Attract Mode

Title screen of the Amiga demo Eon by The Black Lotus, Revision 2019, with h0ffman in the credit line, on a CRT.
h0ffman: the many scenes the Amiga built, in one person
I was never in the demoscene, I was the kid pulling cracked games off BBSs at 300 baud. Return to Blacktooth's soundtrack sent me back to it, and to h0ffman:... Read more...
Close-up of a Motorola MC68000P8 microprocessor, whole chip, on a blue background.
The 68000: the chip I jumped over
I went Atari 800XL to PC and skipped the sixteen-bit years entirely, no ST, no Amiga. One chip, the Motorola 68000, built the whole world I missed (the Amiga, the... Read more...
Return to Blacktooth title screen on a CRT: a busy isometric illustration of Head, Heels and Blacktooth's world.
Return to Blacktooth: the Head Over Heels sequel 37 years in the making
Colin Porch started a Head Over Heels sequel in 1989, shelved it when Ocean let him go, and finished it thirty-seven years later. Return to Blacktooth is a real 2026... Read more...
Apidya meadow level gameplay on a Commodore 1084 CRT, running on MiSTer AmigaVision.
Best of AmigaVision: the shooters—field notes from a visitor
AmigaVision has 205 shooters in it. I'm not a shmup person—I'm a hardware person who keeps wandering into their neighborhood. Field notes from a visitor: one avenging bee, a jeep,... Read more...
DoDonPachi DaiOuJou, a Cave shoot-'em-up on the IGS PGM board, on a MiSTer FPGA.
PGM vs. Psikyo: the two shoot-'em-up boards that never needed the Neo Geo
Two arcade boards made their name entirely outside the Neo Geo's shadow: IGS's PolyGameMaster and Psikyo's SH-2. One hosted Cave's memorized bullet-curtains, the other Psikyo's read-on-reflex aggression—the two philosophies of... Read more...
Gunbird 2, a Psikyo SH-2 shoot-'em-up, running on a MiSTer FPGA.
Psikyo's SH-2 board: the shoot-'em-up dynasty the lifers swear by
If Cave is the shmup everybody name-drops, Psikyo is the one the lifers swear by—fast, aimed, readable bullets you weave through on reflex. A tour of Psikyo's SH-2 board (Strikers... Read more...
The PGM PolyGameMaster boot screen with the IGS logo, running on a MiSTer FPGA.
The PolyGameMaster: the board that out-Neo-Geo'd the Neo Geo—and briefly housed Cave
In 1997 Taiwan's IGS built the PolyGameMaster to out-muscle the Neo Geo—a faster 68000, zooming sprites, and a brawler library still running in Asian arcades today. Then, for two strange... Read more...
Team Vega's Barbarian, the 2026 Atari 8-bit port, running on a CRT via a MiSTer FPGA.
Barbarian: the banned sword-fight that finally reached the Atari 8-bit
Palace Software's Barbarian (1987) was famous twice over—for a photographed cover starring a future Gladiators star, and for the decapitation finisher that got it banned in Germany. After 39 years,... Read more...
Atari Missile Command on an arcade cabinet, the trackball in the control panel below.
Missile Command: the arcade game Dave Theurer dreamed in nightmares
Atari's Missile Command (1980) ended on "THE END," not "GAME OVER"—because its designer, who dreamed of nuclear blasts while building it, meant for everyone to lose. The story, the level-13... Read more...
Paprium: the most beautiful Genesis game almost nobody got to play
Paprium: the most beautiful Genesis game almost nobody got to play
Paprium is the Sega Genesis's most ambitious — and most troubled — beat-'em-up: eight years of delays, a fake "custom chip," seized funds, and an $895K Kickstarter that delivered nothing.... Read more...
TRON 1982 arcade title screen — logo and grid maze — on a raster CRT arcade cabinet.
TRON: the arcade cabinet that beat the movie to theaters
Bally Midway's TRON reached arcades two months before the Disney film — four games in one blacklit cabinet. A look at the machine, the movie timing, and the bundle-only M... Read more...
Atari 2600 running Battlezone TC on a CRT with two joysticks and a PlusCart+ cartridge.
Battlezone: the arcade tank the Army turned into a trainer
Atari's Battlezone (1980) was the first true 3D arcade game — and the only coin-op the U.S. Army ever commissioned its own version of, the secret Bradley Trainer. The story,... Read more...
Atari 2600 with a PlusCart+ cartridge running Championship Soccer on a CRT, match clock onscreen.
Pelé's Soccer: the cart that named the easter egg
Pelé's Soccer was the Atari 2600's first soccer game — and its programmer, Steve Wright, went on to coin the term "easter egg." A look at the cart, the name... Read more...
A BackBit Pro flash cart inserted in an Atari 2600+ console.
Which Atari multicart? Every current option for the 2600, 5200, 7800 (and the 2600+/7800+ catch)
Every current multicart for the Atari 2600, 5200, and 7800 side by side — price, how it loads, and what it works on, with no favorites. Plus the catch that... Read more...
Basement wall mural of a neon Chicago skyline on a glowing rainbow perspective grid, in the 1980s outrun aesthetic.
The TRON wall: where the neon-grid '80s look actually came from
Everybody who sees the mural says the same word: TRON. But the neon grid, the chrome sunset, and the cyan-and-magenta—the whole "outrun" look—didn't start with synthwave. It traces straight back... Read more...