Inspiration: giving credit where credit is due

Recently, my interest in "retro-gaming" has been piqued by my discovery of the whole ROM/Emulator scene. I never knew it was so easy to run emulators on modern PCs. I was under the impression that it took a great deal of technological know-how to get one of those things a running. Back in 2004, I even paid some kid $25 to burn me a couple of NesterDC discs for my Dreamcast. I just discovered I could have done the same thing in a couple of hours for a fraction of what I paid. But, whatever. Burning Dreamcast discs is a pain in the ass anyway. I can't recall a single time I succeeded at making a backup from my computer.

After playing catchup with old games I never had the chance to play, I went online and did a little research on sites that specialized in retro-gaming (this term being commonly used among people that favor older games). Amazingly enough, while there are countless websites about gaming and the related subcultures, there were only a handful of sites that I was able to find that had this specific focus.

Here are some of the best:

RetroforceGo!: Podcast from Destructiod.com: My most favorite podcast from the good folks at Destructiod.com (in itself one of the best video game sites). They have a regular podcast where they talk about new games and the industry, but the relatively new RetroforceGo! podcast wins for focusing on old games. The first half of the show reviews the week's releases on the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console and Xbox Live Arcade, the second half revolves around an assigned topic of their choosing. Computer games are also sometimes covered along with console games.

Racketboy.com: Obviously put together by some kind of frickin' genius. This is truly a great site that has the perfect vision: Old-school console gaming with an emphasis on rare and obscure titles. Their "Hidden Gems" features are among the best console-specific lists out there. As an added plus, the site administrator (Racketboy) shares my adoration for Jet Grind Radio. One of these days I need to drop this guy a line and let him know how indispensable I found his site to be.

Retro Core: UK Gaming site that closed shop in late April 2007. Looks like I found them just a bit too late. Retro Core produced 37 videos almost completely consisting of gameplay with narrative reviews. If you can't find them on the link I provided, then simply do a search for "Retro Core" in archive.org.

It should be noted that it seems that there is a much stronger retro game scene in the UK than over in the US. There used to be this magazine that specialized in Retro gaming that was published in the UK. I'm not sure if they stopped printing it or if my bookstore stopped distributing it.

Well, there you have 3 sites that are better than this blog will ever be. I simply hope you will find a reason to return to read my irreverence.