Spider-Man Pinball at the Boardwalk Arcade

We're on vacation in Wells, Maine this week, and me and the kids washed no time in getting to the Boardwalk Arcade. One of the first games we hit was a Spider-Man pinball game featuring the villains of all three movies.

The table is pretty interesting, and was a blast to play. My son even matched the numbers at the end to win a free game.

He's couple of pics:

Retro Review--Balloon Fight (NES)

Last August, Nintendo launched its 3DS Ambassador Program as a way of recognizing early adopters when they cut the price of the 3DS. Anyone who had bought the handheld at its original price of $250 was able to download 10 NES games and 10 GBA games for free, some of which will not ever be showing up on the eShop.

The Ambassador games were a fantastic bunch overall, with classics like Super Mario Bros., Zelda and Metroid leading the way. For me, one game that got lost in the shuffle from that bunch was Balloon Fight, and I’m sad it took me so long to play it because it’s pretty great.

If you are a child of the 80s like I am, then you will immediately realize what game that Balloon Fight is a clone of as soon as you start it. There is no mistaking that the 1982 combat platformer Joust was the inspiration for Balloon Fight, right down to the physics of the game. Each stage consists of several platforms of different height that are suspended over water, which is a deadly hazard to your player. Whereas in Joust you were a mounted on an ostrich battling other mounted warriors, in Balloon Fight you are a guy with two balloons tied around him trying to knock other balloon-assisted fighters out of the air. By tapping the A or B button, you keep yourself aloft, and failing to stay aloft results in your plunging into the icy depths. As you navigate around the screen and the platforms, you try to pop the other fighters’ balloons by hitting them with your feet. They’ll do the same to you, and if they pop one of your balloons, it’s that much harder to stay aloft. lose both, and you’re done for.

When you knock another fighter into the water, a bubble rises from the surface, which you collect for bonus points. Your goal is to clear each stage of enemies. When you clear three stages, you get a bonus stage where you pop balloons for points.

The game can be played by one or two players, and there’s an additional game mode called “Balloon Trip” where you navigate through a side-scrolling level collecting balloons while avoiding lightning clouds. It serves as a nice change of pace from the regular game.

At the end of the day, Balloon Fight is really just Joust in a more charming and whimsical package. The physics are solid, and there’s a lot of replayability, especially with the extra game mode. After all these years, the game still holds up well.

4 out of 5

Nintendo - Mario Themes on Guitar!

One of my pals decided he was going share a video of a guy playing Mario themes and sounds on the guitar. I watched the first video, coin sounds and all, and was amazed. It started a frenzied search for more renditions. They just got crazier and crazier. Here are a few for your reading pleasure.

Here's the first, which is amazing.

Two guitars? At the same time? What!?

Not only is the engineering on this guitar amazing, but look at the way he plays it!

Nintendo's '8-bit Summer' Starts Next Week

In a recent Nintendo Direct press conference, Nintendo announced a summer promotion for 3DS owners that should make retro fans very happy. Dubbed the "Summer of 8-bit," the promotion will see Nintendo releasing retro Virtual Console titles on the 3DS eShop for each week in July. Here is the list of games and dates they've put out so far:

• The Legend of Zelda (NES) - July 5
• Kirby's Pinball Land (Game Boy) - July 12
• The Sword of Hope II (Game Boy) - July 12
• Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters (Game Boy) - July 19
• Tumblepop (Game Boy) - July 19
• Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (Game Boy) - July 19
• Sonic Blast (GameGear) - date TBA
• Sonic Labyrinth (GameGear) - date TBA  

Not too shabby of a list, and it's great to see not only NES games, but GameBoy and SEGA GameGear games as well on the list. For me personally, I'll be picking up Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters, Wario Land and both Sonic GameGear games.

Nintendo also released a trailer for the promotion, which you can check out below.

Wreck-It Ralph

There's nothing more exciting for a retro gamer then seeing throw backs to their favorite characters. Wreck-It Ralph by Disney Animation seems to be dishing up what every hardcore old school gamer wants. 8-bit deliciousness, current FPS and what seems to be an interesting underlying current day commentary on gaming in general is drawing me to this movie like Mario to a mushroom! Check out the trailer, check out the cameos. This is going to be fantastic. I think I'm going to have to pick up a mic after this and have a nice chit chat with the world of Secret Identity. I am JAZZED!

1UP Has a Great Series of Retro-Themed Articles This Week (5/21-5/25)

In case you haven't checked in on the gaming news site 1UP recently, there have been changes afoot. Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Parish announced a couple of weeks ago that the site would be changing its focus. Instead of trying to keep up with the 24-hour gaming news cycle that the larger sites cover, 1UP is going to focus on writing more about the industry and the hobby itself, offering unique perspectives on gaming instead of just previews and reviews.

The shift in focus started this week, and there is some great stuff over on 1UP right now. This week's "cover story" for the site is a series of What If? articles, where they examine what might have happened if certain events in the history of gaming had turned out differently.  Here are links to a couple of my retro-themed favorites:

What If Third-Party Development Didn't Exist? takes a look at the Activision vs. Atari legal battle that led to the company being able to make games for the Atari 2600, as well as what might have happened had the decision went the other way;

What If Video Games Never Came Home? is a short video about what gaming might be like had home consoles never happened;

AND

Musings from the Public Domain paints a picture of a world where the "Mickey Mouse" copyright extension act never came into being.

Those are just a few of the great articles that have gone up over the past few days. You can head over to www.1up.com to read all of them, and I highly recommend you do.

New York Comic Convention

 I had a great time at the New York Comic Convention this past week. I was really happy to spend some actual real world time with co-host Brian Letendre. Sorry we've been so absent in the blog section here. I hope to rectify that issue as soon as possible. Expect some upcoming posts about games and game related items. If you get a chance to head to NYC next year don't hesitate. There were tons of retro characters represented as well as the largest upright arcade machine in the world. The last time I saw it at the show I saw a huge line of people waiting to play giant Galaga. FANTASTIC.