Features
Save States and the Soul of Retro Gaming: Crutch, Cheat or Second Chance?
The accusation has followed save states around for a quarter of a century: they make retro games too easy, they make modern…
Author: Sal Benedetto
From the Vault columnist. Grew up feeding quarters to the Ms. Pac-Man machine at his uncle's pizza place; still owns his childhood SNES and every Nintendo Power he ever begged his mother for. Writes the retrospectives and the hidden-gem hunts.
Features
Starcade — All 133 Episodes of the Arcade Game Show, Free to Watch
Before esports there was Starcade. All 133 episodes of the 1980s arcade game show survive free online — TV history and arcade history in one.
Features
Donkey Kong Country in Doom: The Platformer Hiding Inside a Shooter
In September 2014, this site published a short, happy note that began with a confession: Doom is one of the author’s favourite games, full stop, every port played, every corridor of Phobos memorised. The occasion for the confession was a…
Reviews
Shovel Knight Wii U Review: The Little Knight Who Out-Retroed Retro
Game: Shovel Knight · Developer: Yacht Club Games · Released: 26 June 2014 (Wii U) · Platform reviewed: Wii U · Genre: Action platformer · Launch price: $14.99
Features
Wiimmfi: The Fan Server That Refused to Let Mario Kart Wii Die
When Nintendo shut down Wii online play in 2014, fans built Wiimmfi to replace it. The custom server still keeping Mario Kart Wii online today.
Features
Still Thinking: How Reicast Carried Dreamcast Emulation to Phones — and Handed It to Flycast
From nullDC to phones to Flycast: how Reicast carried Dreamcast emulation for a decade, and why Sega’s last console was so hard to emulate well.
Features
Catagon: The Amiga Clone of a Commodore 64 Gem (2014)
The Catagon Amiga clone announced itself the way Amiga software announced itself in 2014: with a forum post, a screenshot, and disarming honesty about how far along it was. One week. That is what the
Features
The Night The Bard’s Tale Broke an Amiga Player’s Heart
Every retro gamer has a version of this story, but few are as perfectly cruel as the one an Amiga forum user shared about The Bard’s Tale Amiga port in August 2014. He had been playing for hours. His
Features
Commodore Format’s Power Packs: The Covertape That Came Back
Covermount culture produced no artefact more beloved than the magazine covertape, and the Commodore Format Power Pack story has a coda nobody predicted in 1995: the tapes came back. Commodore Format,
Features
The Book That Proved Retro Matters: Mega Drive/Genesis — Collected Works
In November 2013, a small British publisher asked the internet for £30,000 to make a book about the Mega Drive. The Mega Drive Collected Works book — full title Sega Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Work