Check out this book review of The History of Nintendo: Volume 1 – 1889-1980

There’s some pretty cool stuff in there about the early days of Nintendo and a lot of it that most people who aren’t hardcore fans are likely unaware of.

If you’re interested in picking up a copy of the book for yourself you can do so here.

Hardcore Gaming 101 Presents: Data East Arcade Classics

Are you a bad enough dude to buy this book? Hardcore Gaming 101 Presents: Data East Arcade Classic covers the diverse library from the underrated Japanese developer, including golden era classics like BurgerTime and Karate Champ; eccentricities like Karnov and Trio the Punch; outstanding genre pieces like Desert Assault and Night Slashers; licensed titles like RoboCop and Captain America and the Avengers; and cult classics like Boogie Wings and Windjammers. Also included is an extensive examination of their popular competitive puzzle game, Magical Drop, and of course, the ninja-fighting, president-saving Bad Dudes and its pseudo-sequel Two Crude Dudes.

The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Graphics art book is pretty awesome

I wish I could afford to buy a copy myself. 😮

So many Edge magazine covers

It brings up real strong feelings of nostalgia when I look at the covers of Edge. I’d started collecting the magazine right from issue 1 as a young adult obsessed with video games, and I’d amassed a pretty impressive collection (nearly a couple of hundred issues with only a few missing) before I ended up having to sell the whole lot for less than £100 roughly some time shortly before issue 200 (for both money and storage reasons).  There are times where I genuinely miss being able to reach up and grab an issue from the shelf to scan for a few mins of retro-gaming bliss–but I guess we have the Internet for all that now (although it’s never quite the same). Here’s just a few of my favourite covers from over the years:

It’s the first issue of the magazine so it holds a special place in my heart.

13 years worth of Nintendo Power now free to read at archive.org

Edit: Looks like Nintendo came along and totally ruined this by making them remove the scan of Nintendo Power—but at least the other magazines are still available for viewing.

That’s seriously “Wow!” in my opinion.

You can check out the full collection here, as well as many other video game magazines.

The NES/Famicom: A Visual Compendium book is gorgeous

It contains lovely double page spreads showing screenshots from a whole bunch of popular NES games, with a bit of info on each title:

The Super Famicom: The Box Art Collection book is a stunner

The game boxes are a work of art, and the book full of the game boxes is a work of art. It’s a great combo.

Before Mario, the book

I’d definitely love to own a copy of this book:

Nintendo has been around for a long time, and as it happens it actually made a lot of games and toys before it became famous for being “the house that built Mario”. It even ran a love hotel at one point too. 😮

Before Mario is a great little book that details many of the cool toys and gadgets Nintendo created during some of its earlier years, and its well worth checking out if you can get your hands on it.

Super Famicom: The Box Art Collection

“‘Super Famicom: The Box Art Collection’ is a brand new 250 page hardback book featuring stunning photography, information and features of original Super Famicom game/box art! The Super Famicom was the Japanese version of the classic Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and featured glorious imagery on the packaging that the western PAL versions missed out on.” – www.funstockretro.co.uk

Now that is a book I’d love to have in my collection. 😀

The book, titled “Super Famicom: The Box Art Collection” by Bitmap Books is available for pre-order now, exclusively at www.funstockretro.co.uk

A sneak peek at Chapter 5 of my virtual reality novella, Presence (first draft)

Note: This is actually a fan made image for No Man’s Sky, but it looks close to how I imagine the world in my story looking, specifically when the player is playing a space-shooter VR game called The Last Galaxy, and I just thought a pic would be nice. 🙂

Chapter 5

You maniacs. You blew it up!

I hadn’t touched the computer since the previous afternoon. Maybe the random crashes I’d been experiencing throughout the week had something to do with Polybius—I was seriously beginning to suspect that was the case—or maybe the machine really was on the fritz. Either way, I didn’t want to jinx it. It was twenty past five, however, and it was nearing the time that Polybius had said he would contact me again. I pressed the power button on the computer. At the very least, I wanted to make sure everything was ready and waiting—because I wasn’t going to miss that particular message.

While the computer was warming up I took a routine look out the window, just to make sure the world outside was still ticking along. I looked up at the sky. It was dull and grey, as though it was about to rain. I looked down at the street. The same old—wait . . . what was that? A police car was parked on the road below, positioned right in front of the flat. My heart skipped a beat. Could the police be here because of—