Commodore 64 cracking group Nostalgia has just released Sid Meier's Pirates! for the EasyFlash cartridge.

This release was based off of the v2 PAL original of the game but is both PAL and NTSC compatible. The release includes documentation, a scan of the world map, numerous bugfixes and a stylish cartridge start menu.

It also comes with a save game editor and ten built-in cheats including: Sword-fight Cheat, Sea Battle Cheat, Land Battle Cheat, Crew Always Happy, Health Always Fine, Unlimited Food, City Info Cheat, Enable World Map, Display S&T on World Map, Reveal Maps at Once.

Release Info:
• This version of Sid Meier's Pirates! is based on the v2 pal original.
• It's a 101% version with numerous bugfixes.
• It works on EasyFlash and EasyFlash3 carts.
• It contains a save editor where you can modify your stats and import old fame and saves from both original and nostalgia disk versions.

NOTE: If you cheat or if you use the editor to modify your stats you will not be able to enter the hall of fame. You WILL have to start over with a new game.

Head over to Nostalgia's website to download this release.

I just stumbled upon this fun little flash game from Mark Foster called Bomberjam. The game is a local two player territory annihilation game which draws upon some Bomberman and Qix gameplay mechanics.

Here is a video of the Oldskool Demo Compo released at Revision 2013 held in Saarbrucken, Germany from March 29th to April 1st.

Back in early 1984, when I was first exposed to the Commodore 64, one of the games that I had a chance to play a fair bit of was Blue Max by Synapse Software (SynSoft in the UK). In the game, you take on the role of a hot-shot World War I biplane pilot by the name of Max Chatsworth who is known affectionately to his friends as Blue Max.

The game is essentially a 3/4 perspective vertical shooter similar to Zaxxon in presentation. You have at your disposal a machine gun with unlimited ammo as well as a finite number of bombs which you can use to take out buildings, tanks, bridges, roads and boats. Overall control of the plane is very responsive, although (as with Zaxxon) keeping your altitude straight can be rather tricky. The shadow cast by your plane helps a lot in determining your horizontal location on the level (for bombing purposes) but you need to match your altitude to that of the enemy planes in order to shoot them down. You also need to mind your altitude to do strafing as well as estimate the time for a dropped bomb to reach its target.

A very cool racing game, 2nd in a series at that, from the Sega stable. Everything is there Sonic and his pals, the blue Sega skies, the over-saturated colours, fast paced action. A fun title that is also available on WiiU, Xbox360, iOS, Nintendo 3DS, PSVita and PS3.

Here I check out the PC version running on Steam (not H2O vaporized but the PC gaming platform by Valve) for the first time.

Joel Billings is back for one final time (at least for this interview series!) to tell us about the decline and fall of his one great company. Why isn't SSI with us today? Then there's the great What-ifs--What if Trip Hawkins had been at the meeting with EA? What if SSI had held off just a bit longer before selling out to Mindscape? Enjoy!

Download the episode.

"Cole E. Coe.": The pipe is made from leftover limbs and bones. Yes, that's real zombie juice in the cup.I have some great news for fans of The Walking Dead series and MaximumRD, YouTube star and longtime friend of Armchair Arcade. Last week, Rob was contacted by Sharon Bialy, who casts for the series. In an upcoming episode entitled "Mr. Goo's Castle," the characters must penetrate the lair of a psychopath named Cole E. Coe, who has boobytrapped an entire Canadian shopping mall, using the attract mode of arcade machines to lure in zombies. He dresses his undead prisoners as booth babes to lure innocent gamer survivors--who apparently can't tell the difference between live women and zombies provided they're wearing tight-fitting outfits and bodypaint. The nerds who survive are captured and then subjected to vicious retrogaming-related challenges that the Governor was never sick enough to come up with. These range from jumping over alligators and swinging on vines to escaping the clutches of zombies dressed as smurfs. You don't want to know what he's set up for the "Burgertime" room. It's terrifying stuff.

Apparently, Coe was a retrogamer before the turn who claims he is actually happier now, since there are much fewer new games coming out to distract him from his true passion of making grisly YouTube videos of carnage and death.

Congratulations to Rob! I can't to see his rendering of Cole E. Coe and watch how Rick and co. manage to escape his dastardly clutches.