As we have often observed, the first great rush of gaming technology was hallmarked by the drive for novelty. While the rest of the industry tended to concentrate upon space battles and threats to the ever-luckless planet earth, and with a limitless blank canvas before them, Konami chose to develop a game involving a frog on a motorway. Whether or not it would have gone on to become an instant classic under its original name of Highway Crossing Frog will never be known, however, a meeting of Sega executives charged with worldwide distribution of the game decided upon the far more zesty Frogger, and this instant classic became a must-have throughout the arcade world. Also, considering that there are more ways to get killed in Frogger than any other arcade game, not only is it not easy being green, it’s a positive bloodbath.
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Ohio based songwriting duo Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia have always resented
the ‘novelty’ tag often attached to their work by the wider musical community.
They must, therefore, feel the odd twinge of
we-have-kind-of-bought-this-upon-ourselves-ness when considering their back
catalogue, which includes Merry Christmas In The NFL, E.T. I Love You,
Pog Nation and Do The Donkey Kong. But it is for their 1982 hit
Pac Man Fever, taken from the album of the same name, for which they are
best remembered. On its initial release, it peaked at number 9 in the US
Billboard charts, which, when you consider that it thereby outperformed The
Beatles’ She Loves You, is not bad going.

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Photos from October’s London MCM Expo are up, you can find them in the gallery section. It’s mostly cosplay but at least we brought a decent camera this time. We had trouble naming the characters or what they come from.. it was mostly from anime and our anime knowledge is patchy at best. You can post a comment to help us name them.

Quick link: http://www.retrogt.com/gallery/London-MCM-expo-Oct-2008.cfm

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For those who aren’t aware Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, already available in the U.S, is being released in the UK today. This time around the Soviets travel back in time to screw with history and results in Japan becoming a third super power. The Empire of the Rising Sun brings transforming tanks, ninjas and giant robots to the battlefield. We expect the Soviet Tesla coils to make a reappearance. The hammy cutscenes are back, this time with a star studded cast including Tim Curry, Jonathan Pryce, George Takei and ex-Playboy model Jenny McCarthy in the role of Tanya, oh yeah. It all sounds rather sweet.

What’s more, to celebrate 13 years of the franchise EA have offered the original Red Alert for free download. Follow this link to the official site: http://www.ea.com/redalert/news-detail.jsp?id=62

Don’t forget to install the XP / Vista patch and run it in compatibility mode. Red Alert still works a treat on newer Windows.. we’ve tested it.. lots.

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As a teenager, Emlyn Hughes would run up and down flights of stairs in tower blocks until he passed out, in an attempt to build up his stamina. He would do this once or twice a week, and on one occasion ran himself into a coma. It was this kind of behavior that would, in later life, lead to him being called ‘Crazy Horse’. It worked though – he became captain and defensive stalwart at Liverpool throughout the ’70s, winning just about everything the domestic and European game had to offer. He also captained foppishly underachieving England sides under Don Revie and Ron Greenwood. Seemingly unable to stop captaining things even in retirement, Hughes skippered a team on the BBC’s it-will-never-end quiz show A Question of Sport for three years. Not bad for a player who, despite having infectious enthusiasm and iron self discipline, was not actually all that good.

In 1983, Audiovision released Emlyn Hughes’ International Soccer, complete with the Hughes himself beaming away on the front cover, presumably urging the purchaser to play until he collapsed from malnutrition.

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A couple of weeks ago we spoke about – yes, that’s right – isometric projection and the way it vaguely brought a kind of 3Dish feel to the yawn-smothering delights of Zaxxon (see ‘The angles and the Zaxxons‘, June 21st.) An altogether more exciting gobbet hurled from the bubbling white hot cauldron of mid-80s gaming evolution was sprite scaling. This was a technique that allowed hitherto sluggish sprites to be chucked about all over the place nice and quickly, giving a far greater feeling of 3D movement and, above all, speed. Not only this, but the word on Arcade Street was of something called force feedback. This was an innovation which allowed player interface objects – such as, for example, steering wheels – to judder violently in time with game events – such as, for example, accidentally driving off a road at high speed. With breakthroughs like this going on, it wouldn’t be long before someone gave the world a top notch driving game. Sega were all over it.
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Coming to console this Autumn is Capcom’s action platformer Megaman 9, also known as Rockman 9: The Ambition’s Revival!!. This new sequel to the popular Megaman franchise will be available for download on WiiWare, Playstation Network and Xbox Live Arcade.

Of particular interest to retro heads is that the entire game will be developed to resemble a NES game. Megaman debuted on the NES in 1987 and although it appeared on many platforms including the SNES and Megadrive, it was during the NES era that the franchise hit its height of popularity. Megaman 9’s producer Hironobu Takeshita explains the decision to go retro:

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