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Hi Carl, how are you?

[Time Scanner]

Time Scanner is a pinball game developed by Sega for Sega System 16 hardware. It was released in 1987, with ports to the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum by Activision showing up in the following years.

There are four boards in Time Scanner representing different time zones. Each board is split into two sections. The arcade game is controlled using a tiltable panel with two flipper buttons on either side, designed to more closely approximate a real pinball machine.

Source:  Sega Retro

[Alone in the Dark]

Alone in the Dark is a survival horror video game designed by Frédérick Raynal and developed and published by Infogrames for the PC. Alone in the Dark was released for MS-DOS in 1992, ported for the 3DO by Krisalis in 1994, and ported for iOS by Atari, Inc. in 2014. Set in 1920s Louisiana, the game challenges the player to guide the player character out of a haunted mansion, advancing by solving puzzles while either banishing, slaying, or eluding various ghosts and monsters. The player can collect and use weapons, manage a weight-based inventory system, and explore a partially nonlinear map.

Alone in the Dark received critical acclaim upon its release, and is considered a breakthrough and influential title, as it was the first 3D survival horror game. In the years since its release, many commentators have dropped the 3D qualifier and asserted that Alone in the Dark was the first survival horror game regardless of graphical perspective. Among the accolades that followed its release, Alone in the Dark received the European Computer Trade Show awards for Best Graphics and Most Original Game in 1993. In 2009, Empire included Alone in the Dark on their list of 100 greatest video games of all time.

Alone in the Dark is considered a forefather, and often the originator, of the survival horror genre and it strongly influenced Shinji Mikami's direction of the original Resident Evil game, as well as the franchise as a whole. Alone in the Dark has also spawned four follow-up games as part of the series, as well as two films loosely based on them.

Source:  Wikipedia

LEGO is releasing an official set to build the Atari 2600.  Orders start on August 1st.  It looks very nice but it is definitely a pricey item.  Not surprising as most LEGO kits that are licensed are quite expensive.  You can learn more here:  LEGO Atari® 2600

The next issue will be the final issues of this online magazine, unfortunately.

This looks like quite a cool game! 

Latest arrivals, except the Vectrex carts.  Those I upgraded to have shells...

Here is a new video that covers the ride in detail.  It's really cool!  Can't wait for Universal to open this in Florida, which should be by 2025.

New games coming to Evercade...

Greetings!

This is an official notification that The Retrogaming Times, Thirty-Ninth Issue - July 2022, has been published and can be viewed at the URL below:

http://www.classicplastic.net/trt/

Featured in this issue:

TEENAGER DISCOVERS GIANT OCTOPUS!

+ More C64! - Personal Journeys
+ Apple II Incider - Super Mario Bros. and Dragon's Lair
+ StarTropics (NES) - See the Southern Cross for the First Time *COVER STORY*
+ SMS Memories: Mastering Friendship
+ Peripheral Paradise
+ The Unsung Brilliance of Super Mario Bros. 2 (USA)
+ Eleven More Retro Characters for the Next Super Smash Bros.
+ Caught On Film - Tron (1982) Forty Years of Fighting For the User
+ Retrogaming Ceramics
+ Weekly Retrogaming Trivia Recap
+ and more...

Another excellent video!

[Tiger-Heli]

Tiger-Heli is a vertically scrolling shooter game developed by Toaplan and released for arcades in 1985. It was published in Japan by Taito and in North America by Romstar. Controlling the titular attack helicopter, the player must fight endless waves of military vehicles while avoiding collision with their projectiles and other obstacles. The Tiger-Heli has a powerful bomb at its disposal that can clear the screen of enemies when fired. It was the first shoot 'em up game from Toaplan, and their third video game overall.

Tiger-Heli was the creation of video game composers Masahiro Yuge and Tatsuya Uemura, who had previously worked on several titles for Japanese companies Orca and Crux before both of them declared bankruptcy. The development team drew inspiration from the arcade game Gyrodine. The team wanted to create a scrolling shooter that balanced between being entertaining and fun, and to have players keep wanting to play it after dying. The staff chose a helicopter as the player's craft as they felt it would work for a game that had the screen continuously scrolling. The soundtrack, composed by Uemura, was made to convey a sense of bravery, which was hampered by technical limitations.

Tiger-Heli was well received by critics for its gameplay, graphics and weapons, and helped establish Toaplan as a leading producer of shooting games throughout the 1980s and 1990s. It was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System by Micronics, a conversion that was commended for its accurate portrayal of the arcade original. The NES version sold over one million copies. A PlayStation version was released in 1996 by Banpresto as part of the compilation Toaplan Shooting Battle 1. It was followed by two sequels: Twin Cobra (1987), and Twin Cobra II (1995). The rights to Tiger-Heli are owned by Tatsujin, a Japanese developer formed by Yuge.

Gameplay

Tiger-Heli is a military-themed vertically scrolling shoot 'em up game, in which players take control of the titular attack helicopter through four increasingly difficult levels in order to defeat an assortment of military enemy forces like tanks, battleships, and artillery as the main objective. Besides some airplanes taking off, there are no flying enemies in the entire game. As far as vertical scrolling shooters go, the title initially appears to be very standard, as players control their craft over a constantly scrolling background and the scenery never stops moving until a helipad is reached. Players have only two weapons at their disposal: the standard shot that travels a max distance of half the screen's height and two bombs.

A unique gameplay feature is the bomb mechanic; unlike other games in the genre released at the time, the bombs are powerful weapons capable of obliterating any enemy caught within its blast radius. The bombs also act as a shield against incoming enemy fire, however, as they can be triggered after taking enemy hits as well. There are also three types of items scattered through every stage in total that appear as destructible flashing crosses: extra bomb stocks and two variations of helicopter "options" that attack at the player's will against incoming enemies, while is also possible to mix and match the two helicopter option types, totaling no more than two.[5][6] These items can be picked up by shooting their respective cross color but grabbing any item when not necessary yields bonus points.

The player are given three lives initially and bonus lives are awarded by reaching certain score thresholds or collecting ten gold diamonds in a row by shooting them. Firing on determined locations is also crucial for reaching high-scores to obtain extra lives, as certain setpieces in some stages hosts a bonus secret within their scenery. There are also hidden bonus secrets to be found as well. The game employs a checkpoint system in which a downed single player will start off at the beginning of the checkpoint they managed to reach before dying.[6] Getting hit by enemy fire will result in losing a live, as well as the helicopter options and once all lives are lost, the game is over unless the player inserts more credits into the arcade machine to continue playing. After completing the last stage, the game begins again with the second loop increasing in difficulty and enemies fire denser bullet patterns.

Source:  Wikipedia

OK, here is a video with another hack for this system:

From the creator of the Atari Archive, we now get the Intellivision Archive.  This is episode 1!

 Today's video details the creation of the Mattel Intellivision, the most advanced game console of 1979 and one of the (relatively) big competitors to Atari's VCS console in the early 1980s. We'll also look at the four games that were sold alongside the console at its test launch: Las Vegas Poker and Blackjack, Armor Battle, ABPA Backgammon, and Electric Company Math Fun.