Broderbund's "Karateka" comes to iOS and Android

Karateka! How many teenaged hours did my friends and I spend huddled around my Apple II trying to beat this addictive but maddening game? "Not enough!" I say. A few months ago, when the iOS AppStore introduced a contemporarily-styled remake of this classic early side-scroller I was, to say the least, not amused. I didn't even bother to play more than a few minutes of it since all of the charm of the original had been replaced with a slick new cell-shaded graphics, pristine hifi sound and a modern 3D game engine (shudder). Well whoever fixes these sorts of errors in the universe has just earned their place in heaven by making sure that a proper port of Broderbund's ground-breaking 1984 game would eventually make it to both the iOS and Android platforms. Karateka Classic is now available for both at their respective stores for only 99 cents:

YOU CAN GET KARATEKA CLASSIC HERE FOR iOS

OR GO HERE FOR THE ANDROID VERSION

For those of you who don't already know, Karateka was a revolutionary, for its time, side-scrolling punch-up game that arguably kick-started the entire genre of games that led to Kung Fu Master, Double Dragon, Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat all the way up to modern games like the Tekken and Marvel  Vs. Capcom series. Jordan Mechner, the original designer of Karateka later went on to break even more boundaries in the genre by developing the first Prince of Persia game, which eventually went on to become a huge franchise, even spawning a recent feature film. Go get your copy now and relive a true 8-bit experience while sitting on the toilet.

BONUS VIDEO #1

ORIGINAL KARATEKA GAMEPLAY

BONUS VIDEO #2

ORIGINAL PRINCE OF PERSIA GAMEPLAY

Commodore 64 Bass Guitar

Digital music. You can make it a ton of different ways. This lady turns diva into Devo with her modded Commodore 64 Bass Guitar. Very cool and worth a look.

Retro Computing on the Boob Tube

Keeping up on tech news these days is piece of piss. Push notifications, Twitter feeds and an increasingly large number of other digital enemas make it easy to forget that there was a time when people actually sat down to watch TV programs about technology, or more specifically, home computing. Two of the more notable entries in this genre were an unassuming and decidedly stilted tech-show called, rather unimaginatively, Computer Chronicles, and its more colloquially-monikered spinoff, The Internet Café, later retitled simply Net Café. Having enjoyed an impressively lengthy run on PBS from 1981 to 2002, Computer Chronicles played witness to many key developments in the home computing industry including the introduction of the Mac, Windows 95, CD-ROMs and even birth of the internet which prompted the creation of its sister show, The Internet Café, in 1996. While you can't just turn on your TV and hope to catch a rerun of either program, episodes of both can be found tucked away at the always awesome and always free Internet Archive. Click below to take a trip back to a time before corporations owned the internet and 512K was more than enough for anyone.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE COMPUTER CHRONICLES

CLICK HERE TO WATCH NET CAFÉ

BONUS VIDEO!!
PITFALL INVENTOR DAVID CRANE EXPLAINS HIS NEW GHOSTBUSTERS GAME FOR THE COMMODORE 64

LucasArts Says "No More Games"

Ah, Disney. You great absorber of American cultural icons. First the Muppets, then Pixar, later Marvel and now of course, Star Wars. And while just about everyone on the planet is excited about the prospect of a stream of new Star Wars films coming our way, the bajillion-dollar buyout was not without its casualties. Specifically, I'm talking about the LucasArts game division, known for such retro classics as 1990's The Secret of Monkey Island, 1992's Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and 1995's Full Throttle. For whatever reason, Disney has put the kabosh on the long-time producer of video-tastic hits and game-horrific misses, and in doing so has killed off an American institution that has been chugging along since before your mama was knee-high to a cocktail arcade machine.
The story of what most folks call LucasArts actually begins around 1983 after a successful joint venture between Lucasfilm and Atari which produced the quarter-sucking-classic Star Wars: The Arcade Game. Back then, Star Wars ruled the universe and every kid alive wanted a piece of that laser-blasting action. So for years, the video game industry (along with the movie industry, TV industry, etc.) shamelessly ripped-off the look and feel of Star Wars as much as possible, often without even trying to hide it. Realizing the massive potential for profits to be gained from expanding into other media outlets, and having tasted extraordinary success with their earlier venture into the arcade, Lucasfilm teamed up once again with the other "ruler of the universe" of the time, Atari, to help them with their foray into the world of video game development. The result of this second collaboration was the formation of Lucasfilm Games, which would eventually be reorganized into the gaming division of  LucasArts Entertainment Company in the early 1990s. So in 1984 with the fresh smell of success of still under their noses, Lucasfilm Games blasted out of the gate armed with two now-classic 8-bit games that pushed the boundaries of what was then thought possible with 48K of RAM and a 1.79 Mhz processor: Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus. If you aren't familiar with either of these ground-breaking games, do yourself a favor now and head on over to Atarimania.com where they've posted hi-res scans of the original Electronic Games Magazine article from 1984. It's a fascinating and informative read for any retro-gamer or Lucasfilm fan.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE IN ELECTRONIC GAMES

Scientifically Accurate Ninja Turtles

One of the best things about the 1980s was...

WHAT?! YOU SAY I TALK TOO MUCH ABOUT THE !@#$% 1980S?! YOU SAY I SHOULD TRY TO BRANCH OUT AND DISCOVER SOME OTHER ERAS THAT ARE EQUALLY RICH WITH KITCHY GOODNESS? OH, AND I SHOULD LAY OFF THE STAR WARS FOR A LITTLE WHILE?! AND VIDEO GAMES??!! OK!! MAYBE I WILL!!

...um, was the Teenage(d) Mutatnt Ninja Turtles. You know it. I know it. So let's watch a funny video, OK?

The Empire Strikes Back Uncut

A few years ago you may remember a little thing called the Star Wars Uncut project, which brought together amateur film makers from all over the world in an attempt to re-make the classic 1977 screen gem in little bits and pieces. After having chopped up the film into 15 second segments, fans were then invited by the producers to claim a piece and recreate it in anyway imaginable. Some folks used action figures, some acted the parts out in costume, some used crude animations. Once the 473 individual videos had been collected, the producers spliced together the various parts, added sound effects and music and the rest is history (you can watch the watch the entire film at the end of this post). Now, some two years after the successful premiere of Episode IV (or "Star Wars" as those of us over the age of 30 like to call it), the same group responsible has put out the call for their next project: The Empire Strikes Back (or "Episode V" for non-retros). You can head on over to www.starwarsuncut.com/empire to claim your scene and test your hand at low-budget movie-making, but you'd better hurry as there are just a few scenes left to choose from, and while your submission make it, its inclusion in the final film is not guaranteed since a number of applicants will be allowed to take a stab at any one scene. May the farce be with you.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT STARWARS UNCUT: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

BONUS VIDEO - THE ENTIRE STAR WARS UNCUT MOVIE!


Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

UPDATE: TRON 3 + TRON LEBOWSKI 2

Recent interviews with Joseph Kosinski, director of the 2010 Tron sequel, Tron: Legacy, have shed a bit more light on a possible third film in the classic Disney sci-fi adventure series. Click the links for more details:

CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE #1 - COLLIDER

CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE #2 - GEEK TYRANT

BONUS VIDEOS: TWO DIFFERENT TRON LEBOWSKI TRAILERS!!!

CollegeHumor's Favorite Funny Videos

Movie Trailer "The Tron Lebowski" by indymogul