retro

Connecting Old Consoles to New TVs: Now with Fewer Details

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My old Pioneer plasma that now lives in a closet covered in a blanket had a lot of video inputs. Component and VGA inputs were casualties of my recent upgrade to OLED. Time marches on, unless you still want to play old game consoles or accidentally slip and fall and become frozen in a crevasse. Then, assuming you fall into the former and not the frozen category, you need to decide if composite video is sufficient for your fully-thawed, unconventional, yet not uncouth tastes.

For me, composite would not do, partly because I realized my new TV was capable of it only after I finished the project I will be explaining in excruciating detail. This fact aside, in order to get the best picture out of the old games I always plan to play but rarely do, I learned I would need to embark on a potentially never-ending-always-spending project. →  Ring of Read

Rerouting the ‘Tap

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Sorry to be a bit late in posting, but there is some important news in Gametap land. The service is being acquired by European company Metaboli, which offers a Gametap style service exclusive to Europe. The deal lays it down like so: both services will keep their names in their respective regions, and Gametap will still be maintained in Atlanta, but Time Warner will step down by year’s end and Metaboli will be in complete control of business decisions and management.

We have known since August that Time Warner has been looking to sell Gametap, so this does not come as a surprise. The question now is whether this will cause any major changes, for good or bad. For instance, price changes have been on the minds of many people on the ‘tap forums. →  A reader is you.

Rearmed and Ready – Are you?

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Bionic Commando: Rearmed is now out in all intended formats. If you have one of these formats, and you love the challenge and the feel of classic 2d games, I hope you have it already. If you don’t, might I suggest you give it a download? Until Mega Man 9 hopefully rocks our socks, this is the best thing to come around this year for retro enthusiasts, except for maybe Space Invaders Extreme or Bangai-O Spirits. I don’t want to go too far into discussion (save that for the review!), but suffice it to say that this is a remake that gets it. It feels right, both old and new, careful and bold. Its the kind of game where just seeing it in action makes me happy. →  Games are the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.