Attract Mode by Scott Jacobi

When writing this editorial, I like to bring items to the reader's attention that I think are especially pertinent to the subject of retrogaming, but I am extremely careful not to appear too much like a sales man.  Having said that, I wanted to take a moment to extol the virtues of the GP2X.  Before I start, I want to point out that raising the subject of the GP2X tends to spark very heated debates which compare the GP2X to the Sony PSP, and even the Nintendo DS.  I'm not going to even touch upon those comparisons here, as that is not my intention. There are plenty of message boards where that subject has been, and
continues to be, tackled.

My enjoyment of the GP2X stems from my enjoyment of emulation.  So if you are the type of retrogamer who only enjoys gaming on original hardware, the GP2X will not be for you.  But consider the GP2X's specs: a 200MHz ARM CPU (which can be overclocked to around 266, and even 280), a 200MHz ARM coprocessor, an 8 directional joypad, 11 button inputs, a beautiful crisp LCD screen, AA battery power supply, Linux based OS, SD Card interface, USB port, and one of my favorite features: TV output. All that in a system roughly the size of a Game Boy Advance, and what you get is an open-source handheld programmer's dream.

To date, all of the most popular home systems have seen decent-to-fantastic emulators released for the system, as well as an outstanding version of MAME.  A search for GP2X on youtube results in videos showing the system's ability to emulate Neo Geo games at full speed, or even the ability to play Playstation 1 games at a pretty good clip.  But naturally, the thing that draws me to it is it's near perfect emulation of Atari 2600, NES, and Genesis games.  With the ability to play it anywhere on the go, or to hook it up to a friend's television set, you've basically got a portable retro gaming repository that weighs less than a pound, once you get everything loaded on to a SD card.

While I'm primarily focusing on it's ability to play games, it's capable of a number of other things such as MP3 and AVI playback, and a number of homebrew programs that provide other gameplay experiences, or playbacks of alternate audio formats.  Playing an AVI while using the TV output on a regular (non-highdef) TV set provides as good a quality of picture as any generic DVD player.  The only two serious drawbacks are the battery life, and the choice of joystick.  The GP2X eats regular Alkaline batteries for breakfast, draining them in roughly two hours, depending on how you use it.  You're far better off buying 2500 mAh rechargeable camera batteries, for both their lifetime, and the cost to replace batteries in the long run.  The joystick is a topic of much debate among the GP2X community.  It's an 8 directional joystick (that is, the diagonals are distinct inputs, not the result of a combination of two others), with it's own button input (you push the entire stick down to press it).  Therefore, the standard familiar (and in some cases, more desirable) four direction "D-pad" was not selected.  The GP2X has undergone a couple of revisions, and the latest version goes a little way to address the complaints by reorienting the joystick to give it a more favorable bias against diagonals, and an improved joystick cap.

If I've piqued your interest or curiosity in the device, I can recommend no better resource for information than the official GP2X Wiki itself, http://wiki.gp2x.org/ where you can find more information, and recommendations on where to buy one.  Make sure that whoever you buy one from is selling you the latest version (MK2 as of the writing of this article.)  If you have one, or proceed to buy one, share some of your experiences using it with us.

Next month marks the completion of the 10th year since Tom Zjaba, in conjunction with his storefront and web site named Tomorrow's Heroes, began this online monthly fanzine for classic era, retro video game fans. We owe Tom quite a lot and hopefully we'll have a nice interview, or at least part one of an interview with him and what he did to get the RT started and his website since.

We also hope to get some feedback from you our readers. Email Alan at hewston95@spamremoval@stratos.net, or our editor, Scott at plotor@removespam@ix.netcom.com if you want to comment or congratulate us or Tom.

Some ideas for you to give us feedback on are:

• Direct reader feedback - we'll post what you tell us, or tell us your favorite issue or articles, interviews or coverage of systems or specific games.
• What you'd like to see us do or not do in the future?
• What systems would you like to see covered more?
• How has the RT & RTM helped kept you involved in this past time / hobby?
• Ideas for articles or things to do?
• Anything else you'd like to ask or to tell us.

Let us know right away and if you'd like yours to be anonymous, or to have your name accompanying your question, feedback or idea, then please let us know. 

I'm hoping to find the time to update our site's directory of past articles and links. We're also hoping to get all of the current staff to contribute and maybe do a little bit extra. I'll contact as many of the former writers as possible to get them to submit something, or just say hello.

If we do not put together a superb issue with lots of extras, hundreds of pages in content, oodles of game reviews, dozens of interviews and numerous writers . . . then we're only human, and on a limited - nonexistent budget. We do our best to find time in our daily lives to devote to RTM for your enjoyment. Hopefully we'll give you a little bit more than normal next month. Please keep coming back, and feel free to join our staff and contribute.

Alan Hewston, senior staff writer for the Retrogaming Times Monthly can be reached at hewston95@spamalot@stratos.net During the day Alan is an engineer, aka rocket scientist at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland Ohio. We've begun fabrication of hardware for the first test flight vehicle that will ultimately take us back to the Moon, to Mars and to infinity and beyond - or at least to space station. After hours, Alan is a husband to a very understanding (of my crazy videogame hobby) wife Kathy and father to Samantha and Timmy, who love to play video games, and appreciate the classics that Daddy still plays. 

The Many Faces of... Xevious by Alan Hewston

Xevious marquee courtesy of KLOV.com

Xevious arcade map courtesy of KLOV.com

Sinclair Spectrum screenshot courtesy of WorldofSpectrum.org

Screenshot of the Apple 2 courtesy of Moby Games

Screenshot of the 2600 courtesy of AtariAge

5200 screenshot courtesy of AtariAge.

C64 screenshot courtesy of lemon64.com

7800 screenshot courtesy of Atariage.com

NEScade -- Popeye by David Lundin, Jr.

As Scott Jacobi has been documenting in his Nintendo Realm column, Nintendo themselves were the primary software developer for the Famicom in the early days of the platform.  When the Famicom first launched in Japan, Nintendo created home counterparts of many of their simple, easy to port, yet very popular arcade games.  Since many of these titles make up a good chunk of the arcade to NES catalog in the mind of the average retrogamer, I've decided to take a closer look at them.  As usual, I'm going to kick things off with the most obscure of these games - Popeye.  We'll get to that Mario character in RTM issues ahead.

While not in the mainstream spotlight for some time now, pretty much everyone knows who Popeye is.  For the uninitiated, Popeye is a sailor who gains incredible strength by eating canned spinach.  His arch nemesis is Bluto, a gargantuan man who lives only to terrorize Popeye so that he may steal away the affection of Popeye's girlfriend Olive Oyl.  If this cycle of events seems never-ending, that's because it is, and things are no different in the game.  Popeye offers three different screens of action that all repackage the same basic game play.  Olive Oyl stands atop the screen and drops items for Popeye to collect.  These are hearts on the first screen, notes from a harp as she attempts to lull Popeye's son Swee'Pea to sleep on the second screen, and finally the letters H-E-L-P on the third screen.  Once all items are collected the next stage begins.  Bluto is constantly on patrol to stop Popeye dead in his tracks and pummel him off the platforms with either his bare hands or an endless supply of beer bottles which he throws.  While Popeye has the ability to punch, he can only use this ability for defense.  Punches are primarily used to break incoming bottles but are also used to set off traps and of course to pick up the all powerful can of spinach.  Once Popeye consumes his favorite leafy green, Bluto will turn tail and attempt to run away.  If Popeye makes contact with Bluto in the short amount of time granted after eating spinach, Bluto will be knocked off the platforms temporarily before climbing back up.  In addition to Bluto, Popeye must also cope with the projectile tossing Sea Hag and her difficult to avoid vulture.  After all three screens are cleared they begin again at a higher difficulty.

The concept for this game is pretty simple but the action gets quite frenzied very quickly.  An NES version seems like it would be a piece of cake but there are some limiting factors that dampen the fun at home just a little.  To begin, the arcade version is absolutely beautiful.  Every sprite is detailed and represents the original hand drawn characters perfectly.  When the game is in motion it almost looks like a digital cartoon.  This is the biggest sacrifice on the NES as while the graphics are nicely detailed, especially considering this is one of the very first games for the system, those high resolution visuals from the arcade are greatly missed.  While not as graphically detailed as the original, nearly all the sprite animation and character mannerisms make it onto the NES which is a nice touch.  Each of the three screens are created almost exactly with only the most minor differences that neither hinder nor add to game play.  Sound design is charming and nicely accurate with the Popeye theme at the title screen and solid sound effects throughout.  Control is also quick and smooth which we all know is the most important part of a platforming game.

 Apple II Incider: The Apple II GS - Part II: IIGS vs. The Competition



 by Donald Lee







This month, I'll conclude my discussion of the Apple IIGS computer which was the last major upgrade to the Apple II line. 

As noted in the past couple of months, the Apple IIGS was introduced in response to the launch of the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga computers (and to a lesser extent, Apple's own Macintosh computers). The IIGS had advanced capabilities that were comparable to it's ST and Amiga counterparts. The IIGS also was backwards compatible as it allowed older Apple II software to run on the system. An upgrade was also made available to existing Apple IIe users as well. 

With an established market of millions of Apple II users, the Apple IIGS was primed to be a major hit among current Apple II users who had been clammoring for a more modern machine. With the brand recognition of Apple, the IIGS could have even snagged buyers who had been considering the ST or Amiga. However, this did not occur. Why did this happen? 

As noted last month, from a technical perspective, the Apple IIGS's capabilities were slightly inferior to it's Amiga and ST counterparts. The IIGS's processor clocked at a measly 2.8 Mhz while both the Amiga and ST were over 7 Mhz. The IIGS's graphics capabilities were a significant upgrade over the 8-bit Apple II computers. However, these capabilities did not quite match up to the ST and Amiga's graphic capabilities and dedicated video processor chips. 
One thing the IIGS might have been equal (or even superior) to it's competition was it's Ensoniq sound chip. The sound chip was a major upgrade over the old Apple II speaker. However, the sound chip was under-utilized throughout much of the IIGS's life. Many developers focused their efforts on developing good looking software without fully exploiting the sound capabilities of the IIGS. 

The other factor was the cost of the IIGS. At it's introduction, the IIGS CPU was priced at $999 without a monitor or disk drive. When you put up the cost of a complete IIGS system versus the ST and Amiga, the IIGS was significantly more expensive. While IIe users could upgrade, many chose not to. 

The biggest factor for the lack of success with the IIGS was Apple Computer itself. The IIGS was the computer from Apple that had both color graphics and a graphical user interface. The IIGS could have become the bridge that combined the best of the both the Apple II and Macintosh worlds. Instead, it would be in 1987 before Apple Computer would introduce the first color Macintosh (the Macintosh II). It would be several years later (in 1990) before Apple introduce the Macintosh LC with an optional Apple II card. The LC finally bridged the gap that had existed between the Apple II and Macintosh. 

Because Apple Computer felt that that Macintosh was the future of the company and never signficantly promoted the Apple IIGS besides advertisements in Apple II related publications. The Apple IIGS was a relative unknown to those outside the Apple II community. 

Also, The IIGS was never significantly beyond it's initial introduction in 1986. There were many operating system and hardware upgrades (larger ROM chips, more RAM installed on the motherbobard). However, other features such as the graphics and processor remain unchanged. Despite the lack of attention by Apple Computer, the IIGS still managed to sell an estimated one million units before finally being discontinued in 1992. 

Despite the relatively short life-span, there was a lot of hardware and software that was introduced for the IIGS. In fact, even today, over 20 years after it's introduction, there are still a small group of hobbyists still creating software and hardware. 

That's it for my overview of the Apple IIGS. In the future, I will review some Apple IIGS games in my column. Thanks to the power of emulation, many IIGS games are now available to enjoy on the Internet. 

See you next month! 

 Nintendo Realm: Late July - Early August 1986


 by
Scott Jacobi

Volleyball	Ganbare Goemon

Solomon's Key	Soukoban Special

Legend of the Valkyrie	Metroid

 Old Wine in New Bottles: Retrogaming on Modern Hardware


 by Jonathan H. Davidson

Before getting into the review of the Namco Museum series, I want to respond to a question from a reader, who asked: “Why are games relating to films, such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, nowhere to be found, as well as those from other distributors, such as Parker Brothers and Vidtec.”

I've briefly touched upon the issue of un-releasable games before, but I want to say a few words about them here. Basically, where the rights to games partially are owned by another company (e.g. with movie-based games), they cannot easily be re-released. With the Raiders of the Lost Ark game, for example, Infrogames owns the game code itself, but the intellectual property (the title, the Indy-like character, etc.) is still all owned by Lucas Films. If someone wished to re-release the game, it would be necessary to get permission from both companies. The very same argument applies to Star Wars, Ghostbusters, the Disney games, etc. We will probably never see commercial re-releases of those games.

With smaller companies like Parker Brothers, Mattel, Vidtec, Data Age, Coleco, etc., things are even more complicated. Either these companies no longer exist, or they have long since exited the video game industry. The rights to their games are still owned by someone, but determining who that is would be a very long, difficult, and expensive undertaking. Sales of these lesser-known games would never be enough to recoup the investment required, so again we will probably never see commercial re-releases of those games.

Fortunately, virtually all Atari 2600 titles are available for free download form one or another website. See, for example, http://www.atariage.com/.

The Namco Museum series of (mostly) classic arcade games was released in five volumes between 1996 and 1997; volumes 1 and 3 were later re-released as “Greatest Hits” titles and so they are relatively easy to find, as compared to the others.

Each volume includes about six titles and is anchored with a Pac-Man title (e.g. Ms. Pan-Man, Super Pan-Man, Pac Land) and includes a mixture of both well-known and “filler” titles, usually arcade games that were never released outside of Japan (e.g. Toy Pop, the Heike Clans, and Dragon Spirit).

The various extras and bonus content include scans of promotional material relating to the games (especially instruction cards distributed to arcades), the original marquees, and similar material. Volume 3 includes some material relating to the history of Namco more generally such as early newsletters. Unfortunately the quality of the scanned images is much lower than the scans presented with the Atari Anniversary Edition Redux. In addition, most of the material is in Japanese, thus making it potentially of less interest to a North American audience.

In my opinion, the best volume in the series is #3, which includes the classics Dig Dug, Galaxian, Ms. Pac-Man, and Pole Position II. Fortunately, this is one of the easiest volumes to find. Hard-core collectors may want to acquire the whole series, but not people who just wish to play the games.

Feedback on this column is most welcome; special thanks to everyone who have their sent comments and question. Please send e-mail to jhd@interbaun.com.

 Mastering Sega



 by Craig Morris

It was supposed to be an NES.

I was 14 and had saved up barely enough money to purchase a base NES system - 2 control pads and a console. The Atari was showing its age and I was eager to have an 'arcade quality experience'. On the way to make the purchase I happened to pass the electronics kiosk at my local grocery store. Inside sat a stack of Master Systems for the exact same price of my intended NES purchase. Not simply base systems, these included a light gun and 2 pack-in games (Safari Hunt and Hang-on).

Did I mention it was also the coolest looking console ever?

It was just too good to pass up.

The SMS was available in North America from 1986 to 1992. In addition to the "basic" unit (console, 2 controllers, and pack-in game) there were several other configurations. Some included a light gun and 2 games ("Master" package), another included a light gun and electronic 3D glasses ("Segascope" package). Over the course of its production there were many variations on the SMS bundle. In 1990 Sega introduced the Master System II, a lower budget system that lacked several features of the original, namely the reset button and the card slot. The omission of the card slot prevented use of the 3D glasses with the Master System II.

Some notable points:

• SMS controllers can be used with other consoles of the era (Atari, Commodore) since they use the same 9 pin connecdtor.
• The SMS supported a second media type. A card slot was located on the front of the SMS to accept games released in this format. This slot was also used to connect the 3D glasses to the system.
• Some early models contained a hidden maze game built into the console.
• Most SMS games were relased in a hard plastic (a la VHS) re-usable case.

Unfortunately the SMS wasn't a big hit in North America. While technically superior to the NES it suffered from poor release timing (many months after the NES) and a limited library of games. This was in great part due to Nintendo's licensing agreements with third party developers, effectively banning them from producing games for both the NES and SMS. Due to the overwhelming success of the NES very few wanted to risk the wrath of Nintendo by developing for Sega. Eventually these third-party restrictions were relaxed due to legal pressure but it was much too late for the SMS.

In the coming months I'll be bringing you reviews of some of the gems of the Master System catalog. First up, Kenseiden.

See you in September.