Back in the day, the difference between 8-bit and 16-bit machines can already be considered a jump from one generation to another. Today, some people will complain if a character model in a next-gen console doesn't have millions more pixels than the last game they touched. However, as most of us know, eye-bleeding graphics don't equate to high-quality games; developer Q-Games is aware of that, and decided to go back to 2D when things were simple.

Q-Games President and Executive Producer Dylan Cuthbert gathered a team just to create games reminiscent to the quirky style of ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 titles. Their latest entry for PSN is PixelJunk Racers, which Cuthbert is very proud of.

On the Official PlayStation Blog, Cuthbert defined their upcoming game as "a quirky little slot car style racing game with lots of weird rules and conditions." Find out how weird exactly by watching the video below.

 

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Dedicating to the avid gamers' world of game music devotion, the GCDC 2007 to start this coming August will also be seeing a live performance by the FILMharmonic Orchestra Prague on popular game soundtracks from Starcraft, Final Fantasy IX, Ragnarok 2, Stranglehold, Metal Gear Solid 2: Snake Eater, Secret of Mana and The Abbey Turrican 2.

Conducted by Andy Brick, the orchestra will also perform popular classics in medley form in salute to the Commodore 64 and Commodore Amiga as pioneering game platforms for the game industry, as stated by an official press release.

The performance will be held at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig on August 22, 8 p.m. and won't be an official part of the GCDC 2007 opening ceremony. Also to appear at the concert is Japanese star opera singer Izumi Masuda, singer Conny Kollet from Germany fame, and Konami-sponsored percussionist Rony Barrak.

Kollet is popular for her performances at the Symphonic Game Music Concert, of which this concert will be the fifth of the series, although many will know her for her rendering of the title song for SpellForce: The Breath of Winter.

Rony Barrak will be performing his version of Metal Gear Solid 2: Snake Eater together with the FILMharmonic Orchestra. Masuda, despite being an opera singer, is more inclined to pop-opera pieces, and could be identified as the same one who rendered the song "Distant Worlds" from Final Fantasy at the concert "VOICES: music from Final Fantasy." Tickets are already being sold as of this moment.

Children of the 80's will soon have one more reason to rejoice as one of the most popular games of those years will soon be getting a second chance at life. As announced by Myriad Interactive, they have recently acquired the license to the looks-like-chess-but-not-quite-chess classic title, Archon. (No. This has nothing to do with those glowy, naked folks in Starcraft.)

Originally developed by Free Fall Associates in 1984, Archon was the product of their early partnership with the then-new publisher, Electronic Arts. As it turned out, Archon proved to be such a hit when it was first released on the Commodore 64 and the Atari home system, that it spawned the sequel Archon II: Adept in the same year. In 1985, an unofficial, fanmade sequel started circulating and was known as Archon III: Exciter, but an official sequel didn't come until 1994 under the title Archon Ultra. Unfortunately, this last title didn't achieve the level of success that its predecessors did.

Archon was inspired by the holographic chess games that can be seen in Star Wars movies, and was successful mainly because of its innovative gameplay. It looks like chess, but that's where the similarities end. The board is divided between the Light and the Dark sides, and the likes of Valkyries, Unicorns, and Archers populate the Light Side, while pieces such as Trolls, Dragons, and Manticores man the Dark Side.

With such a large gap in time between the last Archon game and the upcoming one which Myriad is bound to produce via Mercury Games, we can't help but wonder which platform they'll be resurrecting this game on, and how they'll be transforming the 8-bit wonder into a next-gen hit.