Gossip, news and leaks for obsessive gamers.
Tip us: tips@kotaku.com
Managing Editor:
Brian Crecente
Email | AIM
Senior Editor:
Michael McWhertor
Email | AIM
Night Editor, Japan:
Brian Ashcraft
Email | AIM
Associate Editor, East Coast:
Michael Fahey
Email | AIM
Associate Editor, Oceania:
Luke Plunkett
Email | AIM
Associate Editor, News:
Leigh Alexander
Email | AIM
Associate Editor, Weekends:
Maggie Greene
Email | AIM
Owen Good
Email | AIM
Correspondent, San Francisco:
Flynn De Marco
Email | AIM
Intern:
Adam Barenblat
Email
Comments Moderator:
Kenji Ito
Email
mame
What better way to transport yourself back to the time of arcade dominance than an actual time machine? Simon Jansen obviously has too much time on his hands, being the man behind the ASCII recreation of the original Star Wars film, and now we know where he's been getting all of that time. Not only did he build his own version of Doctor Who's Tardis, he stuffed it with a folding MAME cabinet so he could play games from the past! Jansen has painstakingly documented the entire process, including a picture of his lizard, which I am positive was integral to the project. If I lived in a bizarro world where I didn't need to work and sleep in order to survive, I would have two of these.
Building a MAME console inside a TARDIS [ASCIIMATION via Wired Gadgets]
Jaded types may have grown weary of feats of emulation by this point, having seen MAME on their cameras, iPhones and dinner table, but seeing the multiple arcade machine emulator on an oscilloscope has to elicit something more than a "meh", right? I mean, it's Star Wars Arcade, people. There's even video of this achievement.
Moose 2000's Photostream [Flickr via Wonderland]
First impressions on this IKEA dining table hack leaned toward solving the dilemma of having to engage others in conversation while supping, instead of staring intently at a television monitor and chewing silently. But having read the creator's description, it seems much less self-serving.
More »
Two MAME-worthy creations in one day? Can you handle the intense ROM downloading?! This time, you may be motivated to do more than just fire up the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, dick around with Pac-Gentleman for a minute or two and switch off. You may be inspired to create your own version of the The Last Starfighter cabinet, complete with working The Last Starfighter video game. The fruits of the labors of Rogue Synapse, whose previous works include a working Space Paranoids arcade cabinet from Tron, are yours to enjoy and include specs for building a replica of the stand-up arcade unit from the 1984 sci-fi movie. Make your way to their site for more details and photos, plus info on the group's other projects. File under "neat-o."
The Last Starfighter [Rogue Synapse via Arcade Heroes]
pac-man
Sure, real-life faux antiquities, such as Doktor A's "The Secret History of Video Games: Pac Gentleman" are okay, I guess, if only as a curiosity. But from what I understand, the gameplay is total shit, even by 1880's standards.
Thankfully, the industrious LiveJournalists of the world with ROM hacking skills took the liberty of fashioning themselves a Pac-Gentleman binary playable in MAME. It seems very much like the original, but with mustachioed ghosts, a derby wearing protagonist and period appropriate language.
Pac Gentleman [S.D. Lawrence, ESQ LTD. via MAKE]
kotaku after dark
The only gaming company actually listed as such in the CEDIA catalog was Game Cabinets Inc. which sells MAME-loaded gaming cabinets.
While I found the cabinets surprisingly pricey and their disco-fied CrystalCade immensely gaudy, I was very impressed with the guts of their machines and their incredible take on pinball.
say you're watching pirates of the caribbean
With the MAME project ported to just about every platform under the sun—Dreamcast, Amiga, PocketPCs, digital cameras, cell phones—it was only a matter of time until someone ported the emulator to the iPhone albeit currently unplayable. I'm actually surprised it took this long—the thing has been out for almost two whole months already.
The MAME port's author writes that performance on the SDL is a tad flaky—Pac-Man and Q*bert run well, but Galaga and Gyruss suffer. No word on how accurately Burger Time's performance is but the project lead is looking to port an older version of MAME to the Apple phone.
iPhone MAME [Google Code]
no rom requests
rule of cps3
sega
steam
teh awesome
mame
arcade
pacman
gdc
Kotaku
