It’s time to check in on Rorona again! This time around, she has her hands not-so-full with preparing for the second Annual Festival of the game.
As always, the head start that the New Game Plus bonuses afforded us means we can get the assignment out of the way very quickly, which leaves plenty of time for a bit of exploration.
For today’s episode, we check out the underwater Lost City as well as the Dark Woods. And my cat “helps”.
Whew, now there’s a mouthful, eh? As you may have guessed from the title, this one- or two-player arcade romp — originally developed by Atari Games — channels the very best of 1950s B-movies into a fun and satisfying isometric blaster.
Sadly, the home ports lack the arcade version’s “Hall Effect” joystick, which allowed movement and aiming in sixteen directions instead of the usual eight — a precursor to our modern analogue sticks — but the ST version seen here still plays well with a nice joystick!
Just remember to turn off Sticky Keys in Windows if you’re emulating to, say, record a video… you need that Shift key quite a bit in this game! Oh well, you live and learn, huh…?
Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.
In today’s Warriors Orochi mission, the Shu gang hit the jungle and encounter the formidable Meng Huo and his even scarier wife Zhu Rong.
Renowned strategist Sima Yi has been causing trouble for the barbarians, it seems, so Zhao Yun and company take the opportunity to forge a new alliance and demonstrate their own fighting potential.
Meng Huo isn’t so easily convinced, but thankfully his wife has a sensible head atop those broad, powerful shoulders…
There have been quite a few James Bond games over the years, some of them excellent, some of them… less so.
1984’s attempt by Parker Brothers was an unusual affair that saw you taking control of Bond’s amphibious Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me and attempting to shoot and/or bomb the crap out of everything that stood in the superspy’s way. The four main levels were loosely themed around popular Bond movies from the time, but really, it’s just an excuse to shoot stuff in different environments.
GoldenEye was certainly a big step forward!
Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.
While there’s much to be said for a traditional shoot ’em up in which you simply blast everything while trying not to get blasted in return, sometimes it’s nice to enjoy something a bit different.
Triangle Service’s Minus Zero, part of the Shooting Love. 200X collection, is a great example. Consisting entirely of “lock-on” shooting and a nifty invincibility gimmick, it’s a highly enjoyable game that is great for a quick fix of making things explode should you feel the need — a single game is done and dusted in a matter of minutes, even if you can clear the whole thing!
Today, you can enjoy it either as part of the Shooting Love. 200X compilation on Xbox 360 (which is not region-free in its physical incarnation, but is available via the Games On Demand download platform in North America and Europe) or on PC via its Steam release.
I was extremely intimidated by Lunar Lander as a kid. Revisiting it today, I see that it’s not really anything to be scared by… but it still puts up a pretty stiff challenge, particularly on its harder levels!
Providing one of the earliest examples of a completely non-violent arcade game — and one with significant simulation-esque elements, at that — Lunar Lander is a game that would go on to influence a wide variety of other computer, console and arcade games. Primarily through that “turn and thrust” mechanic I tend to have such difficulty with!
Oh well. Let’s see if we can touch down safely at least once in my lifetime…
Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.
Summer’s drawing to a close in Arland just as it’s starting to get nice and warm for springtime here in the UK.
Today our brave little alchemist takes on her toughest challenge yet: dealing with a comic misunderstanding involving a gentleman friend and her parents! Oh no!
She also does a bit of alchemy and indulges in the usual Puni abuse. She does still have a job to do, after all…
In the 8- and 16-bit home computer era, movie license games were typically developed either as platform games with a tenuous link to the movie in question, or some sort of minigame compilation, with each major scene from the movie being represented as some sort of interactive challenge.
Mindscape’s Days of Thunder was different. Here was a game that took the basic concept of the movie and simply used it as a basis to create a fully fleshed out experience — one that complemented rather than attempted to imitate the original work. The subject matter — motorsport — was ideal for such a treatment, and, on paper, Days of Thunder was a great idea.
Sadly, less than stellar performance meant that the game wasn’t as good as it could have been — a lack of speed and responsiveness in a racing game is a bit of an issue! — but it remains an interesting proof of concept as well as an intriguing anomaly that broke with the conventions and norms of the time. So I salute the effort involved, if not necessarily the final product we ended up with!
Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.
In today’s Warriors Orochi mission, it’s up to the Shu people to save the Hojo clan before they defect to Orochi’s forces! Can they pull it off and obtain some valuable new allies?
Zhao Yun, Yue Ying and Ginchiyo Tachibana certainly think so, but they have a formidable challenge ahead of them. Orochi may not look like the most charismatic evil snake dude out there, but he certainly seems to have a fairly reliable means of… convincing people to rally under his banner.
Only one thing for it! Kick the snot out of everyone until we seem like the more appealing option! Let’s do it!
Here’s an interesting one: an unreleased port of an unreleased game.
Yes indeed, Ixion never officially saw the light of day way back when, either in its original arcade incarnation or its home ports. And yet here it is, perfectly preserved in its Atari 8-bit incarnation, all thanks to the efforts of the filthy dirty pirates of the 1980s. Yar-har, fiddle-de-dee.
The game itself is an interesting combination of arena shooter, puzzler and collect ’em up, and I like it very much. If you have an Atari 2600, AtariAge even released an actual physical version of that port — check it out here!
Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.
