A brand new episode of my Clone Wars-series. This time I take a look at the Yobo FC3 Plus. It will be a multi part video so be sure to check out all the parts if you don't want to miss out.

Hi, folks. I'm back this week with a video about one of my favorite two-player games, Free Fall Associates' Archon (1983).

Also: Check out Bill's amazing response video that shows the original packaging and much more!

Ozark Softscape's Dan(i) Bunten-coded 8-bit multiplayer masterpiece, M.U.L.E., is now available in an updated, online playable version. The best part? This has the official blessing of the Bunten family. Fans of this site probably need no introduction to this semi-real-time economic strategy game, but for the rest of you, now is a great time to see what all the fuss is about. Check it out here. There are clients for Windows, Mac, and even Linux. The full game is free!

The latest in my 'Resembles...' series. This time we take a look at Boulderdash. There's quite a good version for the Atari 400/800 but I couldn't locate it--quite a few things are packed in boxes already (moving soon).

Music by Mahoney (Swedish (retro)composer), his music is a tribute to Boulderdash.

A blog called "Significant Bits" has a very nice editorial up about What made those old, 2D platformers so great?. The article is well written and illustrated, with screenshots as well as video clips. Definitely don't want to pass this up if you're a fan of platform games. Link via Slashdot.

Hi, guys, this week Matt Chat is about Metroid, one of the best games ever for the NES and probably my favorite game for the platform. I doubt there are many gamers who haven't heard of this game, but if it's been awhile you might be surprised by how modern and playable it remains so many years after its debut. As of 2:14 a.m., the video still isn't done processing, but I thought I'd go ahead and announce it anyway. If the HD or HQ settings aren't showing up for you or the image looks muddy, just wait a few hours and try again.

I just wanted to comment quick on “The Great Videogame Crash” (my personal official designation, along with my preferred use of "videogame" over "video game", just like "bodybuilding" over "body building") and sort of vet my thought process for public discussion and potential disagreement. After spending ~3 years writing the other book on American videogame and computer systems, I came to the conclusion that it has to refer to the year 1984 if a single year needs to be chosen. This was based on a combination of research and personal experience. To put it simply, in 1983, consumers had no real concept that there was something going on behind the scenes. All the consumer saw was increasing stock and lowered prices. Behind the scenes was a different story, with retailers having excess of unsold inventory and diminishing or non-existent profit margins for even good publishers in light of cut-price dreck from their competitors. The classic supply outstripping demand. It wasn’t until 1984 that consumers started to realistically notice there was a problem when less and less new product started appearing on store shelves. That’s why to me, 1984 has to be the year.

Obviously videogames never fully went away in retail or sales channels, but there was a definite slowdown 1984 – 1985. It wasn’t until the limited release of the NES in late 1985 and its wide release in 1986 that retailers started to want to get back full force into videogames and lots of different companies again wanted to cash in. So really, The Great Videogame Crash can be considered from 1983 – 1986 if you want to get technical, but the years where it was felt the most by consumers - who to me are the most important part of the equation - would actually be 1985 and 1986. At least that’s my theory and one I plan on sticking with. And obviously this only applies to North America and specifically the US, as market conditions were very different elsewhere. Also, we can't mention The Great Videogame Crash without also mentioning that the thinking in that 1984 - 85 time period was that low cost computers like the Commodore 64 would more than fill the function or need of consoles that "just" played games. Obviously that wasn't the case and both markets peacefully co-existed for some time. So, what do YOU think?

According to ITMedia News (a Japanese site) Nintendo has officially announced it will cease support of a number of their more classic-consoles: the Famicom/NES, the SNES, GameBoy, GameBoy Pocket and Nintendo 64 (N64).

Capcom Classics Mini Mix Box: Despite having 3 great games, this compilation is still a mixed bag.After trading in a few games, I had some credit at the local Gamestop available. In an attempt to beef up my GBA/DS game collection, I got Capcom Classics Mini Mix for only $1! Is this fairly recent collection of retro games for the GBA worth it?

The games are good, but a few niggling presentation issues keep it from what is should be.

To be fair, the games included here are oldies but goodies and are were originally NES ports of arcade games that are heavily changed from the originals in effective ways. Strider adds some RPG elements, a plot hampered by a laughable translation, and Mega Man style stage selection to what originally was a fairly generic, but cool, side scroller. Bionic Commando is arguably the best of the bunch here with several levels, some lite RPG elements, and a plot that some how works in spite of censorship (the original villains in the Japanese versions were Nazis; for the American version, all swastikas were removed and the villains are now a generic evil army). Mighty Final Fight takes an ultra-cute kiddy approach to a remake of the first game of the series with a superfluous addition of having your characters level up.