A New Retro Gaming Movie - FIZZ! The Surge of Video Games

Fizz! The Surge of Video Games is a unique 90 minute retro video gaming documentary movie made with lost and unseen archive footage which was filmed between 1989 & 1998.

All of the video had been originally shot to TV broadcast standard and the tapes have been carefully kept,restored and enhanced for maximum ouput quality. All of the broadcast formats which the footage has been kept on are now obsolete.Sony Betacam SP,Panasonic MII and Sony BVU SP were all broacast high quality recording video formats for TV in the last 1980's and early to mid 1990's.These were all analogue tapes, the cameras and recorders were all 4:3 aspect ratio and there was no digital recording available anywhere on computers.

This was an era before widescreen TV,16:9,HD,DVD.computer editing and the Internet.The only storage device for video at the time was on a VHS video cassette.

Fizz! The Surge Of Video Games is pure retro.The stories are told using 22 interviews filmed between 1989 & 1998 with key people who were working in the business back then.Games developers,marketing people,console manufacturers,retailers,Games chart research,trade bodies,games publishers.The big names in games back then are all included.Sony,Sega,Electronic Arts,Philips,3DO,Virgin Games,Mindscape,Interplay,Codemasters,Psygnosis,David Perry,HMV.Plus many notable video and audio appearances from some very familiar household names.

Fizz! The Surge Of Video Games tells the story exactly as it was because it was filmed as the marketplace and business evolved over a nine year timeline.

Beginning with momentum in the established 8 and 16 Bit era with a strong presence from the Commodore 64,Spectrum,NES,Sega Megadrive-Genesis, Atari ST,Amiga & SNES.This was a console and home computer gaming sector when titles were published on cartridge and floppy disk.Using interviews & footage filmed at the time,the documentary discusses how it all grew and then the problems which lead to the eventual decline.

As the 1990's wore on,new CD-Rom formats began to arrive, and an almighty hardware & console battle began to escalate.Established names such as Sega & Nintendo now faced competition from hardware heavy weights Panasonic,Sony and Philips who were all looking for a slice of the action.

It was also an era of progress and change as games developers who'd established 2D games and genres now faced a challenging prospect in a new world which would be three dimensional.

CD-ROM also saw the arrival of 'Edutainment'.A whole new genre where the vastly improved storage capacity of Compact Disc meant that people could play games and learn at the same time.

Watch Sony's first ever game launch filmed in 1993,two years before Playstation. There's a host of unseen promotional videos with celebrity appearances and a theatrical party event showcasing a now massive game franchise. 

Meanwhile on the PC there was the arrival of WIndows 95 which promised the end of DOS and the dawn of a stable platform backed by Microsoft.Hardware technology powered ahead with faster processors and 3D graphics cards fuelling high end games to rival any console.

This is a piece of modern history using 100% brilliantly shot,lit & edited archive footage with an excellent voice-over. 

Fizz! The Surge Of Video Games will be produced in English,French,German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Portugese, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish & Danish languages.Worldwide release Summer 2014.  

A KickStarter campaign will be announced very soon.

Press email contact: media@fizzmovie.com 

Atari Flashback 3 in the home – Reviewer Rob Armstrong

Atari Flashback 3 - instructions, controllers and main unit

We gave the Atari Flashback 3 to one of our Team who is getting back into playing retrogames unlike many of us! Here is how he faired playing the Atari Flashback console

"When I was a kid all my friends had the latest Amiga 64 or the Nintendo NES. My parents didn’t want to buy just a games machine and so bought an Acorn Electron, a budget version of the BBC schools computer. Thanks Dad!

So now I have children I was keen to bring joy into our house this Christmas and leave education for the classroom. Which is why I have an Atari Flashback 3 console sitting at the back of the wardrobe but there’s no way I can wait until Christmas to give it go. Once you’ve set up the plug and play system you’re presented with a menu of 60 games to play. I have to be honest some of the games I’ve never played before, however lots of the titles bring back nostalgic feelings. Asteroids, Tic-tac-toe, Centipede, Dodgems and Video Pinball were all games that I spent hours playing at my mates’ houses. 

Many of the games are two player, however they will have to wait until Christmas Day before I can play them properly. There’s a game called ‘Surround’ which is like a 2 player predecessor to Snakes on the old Nokia mobile phones. Its simplicity is infectious but I’ve had to turn the TV volume down because the basic 80’s sound effects become slightly drilling after 20 minutes. I can already see that of the 60 games there are going to be some that see more action in our household than others, plus with so many to choose from, the constant temptation is to constantly try a new one.

If you only played each game for an average of 10 minutes that’s already 10 hours of retro gaming. If you’re interested in getting an Atari Flashback 3, just bear in mind that these are the original games which means the resolution of the image quality isn’t going to be excellent or widescreen, no matter what type of HD TV you play it on. That said if you’re looking for classic retro gaming, with simple yet addictive game play, then this is probably right up your street. There’s not much you could fault about the Atari Flashback 3 however if I could make one recommendation to the manufacturers, I’d point out that the 2 metre controller cable doesn’t quite stretch to the sofa. But theres a new version  the Flashback 4 with wireless controllers to solve this issue!  I’m quite aware that by the evening of Christmas Day my son will probably be better than me at most games. I’d put it down to the amount of time he spends playing on the iPad, which is on a slightly different playing field to my old Acorn Electron. Although for the time being I’ve got a few more weeks of practice."


Thanks to Rob Armstrong for his review of the Atari Flashback 3
To get your hands on a copy click here: http://www.funstock.co.uk/atari-flashback-3-console

To order the wireless Atari Flashback 4 click here http://www.funstock.co.uk/atari-flashback-4-console

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