GamersInfo.net

Like many of my generation I have fond memories of hanging out with my friends as a kid, playing Nintendo with all that came along with it. Laying down on the floor, blowing the dust out of cartridges, checking out the random games and occasional magazine a friend might have that you didn't. Retro Game Challenge recreates that experience in an unusual but very cool way.

As it was put to me, Retro Game Challenge is an homage to '80s game culture. Simply put, you're playing two kids back in the 1980s who are playing games on their console. The games are fake but if you played games back in those days you're going to recognize them fairly quickly.

You don't just start playing games, however. Instead, you're given challenges. For instance, the first game that you have is based off Galaga. You will have to, in successive attempts, fulfill challenges such as "score 200,000 points", "get to level 5", "blow up a big asteroid", or "use two warp gates". Finish those challenges and you'll move on to the next game.

There are eight games with four challenges each plus one final challenge for a total of 33. In addition, you can unlock magazines and strategy guides, some of which will even contain cheat codes for the games that you're playing. The magazines will also have "interviews" with the fake developers of the fake games, previous of upcoming fake games, etc.

Once you've unlocked a game you'll be able to play it any time you want.

Retro Game Challenge will be coming to the Nintendo DS in winter of 2008. Right now they're still translating it from the Japanese. While the "Engrish" that occurs in some of the games will remain, the big debate is still how to translate the magazines which include a lot of references to the Japanese gaming culture in the 1980s, whether they change the references to American ones for the US release or not.