This week is a rather quiet one for classic reissues — I suppose developers are busy announcing them at Tokyo Game Show, after all. Hope y'all like mashing buttons!
ARCADE ARCHIVES
- Platform: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 (worldwide)
- Price: $7.99 / €6.99 / £6.29
- Publisher: Hamster / Konami
What's this? Konami's multi-event athletics game, released in arcades in 1983 and ported and cloned to the hilt forever after; one to four players can compete in a handful of events (100 meter dash, 100 meter hurdles, hammer throw, high jump, javelin and long jump) via mashing, tapping, holding, mashing, releasing and mashing buttons.
Why should I care? Mashing buttons really fast remains just as engaging now as it was thirty-five years ago. Read into that comment what you will.
Useless fact: Track & Field would have only contained five events if not for an anonymous employee's insistence that they add a javelin event, due to his crush on Finnish womens' javelin champion Tina Lillak.
REPLICA HARDWARE
A group of Spanish MSX enthusiasts, with the informal assistance from MSX co-designer Kazuhiko Nishi, has finally unveiled the prototype for their Pi-based MSX facsimile, dubbed the MSXVR Virtualizer: in addition to modern conveniences like SD storage support and HDMI output, it comes with a working keyboard, a massive array of connector ports and verified support for most if not all MSX peripherals and software across MSX, MSX2, MSX2+ and MSX Turbo R revisions. Preorders are open until October 1, with final prototyping and mass production scheduled to begin later that month.
MERCHANDISE
"Haggar for President" merchandise from Fangamer
- Format: shirts, pins
- Price: $10 (pin), $24 (shirt)
- Availability: available
Good luck out-polling Chipp Zanuff, bub.