Without hinting at the creaky knees or permanently retreating hairline that *might* betray my advanced age, it’s somewhat easy for me to recall a time when gaming classics such as the original Prince of Persia, Tetris, Karateka and Mortal Kombat enjoyed their heyday. Fast forward several decades to the present day, and while many of those series have endured and fashioned new entries for current gamers to get stuck into, it’s also true that the means to play those first games in their original form has greatly diminished or simply outright not possible any longer.
Enter then, the Gold Master Series from industry veterans Digital Eclipse. Much more than just a collection of gems from gaming’s formative years, the Gold Master Series focuses on a particularly key, often legendary video game or creator, and simultaneously offers up not only value-stuffed compilations of these games, but a veritable bounty of historical and never before seen documentary materials to go with them. So with that in mind, here is how Digital Eclipse’s Gold Master Series is essential to both game preservation and game education right now.
A Carefully Selected Menu Of Gaming’s Most Important Titles And Topics
Before we drill down into the bountiful merits of the Gold Master Series more generally, it’s perhaps important to understand just how carefully selected every title and topic that enters the Gold Master Series is. Whether it’s looking at a legendary, genre-defining effort like Tetris, the oft-forgotten but pioneering Karateka from Prince of Persia developer Jordan Mechner, or even a broader showpiece on the impact of Atari on the gaming landscape in the 70s and 80s, the Gold Master Series does feel like the Criterion Collection of video games, such is the standard of curation, care and attention that is lavished in each case.
And the future (well, the past) has never looked brighter for the Gold Master Seriese either, as 2025 is set to bring Ed Boon’s seminal, pop culture igniting Mortal Kombat into the fold allowing gamers to play arcade perfect versions of the series earlier entries for the first time, alongside a generous collection of home console and handheld ports on the side.
Meticulous Recreations Of Gaming’s Halcyon Days
Speaking of ports, Digital Eclipse has long taken pride in its constant drive to achieve pixel-perfect emulation of older titles, and this ambition has spanned the re-release of many, many titles across a number of years. From Disney Classic Games which include the likes of Aladdin and The Lion King emulated across multiple platforms, to Capcom’s Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection and the relatively recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cowabunga Collection, it’s clear that Digital Eclipse are both talented and practised hands at the arcane (or should that be ‘arcade’) art of emulating and reframing older games for a new generation of gamers.
That very same talent and passion directly translate into the titles which are included in each instance of the Gold Master Series. Not only are these games emulated to the very highest standard, but you also get playable versions across a kaleidoscopic spread of different platforms to boot. Take Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story, for example. In this particular Gold Master Series entry, there are superbly emulated ports of Minter’s sizable portfolio of titles covering platforms such as the Sinclair ZX81, Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64 and Atari Jaguar. There are even ports for super obscure platforms such as the Konix gaming system, in addition to unearthed prototypes and editions of games that never made it to market.
Put simply, the care and attention that has been afforded to the various versions of these games is astounding, and provides players in many cases with the only way to play these games on a modern system, making the Gold Master Series an essential endeavour for anyone looking to delve into the depths of gaming’s storied past.
World-Class Documentary Materials That Pull The Curtain Back On The Industry’s Best And Brightest
Of course, what makes the Gold Master Series so compelling in the first place isn’t just its assembly of sublimely emulated classics from yesteryear, but also a frankly incredible collection of historical reference and documentary materials that succeed in pulling back the veil on both these games and the thought processes of the various pioneering minds that brought them into existence all those years ago.
Across every entry in the Gold Master Series, these materials are presented in a timeline split into various eras and key milestones that pertain to the historical journey of the game or creator in question. Embracing the highest echelons of form and function, these vibrantly designed timelines prove extraordinarily easy to navigate, with everything from photos, scans of key documents, marketing materials, and behind-the-scenes videos being both easy to find and rendered at the highest resolutions to ensure a pin-sharp presentation.
In terms of the content, we’re looking at much more than just straightforward reference materials here. Instead, Digital Eclipse emphasises the creators explaining why certain decisions were made, which resulted in these legendary creations turning out how they did. From Jeff Minter offering a deep insight into his rather esoteric, bedroom coder design philosophy (and why Llamas featured so prominently) to the wonderfully convoluted history of how Tetris came to be from its humble origins in the 1980s Soviet Union, these sort of thoughtful, forensic insights mean that the Gold Master Series excels in educating gamers both young and old about these legendary industry pioneers and the fruits of their labour.
With effortlessly engaging audiovisual presentation oozing out of every pore and a breezily accessible user interface to boot, each entry in the Gold Master Series feels like an immaculately curated museum exhibition for gaming’s digital age. With the original platforms that these games originally released for having been long since consigned to the trash heap of time, not only has Digital Eclipse provided a means for game preservation to endure with these delicately emulated clutches of titles from gaming’s past, but so too has the Californian studio sought to include such a wealth of insightful historical documentary material that the Gold Master Series should be used in gaming education curriculums everywhere.
