Around the Network

And so another week draws to a close and we all slide inexorably onwards towards our inevitable deaths.

We may as well enjoy the intervening days, weeks, months and years then! This month I’ve been doing just that with a fine selection of SNK shoot ’em ups plus my continuing adventures in the world of Death end re;Quest.

Let’s take a look at what you might have missed.

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MoeGamer

Sunday Driving: Boneyard Rush – We’re closing in on the end of Split/Second now — only two more episodes to go before the grand finale!

SNK Essentials: Alpha Mission – The first of three SNK shoot ’em ups this week, all of which can be found in part of the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection for Switch and, soon, PS4.

SNK Essentials: Bermuda Triangle – The second SNK shoot ’em up of the week, this time incorporating an unusually large player ship and some interesting mechanics to fiddle around with.

Warriors Wednesday: I’m On a Boat – We bid farewell to the Wu forces once and for all with their final side mission, in which they take on Orochi for one last time in a twist on Dynasty Warriors classic engagement, The Battle of Chi Bi.

Waifu Wednesday: Sumika Tokiwa – Being a Compile Heart game, Death end re;Quest naturally contains a majority female cast, consisting of many varied, colourful and interesting characters. Here’s one from “the real world”.

SNK Essentials: World Wars – The week’s shoot ’em up celebrations come to an end with the third title in the loose “trilogy” that began with Alpha Mission. World Wars plays things a little safer than its predecessor, but is still a great time.

New Game Plus: Medicine for a Verdant Land – Our New Game Plus run of Atelier Rorona DX has reached its second year, so now it’s time for Rorona to get to work preparing some Tonics. Naturally, this doesn’t take all that long, so there’s plenty of time for adventure…

Death end re;Quest: Where Does the Game End and the World Begin? – The Cover Game feature on Compile Heart’s latest continues with an exploration of how the game’s mechanics support its storytelling.

Atari A to Z

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This week we take on one of my favourite “dirt and boulders” games from the 8-bit era, a monstrously, unreasonably difficult platformer from the ST era, and an early Atari arcade title that will be familiar to anyone who ever had a Nokia phone…

Don’t forget you can find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos (plus a few other bits and pieces!) on the dedicated Atari A to Z site.

Cool Stuff By People Who Aren’t Me

As always, I’d like to take a moment to note that I’m a proud Patron of Paul “Mr Biffo” Rose, the Cheap Show podcast and The Game Chasers, because all of them put out great content that is worth your support. The Game Chasers are working on a movie, too; be sure to check out their Kickstarter if you’re a fan.

Check out some examples of what these fine folks have been up to here:

And, as always, here are some highlights from my WordPress Reader this week — be sure to pay these sites a visit and give them a follow if you like what you see!

If you think Mahjong ain’t happening, get down with the midnight fever. (Baud Attitude) – Baud takes us on a tour of Super Real Mahjong PV, a Switch port of a 20-year old Saturn title about everyone’s favourite indecipherable Asian tile game.

FART (Rebekah Lang) – I’m not sure much else needs to be said here.

Angel Beats Is My Guilty Sadness (Lumi Reviews Things) – Lumi takes a look at the infamously rushed and unfinished anime Angel Beats, and ponders how it still manages to have a ton of emotional resonance for a lot of people despite having more than its fair share of problems.

Guilty Gear Petit 2 (Kimimi the Game-Eating She-Monster) – A Kimimi post is always worth a read for the content itself, featuring celebrations of games you tend not to see discussed anywhere else, but this one is also particularly worth a look if you like delicious, delicious pixel art. Seriously, Guilty Gear Petit 2‘s a hell of a looker, particularly considering its modest host platform.

Divine Divinity: Problems with an “Open World” (Mr Backlog) – Mr Backlog takes on Larian Studios’ 2002 RPG Divine Divinity, a game that would eventually go on to spawn one of the most well-received classic-style Western RPGs of all time. Divine Divinity is worth a look in itself, mind, if only for its interesting fusion of Diablo combat with Baldur’s Gate interactions.

As always, thanks for reading, sharing and all your general forms of support. As some of you may have noticed, I’m taking a bit of a step back from social media for the moment, so if you’d like to get in touch, please do feel free to leave a comment here, make use of the Contact page or hit me up on Discord — it’s always nice to hear from people.

Have a lovely week!


Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this article. I’ve been writing about games in one form or another since the days of the old Atari computers, with work published in Page 6/New Atari User, PC Zone, the UK Official Nintendo Magazine, GamePro, IGN, USgamer, Glixel and more over the years, and I love what I do.

If you’d like to support the site and my work on it, please consider becoming a Patron — click here or on the button below to find out more about how to do so. From just $1 a month, you can get access to daily personal blog updates and exclusive members’ wallpapers featuring the MoeGamer mascots.

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3 thoughts on “Around the Network”

  1. Thanks for the shout-out!

    I didn’t know there were actually Boulder Dash clones on the Atari 8-bit. I figured all of the clones came later on or to different platforms. Fun bit of history to see. 🙂

    1. Boulder Dash actually originated on the Atari 8-bit, so there were a fair few clones out there. There was even an excellent machine code one that I typed in out of Page 6 magazine: Munchy Madness. Typing that beast in felt like a real achievement, it was like 6 pages of 8-point text almost entirely in indecipherable hexadecimal DATA statements.

      Diamonds isn’t exactly a Boulder Dash clone in that it’s not really “puzzle”-based; it’s kind of a hybrid between the collecting gameplay of Boulder Dash and the single-screen structure of Dig Dug. I still really like it.

  2. Oh wow.

    Thanks for sharing all these wonderful games.

    Warriors Orochi is the beautiful offspring of Samurai Warriors and Dynasty Warriors.

    I believe it was Japan that first got a taste of this epic beat ’em up.

    For almost a year since its release, the number of units it sold worldwide was already more than 1.5 million.

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