Retro

Straight From 1990, One Kid’s Adorable Painstaking VHS Guide For Beating Mega Man

Before the internet existed, millions of players toiled away in lonely obscurity to find the best way to beat the oh-so-hard games of yesteryear. Lots of us scribbled in notebooks, drew our own maps and called tips lines to figure out how to And then we shared this elusive information with others.


May 4, 2012
In Real Life

No Instrumental Cover Has Ever Done Justice To Metroid’s "Brinstar"

We’ve heard all of the Super Mario Bros. themes performed by an orchestra. Simon Viklund’s blood-pumping update of the Bionic Commando soundtrack is still on my workout playlist. And this version of Tecmo Super Bowl‘s opening cinematic makes me eat lightning and crap thunder. The great NES chiptunes of the past have all had great instrumental covers by now. Except one.


April 16, 2012
Nintendo

This Is A NES, But It’s Also A Guitar And I Want To Buy It

Kotaku AU

I have an electric guitar at home. I rarely play it. I didn’t really know why that was — why I owned an electric guitar buy never played the thing. Now I know — it wasn’t a NES guitar. If it was a NES guitar, oh man, I would play that thing every bloody day!


April 6, 2012
Retro

Hitchcock Movies As Retro Nintendo Games

Kotaku AU

Los Angeles-based artist Joe Spiotto believes that, given the right alignment of stars, Nintendo would have pushed out a few games for its 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System based on the thrilling classics of film maker Alfred Hitchcock. That chance alignment, obviously, never came to pass, so Spiotto felt compelled to create his own interpretations of potential box art.


April 1, 2012
Retro

Google Announces Google Maps — For The Nintendo Entertainment System

The undisputed Internet-age leader in April Fools’ hoaxes gets a one-day head start on its latest gag — a brilliant announcement video for “Google Maps 8-Bit” a port of the popular, well, map service to the Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicon.


March 28, 2012
In Real Life

Horrible Food And Video Games Used To Date Back To The ’80s

Video game historian Patrick Scott Patterson writes, “Anyone who claims video games cause child obesity might had more of a case in the 1980s.” Here’s more than eight glorious minutes’ worth of commercials that explain why we were fat in the 1980s.


March 19, 2012
Retro

Battlefield 3 Proves That NES Games Had Awesome Sound Design

Kotaku AU

I saw this link earlier — a video which mixes Battlefield 3 visuals with NES sounds — and what blew me away, when I finally got round to watching it, is just how good the NES sound effects are, and how well they fit!


February 14, 2012
Nintendo

Lowest. Score. Ever. (In Super Mario World)

Everyone’s heard about high score runs, but how about the opposite? In this video, NicoNico Douga user Haru@Yotsuba sets out to get the lowest possible score in Super Mario World on the SNES. Mario World becomes a very different game in this challenge, where killing Koopa Troopa or breaking a brick is the same as failure. But not content with this already insane challenge, he added a few more rules:


February 6, 2012
Retro

The NES Zapper Becomes A Transformer. A Bright, Orange Megatron.

New York LEGO builder Baron von Brunk has done something I’m surprised it’s taken decades for someone to do: take Transformers villain Megatron as inspiration and build a transforming NES Zapper.


January 31, 2012
In Real Life

How To Improve One Of Nintendo’s Best Games? Like This.

Kotaku reader Riccardo whipped up this HD version of Mother‘s opening credits. It, like the game itself, is fantastic. If anything should get you excited about an HD Nintendo gaming system, it’s this.