People involved in the preparation of this issue of RetroMagazine World (in no particular order):
- Alberto Apostolo
- Dr. Andrea Q.
- Carlo N. Del Mar Pirazzini
- Daniele Brahimi
- Mic the Biker Novarina
- Francesco Fiorentini
- Leonardo Miliani
- Guido Cauli
- Simone Petrucci
- Roberto Del Mar Pirazzini
- Ingrid Poggiali
- Gianluca Girelli
- Giampaolo Moraschi
- Brandon Cobb
- Giuseppe Rinella
- Maurizio Diamanti
- Marco Pistorio
- Michele Ugolini
- Eugenio Rapella
- Barbara “Morgana” Murgida
- Cover & full-page image: Giuseppe Mangini
- Cover layout: Carlo N. Del Mar Pirazzini
Editorial by Giuseppe Rinella – THE OLD DAYS ARE OVER, YAY FOR THE OLD DAYS!
I was at Como Fun event just a few days ago; you can find a short report of my day there later in this issue of RMW. Thanks to the presence of several booths I was able to relive, along with many others, the joy of the arcade games. At the end of the day I began to reflect on what arcade, and more generally video games, were for those like me who lived through that wonderful period. For me that magical time went from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, corresponding to my childhood and then adolescence. But as memories mixed with reflections in my mind, I began to think about some speeches that I regularly hear or read, sentences often said or written by those who usually “attend” the great world of retrogaming and I don’t understand them. The whole thing can be summed up with a phrase like “THESE were good games, not the ones that are out there now,” and it is a rather common thought among those who frequently visit places, almost always virtual places,, populated by “old” retrogamers. Everyone thinks what he wants, that is obvious and sacred, but there is no doubt that this way of reasoning is a bit dull but above all very self-limiting.
At a very young age I loved (and still love), among many things, hip hop music and horror movies. To my father it was junk, in that order, unlistenable and unwatchable (my mother, on the other hand, liked horror movies quite a bit and we used to watch them together, thanks mom!). The music he listened to when he was young, that was music. And the movies? Westerns, those were the right one, yes…Although on the movie side, like him, I always loved Bud Spencer, Bruce Lee, and anything where there were people fighting, a common territory if nothing else was there. It’s normal, I understand that, what reminds us of our young age will always be better than anything that existed before and came after. Nor do I mean to say that you have to like anything, that you just don’t. It is, however, a form of closure, let’s call it that way, that I find among many “fellow” video gamers who love the good old days. Ladies and gentlemen, sorry to say but those days are gone, over. We have lived through others since, we are living through several today, and I hope we will live through several more in the future.
What I mean is: let us dive whenever we feel like it into the wonderful games on which we spent much of our youth. Let’s listen to that record that immediately takes us back to that precise moment we want to relive, let’s watch the movie we could easily recite from memory line by line.
However, let us not stop listening to new music, watching new movies, reading new books. Let’s always remain curious, keep our minds wide open and ready for new ideas. Let’s do this even with the video games we love so much.
We have been blessed with incredible times for the video game industry, such significant and rapid evolution perhaps never to be seen again. Just think of the decade 1980/1990, for example, we went from Pac-Man to Monkey Island. Let us treasure this and try not to make it our own limitation.
It may seem an unsuitable topic for these pages. After all, we have that “Retro” in the name of our favorite magazine. Mine is only meant to be an invitation not to cling hand and foot to the times that were, preventing us from seeing beyond. Let us hold on to our retro-passions but not stop looking around, there would be too many wonders we could miss without even realizing it and that would be a great pity. The memories and feelings that Turrican 2 made (and still makes) me feel will all always remain there, in my heart and mind, where they will always have a special and untouchable place for me, but how beautiful and absurdly amazing is Doom Eternal?
That’s all for this month friends and girlfriends, goodbye to you and see you next month again around here.
In the meantime, be good and play hard!
Summary:
- Philips Videopac (Magnavox Odyssey2)
- GameCube – the (un)protections
- Galaksija, the socialism’s forgotten computer
- “Deep Learning”? The C64 is there too!
- NESOS – A full OS for Nintendo NES!
- How to install Mac OS with Sheepshaver
- Graphics… What a passion! Part III – Multicolor bitmap comparison for C64 and C128
- Kathleen Booth, the First Lady of Assembly
- Japan part 20: the future will live in the past!
- Como Fun 2022: welcome back Arcade Games
- Arcade Story: a brief chat with Antonio Nati
- Invincible
- Maniac Mansion, 35 years of legend
- 4th & inches, the American Football on the C64
- Powa! (GameBoy)
- Touhou (NEC PC-9800)
- Captain Ishtar (C64)
- Gun Nac (NES)
- Alundra (Playstation)
- 1942 (Atari 7800)
- The Battle of Olympus (GameBoy)
- Bruce Lee: Return of Fury (Atari XL/XE)
- Lilly’s Saga (MSX2)
- Mision La Luna (Amiga)
- Kitsune Zero (Windows)
- Invader from Andromeda (Atari 2600)
- Castle of Terror (C64)
