Mario Tennis for the Nintendo 64 is my favourite Mario Tennis game. Subsequent installments have, to me, overcomplicated things somewhat — so it’s been a pleasure to return to this one thanks to the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack.
Providing straightforward but mechanically interesting arcadey thrills, Mario Tennis for Nintendo 64 is Virtua Tennis with an added layer of cartoony accessibility atop it. Even those who aren’t into sports — like me — can have a good time with this one, particularly if you bring some friends along to join the fun!
Although the Dizzy series from Codemasters and The Oliver Twins is best-known for its series of arcade adventures, it also experimented with a few other genres along the way, too.
One of these “Dizzy, but different” games was Dizzy Panic, a puzzle game all about sorting shapes. It’s extremely simple in concept but gets very, very challenging extremely quickly!
You like Berzerk? Then you’ll probably like CBS Software’s K-Razy Shoot-Out — though this is more than just a straight clone of the arcade classic.
Instead, it presents you with increasingly challenging shoot-outs against armies of robots — all against the clock. In the tradition of the very best arcade games out there, it’s extremely simple to learn, but tough to master. And very, very addictive!
I am bad at checkers, or draughts as we call it over here, but I’m not going to turn down a chance to play an early game by Carol “River Raid” Shaw.
In fact, legend has it that Carol Shaw’s Atari 2600 version of Checkers put Activision’s similar effort to shame by such a significant degree that she was offered a job with the company. And the rest, as they say, is history. Now in commemoration of such a heartwarming story, enjoy my terrible attempts to beat the lowest difficulty level on a 41-year old video game adaptation of a very simple board game.
I love Moon Patrol, but it’s actually been quite a while since I played it seriously — and I’ve never spent that much time with the arcade original.
Still, all it took to get me interested in playing again was some discussion of the Atari 8-bit version (and its dodgy moon buggy sprite) on the 1200XL Podcast — after that, I was ready with my PayPal account to download the Arcade Archives version on Switch, marking what I suspect is the beginning of a worrying addiction. But oh well.
We’ve reached the end of our second spell (no pun intended) with Epyx’s wonderful Temple of Apshai Trilogy; this time we take on the final part, Curse of Ra, on the Atari ST.
Westwood’s 1986 port of Temple of Apshai Trilogy for Atari ST is one of the more convenient and enjoyable ways to play the game. The mouse controls and menus work well, the ability to get the room descriptions with the tap of a key is wonderful — it would have been nice to have the treasure descriptions, too, but I guess there was only so much text they could squeeze in!
The meaning of “platform game” has changed quite a bit over time; back in the earlier days of home computing, however, it had quite a distinct meaning. And Jumpman Junior from Epyx was pretty much a textbook example.
You have a single screen at a time. There are platforms and, often, ladders — hence the genre also being known as “platforms and ladders”. You have a thing to do — usually “collect all the thingies” or “get to the top”. And there are things trying to stop you — including the very environment you’re clambering all over! All of this is true for Jumpman Junior. And it’s still a highly enjoyable game today!
One of the nice things about the Atari Flashback Classics collection is how it includes a bunch of previously unreleased prototypes — some of which are really great.
Tempest for Atari 2600 is unfortunately not exactly one of the great ones — but it’s an interesting one, nonetheless, largely because no-one seems to know who was responsible for it! Originally assumed to be the work of Carla Meninsky, it seems that it was actually produced by someone else after Meninsky left Atari — but no-one knows who! And no-one is in a hurry to come forward and take responsibility, either…
After we covered the Atari ST version of After Burner a little while back, a few people reached out to me and told me to take a look at the PC Engine version. So I did.
Good Lord, that version leaves the ST version in the absolute dust. And on a platform with an 8-bit processor to boot. Turns out there was at least one platform out there of producing a thoroughly respectable version of After Burner that was almost as good as the arcade version… apart from the “canyon” level, but we can probably forgive that.
First, there was Menace. Now, Psygnosis presents… a DMA Design game. BLOOD MONEY!
Thus ran the intro to Blood Money, spiritual successor to DMA Design’s excellent 16-bit shooter Menace, and a game that draws heavy inspiration from a variety of its contemporaries. It’s a good game with a few glaring issues that hold it back from true greatness — but it’s worth a play or two, particularly if you can bring a friend along for the ride!
