I still remember the exact sound—the dry hiss of breath into plastic, followed by the satisfying click as the cartridge slid into place. If you grew up with a NES, a Master System, or even the old Famicom, you probably just smiled reading that. Because for many of us, blowing into game cartridges wasn’t just a troubleshooting method—it was a ritual. No one taught us to do it. It wasn’t in the...
There’s something incredibly satisfying about reclaiming the past — not through emulation or repackaged nostalgia, but by holding the real hardware. The yellowed plastic. The hum of CRTs. The clean box art. The way power switches used to click instead of glow. Over the last year, I’ve been on a mission: to build the ultimate retro gaming collection — sourced directly from Japan, where much of...
In the mid-1980s, a glowing blue READY. prompt on a Commodore machine was the gateway to endless possibilities. Now, decades later, that gateway has reopened. Commodore is back – not as a fleeting logo slap or mini novelty, but with a new computer that is both a time machine and a modern gadget. Dubbed the Commodore 64 Ultimate, this machine is the first official Commodore computer released in...
Before the Game Boy. Before the Famicom. Before Mario made his side-scrolling debut — there was Game & Watch, Compact. Minimal. Addictive. Nintendo’s Game & Watch series didn’t just define handheld gaming — it invented it. And somewhere between its quirky simplicity and iconic design, I found myself hooked. This is the story of how I started collecting them, why they’ve earned a permanent...
If you care about accurately playing the games from your youth, exactly how you remember them, look no further. The MiSTer FPGA project has taken the retro gaming community by storm, offering a modern hardware-based approach to emulating classic consoles, computers, and arcade machines. As a MiSTer owner and lifelong gamer, I can attest that using one truly feels like stepping into a time machine...
Why Sony PVMs, scanlines, and analog glory still matter in retro gaming There’s something magical about playing a retro game on a CRT. It’s not just nostalgia — it’s how the games were meant to be seen. In the modern era of 4K displays and HDMI-perfect pixels, it’s easy to assume newer is better. But when it comes to retro gaming, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Games from the 70s, 80s...
I still remember the moment I pulled the wrapping paper off the box. I was about 12 years old, and it was a joint present from my grandparents and my mum and dad. A rectangular cardboard box with bold Commodore branding and a picture of what looked like a typewriter from the future. Inside was my first ever computer—the Commodore 16. That machine, humble as it was, would spark a lifelong...
