The King of Pop is dead, at the age of 50, from undisclosed circumstances. He brought us hits such as Billy Jean, Remember the Time, Bad and many more, and even made dancing cool on the video games scene way before Dance Dance Revolution came by. Check out the video for Moonwalker (Sega Genesis) below:

He’ll be sorely missed, but his music will live on for many many years on the airwaves and on the Internet. RIP Michael Jackson.

Check out the following discounted WonderSwan consoles available on Play-Asia:

• WonderSwan Console: Sherbet Melon ~ USD 29.90 (Click here for details)
• WonderSwan Console: Blue Metallic ~ USD 19.90 (Click here for details)
• Mobile Wonder Gate ~ USD 19.90 (Click here for details)

A couple of days ago, my dog suffered the indignation of a cat stealing her dog food from right under her nose (well, she was barking at strangers walking pass the gate and didn’t realise the cat snuck in). The proper net-speak would be….pwned.

In any case, the whole incident reminded me of the first game I’ve ever played on the PC, Alley Cat. The game was pretty simple, guide the cat to catch some mice while avoiding the big bad dog. A little bit of digging brought up the fact that the game was also released on the Atari 8-bit platform which encompasses the Atari 400 and 800.

Knowing that the Nintendo DS has an Atari 800XL emulator in the form of PokeyDS, I thought it would be fun to hunt down the Alley Cat XEX file and try running it on the DS. Want to know whether it worked? Check out the following video shot in HD (960 * 720):

What are the odds that you’ll not one but two Game Boys in your bag. I bought a secondhand Game Boy Color from someone yesterday, promptly placing it inside my laptop bag along with my daily entertainment device of choice, my Game Boy Micro and totally forgot about the two of them.

So there I was lugging the extra weight around through an entire shopping mall looking for a Mother’s Day gift earlier this evening and I only realised that the Gameboy was still in the bag when I came home.

Anyways, the Game Boy Color that I bought is in pink, and the previous owner actually kept it in very good condition, box and all, sans manual though. He even gave a GBC pouch as part of the RM 100 deal (thank Malcolm).

The only thing that struck me as strange was the fact that Nintendo used an LCD screen that was pretty dark for the GBC and didn’t bother to fit in a backlight for the console. You can only admire the screen’s 56-colour capability when playing in a brightly lit room.

In any case, I’m happy to have a new addition to my Game Boy collection. I still have the Game Boy Pocket, Light, Advance and Advance SP to collect. I don’t mind getting the latter two as Christmas presents.

I remember playing Bubble Bobble on the Micro Genius console (one of ‘em Famicom rip-offs) many many years ago. While I didn’t like the game, I’m sure there are people out there who would beg to differ.

If you’re in that camp and would love to commemorate your retro gaming days, Taito’s Bubble Bobble T-Shirts are the merchandise for you! Coming in one size and in two designs (one for each of the Bubble Bobble dinosaurs, Doranku and Bubblon), both cost USD 37.90 each.

Interested? Click here for the Doranku t-shirt and here for the Bubblon t-shirt.

I wanted to have something nice for dinner tonight, and my initial choice was to eat at the Ayam Penyet restaurant across the highway from Sunway Pyramid. Unfortunately it was close today (hopefully just today) and since I was already on the LDP, I decided to swing by Sunway Pyramid for dinner.

Wendy’s serves a pretty respectable Caesar’s Salad and I had a bowl of chili (I love this stuff, full of beans and beef, and more importantly spicy!) to go with it. My only video game related purchase was Retro Gamer Load 61 from Popular.

Highlights in this issue includes the making of Resident Evil and the cover story featuring Pac-Man. If you haven’t picked up a copy of Retro Gamer, well, on its own, each issue packs a heck lot of video game goodness. Put a whole bunch of them together and you’ll have an encyclopedia with stuff that you can’t really find on the Internet.

Still on the subject of neoDS, a Neo Geo emulator for the Nintendo DS, here’s a video of Pulstar being played on it. A bit of background here, Pulstar was conceived for the Neo Geo as a Gradius clone, so much so that people actually thought the company responsible was staffed with ex-Gradius developers.

The game is seriously beautiful and despite being released back in 1995, it holds up pretty well on the small screen of the Nintendo DS. Textures and explosions have a certain photo-realistic quality to them and while there are slowdowns, the game is still pretty playable. Playing these games, I can’t help by wonder why people view emulation in disdane; without emulation, I think opportunities for current generation gamers to experience such games would be limited.

I certainly wouldn’t want to be grouped together with an bunch of elitist bastards thinking that the way to go would be to actually purchase these ancient titles off eBay, along with the consoles to play them with. That would certainly be too much.

You have now less than 16 hours to take advantage of the last day of Play-Asia’s Lucky Spring Sale. While some video game titles and toys have been sold out (or reverted to their normal prices by virtue of being new stock), there are plenty of video games, toys, collectible items and even music CDs and movie DVDs at hard to resist prices.

Here’s Nine Over Ten’s guide on what to pick up in the following categories on this last day of sales:

• Nintendo DS – Look out for bargains on accessories such as cases, stylus, and also screen protectors for your NDSL/NDSi. Click here to start shopping
• Gameboy – Be on the look out for Gameboy Advance titles such as the bit Generations series which can provide hours upon hours of fun for really cheap prices. Also, the soon-to-be-rare Famicom Mini games are the ones to snag here. Don’t miss this chance. Click here to check out the Gameboy section
• Xbox 360 – There are plenty of Asian region (in English) games on sale below USD 20, and some of them even run on NTSC-U or even PAL consoles. Click here to start shopping for Xbox 360 games
• Toys and Collectibles – Figurines, gashapons, and even trading card games are up for sale in this section. Looking to start your shooting game ship gashapon collection? Or build your killer Magic: The Gathering deck for less than USD 5 a theme deck? Start cheap at Play-Asia during this last day of sales! Click here to start your toy hunt.
• Music - Soundtracks for video game franchises such as Final Fantasy are going for cheap here, couple this with free international shipping (to certain countries) and you’ll be hard pressed to find better bargains elsewhere. Click here to start shopping for stereo goodies.
• Retro Games – Looking for a particular piece of nostalgia? The Lucky Spring Sale is bargains galore for retro consoles, accessories and that rare copy of an oldie but goldie game you are looking for. Click here and let the antique, I mean, retro buying begin!

And FYI, you are automatically entered into a lucky draw competition (with consoles as prizes) by virtue of buying on-sale items. Click here for further details.

Planning a 2D trip down memory lane to Earthbound (Mother) on the NES? How bout taking the 3D-ride instead. Benjamin Friedrich has gone about creating a 3-D version of the town of Onett, one of the earlier towns that you would encounter in game.

Come to think of it, having played the game on my Nintendo DS, thanks to the nesDS emulator, this new 3D version is rather accurate looking. Have a look:

*Source: Wired.

Wokie Dokie. I hope some of you had some fun with my guide (click here) on running Neo Geo games on the Nintendo DS. Here are a couple of video that I shot to show that it works, featuring Metal Slug X and King of Fighters 2003. God bless the guys who made NeoDS. They do deserve a pat on the back: