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- Legend of Cain Collection for Evercade and Boulder Dash gets 40th anniversary reboot
Legend of Cain Collection for Evercade and Boulder Dash gets 40th anniversary reboot
PLUS: genuine video game classic The Sumerian Game has been unearthed!
Christian Cawley
August 15, 2024
Hello! I hope you’re doing well and your favourite retro games are as enjoyable as ever.
I was all set to fire this email off when I discovered some late retro gaming news (it’s incredible how much there is these days!) so I’ve had to rework a bit of it and write a whole new piece below.
Table of Contents
New Evercade Gigacart, Legend of Cain Collection announced
These two classic titles from the 32-bit era are still adored by gaming fans to this day, with Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver having sold over 1.5 million units. This new Evercade collection sees the combination of the first game, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver on one physical collection for the first time.
This collection - of games originally released on PlayStation, Xbox, GameCube, and Dreamcast - uses the Giga Cart format. These have higher capacity, allowing larger and more complex games (usually 32-bit) to run on Evercade consoles.
This collection is due in September 2024, alongside the recently announced Bitmap Brothers Collection 2 and will be available to pre-order from August 30th.
Tickets still available for Zzap! Live 2024
This weekend (August 17th) the Zzap! Live 2024 event takes place at the Holiday Inn Kenilworth in Warwick. The main event runs from 10 until 6pm, and features:
Over 60 Commodore systems to play games on. Every Commodore system will be represented from the Commodore PET up to the Amiga 4000.
A Fusion Zone where non-Commodore systems will be available to play: Sega consoles, Playstation, Saturn, N64, DOS gaming and more!
We have a dedicated Q/A room that will hold up to 160 attendees along with the panel. We have some guests lined up including Rob Hubbard (music in Sanxion, Delta), Andrew Braybrook / Steve Turner (Uridium, Paradroid, Rainbow Islands, Fire and Ice), Jon Hare / Stoo Cambridge (Wizball, Sensible Soccer, Cannon Fodder), Simon Butler / Paul Hughes (Ocean Software titles), Andy Davidon (Worms on the Amiga). We have asked many others and are waiting for confirmation before announcing.
There will be gaming competitions throughout the day.
We will have many arcade machines to play on and in addition we will have some LCD pinball machines.
There will be a fully licenced bar throughout the day, and good value food available to purchase.
There is also an evening event, from 7pm: "An evening with Jeff, Giles and Dokk". This features:
The first part of the evening will be a sneek peak view of "Heart of Neon", the feature length documentary about Jeff Minter directed by Paul Docherty (Dokk).
Following the show will be a Q/A with Jeff Minter and Giles - hosted by Paul.
EXCLUSIVE : Jeff and Giles will perform a full blown VLM show!
There is also a raffle. (Probably not a meat raffle.)
Tickets are £18 for adults, £10 for kids and other concessions. Under 3s are free. You can still get tickets for the event, via TicketTailor. Have fun!
Boulder Dash 40th Anniversary announced!
BBG Entertainment is rebooting Peter Liepa's classic Boulder Dash, with an announcement coming at GamesCom next week. Boulder Dash 40th Anniversary is already listed on Steam, and is also expected to hit consoles when it is released later this year.
Boulder Dash was one of the first games to come with a construction kit, so it will be interesting to see if this is retained. Either way, the new release plans to include all levels from the previous games, so this looks like it will be a complete update of the original.
I’m personally amazed it has taken so long for Boulder Dash to get the modern reboot treatment. It was a massive franchise in the 1980s, and could easily hold its own against Pac-Man or Tetris. If anything, Boulder Dash has been underrated in modern terms.
I won’t, however, go into detail about how bloody frustrating I found it…
Other retro gaming news this week
What else has happened this week?
Following news last week concerning two pre-loaded games on the A600GS, AmigaKit has confirmed that Super Skidmarks is also pre-loaded. Meanwhile developer Chris Blackbourn is working on a multiplayer internet version, wonderfully named EPIC SKIDMARKS.
A hacker has made an unmodded Xbox 360 recognise and use an SSD drive
DOOM modders are unhappy that their work can be repurposed in the new mod browser feature of the DOOM + DOOM 2 release.
N64 platformer Glover, which recently hit Evercade, is getting a physical release on Nintendo Switch thanks to Limited Run Games (X/Twitter).
Numskull Designs has teamed up with YouTuber Kim Justice for Arcade Decades - 80s Edition. Featuring original photos of arcade machines, this coffee table title will hit Kickstarter on August 16th.
The Antstream Arcade retro gaming platform is coming to PlayStation 4 and 5.
The PlayStation 2 Timesplitters trilogy (TimeSplitters, TimeSplitters 2, TimeSplitters: Future Perfect) is hitting PS4 and PS5 on August 20th, for PlayStation Premium users only. Also coming are The Witcher 3, Watch Dogs 2, and various others.
Red Dead Redemption (2009) could be coming to PC. Expect a ton of mods if this happens.
And finally…
A Def Con attendee’s badge has been hacked to run DOOM
Best retro gaming videos of the week
Don’t miss these. First, FastDoom - the best way to run DOOM on 90s PC hardware.
An AGA port of MS-DOS platform shooter Electroman by Paweł Tukatsch will be available from August 30. (Download)
PlayStation 1 exclusive Crash Bandicoot has been ported to SEGA Saturn. Here’s a look at it:
Finally, some MISTer FPGA news, which includes the X-Men Konami Arcade Game running through a CRT.
“Game Over”
Thanks for reading, and continuing to share the newsletter. It doesn’t matter if you use email, Facebook, X/Twitter, LinkedIn - all the shares help.
And I’d love to hear from you, so feel free to reply to this email.
I’ve already started the review for the weekend edition. It’s a re-release, which I'm playing on the Nintendo Switch. No more clues, though.
Until then, take it easy…
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