No matter what, the Pac-Man Hat fits for all purposes. Whether you are going for a retro video games cosplay party, needing some shade to block the sun or confessing that you love ghosts, you need this big yellow hat.

$35.90 at NCSX.

Image: NCSX

Post from: EveryJoe

Pac-Man Hat, Big & Yellow

Because of this, we’re now thinking about how to decorate our kids’ rooms and I was looking on Etsy for cool things to put on the wall.

There is a point-promise.

Vinyl Design has a TON of gaming themed things to put on your walls or laptop. My favorite is the Pong design and I’m strongly considering getting it for my office.

I mean, if I have to work, I might as well look at some cool stuff. Right?

LOVE this stuff!

Images| Vinyl Design

Post from: EveryJoe

Put Some Classic Games on Your Walls

The iPhone may be the newest gaming rig on the field, but it\’s starting to host its fair share of yesteryear. Some of the biggest names in retro gaming have popped on the touch screen, such as Namco\’s Pac-Man and Atari\’s Missile Command. And in just the last few weeks, the App Store has placed wayback classics like Space War and Adventure within reach of iPhone gamers. But one of the most intriguing trips down memory lane comes courtesy of Sid Player, a to-go jukebox that links you directly to a huge library of classic Commodore 64 music.\r\n\r\nThere is something special about the music of the C64. The Commodore 64 was a wildly successful platform that snuck into many homes as a productivity machine, but was primarily used as a game player. The C64 was built with audio in mind (among other things) and the SID chip was capable of producing some incredible game music. While technically limited when compared to the audio equipment of today, the SID chip, in the right hands, could sing. Some of the greats of the era, such as Rob Hubbard and Paul Norman, coaxed some fantastic music — not game music, but just music — out of the SID. Play The Last V8, Human Race, Aztec Challenge, and Forbidden Forest, and just try to disagree.

\r\n\r\nEven though I don\’t own an iPhone (yeah, it sucks) and didn\’t own a Commodore 64, I could imagine how strange it would feel playing classic or retro video games on a 3.5-inch widescreen at 480 by 320 pixel resolution. Playing these retro games isn\’t about how it looks or sounds, but how it feels, and how it feels right in the hands of a passionate classic or retro gamer.\r\n\r\nIf I owned an iPhone, however, I\’d probably go for retro or classic video games that I had played when I was young … er. Space Invaders and Asteroids, which I originally played on the Atari 2600, are probably two of the games I\’d get for my iPhone.\r\n\r\nScouring the Internet, but staying away from the Apple iPhone App Store, I\’ve found a retro game pack for the gadget at Apptism. The retro game pack has four games—Bricks, Alien Hunter, Tank Wars and Pong—and is downloadable, for a fee, of course, from Apptism.\r\n\r\nBefore you go downloading new retro (boy that sounds so contradictory!) video games to your iPhone, consider viewing this video entitled The Good, Bad & Ugly side of the Apple iPhone App Store from TekieTV:\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nOh, and if you\’re looking for a good blog to get news about Apple and the iPhone, check out The After Mac and Cellphone9.

Post from: EveryJoe

Even the iPhone is going retro

Here are two of my favorite retro gaming t-shirts:

The maker of these retro video gaming t-shirts, 101tshirts.co.uk, also produce retro television, movie and music shirts. Not a fan of t-shirts? No problem. The company specializes in printing our favorite retro video gaming icons on different products like hoodies, kitchen aprons, satchels, sports bags, and drawstring bags.

Go check out their other designs and tell me what you think.

Post from: EveryJoe

Retro gaming t-shirts featuring Mario, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man

For those who have no inkling of what stop motion animation is, here’s a short description from Wikipedia:

Stop motion (or frame-by-frame) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved by small amounts between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames are played as a continuous sequence. Clay figures are often used in stop motion animations, known as claymation, for their ease of repositioning.

Well, now we know that clay isn’t the only good medium for stop motion animation. There’s also Lego, patient men and women, and just about anything you can get your hands on as this video proves:

Post from: EveryJoe

Retro games in stop motion video

One such item is this Pac-Man themed giant Christmas Tree in Madrid, Spain:

Actually, the “tree” looks more like a pyramid or an obelisk. But who cares? Unfortunately, the Pac-Man Christmas Tree was put up in December last year. So we don’t really know if they’re going to put it up again. Hopefully, if they do, it will be with a different theme. Super Mario Brothers, perhaps?

Post from: EveryJoe

Pac-Man Christmas Tree lights up Madrid

Topping the list is Pac-Man with a whopping seven million cartridges sold, followed by Pitfall! with four million and Missile Command with 2.5 million.

Other Atari 2600 games that made it to the million copies-sold list are Demon Attack with two million, (BIG GASP!) E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial with 1.5 million, and Adventure, Atlantis, Cosmic Ark, Kaboom!, Megamania, River Raid, and Space Invaders with one million copies each.

Yeah, it’s weird seeing E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial up there with certified Atari 2600 hits like Space Invaders, but that’s what the figures say. Hmmm, come to think of it, the fact that the botched version of Pac-Man out-sold all other Atari 2600 games. The two video games are quite fortunate to have tie-ins—E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial with the movie of the same name, and Pac-Man with the highly successful arcade game that gave birth to dozens of ports.

Aside from Pac-Man, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, and Missile Command, I honestly can’t remember playing the other games in the list.

Here’s a video review of the best-selling Atari 2600 video game by Ray from NewGenGamers:

Post from: EveryJoe

Top 10 best-selling Atari 2600 games of all time

Recently, I came across another video of a television commercial featuring Pac-Man but for a different product: cereals. I never knew Pac-Man had his own cereal line. Cap’n Crunch, sure. But Pac-Man?

Good thing someone preserved it and enshrined the video on the Internet. It’s quite unfortunate, though, that the sound isn’t that good, making it hard for viewers to learn the lyrics of the commercial’s theme song for kicks.

Post from: EveryJoe

Blast from the past: Pac-Man cereal commercial

I have to give credit to guys like YouTube user blairwja who seek to break the monotony of retro gaming by providing us with great and entertaining fan fiction. Now, if only someone comes up with a video of the Super Mario Brothers on a romp in the Mega Man world.

Post from: EveryJoe

Pac-Man in Super Mario Brothers world

A few days ago, while standing in line at the counter of the local McDonald’s, I spotted a pair of groovy sneakers on a—gasp!—teenage girl. Two things were obvious as I stared at the girl with envy. First, I wanted a pair of those Pac-Man shoes. Second, she’s too young to be a fan, since Pac-Mania hit the shores of our little country in, what, the early 80s. And third, the girl was already glaring at me while asking for help from the McDonald’s staff in “fending off a lecher.”

Obviously, staying at the burger joint a minute longer would have been detrimental to my health. So I went home without that juicy mustard burger and sometimes-way-too-salty fries. Wait a minute … so what do these have to do with deja vu? Actually, it’s not deja vu. More like … coincidence.

Last night, while scouring the web for photographs to use in this space, I saw a pair of familiar-looking sneakers.

Image courtesy of blakespot on flickr.

Post from: EveryJoe

Pac-Man shoes-induced deja vu