Game Boy in the Palm of Your Hand

12 AA batteries not required

It's not an app, it's not platform dependent, it doesn't cost money so you should just go visit Ben Midi's GameBoy page right now cuz it's freakin' cool. Tap the link below on your touch-screen phone (tablets and PCs work too but don't scale well) and you'll be magically whisked away to a webpage that turns your incredibly expensive, state-of-the-art smartphone into a classic 8-bit monochrome Nintendo GameBoy! LTE data speeds and 8-core CPUs don't mean sh*t when you're playing Mario Bros on a 160x144 pixel black and white screen! The full list of playable games includes: Mario Land, Tetris, Dr. Mario, Bomberman, Kirby's Dream Land, Kirby XXL, Space Invaders, Motocross Maniacs, Bomb Jack, Boxxle 2, Castelian, Centipede and Stopwatch (haven't tried this one out yet, I think I know how it works, though). After recently watching Nintendo smash down anyone trying to steal from their holy vault of intellectual property, however, you can bet Ben's GameBoy page will be coming down fairly quickly so you may want to check it out sooner rather than later (Lawyers? Anyone else smell lawyers?)

CLICK HERE TO VISIT BEN MIDI'S GAMEBOY PAGE

Play Classic Nintendo Games on Your iOS Device for Free

GBA4iOS

You got an iPhone or iPad? You want to play Nintendo games on it but you don't want to jailbreak your phone to do it? Well it's easier and quicker than you might think. Pull this post up on your iThing of choice and follow these simple instructions:

1. Open SETTINGS app and go to GENERAL
2. Tap on DATE & TIME
3. Toggle off SET AUTOMATICALLY
4. Change the date to anything in 2012 (your Messages and data services will be disabled for a minute)
5. Tap HERE to go to the page to download the free GBA4IOS app
6. On the page tap the drop down and choose GBA4IOS and then tap INSTALL
7. Important: BEFORE you change back your dat & time setting, OPEN the GBA4IOS app and leave it up and running
8. Go back to SETTINGS app and toggle on SET AUTOMATICALLY to restore the date & time - your data services will be restored

That's it, the app has now been installed on your non-jailbroken device without going though the App Store! Crazy! Now, you'll need to download some game roms for your GameBoy emulator app but it's way easy too:

1. Your GBA4IOS app should still be open from before so go to it
2. Tap on the magnifying glass button at the top right of the app's screen
3. Tapping the button opens Safari and pulls up a web search with game rom sites, tap the first link
4. You'll be taken to a mobile site where you can download all the game roms you want - woo!
5. Pick a game and tap DOWNLOAD NOW which pops open a box asking you which app you want to open the download with, choose OPEN IN and then choose GBA4IOS
6. Wait a few seconds and you'll be taken back to the GBA4IOS app and your download should appear in the rom list

That's it, just tap on your rom and start playing!

I know it looks like a lot of steps, but honestly it took be about 2 minutes to complete, and it's worth it!

ColecoVision Reborn

Is shag carpet back in yet? Someone go find a hipster and let me know.

A new Kickstarter project concerning something very dear to my heart has just surfaced. The same group that released the excellent Vectrex Regeneration last year has taken on the task of bringing the retrospectacular ColecoVision console to the mobile gaming community and they need your help. For those of you who need a refresher, the ColecoVision was introduced in August of 1982 as the ultimate Atari and Intellivision-killer -- and it almost succeeded until the Great Video Game Crash of 1983 made short work of the entire industry. At the time of its release, the system was way ahead of its competitors offering near-arcade quality graphics, arcade-style super-controllers and, via a seperate expansion unit, cross-platform compatibility with its greatest nemesis, the Atari 2600. The party was short-lived, however, and the system was discontinued in 1985, just three years before Coleco would file for bankruptcy and right around the same time that a little Japanese company, called Nintendo, decided to reinvent the home gaming market for a new generation with something they called the NES. But thanks to the folks at RantMedia Games, who happen to be huge ColecoVision fans, it looks like you'll soon be able to relive those totally tubular memories right in the palm of your hand. For more info check out the video and the link. (Special thanks to Cheryl for tipping me off on this awesome project!)

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE COLECOVISION KICKSTARTER PAGE

Foosball for iPad

CLICK FOR LARGER VIEW

As if there weren't already enough reasons already to buy an iPad, here's one more for you: the New Potato iPad Foosball Table. Just pop your iPad 1, 2 or 3 into this little sucker (iPad 4 has that wonky new connector so it won't work) and you're ready for some serious sweat-inducing, retro digital ball-kicking (ouch).

Check out some of the features:

• Tournament foosball rules and other challenging games.
• Classic foosball play fields and alternative foosmen and layouts
• Gameplay features 1-man and 3-man goalie options
• Working 2 axis control bars with tactile elastomer handles
• Celebrate every goal with real scoring markers at each end
• Unparalleled play and feel for iPad, using the power of iOS and 3D accelerated graphics
• One, two, three, or four person play
• 3D instant replay and recap the action.
• Realistic game table with folding legs for easy transport and storage
• Rugged construction and durability for zealous play
• Foosball table is also a charge and sync dock
• Powered by your iPad, no batteries or external power required.

And, what? It's only $99?! Well I've got that burning a hole in my savings account wife's purse pocket right now!

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO ABOUT THE iPAD FOOSBALL TABLE

BONUS VIDEO - SEE IT IN ACTION!

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

ThinkGeek Blowout Sale

Happy Boxing Day everyone! Every so often, people stop and ask me where I get all of my gnarly retro and non-retro geek gear (total lie). While there are a number of places online where you can get your geek on quite successfully, no other single outlet seems to be able to match the sheer vastness of the ThinkGeek.com inventories. And with Christmas having just passed us, now's the time to take advantage of some fantastic deals at this legendary cyber-store with up to 75% off anything geeky, which is everything they sell. "Be more specific!" shout the masses. Well here's a (very) partial list of some of the goodies currently on sale at ThinkGeek:

• "My First Bacon" Talking Plush Doll - originally $19.99 now $14.99!
• Star Trek Starfleet iPhone Case - originally $14.99 now $3.99!
• iCade Jr. Mini Arcade Cabinet - originally $49.99 now $9.99!
• Android Fridge Magnet - originally $3.99 now $0.99!
• Scrolling LED Belt Buckle II - originally $29.99 now $19.99!
• HTTPanties - originally $7.99 now $6.99!

CLICK HERE TO BLOW YOUR WAD AT THINKGEEK.COM

Blood Covered Wagon

Computers in the 21st century are ubiquitous. They're in absolutely everything. It's not even worth trying to list all the microchips floating around your home, work or vehicle at any given time because they are literally everywhere so let's not even go there, OK? However when that first round of 8-bit personal computers invaded elementary schools in the early 1980s, the vast majority of American households didn't even have a digital watch, let alone a personal computer, so getting to spend even a few minutes of quality time with a Commodore PET or an Apple II at your school was like taking a ride into the future. Hell, for me it was like being frickin' Captain Kirk! Of course, most kids of the time, including myself, were already quite familiar with the 8-bit video games that had long lined the walls of arcades, supermarkets and drug stores, so who could blame us when all we wanted to do with those thousand dollar educational computers is play Pac-Man on them, or maybe blow up some asteroids in outer space or dare to protect the Earth from rapidly advancing waves of bloodthirsty alien invaders?! That's what we hoped for. What we got instead was Oregon Trail (sad trombone). One of the first successful educational games for early personal computers, the Oregon Trail was originally developed in 1974 by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium to run on timeshared mainframes and was used to teach kids about 19th century pioneer life. In the game, the player was given a fixed amount of funds with which to buy food, supplies, bullets, oxen and the like, and was sent on his or her way in a crappety covered wagon to travel the treacherous trail that tied together Missouri and Oregon. Ho hum. Actually I say ho hum because in addition to the fair amount of luck required to traverse the dodgy path to the West, the other key component to ensuring a winning game was good forethought and strategy, which I suck at. Plus my character nearly always died from dysentery. So blessed be I when a local Retrogeeker reader suggested that I use this forum to introduce to you possibly one of the coolest retro 8-bit-style video games ever to grace your iThing or Android device (you can also play it on Facebook, but really, who wants to do that?) The game is called Organ Trail and comes to us from a small indy developer called The Men Who Wear Many Hats. I like that. Descriptive and a mouthful, just how I like my coffee. Organ Trail plays roughly similar to the game that it's based upon, except that instead of trying to lead a happy pioneer family across our great nation to a land of untold bounty, you're trying to get your party of ne'er do wells to the Pacific Northwest in a station wagon while fending off a full-on zombie apocalypse. Funny, great retro graphics and sound, and even a decent plot. Check out the trailer below and then you should totally go and buy it! I did!

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ORGAN TRAIL WEBSITE

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE IPHONE APP

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ANDROID APP

Turn Your Phone Into an Arcade

Gaming just got a whole lot itty-bittier with the iCade Jr. from Ion Audio. Just plug in your iPhone or iPod touch and fire up one of the many compatible games from the App Store for a devilishly diminutive retro experience. Featuring a solid arcade-style joystick and eight action buttons (four on the front and four on the back) the iCade Jr. also sports a pass-thru port for use with a USB cable, turning your mini-arcade into the coolest iPhone dock ever. Best of all, it's made to work perfectly with the "Atari's Greatest Hits" app which features 100 classic home and arcade titles from the number one video game maker of the 1980s. But be warned, this little fella costs $69.99, so for 30 bucks more you could pick up its iPad-compatible sibling, the original iCade, instead.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ICADE JR. PRODUCT PAGE

Pitfall Harry In Your Pocket

This month we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of the seminal Atari 2600 game, Pitfall! whose rabid popularity helped put a once little-known game company named Activision on the map and on gaming consoles everywhere. Designed by David Crane, Pitfall! was considered to be one of the progenitors of the "platform" genre and paved the way for later games such as Super Mario Bros. and Alex Kidd while showing off to the world just what could be accomplished on such a limited machine as the Atari 2600. So to celebrate, and to cash-in on an old property, Activision has released a new Pitfall! game for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Those familiar with the hit iPhone app, Temple Run, will recognize it as the inspiration for this game in that your 3D character runs down a 3D path of sorts, jumping, swinging and dodging 3D hazards while collecting priceless digital riches and virtual treasures. If you stop, you die. While I personally would have been happier with a translation closer to the original 1982 version, it does prove to be a fun time-waster, albeit a frustrating one at times. Before you go, check out the old Pitfall! commercial featuring none other than a young Jack Black!

CLICK HERE to go to the iTunes page for Pitfall!