Retro Tech

By April 21, 2014 Read More →

Baldur’s Gate casts itself onto the Play Store

Screenshot 2014-04-20 21.21.44The Classic RPG Baldur’s Gate from Black Isle Studios has come to Android. Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition is now available for Android and can be found on the Google Play Store for £6.99. The RPG is one of the most beloved on the PC, many will have played it and shall rejoice at the news.

Here’s a quote from the Google Play Store with a full game description:

The dawn is especially cruel this morning…

For as long as you can remember, your view of the world has been limited to the heavily fortified walls of Candlekeep. Your foster father, Gorion, has done everything in his power to protect you and keep you out of harm’s way.

All of that is about to change. Forced to leave your home under mysterious circumstances, you find yourself drawn into a conflict that has the Sword Coast on the brink of war. An iron shortage of unknown origin threatens to plunge the city of Baldur’s Gate into conflict with Amn. Meanwhile, there is something else at work, far more sinister than you can even begin to fathom…

Since its release in 1998, this classic saga of mystery, intrigue, and adventure has set the standard for Dungeons & Dragons™ computer roleplaying games. Customize your hero’s traits and abilities, recruit a party of brave allies, and explore the far corners of the Sword Coast in your search for adventure, profit… and the truth.

Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition contains the original 60-hour epic, as well as the following expansions:

* Tales of the Sword Coast: Explore the fabled Durlag’s Tower and more locations from the original Baldur’s Gate expansion.
* The Black Pits: You have been captured and forced to fight in Baeloth’s marvelous arena. A myriad of monsters await, as well as countless other adventurers who face the same fate. Maim, murder, and maul your way to freedom… if you can!
* Discover countless improvements we’ve made to the original game, including high-resolution fonts, an improved interface, dynamic zooming, and more!

Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition also offers the following premium content available for purchase:

* Brothers Lost: Lend your aid to Rasaad yn Bashir, the Sun Soul monk, as he scours the Cloud Peaks in search of his lost brother.
* Neera and the Red Wizards: Save the wild mage Neera from the cruel machinations of Thay’s dreaded Red Wizards.
* Path of the Bloodied: Join the blackguard Dorn Il-Khan in taking revenge against those who betrayed him in Luskan.
* Gallery of Heroes: Reimagine your character with eleven never-before-seen character portraits from acclaimed Icewind Dale artist Jason Manley!
* New professionally recorded voice sets to choose from to further customize your character.

 

Posted in: Apps & Games, Retro Tech
By April 20, 2014 Read More →

The Quest for E.T. is on

atari-2600-et-the-extraterrestrialLegend has it that Atari buried a massive stock of unsold E.T. cartridge alongside Atari hardware and other games in an Alamogordo, New Mexico landfill after the famous 1983 video game crash.  The Alamogordo Daily News reported in September 1983 that between 10 and 20 semi-trailers from an Atari facility in El Paso, Texas were buried at the landfill. Sounds like an urban legend and you would wouldn’t be alone in thinking that. However, the story even appeared in The New York Times, and an Atari spokesman confirmed the report at the time.

No specific Atari merchandise was mentioned to have been dumped, many reports have stated that upwards of 3.5 million copies of the 2600 game E.T. The Extra Terrestrial be found in the mythical landfill. It seems entirely probable that the Atari dump contains a wide variety of Atari game consoles and computer hardware not to mention unsold video game cartridges.

Fuel Entertainment has received permission from the city to excavate the site on April 26, 2014. They plan on creating a documentary film surrounding the myths, facts and exploration of this legend. The general public has been invited to attend this dig, so if you’re an Atari fan and in the area, be sure to attend! 

2014 would appear to be the biggest year of the E.T. game since 1983 as the Angry Video Game Nerd has also based his first feature film about the landfill with an outlandish quest to discover it.

Posted in: Retro Tech
By January 15, 2014 Read More →

Retro Tech Addicts Podcast 09: Back to 1993…

RTA Logo MTAGareth and Matt enjoy a warm and fuzzy recollection of days gone by in this the latest instalment of the Retro Tech Addicts podcast.

As this is the first show of 2014 and as we say goodbye to 2013 we do a retro year in review and look at 1993. This was an important year in both the PC and console market with companies such as Nvidia emerging for the first time and several manufacturers having significant releases. This year saw the launch of one of Gareth’s all-time favourite consoles, the Atari Jaguar.

 

By December 5, 2013 Read More →

Retro Tech Addicts Podcast 08: A Segway to the Segway

RTA Logo MTAGareth and Matt enjoy a warm and fuzzy recollection of days gone by in this the latest instalment of the Retro Tech Addicts podcast.

In this week’s show we talk about the Segaway, the Pong video game and the release of World Of Warcraft. In our feature segment we discuss Samsung mobiles.

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Posted in: Podcast, Retro Tech
By November 15, 2013 Read More →

Retro Tech Addicts Podcast 07: Room for a little one

RTA Logo MTAGareth and Matt enjoy a warm and fuzzy recollection of days gone by in this the latest instalment of the Retro Tech Addicts podcast.

This week, thanks to a number of technical challenges, we have a shorter show but still manage to discuss the conception of the internet, the first Compaq portable PC and our own experiences with our first true PC’s.

Put a note in your diary that our next Retro Tech Addicts recording event on Hangouts will be 27th November.

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By November 11, 2013 Read More →

An Introduction to the Amstrad CPC 6128

Amstrad CPC 6128The third video in his retrospective series of the Amstrad range Gareth moves onto the big daddy, the CPC 6128. This machine replaced the lesser know Amstrad CPC 664 making up for most of the shortcomings and becoming one of the most popular products Amstrad ever produced.

The CPC6128 was released in August 1985 and initially only sold in the USA. Imported and distributed by Indescomp, Inc. of Chicago, it was the first Amstrad product to be sold in the United States, a market that at the time was traditionally hostile towards European computer manufacturers. By the end of 1985, it arrived in Europe and replaced the CPC664 in the CPC model line-up.

By November 3, 2013 Read More →

Retro Tech Addicts Pickups 03-11-13

Custom Screenshot for Pickups videoI’m back with a long overdue look at some of my recent pick ups from the days gone by.

This time there is a follow-up to a piece of kit I stumbled upon a month ago, the Amstrad NC200 is the big brother of the NC100 complete with new features and some top notice goodies included in the package.

Adding to my Gameboy  hardware collection I have picked up a couple of different generation Gameboys complete with a couple of games. And finally the jewel in the crown is another gem for the Atari Jaguar collection, a game that was not fully released at the time of the Jaguar’s demise, brace yourself!

By October 31, 2013 Read More →

Retro Tech Addicts Podcast 06: XP, Pods and HTCs (with VIDEO!)

Retro Tech Addicts PodcastGareth and Matt enjoy a warm and fuzzy recollection of days gone by in this the latest instalment of the Retro Tech Addicts podcast.

In this week’s show we talk about Windows XP, the first Apple iPod and the HTC MTeoR. Also in this show we discuss the rise of HTC and several of their key, early handsets.

This was also an experimental show. We’ve used Google Hangouts to record this week and later we’ll have a video of the show to share too. It’s not polished and obviously we’ll get better at this as we progress but we thought we would share it nevertheless.

We would really appreciate your feedback!

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By October 17, 2013 Read More →

Retro Tech Addicts Podcast 05: What’s NeXT Pac-man?

RTA Logo MTAGareth and Matt enjoy a warm and fuzzy recollection of days gone by in this the latest instalment of the Retro Tech Addicts podcast.

This week we talk about the NeXT computer, NASA’s first launch, the Sega Dreamcast and the Atari 2600

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By October 15, 2013 Read More →

An Introduction to the Amstrad CPC 664

Amstrad CPC 664Continuing his retrospective of the Amstrad range Gareth moves onto the second 8-bit computer produced by Amstrad, the CPC 664. This rare machine was produced for a very short period and now attains the status of a collector’s item. Luckily Gareth has one in his collection.

The Amstrad CPC 664 sold well in it’s day however was superseded by the CPC 6128 quite quickly as the 64kb of memory onboard did not deliver what people were looking for. The CPC 6128 became almost as iconic as the CPC 464 and the CPC 664 was ultimately forgotten. Until today!

Compared to the CPC464, the CPC664’s main unit has been significantly redesigned, not only to accommodate the floppy disk drive but also with a redesigned keyboard area. Touted “ergonomic” by Amstrad’s promotional material, the keyboard is noticeably tilted to the front with MSX-style cursor keys above the numeric keypad. Compared to the CPC464’s multicoloured keyboard, the CPC664’s keys are kept in a much quieter grey and pale blue colour scheme.

The back of the CPC664 main unit features the same connectors as the CPC464, with the exception of an additional 12V power lead. Unlike the CPC464’s cassette tape drive that could be powered off the main unit’s 5V voltage, the CPC664’s floppy disk drive requires an additional 12V voltage. This voltage had to be separately supplied by an updated version of the bundled green screen/colour monitor (GT-65 and CTM-644 respectively).

The CPC664 was only produced for approximately six months. In late 1985, when the CPC6128 was introduced in Europe, Amstrad decided not to keep three models in the line-up, and production of the CPC664 was discontinued.

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