retro

Funny story: Last April 1, gadget outlet ThinkGeek pranked customers with the iCade, a tabletop arcade cabinet for iPads. Cut to CES 2011, and suddenly the iCade is a real product, with Ion Audio handling the manufacturing and Atari supplying a large roster of classic arcade games.

The retro-styled cabinet plays host to "your otherwise useless iPad" (ThinkGeek's words), holding it upright while you blast Asteroids, maneuver Ms. Pac-Man, stop space invaders, and so on.

There's no dock connection, however--the iCade relies on Bluetooth, meaning it should work with any game that supports Bluetooth input.

Thankfully, … Read more

Continuing the onslaught of rebooted gems from the past, Nintendo's one-two holiday season punch began with Kirby's Epic Yarn and finishes with Donkey Kong Country Returns for the Wii.

Even though we found Epic Yarn to be a bit simplistic, it was still engaging enough to justify a playthrough. Does Donkey Kong Country offer the same amount of appeal? Or is this one franchise that should have stayed dormant?

Jeff: Lately it seems Nintendo has released more of a time machine than a game console, with its recent titles taking us back 15 years or so, reliving our childhoods spent playing Super Nintendo and the like. The latest of this bunch is Donkey Kong Country Returns, the re-imagined follow-up to one of the Super Nintendo's most successful and iconic franchises.

If you didn't feel challenged in Kirby's Epic Yarn, Donkey Kong Country Returns will immediately fill that void. While we praised Epic Yarn for its success in conventional 2D platforming, DKC Returns innovates within the genre, giving us new ways to play. We really can't stress the difficulty enough here; the game is definitely not for the easily frustrated.

There are plenty of familiar details fans of the series will identify with: collecting K-O-N-G letters, hidden areas, bonus levels, and more. Also, Diddy Kong is around again for the adventure, and he'll take a vital role in your banana-recovery quest.… Read more

I grew up with my Sega Genesis, and Sonic was my Mario. I played all the games in high school, and the 2D games still represent the real Sonic to me. Those 3D versions? Not so much.

Sega's newest initiative, Sonic 4, has boldly named itself as the true successor to those old 16-bit gems. Available as a downloadable game for the Xbox 360 and PS3 (check out preGame's coverage here), it has also come to the iPhone, available today on the App Store for $9.99.

Thankfully, Sonic 4 plays pretty wonderfully from the starting gun; right … Read more

Sometimes, old can be better than new, especially when old is cheap. Retro games have flooded the Nintendo Wii via the Virtual Console, and the Nintendo 3DS will receive similar treatment via its recently announced Game Boy Virtual Console.

Considering the Game Boy's history dating all the way back to 1989, that adds up to a heck of a lot of games that could come back into circulation. Not all of them should, of course, but there are plenty of gems well worth a price point that we sincerely hope wouldn't hover above $5.

In fact, a retro … Read more

Do you love 8-bit style graphics and simple, addictive gameplay? Me too. And that's why The Incident is sure to be one of the go-to time-wasting apps on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.

You play as Frank Solway--your everyday suit-wearing dude just trying to catch a cab. Except today, everything (and I do mean every thing) is falling from the sky trying to squash you.

It's up to you, iPhone/iPad user, to maneuver Frank from side to side, dodging everything from traffic signs to statues to cars, climbing over the rubble to untold heights, attempting to … Read more

As a teenager I just about lived in the video arcade (Abbey Road in Farmington Hills, Mich.--anyone remember it?). I owned an Atari 2600, an Apple IIe, an Amiga, a Sega Dreamcast, and just about anything else that was good for games.

You'd think, then, that I'd go ape over something like C64 for iPhone 1.7, a newly updated Commodore 64 emulator that revives such classics as "Boulder Dash II," "Jupiter Lander," and "International Karate."

And you'd be wrong. While I have nothing but fondness for the videogames of … Read more

Jasmine picks up the slack on Donald's sick day and gets fab producer Jason Howell and "huge" CNET Labs editor Eric Franklin to co-host the latest Crave podcast. We scoured Crave to bring you only the best gems, and this week, we came up with a luxurious $15K speaker from Bowers & Wilkes, some Twitter-friendly dairy cows, a gadget porn crackdown, and the latest Japanese auto innovation. Also, no Crave podcast would be complete without a little something gross to cap it off. Tune in to find out what.

Remember the Novophone, that nifty retro handset that plugs into your iPhone for old-school, crook-of-the-neck gab-fests? It was cool, but it was only half the picture.

The iRetrofone completes it, combining a similar corded handset with a big, black, 50s-style base. It looks like something right out of a Humphrey Bogart movie, one with private eyes, dangerous dames, and a big old office desk.

As you can no doubt guess from the photo, the iRetrofone is essentially an iPhone dock. You plug an included cord into the audio jack, connect your existing sync cable to the dock connector (too bad … Read more

I'm always jealous when I see that a friend's laundry room has a sink in addition to a washer and dryer. But getting a sink into the laundry room that doesn't already have the necessary plumbing is an expensive hassle. Which is why this retro-style washing machine with an integrated sink from Smeg is so brilliant. Also, it's pink, and super cute.

With an 11-pound capacity, this machine is smaller than we're used to seeing here in the States, but it's a standard size in Europe.

And by the way, don't let the '… Read more