Forgive me readers, for I have slacked. It’s been 7 months since my last post.
But today is Retro Game SuperHyper’s 9th birthday! HBD2RGSH!
Continue reading “9 Years!”
I know, you thought I was MIA all summer because I didn’t post anything here on the blog. But guess what? I was actually working on a secret bonus issue of the RGSH fanzine! That’s right, after a 3-year wait for issue 5, I’m dropping another issue this year: TV Game SuperHyper Issue 0!
“But wait, Teej –” I hear you say. “What do you mean, ‘TV’ Game SuperHyper? Why isn’t it ‘RETRO’ Game SuperHyper? Why is it issue 0? Why is it black and white? Why is the date on it 1994? And why are you so damned handsome?”
I get it, you have questions. Fortunately, I have answers!
Continue reading “Surprise! TV Game SuperHyper Issue 0 is OUT NOW!”
This one has been on my “arcades to visit” list (yes I do actually have a list) for years, but it’s taken me until now to make the trip. I’m a 3-hour drive from Chicago, and Logan Arcade doesn’t open til 6pm on weekdays and 3pm on weekends, so it doesn’t really work out to just take a day trip. It had to be an occasion when I happened to be staying in Chicago overnight, with no other specific evening events to attend to, which is a pretty rare planetary alignment.
That actually happened, though, when I took a day off just to hang with my buddy who lives in the Windy City, and we managed to incorporate Logan into our plans which otherwise involved shithousing various overly-engorged meat-centric sandwiches and consuming copious amounts of alcohol.
Continue reading “Arcade Visit: Logan Arcade, Chicago IL”
YES!! Over three years late, but I kept my promise, and the fifth issue of RGSH fanzine is finally finished and ready for you!!
The long-overdue FIFTH issue of Retro Game SuperHyper is finally here! 80 pages of art, photography, and articles about games we’re obsessed with.
Continue reading “Retro Game SuperHyper Fanzine Issue #5 is FINALLY OUT NOW!”
Several months ago, like many gamers, I found myself scratching my head over Atari’s announcement trailer for their new game, Yars Rising.
Admittedly, it was a concept a bit out of left field: a metroidvania (I use that word so begrudgingly) action-adventure spinoff of a classic space bug shootemup, starring a cute blue-haired heroine, presented in a colorful anime style? What could any of those things possibly have to do with one another?
Now that I’ve played through it, I am happy to report: it works.
Continue reading “Revenge Rising”
Are there some old games that you just never really…”got?” I mean, for classic gamers, of course we can’t all be experts at every single game (oh really? You’re a world champion at Donkey Kong and Tranquilizer Gun and Digger and The Glob and Night Striker? Yeah you’re not).
If we’re being honest, sometimes, for whatever reason, some games just don’t “click” with us. Maybe we didn’t get much opportunity to play them, maybe we just didn’t understand how to play them effectively because the rules and mechanics were too obtuse for whatever brand of neurodivergence we have. Could be any such scenario really.
As enthusiasts, we all want to be good at lots of games. Or, at least, understand them well enough to know whether or not they’re worth our time.
For me, that game was Crazy Climber.
Continue reading “Climb ’til It Clicks”
Mukwonago (muck-wanna-go), Wisconsin is a village near Milwaukee, with a population of fewer than 9000, and allegedly, home to America’s best apple pie. At 715 Main Street, there’s a building labeled Kay’s Academy of Dance — but if you’re not interested in learning the Fox Trot, go around back and you’ll find Vintage Vault Arcade!
Continue reading “Arcade Visit: Vintage Vault, Mukwonago, WI”
In 1982, Nintendo — then of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior fame, and not much else in the U.S. — released an arcade game based on Popeye, the beloved classic American cartoon character. Popeye was a smash in the arcades, and was ported to most of the home game consoles and computers of its day.
Unfortunately, that was just about the last we heard of it.
You guys. I’m worried about Popeye.
Continue reading “I’m Worried About Popeye”This year’s Metroid Marathon, the annual month-long livestreaming event, is happening a month early this year! Due to some scheduling issues, the marathon is taking place in September instead of October — meaning it’s already underway!
Also this year, the MDb will be taking donations during the streams, with proceeds going to the National Breast Cancer Coalition.
Once again, I will be participating by playing through the original NES Metroid on Monday, September 16 at 9:00 pm CDT. I hope you can join us!
Games will be simultaneously streaming on 3 different platforms:
Twitch – twitch.tv/metroiddatabase
Youtube – youtube.com/metroiddatabase
Facebook – facebook.com/metroiddatabase
Full schedule below:
While my family was in Lawrence, Kansas over a weekend in May for my son’s college graduation (kid just earned his Master’s Degree in Architecture, you know, no big deal or anything), we spent a day visiting a few fun places in Kansas and right across the state line in Missouri. Kansas City boasts a few arcades/barcades, including an Up-Down location (see my visit to Up-Down in Des Moines, Iowa, which I also visited on a trip to see my kid), but from what I saw online, the one that intrigued me the most was Draftcade.
Much like Up-Down, Draftcade is a small chain with a location in KC, one in Toledo, Ohio, and another in Richmond, Virginia. They seemed to feature a decent collection of video games and pinball, as well as Skee-Ball (which will always convince Mrs. SuperHyper to accompany me to an arcade), and of course drinks and food.
At last! A project I started back in 2021 and have picked away at little by little is finally finished, and I’m so excited to show it off to you now!
I give you…Laser Game SuperHyper!
Tim Lapetino is the author of one of my absolute favorite video game art/history books, Art of Atari (read my effusive post about that book in the link). Announced on Pac-Man’s 40th birthday (under the tentative name 40 Years of Waka-Waka), his and Arjan Terpstra’s follow-up project, Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon, was published a little over two years ago by Cook & Becker, purveyors of luxurious video game-based art books and prints. Though I pre-ordered it and received it upon its release, due to my regrettable lack of free time it’s only been just recently that I have finally had a chance to sit down and read it. I am happy to report that by all standards, Lapetino and Terpstra have once again knocked it out of the park.
Continue reading “Gamers’ Library: Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon”
Retro Game SuperHyper 