Its Halloween! The time when our attention inevitably turns to oOky sPOoky titles. For this Halloween, let’s look at one that lays a little bit outside the usual. With an FGPA Core, a truckload of podcast coverage and the sudden discovery of the immense breadth Read More …
Category: Blog Posts
Interesting, informative or just for fun
Gig Review: Sonic Symphony
Yesterday I was lucky enough to score tickets for the opening show of the Sonic Symphony tour, with the first leg being held at the Barbican Centre in London. I had a ticket for me and a ticket for potentially the harshest critic of all: Read More …
An Arcade Paradise?
Available: Pretty much everywhere (Xbox, Playstation, PC, Switch – Xbox version reviewed here) Price: Bout a tenner (Switch version slightly more expensive than the rest) Erm hello. It’s been a while hasn’t it? Sorry for my absence on a personal level this has been a Read More …
Blasted Off? The fate of Michael Jackson’s Scramble Training
So, the cat’s out of the bag. After sitting on the information for months while the wheels of stuff quietly turned in the background, we’ve finally made the full footage of Michael Jackson’s Scramble Training public! Everything that needs saying about the release has been Read More …
No tengo Amiga: Nintendo Vs Commodore in the UK
Recently, it’s come to my attention that several people aren’t particularly happy with my article about the NES and the Master System in the UK market, finding the evidence supporting the argument to be lacking. Placed in such a position, there’s only really one reasonable Read More …
Alien Blackjack
Starting out as a simple UI exercise as part of Tim Buchalka and Jean-Paul Roberts excellent Python Masterclass, Alien Blackjack is a full card game that acts as a tribute to both the style of games built into Windows ’95 and the aesthetics of early Read More …
Secret Sonic Wallpapers
Today just happens to be the 31st anniversary of the release of the original Sonic the Hedgehog AND the launch day of the slightly controversial Sonic Origins…so why not celebrate with some classic Sonic Team wallpapers that have been given a 4k make over? All Read More …
A Hedgehog and a Mouse: Sega, Disney and a Surprising Attempt to become an Amusement Giant
On social media, old pictures from London’s Sega World are an easy way to harvest some quick engagement. Post the image, chuck in your ‘remember that time when Sega ran a theme park?’ caption then sit back and wait for the likes numbers to rise. Read More …
FatNicK Reviews Stuff: The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers – John Szczepaniak
Having spent five years (half a decade!) of my life on these books, I can honestly say they were a waste of time and a failure. They should have never been written, and whatever value a few academics and a tiny number of readers claim, Read More …
FatNicK Reviews Stuff: The Evercade
So, having been lucky enough to receive one of these as a father’s day gift 2020, here’s my review of Blaze’s little retro-themed box of tricks. Sorry it’s taken so long – I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the thing. I still don’t, Read More …
2021 Gaming Highlights
Well, 2021 was another slightly strange year wasn’t it? I know i’ve been a bit quieter than usual on the creative front so here’s some things that have been keeping me entertained over the last 12 months instead: The Force is With Respawn One of Read More …
Happy Christmas
Holy moly! Has it really been 3 months since my last big post? Oh well, I have some stuff cooking for early 2022, but let’s see if life gets in the way again. Untill then I hope you have an amazing Christmas and New year!
Complete Carnage: 32-bit Console hardware and the reshaping of the industry
Recently we looked at the Sega Saturn and whether it was killed too prematurely by Sega. Though these days the Saturn’s renewed popularity means we regularly ask what could have made the console a success, there’s one question that should probably ask first: Could the Read More …
Yaba-SanShiro: Run Sega Saturn games on your PI4
So we’ve looked at the state of pi Emulation and we’ve also seen how you can run Sega Model 3 games on your Pi, so here’s a quick tutorial on how to run Sega Saturn games on your Pi4. It’s worth remembering that from a Read More …
Becoming a Super Model: Adding Model 3 Games to Your Pi4.
JULY UPDATE: All of the per-game optimisations are built into the supermodel.ini file, so you just need to setup and Play. If the previous reasons we’ve looked at for getting a Raspberry Pi weren’t enough, you can now also add Sega Model 3 arcade games Read More …
“The Saturn is not our future” Sales, Costs and the Demise of the Sega Saturn
2023 Update: The recent (and highly dramatic) leak of documents and emails surrounding Sega of America’s 1997FY marketing plan adds some important context to the question of how much the Saturn cost Sega. One particularly juicy little nugget is this snapshot of Sega of America’s Read More …
The Second Sound Chip – The Sega Master System and the YM2413
What is a Master System? If you’re reading this in English and you owned a Sega Master System you probably didn’t own the most complete version of the Sega Master System. This isn’t idle snobbery: the Machine that was released outside Japan was notably different Read More …
A Tale of Three Brawlers
With everything that’s happened last year, it’s been easy to miss some of the more interesting tid-bits – like the universe gifting us updates to three classic 8/16-bit brawlers in the space of 18 months: River City Girls, Streets of Rage 4 and Battle Toads. Read More …
FatNick’s 2020 in Gaming
Well as a remarkably rubbish year comes to an end it seems suitable to look back at what gaming highlights I can haul out of the wreck. Will these all be new games? No! These won’t even necessarily be things I haven’t played before – Read More …
Elf Run
Play Elf Run on itch.io Press ‘1’ to start/reset the game and spacebar to jump. Bloody hell it’s that time of year again isn’t it? That means it’s time for… another slightly dodgy Christmas give away! For the unending crapfest that was 2020, I thought Read More …