Friday 20 July 2012

'New' games

So, I already mentioned that my beloved Saturn is now not reading game discs, which was a bit of a bugger as I had just bought a couple of new games from eBay. Thanks to the miracle of emulation, however, I can play the latest additions to my collection:

Athlete Kings: Segas own (quite good) attempt at the multi sports arcade joystick destroyer.

And its sequel:

Winter Heat: More of the same, but with winter sports instead!
 I'll review them once I've given them a solid playthrough.

Tuesday 17 July 2012

Good day/bad day...

Good day: My copy of Athlete Kings arrived!

Bad day: My Saturn has decided to stop reading discs. :(

Guess its back on to eBay next payday to find a new one (again)! grr!

The Goonies (NES) mini review

The first time I came across this game was in the early 1990s, when I purchased a 'famiclone' called the Scorpion 8 from my local video rental shop. There were 2 reasons I picked this game up: firstly I'd never heard of it before and secondly, it was the only game on the shelf with an english language title.

And I'm glad I did. The Goonies turned out to be a reasonably playable little platformer. The game sees you traversing a map which spans locations from the Fratellis hideout to One Eyed Willies galleon, rescuing your friends, and avoiding enemies along the way. Each stage (excluding the hideout and the Galleon) is a bit 'Metroid-esque', in that they are not traditional 'linear' scrolling levels. You have to travel back and forth, accessing different sections of each stage to find all your friends, and the required exit keys.

The game itself plays quite well, with responsive controls. Unlike many platformers of this era, the controls don't feel floaty or loose. Looks wise, the game is acceptable. It certainly does not push the NES in any way, shape or form, but remains pleasing on they eyes. Sonically, the game is ok. A nice rendition of Cyndi Laupers Goonies theme is rendered throughout most of the game, with some basic sound effects for certain actions as required.

I have a deep affection for this game, and the only criticism I can lay at its feet is that it is a bit short. A decent gamer should be able to rock through this title in under an hour, easily.

4/5.

Sunday 8 July 2012

Splatterhouse 2






Splatterhouse 2. This is another example of the almost dead side scrolling beat em up genre. And yes, its another MegaDrive game. So sue me. (As a spooky fact: I bought this game at the same time as I bought SoR2).

The first thing anyone who wants to play Splatterhouse 2 should know is that it is a hard game. Damn hard. So damn hard, in fact, that i don't know of anyone who has managed to complete it without resorting to cheating. If you played the 2011 re-boot, then imagine the pain in the arse side scrolling levels. They were difficult, right? Well, imagine an entire game like that. Thats what this is.

To counterbalance that, however, the game looks pretty good. Whilst far from being one of the best looking SMD titles, the graphics suitably convey the dark, gory game world perfectly. The colour palette is muted, allowing the gore to stand out, and lets be honest, gore is this franchises raison d'etre. Yes, the animation isn't as smooth as most would like, but it works. Zombies shuffle convincingly. Various other hell spawn are suitably, well hell spawny.

The games audio is pretty good too. there are some scratchy but effective voice samples used sparingly, and the music is suitably horror movie-esque. This is another soundtrack that sits on my iPod.

As I said before, this is a difficult game, but it still has a replayability, as you just want to see if you can crack one more stage. The story is suitably b grade. After the events of Splatterhouse, our hero Rick returns to his life a somewhat broken man. the mysterious mask returns to haunt him, claiming that Ricks girlfriend isn't actually dead, but is being held in a 2nd, secret house deeper into the woods. Rick meets the mask once more, and begins his journey to defeat the Dark one and rescue his girl. Simple, but effective.

So, if you want a challenge, give this one a try. I guarantee you wan't complete it in 1 sitting.

3.5/5

Saturday 7 July 2012

Retro memories...

I remember very clearly the Xmas my parents bought me and my brother our MegaDrive. It was Xmas 1992, and we were desperate to have one having spent a good number of hours playing on our Cousins and comparing it to our SMS. The hype around Sonic 2 was probably the tipping point in our campaign to gat one for Xmas, so we found ourselves in Manchester City Centre after school one evening about a week before Xmas.....


We tried everywhere. And we just could not find one for love nor money. Beaties, Currys (who tried to sell us a SNES... which wasn't going to happen), Tandy, and finally we went to Dixons. And there they were. Piled up near the tills with a dedicated member of staff, only allowing one system per customer. We purchased the system, which came with a copy of 'World of Illiusion', and headed out to continue shopping. After more nagging, my parents relented and we went into a discount department store ('What Everyone Wants', iirc), and I used the remainder of my birthday money to snag a copy of 'Another World' to expand our library to 2 whole games!

That week was the longest ever. When Xmas Day rolled around, it was the earliest start I ever had. Thanks to my mother having to be in work for 6a.m. (she worked then as now in the local hospital), we were up for 4.30, opening presents. By 5.15, everything was opened, and my brother and myself were already deep into 'World of Illusion'.


I made over £200 in Xmas money from my family that year. By New Years Day all £200 had been spent on games, care of our local game shop 'Mega Mania'. Every game was pre-owned, and prices began at £5. Between me and my brother we probably bought 25 games. Sonic 2, Streets of Rage 2, Madden 92, Flashback, you name it, we bought it.

Best. Xmas. Ever.

WCW/NWO Revenge (N64 mini review)

WCW/NWO Revenge was quite simply the finest WCW videogame ever licensed. Really. Infact, before THQ secured the WWF (as it was back then) license, this was the best wrestling videogame ever.

Compared to modern wrstling games, the career mode is basic in the extreme. You choose a wrestler (who can be a WCW/NWO star, or one of the developers creations, or indeed your own), and work through a ladder of matches to win the various belts on offer. No storylines, no backstage segments, just match after match.

And the matches? Well, this is still one of the most playable wrestling games ever made. The controls manage to be both simple and deep. Beginners can just pick up and play, mashing buttons and winning matches, whereas more experienced gamers can use the games diverse moveset to play a more refined game.

The game is also pretty good looking, especially for an N64 game. The wrestlers are recognizable and the arenas nice and colourful. The character animation is superb, giving the wrestlers real weigt. Compared to its at the time rival title WWF War Zone, this is miles ahead. The games audio isn't too shabby either, perfectly capturing the mood of mid to late 90s wrestling.

I poured hours into this game back when I was a poor university student, such was the replayability. And once you added in a friend for some 2 player action.... Well, you could lose entire daystrying to establish a 'champion'.

If you own an N64, you should track down a copy of this game as a matter of urgency. This is an essential title.

5/5.

Tuesday 3 July 2012

Define: Retrogames

Now this is a tricky one to define. Every gamer has his or her own definition of what makes retro.

I've seen gamers who claim that only the 8-bit systems are 'retro' (NES,SMS,C64,ZX Speccy, etc), I've seen those who have retro cover the 16-bit systems too (SMD/Genesis,SNES,PCE, Amiga, etc). And some even allow the 32-bits in as well (SS,PS,N64...I know, its 64bit but it comes from the same generation and its my blog so nerrr!).

Me? As far as I'm concerned anything up to and including the Dreamcast is retro. Why? Simple, really: If the system is commercially dead (ie you can not walk into a retail outlet such as Game, gamestation, HMV) and purchase a new game, then it is a legacy system and as such 'retro'. I'm sure many folks will disagree with this, which is fine, but that's my definition.

And, for what its worth, I'm ambiguous about classifying the original Xbox as retro just yet. Even though it is 6 years since it was effectively killed off by MS, fir some reason it just does not quite feel 'retro' just yet. The same goes for the GameCube.

Naturally, this definition is subject to permanent fluctuation, as both the Xbox and GC will undoubtedly enter the 'retro' classification for this blog sooner or later, Probably when the WiiU arrives for the latter.

Streets Of Rage 2 Review



Before I start, I shall freely admit that I have a major bias for this game. SoR2 is my all time favorite videogame, bar none. The first time I downloaded an emulator, it was a Megadrive one and the first ROM was SoR2.

So, thta being siad, whats the game about? Well, as with most games of the 16bit era, the plot is fairly simple. Uber-villain Mr X has seemingly returned from the dead to claim the city as his own once more. For cops Axel and Blaze team up with ex pro wrestler Max and Skate, the kid brother of their now kidnapped best friend Adam to rid the streets of Mr Xs goons and free the city once more.



Like I said, pretty basic. The game itself is a side scrolling beat em up, taking place over numerous stages set in various locations, such as the titular streets, a bridge, a theme park etc. Every stage contains a boss and a sub-boss, plus a variety of regular foes to despatch. This is done by walking through the levels and punching the crap out of anything that moves. Each character has their own basic set of moves which generally suffice, but should the need arise, they also have 2 special moves which drain a portion of the players health to activate. And thats it. As videogames go, the basic mechanism of play is amongst the simplest imaginable.

And how does it play? Beautifully. This game is easily the pinnacle of the scrolling beat em up genre. It took the template laid down years before in Double Dragon, then refined in Final Fight, and distilled its essence even further. The difficulty curve was just about right (although the legendary Level 2 boss Jet could be a bit of a bastard first time around), and the game had a real 'just one more go' vibe. The fact that it looked amazing certainly helped, with huge, colourful, well animated sprites being thrown around the screen this was one 16bit title which truly looked like an arcade game in your bedroom, easily surpassing its predecessor, and pretty much every other beat em up on the market (including the SNES version of Final Fight) in terms of its visual beauty. And sonically it was no slouch either. A stunning Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack (which graces my iPod even today, despite my hatred of dance music), mixing typical videoga beats with the then current dance/house music sounds complimented the action perfectly. despite some stunning audio pieces such as this, the MegaDrive has a somewhat unfair reputaion amongst 'retrogamers' for its poor audio capabilities. Paly anyone who says so this games OST, and make them eat their words!

I honestly believe that everyone should give this game a whirl, either by emulation (leaglly of course...) or on the original hardware. A true collosus of a now almost dead genre, this will give you hours of pleasure as a gamer.

5/5. Gaming Perfection.

Sunday 1 July 2012

A bit of my gaming history

So, a bit of my gaming history then:

Like so many Brits of my generation, my first major exposure to home videogames came via my primary school, and the legend that is Grannys Garden on the BBC Model B. Hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of gamers got their first hit from this educational title, either in school IT lessons or through a school computer club.

Following that, I recall playing on my neighbours Atari 2600, and wasting many an afternoon on River Raid, instead of playing outside. Then my parents caved in to my incessant demanding and bought me and my brother a Commodore C16. Many a happy hour was spent on Galaxians and BMX Racer. This was my primary platrom for at least 5 years, supplemented with trips to my friend Pauls house to play on his ZX Spectrum 48k.

It was there that I was introduced to the genius of Sabotuer, and one of the best Speccy games ever: Robocop. Eventually, I persuaded my folks to upgrade my home computer to a ZX Spectrum 128 +2a, complete with crappy light gun and James Bond game. I probably had more games for this oe computer than any other format I have ever owned (and will ever likely own). Between tape trading, copying games I borrowed from the local library, and the magazines of the day.

After this, I abandoned home computers for a while and swithced to consoles, initially owning a Sega Master System. This was followed by my all time favorite system, the Sega Megadrive, and my Nintendo Game Boy. At some point We aquired a Famiclone, namely the Scorpion 8. This was my gaming heyday, and thanks to a brilliant shop near my parents house myself and my brother owned over 150 titles for the Megadrive throughout its 'active' period.

I then returned to home computers, having purchased the first in a long line of PCs (a 386sx with 1mb ram and 40mb of HDD). This was followed by a P100 with 4mb of ram, later upgraed to 8mb and a 3dfx Voodoo 3d accelerator. When i moved away to university, I purcheased my own PC for the first time, a Cyrix MII300 based system to which I immediatley added a Voodoo Banshee. On top of this for maximum gaming fun I purched an N64.

After returning home from my 3 years at uni, I quickly added a PSOne to my gaming setup. This was followed about 12 months later by a PS2. I then graduated to a GameCube (of which I have many fond memories), and my brothers Dreamcast. Finally, I added an Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PSP, DS and 3DS to my setup.

Phew.

In the last 12-18 months I have added a few 'gap-fillers' to my collection: Sega Saturn, Xbox, and GBA.

So, my current collection is:

Sony PlayStation (original grey design)
Sony PSOne
Sony PS2 'Phat'
Sony PS3
Sony PSP
Nintendo Game Boy Advance
Nintendo GameCube
Nintendo 3DS
Nintendo Wii
Microsoft Xbox
Microsoft Xbox 360
Sega Saturn

Welcome to 8/16/32bit

Yes, I know, it's yet another retro gaming blog by a 30-something bloke who wants a place to ramble on semi coherently about his long past youth.

I'd like to say that this blog will feature content which is radically different to any others out there, but frankly it probably won't. It will feature reviews, maybe a few features, and I can confirm that it will only be updated infrequently (mostly because I'm a lazy bastard).

So yeah, welcome1