Intellivision Amico delayed but looking good

There's been a trend among microconsoles and mini-consoles over the past few years. Race one out to catch a trend and it sucks. PlayStation Mini, Google's Stadia cloud controller, the army of Android boxes can all slink sullenly into the bargain bin.  

Doing it right last year was Evercade with the charming portable and a solid cadence of classy cartridge collection releases to tempt both older gamers and those looking for collectibles without the stupid price tag. Another job-well-done was the mini PC Engine, with lots of clarity of thought going into the design and games. 

Another firm hopefully doing it right is the reborn Intellivision, powered by industry muso-in-chief Tommy Tallarico. The Amico has been delayed from April until the autumn, in part due to the virus and in part to get a better lineup ready to go, with the company rushing dev kits into their hands. 

Intellivision is also pushing hard on the marketing front. With appearances promised in physical stores in the US. You can download an iOS app to play demos, and the controls themselves look more user-friendly, like a mid-era iPod and less like yet-another dual stick on steroids. 



The games are all family-friendly, encourage multiplayer on the same screen (up to 8-player if you buy extra controllers) and games will come in under a $10 price point. There's enough processor power in the console for modern-looking titles among the classics. The firm showed off 30 games in a video last October, hopefully many more are on the way.

Here's hoping the release is a success, and it grabs the interest of enough developers. Pre-orders are live on Amazon at £249. 




Intellivision collections coming to Evercade

While a revamped Intellivision is rolling out its own Amico retro-modern system, the original games and system were a high-point of early-80s gaming, if a touch expensive or rare. Blaze can fix that with a 12-game cartridge landing in the autumn and more carts promised to follow. 


The Intellivision numeric function pads and disc controls won't be an issue as games will be individually adapted for modern controls. The first three games announced for Collection 1 are early-80s efforts, Frog Bog, AstroSmash and Night Stalker for some shooting, maze running, fly munching action. There's a decade of titles to choose from so hopefully a few more recent ones will make the list. Hopefully they won't drag out announcing the other nine. 


Whatever your feelings for Intellivision, this is another great sources of games for the Evercade and helps round out its position as the ultimate retro handheld. 


New Evercade carts up for pre-order from tomorrow

It has all been a bit quiet on the Evercade front since the new year, but things are warming up nicely. First up are orders going live for the next pair of cartridges on Friday. No. 17 Indie Heroes Collection 1 packs in a bunch of retro modern titles while Worms Collection 1 throws all the little wrigglers you could ever want on the Evercade's screen, both games launch on May 28th. 

Buy Indie Heroes Collection 1 from Amazon UK (and now Worms Collection is showing up)

Buy Worms Collection 1 from Funstock


Once those are live, we have the Codemasters Collection with Cannon Fodder release date to look forward to, with Piko 2 and Jaleco Collection 1 arriving in April. Then things should be clear for some all-new announcements as things hot up for the second year of the world's coolest retro console. Check out Amazon, Funstock, Argos and Game for pre-orders and grab the handheld if you're not on the Evercade bus yet!






 

Codemasters Collection 1 cannons the Evercade

 Having bagged the classic British series Worms for the Evercade, the company's final treat for 2020 is another great British line up with the best of Codemasters, including Sensible Soccer, Cannon Fodder, Mego-Lo-Mania, Super Skidmarks, Psycho Pinball and more. 


Looks like a great collection of platformers and shooters in the "more" part of the 17 title line-up, but its the classic squad shooter Cannon Fodder that will set 16-bit hearts aflutter. And those of a certain age will remember Sensi all-night tournaments or ploughing weeks into Mega-Lo-Mania. Full list on the official page, tempered only by the rather distant 1H21 release window.  

The Worms series wriggles on to Evercade

Evercade promised some big news last week, and here it comes in the form of large explosions caused by tiny creatures. The Worms series from Team 17 celebrates 25 years of cute/psychotic kinetic killstreaks this week. 

To keep that legacy alive, the wrigglers are coming to Evercade in a trio of games arriving next May. Worms Collection 1 packs in 3 classic titles the original Worms (16-bit), Worms Armageddon and Worms Blast (both 32-bit releases). 


Worms offers the classic experience and Armageddon ramps up the insanity, while Worms Blast provides something different with a Puzzle Bobble-style challenge with the option to blow your CPU rival out of the water. Since Worms is a pass-to-play, this is a proper opportunity to share Evercade with friends for up to four-player murderous fun.  
Worms originally exploded onto the gaming scene on the Amiga, then came out for pretty much every 16/32 bit platform, while Armageddon and Blast came out for PC, PlayStation 3, Nintendo 64,  PlayStation and Dreamcast - presumably they are using the PlayStation versions?

Anyway, check back in next May (which does seem a long time away) for some awesomely devious annelid destruction.  

Evercade's next cart promises to be "big"

When most companies announce a game, that's it done and dusted! But with Evercade, we never really know what we're getting until the news drops. Cart no. 18 has been teased with Evercade promising that news will be big.



UPDATE: This tease revealed as the Worms Collection 1

Is that big is size of the memory to store more recent games from 32-bit consoles, big as in a big new publisher we'd be keen to see? Of course, they're not giving any more hints then that, a few denials perhaps in the comments, but its fun to dream and be a part of. 

At least we won't have long to wait, for the news - coming next week. But if they're going for consistent numbering, then the new cart won't be out until after April - perhaps the one perceived flaw in the curated content strategy. 

Jaleco 1 and Piko Collection 2 dated and up for pre-order

Hope you don't have any plans for an extended lockdown, as the next pair of Evercade carts (after the Lynx twin carts and Indie hits) are getting an April 2021 release date. That's quite a wait, unless they have a couple of surprises on hold to goose seasonal sales? 

The Jaleco cart mixes in a bunch of NES and SNES hits. Looking forward to Ignition Factor, Op Logic Bomb and Earth Defence Force myself, any preferences?


Piko 2 is notable for the first PlayStation game for the Evercade in the form of Football Madness, plus the classic Brutal Sports Football and Summer/Winter Challenge combo




Amazon UK's usual pre-orders buttons are playing up (will leave below when they decide to fix things), but Jaleco is here and Piko 2 is here (but strangely overpriced), along with the good folk over at Funstock, also with pre-orders, so get in line for these carts.

Firmware update 1.3.0 live

As a small and nimble system, the Evercade is pretty easy to update. But the firm is also hard at work keeping us fans happy with features we'd like to see. So, they are taking their time to deliver solid updates rather than Sony's "stability has improved" efforts of nothingness. 

The latest version, 1.3.0 has a full list of fixes, bugs and feature updates and improvements over on the blog post. Of note are the:

  • New brightness settings, showing they can still tweak what the hardware can do.
  • Improved handling of Save States, so we know what's what. 
  • Improve HMDI switching
  • The Top Racer and Drakkhen patches showing that bugged releases can be fixed.  
  • "Fixed emulator to handle large game files i.e. large PS1 titles" which suggests more 32-bit efforts on the way, after the tease of Football Madness on the upcoming Piko 2 collection.

So, grab the download, perform the simple update and get testing to see how much better Pac Man is, I assumed it was me being clumsy! among the many other little gems and tweaks this update contains. 



A Quick Dive into Indie Heroes Collection 1

 At first glance, I wasn't that excited by Indie Heroes 1, announced last week. However, since then I've taken time to read opinion from some true retro-indie buffs, my interest is rising fast. Having taken a look at the games in action, I can see why the Evercade team has picked them, to save you some effort, here are the highlights.... 

Flea, Lowtek Games (NES) Recently Kickstarted as a hardcore platformer 


Doodle World, Nate Peters (NES) 


Anguna, Bite The Chilli Productions (GBA)


Foxyland, PSCD Games (Mega Drive) A cute-em-up that made it to the Vita last year


Alien Cat 2, PSCD Games (Mega Drive)


Debtor, PSCD Games (Mega Drive)


Ploid, Nape Games (NES) 


Uschuen, Nape Games (NES) 


Kubo, SJ Games (NES) 


Deadeus, Izma (Game Boy)


Quest Arrest, John Roo (Game Boy)


Twin Dragons, Broke Studio (NES) 



Also in the collection are endless runner Chain Break from 1985 Alternativo (Game Boy) and Super Homebrew War, a Smash-style battler from Bite The Chili Productions (NES), but no obvious trailers or easy-viewing video for them. 

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