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Retro Space arcade cabinet dispenses with (most of) the throwback formalities
Yeah, we get it, those arcade glory years were indeed glorious, but we're a bit past the point of needing a retro cabinet at home large enough to house an entire army of quarter gremlins just to rock a bit of MAME standing up. Retro Space chucks the cabinet chubbiness, keeps all those mashy buttons, robust joysticks and spinny white ball things we know and love, and adds in a full-powered PC and a 24-inch 1920 x 1200 LCD. It's a tad bit boxy, but we'll probably manage to overlook that for another decade or two. No word on price, but expect something in the two or three thousand dollar range.[Via Boing Boing Gadgets]
Doctor Who wants to time warp, play retro games
Most of us have probably dabbled around with a Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator before, but have you ever crammed one into a TARDIS? Those things are supposed to be bigger on the inside than the outside. Anyhow, one man decided that having a dedicated stand-up gaming cabinet wasn't enough, so he built this pillar of geek awesomeness.Check out the two different sections, one on the building of the iconic blue Police Box, and the other on the console. He even had the 7th doctor, Sylvester McCoy, autograph the thing. Is it still a sin to covet thy neighbor's sci-fi gaming cabinet? If so, mark us down in the "sinner" category.[Thanks, Douglas!]
The Joystiq Weekend: February 9 - 10, 2008
2P Start's Tim Harding dropped us word of his recent retro addition. "Awhile back I built a reproductionMario Bros. arcade cabinet perfectly to scale (with some minor MAME modifications)," he told us. You can also view some of the progress at this blog. Check out the highlights for this weekend:JoystiqueryJapanese hardware sales, Jan. 28 - Feb. 3: The unremarkable returnJoystiq Podcast 037 - Lions on meth editionPS Fanboy Week in Review: 2/4 - 2/10Weekly Webcomic Wrapup wins an award*NewsDirector of next Mortal Kombat movie talks 're-envisioning'EA's Facebreaker trailer makes its debut, lacks gameplaySplash Damage growing, confirms new multi-platform projectHeed Totilo's warning -- keep a late Mass Effect save to play new DLCGently weep over your DS with Bandai Namco's 99 TearsNew Monster Hunter on PSP includes installlation optionThe Club nods at Gears of War's "Seriously" achievementTurok devs blame delay on PS3 versionStudent hospitalized after suffering leg burns from pocketed PSPProfessor Layton sequel already 'confirmed' for U.S.Ex-Marine goes missing supposedly after Call of Duty triggered flashbacksRainbow Six: Vegas 2 gameplay video looks familiarTMBG, Natasha Bedingfield headline Sims 2 FreeTime soundtrackCulture & CommunityThe surreal Nintendo artwork of Jimi Benedict
How-To: Build a MAME cabinet, a video in 5 parts
We're not sure where "Build Your Own MAME Cabinet" falls on your todo list but it's pretty damn high on ours. Sure, we've pushed it down and put it off over the years (why did we learn underwater yak-shearing?) but after watching this 5-part video series on that very topic put together by the crew at Systm our desire has been rekindled. It's like a geek rite-of-passage, where previously basement-bound nerds branch out, teach themselves something new, and apply that knowledge to build the one thing that will ensure they'll never leave the basement again ever. Now, if you'll excuse us ...[Thanks, Luke]
Oscilloscope turned into Star Wars-playing MAME machine
We've already seen an oscilloscope turned into a clock, but that hack has nothing on this latest one courtesy of Flickr user Moose2000, who took the old school piece of gear and rigged it to run (what else?) MAME. Even better, Moose chose to use the original Vector-iffic Star Wars arcade game to show it off, which no doubt suits the screen better than something like Street Fighter II. Sadly, there's no instructions for putting together your own rig (assuming you have a spare oscilloscope lying around, that is), but you can check out this one in action in the video after the break.[Via Gadget Lab]
DIY'er stuffs MAME machine into dinner table
Hot on the heels of Gamerator's stupendous MAME cabinet and AOTS "world's largest arcade machine" comes a DIY project that gives both of the aforementioned products a run for their money. The aptly-titled IKEA MAME Dinner Table cleverly crams a MAME machine into a standard dinner table, which we're absolutely sure any warm-blooded mother (and / or gamer) could appreciate. The table can slide open to reveal a 15-inch LCD, Happ Controls and an Ultimarc I-PAC, and while a myriad games can be played, the creator's personal favorite is the famed Ms. Pacman. Click on for a couple more looks, and then head on to the read link for a slew of pics from the underside.[Via MAKE]
Gamerator MAME cabinet features 187 games, built-in keg
187 MAME-emulated games, a 24-inch LCD, cupholders and a built-in kegerator? If it was up to us, the Gamerator would be the only piece of furniture in our living room. Yours now for $2K on eBay.[Via TechDigest]
Limited MAME ported to iPhone
If you told us twenty years ago that, by 2007, there would be a pocket-sized device that could make wireless phone calls, take pictures, play music and show movies, we'd probably get a little dewy eyed at the techno-futuristic possibilities. If you told us that device would also be able to replicate the games of hundreds of upright arcade cabinets, we might very well have exploded with anticipation.So far, the efforts to port the ubiquitous Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator to the iPhone have had pretty limited results -- anything more complex than Pac-Man or Q*Bert reportedly runs into some hefty performance problems. Still, we can't help but imagine the possibilities that will come with some more development time. After all, just look at how far we've come in the past twenty years.[Via Engadget]
iPhone MAME project gets off the ground, performance doesn't
Raise a cheer, Google coder extraordinaire "kaisersoze" has a little gaming treat in store for us all, MAME -- retro, we know, but we love old school gaming and so should you. Hot on the heels of games like Doom and an NES emulator, the Google Code "sdl-mame-project" will let iPhone gamers revisit all of their favorites from decades ago. Of course, every great story has a happy sad ending and, in this case, that story is there are no binaries yet -- but the source is there if you are inspired to compile it up. While Pacman and Q*Bert run well, performance is apparently weak in other titles, so we'll simply cross our fingers and hope for rockin' speeds from one of our favorites, Ghosts 'n Goblins.[Via Engadget Japan]
iPhone MAME project launched
I'm pretty sure that, with this link, we've hit all the basic retrogaming points for the iPhone (wait-- can I play Nethack on it yet?). Yes, iphone-sdl-mame aims to bring all of your MAME favorites to Apple's latest endeavor. Like all of the other projects we've covered, it's open source, unofficial (duh), and a work in progress. From the text, kaisersoze (who's heading up this go) says PacMan and Q*Bert will run, but other games are too slow to be playable at the moment. And there's no word on whether control of anything is working yet or not.So it's a super early build-- all there is at the moment is just a few files in the subversion repository, so if you're looking to just install a file and get rolling, not so fast. But as with all of these open source iPhone hacks, attention seems to equal progress, so there you go. Hopefully, now that the word's out, playing Galaga at full speed on the iPhone is just around the corner.Oh and if you don't have an iPhone yet, worry not-- MacMAME's got you covered.[ via Waxy ]
Capcom's CPS-3 arcade board decrypted at last
It wouldn't take too many minutes of perusing the archives here to realize that we're fans of obscure emulation feats, and this one certainly ranks pretty high up there. Apparently, Capcom's CPS-3 arcade system board has finally been cracked, which means that the next logical step of bringing titles such as Red Earth, Street Fighter III, and JoJo to the emulation realm has already begun. A post over at Haze's Mame WIP page notes that the challenge has been duly accepted, and we're hoping that it won't be too much longer before success is found. Of course, it sounds like this will not be an exceptionally easy task, but at least half the battle has already been won.[Via Exophase, thanks zshadow]
X-Arcade launches Tankstick, tanks call comparison "a little much"
X-Arcade has launched its long-in-development controller, which combines its Trackball Mouse and Dual Joystick. This peanut-butter-in-chocolate match makes it suited to all kinds of emulated games, from Golden Tee and Marble Madness to Pac-Man and Street Fighter. The name of this controller? The Tankstick.We were with you, but "Tankstick?" Shouldn't that be reserved for a controller modeled after, say, a tank? "Tankstick" makes us think of that scene where Indiana Jones hangs perilously from the tank's side-turret, while the maniacal driver steers with exaggerated, stair-climber arm movements. That's a tank-stick, fit for toning arms while crushing the leading archeologist. At least we coud use the Tankstick to play that Indy game where you whip open the kids' cages and ride the mine carts to sweet freedom.But we digress.At $200 -- or $10/pound -- you'll have to play a lot of MAME or GameTap to justify buying the Tankstick. But, like the other X-Arcade controllers, you can get adapters ($20 each) to plug into nearly any console. Alternatively, tell your parents/spouse/children that you need to buy 15 pounds of cheese at once, and later claim it melted on the drive home.
Novotable offers ergonomically-questionable retro, PC, and console gaming
We're pretty sure you don't see many tabletop arcade games around anymore for a reason -- mainly, it's not very comfortable to hunch over a screen for more than few minutes. Luckily for us, our poor PacMan and Centipede skills (and perpetual lack of quarters) made this mostly a non-issue in our arcade-trolling days, but now a new product called the "Novo Infotainment Table" (or Novotable for short) is offering to bring spine-curving videogame action for yesterday's hits and today's PC and console titles right to our homes. The Novotable is basically a 32-inch LCD mounted horizontally onto an articulating stand, attached to a pair of arcade joysticks, and stuffed with a subwoofer, Shuttle PC, and your choice of PS2 or Xbox. You also get a a stainless steel keyboard to swap out the controllers in case you want to use your multi-thousand dollar device (actual price: unknown, but presumed high) for something other than playing the biggest pixelated hits of the 80's, plus the usual lineup of PC features that you'd expect to find on a Shuttle, such as WiFi, Bluetooth, and FireWire and USB ports. We could see installing a few of these in a bar for some drunken Rampage fun, but the Mansion gameroom only accepts original pinball and arcade cabinets, so no Novotable for us, thanks.[Via Joystiq]
NES emulator for the iPod
First it was Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man, and now the enterprising geeks at the iPod Linux project have written a NES emulator for the iPod. So far, Megaman, Spiderman, Skate Or Die and Guerilla War work fine, while Tetris, Super Mario Brothers and a few others are still a bit crash-tastic.If you've got the skills (and free time), why not lend these folks a hand in getting a few more games up and running. And before you ask "why," let me provide you with the answer: Because we can.
Play Pac-Man on an iPod MAME cabinet
The next step in the iPod's journey from being just a digital audio player to a device that does literally everything is the iPod MAME project. The emulator--a very much unsupported emulator for iPod linux--allows you to play such legendary games as Pac-Man on a range of iPods. We assume that the emulator will play other MAME games (no telling how well), but since the only iPod available for us to test is a chunky 3G iPod, we can't test this theory. In the meantime, check out Scott's nano MAME cabinet pictured on the right. Scott's been working hard to fine tune the graphics for the iPod's display, as well as creating a custom MAME cabinet to play the games on.[Via Boing Boing]See also:Play Doom on your iPodiPod linux project spawns Game Boy emulatoriDoom: now (very) playable on the iPod nano
Pac Mac/Ms. Pac Man on your iPod
Forget Breakout. Those industrious folks at the iPodLinux Project have gotten Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man to run on their 5G iPods, as well as their nanos. It's actually an iPod port of the MAME project, and it just looks fantastic. I may have to install Linux on my 'Pod just so I can check this out.[Via Joystiq]
Pac-Man & the Ms. now chompin' on iPods
Thanks to the iPodMame project (a subdivision of iPodLinux), iPod video and iPod nano owners can now enjoy Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man on their portable audio players. w00t![Via Engadget]
Fuji camera adds gaming features
As they continue to jam bigger screens, faster processors, and better controls into digital cameras, it only makes sense they would throw some games into the things. The 5.1-megapixel Fujifilm FinePix V10 comes with four "surprisingly addictive retro arcade-style games" including a shmup, a Breakout clone, and a maze game. For an added twist, the camera can incorporate your own pictures into the games. It might be the first time a manufacturer is shipping a camera with games built-in, but it's not the first camera to run games. Check out the totally awesome Mamed project, running Mame on any Digita OS enabled digital camera. [Via BoingBoing]
