Category Archives: Videos

Videos

Atari A to Z: Rainbow Walker

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Today we pay another visit to a beloved publisher of the Atari 8-bit days: Synapse Software — and one of the company’s most well-regarded games.

Rainbow Walker isn’t an especially original premise — it’s a Q*Bert-style game in which you have to hop on all the squares to change them to the correct colour — but the remarkable thing here is the incredibly slick presentation, featuring a gorgeous 3D effect, smooth movement and some fancy special effects. It’s not hard to see why the game is regarded as one of the finest in the Atari 8-bit’s library.

Enjoy the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more.

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Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Golf

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Ah, golf. The one sport I can get behind in that it involves minimal physical activity (aside from walking about a bit and occasionally giving a small ball a hefty thwack) and is mostly about being very quiet.

Video game adaptations of the game that spoiled many a good walk have been around for a long time, as it happens, with one of the earlier ones being Atari’s own simply named Golf for Atari 2600.

Let’s go play a round in the video below — meet me in the 19th hole and subscribe on YouTube when you’re done!

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Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy Marathon, Videos

Final Fantasy Marathon: A New Adventure – Final Fantasy III #1

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It’s time for a whole new Final Fantasy — this time the third installment in its PSP incarnation, itself based off the Nintendo DS remake by Matrix Software.

I was all set to start recording these on actual hardware (PlayStation TV in the case of the PSP titles) but regrettably I discovered that Square Enix of Europe has been… less than fastidious in keeping their back catalogue updated with PSTV support, so we’re emulating again, I’m afraid — and we will be when FFIV rolls around, too, since that doesn’t work here in Europe either!

Ah well. It’s the game itself that matters, and Final Fantasy III is certainly an interesting and important installment in the series, so let’s get started on a whole new journey. And don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube to stay up to date with the Final Fantasy Marathon and all my other series!

Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Knicker-Bockers

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Now hold on a minute… something’s a little familiar here!

Yes indeed; we’ve previously seen Kirk Chaney’s Lock ‘n’ Chase-inspired maze puzzler on the 8-bit Atari A to Z series, but it turns out he also made an ST version! In fact, it’s not entirely clear which one came first, since they’re both dated around the same time.

Hit up the video below to check out how the 16-bit version compares to its 8-bit counterpart — and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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short;Play, Videos

short;Play: The Incredible Machine

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PC gaming today is, in a lot of cases, “console gaming but prettier and smoother”. There are exceptions, of course, but over the years I feel like we’ve lost a little something.

Back in the MS-DOS era, “PC games” felt a lot more distinct from “console games”. And a fantastic example of this is Dynamix’s The Incredible Machine: a delightful, subtly educational, Heath Robinson/Rube Goldberg-inspired puzzle game that challenged you to accomplish simple tasks in the most convoluted manner possible.

Join me in rediscovering this old classic in the video below — and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Qix

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I love me some Qix, and it’s a game I developed quite an early fondness for thanks to the Atari 8-bit version I grew up with.

There’s an Atari 5200 version that is almost arcade-perfect available, but the Atari 8-bit edition went in a slightly different direction, making itself more distinctive and unique to the 8-bit platform in the process.

Enjoy my rusty Qix skills in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Frogs and Flies

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Hmm, doesn’t something seem a bit familiar about this Atari 2600 game…?

Of course! Frogs and Flies here is the game that Atari ripped off with Frog Pond. Only Frogs and Flies (or Frog Bog as it was known in its original Intellivision incarnation) is a much better game. It is still a ripoff in its own right, however — in this case of a very early Sega arcade title called, simply, Frogs.

Action-packed tongue fun in the video below! And, as always, don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy Marathon

Final Fantasy Marathon: True End – Final Fantasy II #23

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This is it! We’re beating Final Fantasy II today! Well, okay, we’ve already done that, technically, but today our gruelling journey through postgame story Soul of Rebirth finally comes to an end!

It’s been a challenge, for sure, and a real test of how well you know how to manipulate Final Fantasy II’s progression mechanics. And I won’t lie, at times it’s been extremely frustrating. But finally reaching that conclusion and knowing it was my own hard graft that took that party from being a pile of useless twats to Emperor-toppling badasses… it felt kinda good.

Final Fantasy III coming soon. In the meantime, enjoy the video below and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Joust

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It’s arcade classic time today on Atari ST A to Z, with the game that supposedly popularised the idea of two-player cooperative gameplay.

Joust, originally developed by Williams for the arcade in 1982, was a well-regarded and influential game, and found itself ported to a wide variety of platforms over the years — including numerous Atari systems.

The Atari ST version showed up in 1986 — better late than never — and provided a solid adaptation of the arcade original for those who fancied some classic cooperative action on their 16-bit home computer. Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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short;Play, Videos

short;Play: Blake Stone – Aliens of Gold

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One of the reasons I wanted to introduce the short;Play series was to celebrate some of my favourites from yesteryear that don’t get talked about all that much.

Today we take a look at Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold, a sci-fi first-person shooter running on an enhanced Wolfenstein 3-D engine… and a game that has been mostly forgotten by history thanks to the fact that it came out a week before the legendary Doom.

I like this game a whole lot, and it provides a noticeably distinct experience from both its spiritual predecessor and id’s subsequent classic. Check out the video below to find out more — and don’t forget to subscribe over on YouTube while you’re at it!