earlier examples of celebrity game developers in Japan that come to mind off the top of my head. Having created a number of famous ad slogans and campaigns including a 1982 anti-war ad featuring two armed soldiers standing opposite each other, beckoning their Prime Minister forward onto the front lines before them, Itoi’s ads often feature bold imagery contrasted with short phrases that manage to provoke vivid emotion in the viewer, and this maximizing of such little material makes two things abundantly clear: Itoi is not only an extremely effective communicator of ideas, but his specific skillset of utilizing images and sparse but provocative text is perfectly suited not only to video games but especially the world of NES role playing games which feature incredibly strict limitations, especially by today’s standards, though even by 1989 Japan had started to see more powerful systems such as Sega’s Mega Drive console having released a year prior. Befitting of its celebrity-via-advertising creator, Mother has one of the absolute coolest commercials I’ve ever seen with the slogan “no crying until the ending”.

Mother is a famously difficult game, for which I think it gets somewhat of an unfair reputation. While it does require copious amounts of grinding to increase one’s level and stats (as was standard for role playing games of the era and even for many years after) and see plenty of steep and extremely sudden curves in battle balance, there are no game overs in Mother. Upon defeat in battle the player will simply be returned to the last physical location at which they saved with all of their experience points acquired up to the point of defeat intact. There is no loss of items either, only a loss of money you currently have on you, which isn’t an especially big deal in part due to money not accruing in the player’s inventory by default (it is instead obtained from ATMs via a credit card at department stores) as well as the abilities protagonist Ninten unlocks through leveling up often being more useful and far less limited in use than purchasable items are. In this way there are shockingly few consequences for dying in Mother, with even many games decades later returning you to the title screen to load the data you last saved, with players who aren’t mindful of saving often being able to potentially lose hours of progress at a time. Just as well, grinding becomes significantly easier with the inclusion of additional party members and guest characters that enter the party occasionally. The only particular pain point of Mother is another common feature of role playing games of this era, where actions taken applying to an enemy who has died before said actions have occurred will miss as opposed to applying to the next enemy in the encounter.

Instead of traditional difficulty, Mother is a perfect example of games of its era in that it’s a perfect Nintendo Power game. Players are given very few directions and objectives, the world is extremely vast and dialogue with townspeople is often inane and not particularly helpful. It is very easy to become lost literally and figuratively, wondering where exactly you are in the game world (despite a rather useful map being built into the game from the start) or even what you’re meant to be doing, only to resort to a walkthrough and find out you were supposed to purchase a canary egg, hatch said canary who is described as having “sad eyes”, and return it to its mother somewhere. Suffice it to say Mother is a very cryptic game that takes the tone of a light parody of genre tropes and features a shockingly wide array of ways in which the player can interact with the world and events that can occur completely irrelevant to the actual story of the game to the point that I feel like you could make up a bizarre lie about something in the game as a playground rumor and someone would conceivably believe you no matter how outlandish it was. This is the sort of game that strongly encourages and rewards spending time with it. Getting lost in it. Having your own experience with it, and forming your own genuine connection with it.

It is exactly this sort of nature that makes the game stand out so much coming from an individual as opposed to a game designed by committee. Sometimes things just happen, such as a talking penguin questioning why he came to a gathering of monkeys in an underground maze, or catching a cold from a townsperson that must be cured at a hospital. Just as well the game contains a frankly shocking level of interesting and even emotionally gripping story content (much of which does come towards the end of the game). Mother is a game unavoidably art from an individual artist and everything in the game is included because it was specifically intended by its creator, and it’s this fact permeating the entire experience that makes it so attractive to people. Aside from the scenario and general happenings of the game, composers Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka provide what has my vote for the strongest soundtrack top to bottom on the entire platform, even being featured in a vocal album containing English lyrics that may be saccharine and cheesy but are also very genuine and vulnerable. Several of the songs have been used throughout the series and are easily recognizable to gamers who haven’t even ever touched the series.

A point of particular interest for me is all the similarities between Mother and Pokemon, with many people picking up on visual similarities between the final boss of Mother, Giegue, and Pokemon’s final optional battle in Mewtwo. Much of the structure of the game is also similar, with a young protagonist leaving his ostensibly single mother on a coming of age journey obviously inspired by 1986 film Stand By Me (itself based on an earlier story by Stephen King), which is also referenced pretty directly on a television set in the Pokemon protagonist’s house. Speaking of traveling, as mentioned before the world of Mother is indeed incredibly vast and much like Pokemon is both a contemporary setting (as opposed to a fantasy setting or a historical setting) and also traveled through almost completely seamlessly, whether it be on foot or by train. It is through this railway, the Paradise Line, that one can start to appreciate just how big the game world actually is. There’s even a sidequest in which Ninten must find an old man’s missing dentures, also featured in the first generation of Pokemon games. It’s an odd series of things that line up very well, and we’re not done there. Composer Hirokazu Tanaka actually ended up heading Creatures, Inc. which has worked in tandem with Gamefreak and The Pokemon Company on various aspects the Pokemon franchise since at least 1998, potentially even earlier. Just as well, Pokemon creator Satoshi Tajiri famously referring to Mother as “not very kind” in its design in an October, 1989 review, nearly 7 years before the Japanese release of the first wave of Pokemon games.

There is so much I could say about this game, and indeed so much I have already said, but the purpose of Acquired Stardust is less to give you the minute to minute plot points (particularly in story-based games, we would rather you experience these for yourself than spoil the experience for you ahead of time) and more so about giving you a recommendation. To that end I can only tell you that Mother has Acquired Stardust’s endorsement as well as my own personal endorsement. Despite its age it manages to feel shockingly modern in many ways, not the least of which due to its deep influence on the indie game scene in which ‘quirky RPG Earthbound-inspired RPG about depression’ has become a scene unto itself, and games like Yume Nikki which have made their own marks on the medium which in turn has spawned a scene unto itself.

Mother is one of the games that made gamers the world over think of game developers as artists first and foremost, a notion that largely is patently accepted in today’s scene. It features an incredible plot punching far above its weight especially in the latter half, likely the best top to bottom soundtrack on the NES, rewarding exploration, and much of the supposed difficulty is mere intimidation or remedied by emulation features such as savestates, ROM hacks, fast forwarding and rewinding. 

There are plenty of misconceptions and talking points ready to assure you that Mother isn’t a very good game and that Earthbound supersedes its predecessor entirely, but that’s a very western-centric viewpoint often born of a particular fusion of recency bias and nostalgia, given that predecessor Mother was never released outside of Japan and sequel Earthbound is the title most people who know the trilogy started with, and that sentiment I promise you simply isn’t true. Both games are different enough and well worth your time, as is 2006′s Mother 3. If you have even a passing interest in video games as an art form, Mother is a vitally important divergence point between ‘games as distraction’ and ‘games as art’, and an incredible milestone for the medium. It is something that changed the way we think about games and the way we interact with them, both directly and through the countless games it’s directly influenced. Just remember: no crying until the ending!

A gem hidden among the stones, Mother is unquestionably stardust.

--Ash

[raidpirate52]

My Biggest Hopes for the Backyard Sports Resurrection

It goes back to its original PC formula.

Playground Productions did a good job in capturing the old nostalgia of the look. Now I hope it plays as simply as it once did. Just a click of the mouse was all it needed for the old games to be still beloved to this day. No need to overcomplicate with multiple buttons on the keyboard or gamepad.

2. Customization.

Whether it's custom players or custom teams. There's strong evidence all 30 original Backyard kids will be returning, so there's one thing the original Backyard Baseball (or any of the soccer games) didn't have and that was create a player. I hope that makes a return, and maybe even be allowed to create a team worth of custom players.

3. The NPCs return.

You know, like Felix Grant, Debby Nagasawa, Betty Houston, Jay Green, Chico Papas, etc. I know they aren't as well known to the casual Backyard Sports fan, but to a lot of us, especially those who played around with mods and online community know them well. Surely if there's a season mode, they'd have to right? Here's to hoping, they're the same old NPCs we learned to love or hate. XD

4. Room for the Atari era cast?

Okay. Okay, I know the 2007-2015 era of Backyard Sports is frowned upon in the fandom, but you know one thing I didn't dislike? Some of the unique cast. Ace Patterson, Samantha Pearce, Arthur Chen, and yes, even Joey Macadoo. Jury can be out on Jimmy Knuckles, but I'm keeping Ace. lol.

5. Return All Original Commentators...and...Playable?

Okay, so Vinnie was seen to the delight of the fandom sitting next to Sunny Day. So, let's hope this is a subtle confirmation that the other commentators will return to such as Earl Grey (Soccer), Chuck Downfield (Football), Barry DeJay (Basketball) and Buddy Cheque (Hockey). Okay, some of the commentators have been playable in the past (Buddy Cheque in Backyard Hockey 2005 for example) so, how about adding them to playable cast again...maybe even Sunny could be playable?

6. Have its own unique spin.

While I don't want the reboot to completely stray away from the franchise, I do want it to find something to add its own uniqueness to it. I don't really know what that is though. Maybe they have their own unique fields. Maybe some unique team names. I don't know, but I don't want it to be completely the same game we already have and what the fanbase is already playing thanks to ScummVM.

7. All Original Teams Return

So obviously the Melonheads are too iconic and will be returning and the Wombats logo was seen on the treehouse on the website, so could this mean all of them are coming back? Hornets? Rockets? Fishes? All-Stars? I hope so! Would also be cool to have own unique teams too. Or maybe past teams we couldn't play like the Mammoths, the Duckies, the Bananas? That'd be cool.

8. Online Play

It's 2024. The Backyard Sports fandom definitely had caught attention from the developers seeing they've seen posts from the competitive community. Let's keep it a strong community by bringing the competition to the upcoming franchise.

9. Championship Celebrations

Some games were better than others, but after going through season play I think a satisfying championship celebration would be great. Like an animation video with your selected teammates, maybe have some unique interactions if you teamed certain characters with each other, just something more than just an ordinary newspaper saying you're the champ. lol.

[jules-has-notes]

Aca Top 10: Video Games — VoicePlay music video

Legend has it that video games helped keep the boys of 4:2:Five out of trouble during their early touring days. And photographic evidence indicates that it continued well into the VoicePlay era. But gaming isn't just about passing time and bonding with friends when you're a traveling musician. It can also be a source of inspiration for a wildly entertaining musical medley.

Details:

title: Aca Top 10 — Video Games

original songs: [0:07] HALO theme (2002); [0:26] Angry Birds theme (2009); [0:44] Pokémon Red & Blue opening theme (1996); [0:56] Minecraft theme (2009); [1:08] Final Fantasy main theme (1987); [1:22] "Dragonborn" from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011); [1:40] "Type A" theme from Tetris (1988); [1:56] "Mortal Kombat (Techno-Syndrome)" from Mortal Kombat (1992); [2:14] Legend of Zelda overworld theme (1987); [2:50] Pong sound effects (1972); [2:57] Super Mario Bros. overworld theme (1985)

written by: HALO theme by Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori; Angry Birds theme by Ari Pulkkinen; Pokémon Red & Blue theme by Junichi Masuda; Minecraft theme by Daniel "C418" Rosenfeld; Final Fantasy main theme by Nobuo Uematsu; "Dragonborn" Skyrim theme by Jeremy Soule; Tetris "Type A" theme based on Russian folk song "Korobeiniki", arranged by Hirokazu Tanaka; "Mortal Kombat (Techno-Syndrome)" by Maurice "Praga Khan" Engelen & Olivier Adams; Legend of Zelda overworld theme by Koji Kondo; Pong sound effects created by Allan Alcorn; Super Mario Bros. overworld theme by Koji Kondo

arranged by: Geoff Castellucci & Layne Stein

release date: 24 February 2015

My favorite bits:

the 8-bit logo during the intro, and Layne making sound effects for Earl's requisite Mountain Dew

all of them bopping around to some degree during the Angry Birds section

Twitch streamer Layne and his adorable laugh

impressively whistling in three-part harmony for Tetris

Earl button mashing like a filthy casual, then covering his eyes during the gory fatality part

Layne using ingressive phonation to replicate the digitized voice effect at the end of Mortal Kombat

techo remix Zelda!

Geoff working so hard to not laugh after doing his part of the Pong bit

Tony just watching and having snacks during the Mario section because the 8-bit music didn't provide a part for him to sing

Trivia:

○ Several of these pieces have appeared in later VoicePlay videos:

They did a full version of the HALO theme with founding 4:2:Five member Scott Porter in 2021 as a tribute to a departed friend.

Adriana Arellano and Cesar De La Rosa joined them for a short, soothing rendition of the Minecraft theme.

They added a sample of the main Skyrim theme to their cover of "The Dragonborn Comes" with Omar Cardona.

The guys included a snippet of "Still Alive" over the patron roll just as a fun bonus for themselves, but it received such an enthusiastic response from fans that they recorded a full version of it during their first PartWork series.

They integrated elements of the original NES Mario theme and sound effects into their arrangement for "Peaches" from the 2023 Super Mario Bros. movie.

○ Apparently, Geoff cracking up during the Pong bit caused several outtakes. (Good thing they were all filmed separately, so he was the only one who had to start over when he broke.)

○ Their wardrobe represents a few different video game franchises.

Tony has a Pikachu hat from Pokémon.

Eli is repping an old-school Atari logo shirt, which was already part of his regular wardrobe.

Geoff wears a Minecraft creeper shirt from Hot Topic.

Earl is sporting a Mega Man shirt.

Layne has a subtle Minecraft hoodie with enderman eyes on the hood from ThinkGeek.

[duckyfruitbat]

Bootleg Consoles

Here's something pretty common for both collectors and folks feeling nostalgic, you may look around in their living room and see an odd console sitting by their TV. It may have multiple slots with games from different consoles in them from different companies. Behold a bootleg aftermarket console has graced your presence.

Unlike most things I've been talking about here, these are legal. They don't use anything trade marked or copyrighted, like logos or the original aesthetics so Nintendo or Sega can't really sue them. Instead these bootlegs are using expired patents that the original companies don't have a desire to use anyway. Granted a lot of these consoles also use software emulation.

The most well known company behind these consoles is Retrobit. The retro Duo and Trio are both fairly common, typically with a red and black color scheme. They mainly focus on the NES, SNES, and Genesis. Hyperkin has the most diversity with their products, they include consoles that can play the three already mentioned as well as Atari and Game boy games. There aren't any for the N64 and beyond, likely the patents haven't expired yet, either that or production issues.

These consoles have plenty of benefits over the originals, otherwise you'd just be better off getting the originals. For one they are region free, back when the originals were the new hotness the main way of region locking the games was physically altering the cartridge slot to take only a specific shape of the shell. The SNES has a more boxy shape compared to the more rounded super famicom, both slots were built to take their respective cartridges snugly. The aftermarket consoles usually don't have that keyhole aspect, there are some exceptions of course, but for the most part you could play whatever on these consoles.

The main reason why people buy these consoles is because the originals are either too expensive or have compatibility issues with modern TV's. There are TV's out there that don't have AV inputs. Often times with the pricing, older consoles can cost between $50 and $100 or more depending on the seller. The three in ones at most cost $70, and usually have an HDMI output. There is always the possibility of the original consoles just not working one day due to their age. Alternatively the originals may just not be available in your area.

Overall these consoles have found their niche and intend to stay there, while being legally in the clear unlike most other things I've covered. Depending on where you are, physically or financially, they are the only way to play old games.

Oh yeah, I don't endorse piracy, yadda yadda cover my legal bases, goodnight everyone!