It’s time to start a new campaign in Warriors Orochi!
Yes, this week we leave behind the Samurai Warriors in favour of the Wu campaign, although we get to keep all the abilities and whatnot we unlocked over the course of our Samurai adventure.
Wu, it seems, is in cahoots with Orochi — though not by choice. How will Sun Ce and his comrades get out of this one? Hit the jump to find out.
Continue reading Warriors Wednesday: Rocket-Launcher Spear – Warriors Orochi #16
Pharaoh’s Curse is legitimately one of my favourite games on the Atari 8-bit, and one I frequently revisit to unironically enjoy every so often.
Developed by Steve Coleman, who we last saw at the helm of Mastertronic’s Ninja, Pharaoh’s Curse is an early example of an open-world 2D action adventure, allowing players to explore 16 screens arranged in a 4×4 grid in an attempt to recover all the awkwardly positioned treasures before escaping.
16 rooms doesn’t sound like much, does it? Well, you clearly haven’t counted on the intervention of the mummy. And the pharaoh. And all the traps. And that stupid bastard absolute penis of a flying thing that always shows up at the worst possible moment. Not that I’m bitter at all, no no no.
Let’s continue our OutRun adventure beneath those glorious Sega blue skies!
OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast is one of my favourite arcade racers, and playing through for this series is reminding me quite how much substance there is to it. This is no straight arcade port, by any means; there’s a wealth of different challenges to take on in both the “racing” and “Heart Attack” disciplines, represented by the portly Flagman and a trio of beautiful girlfriends respectively.
Of course, you can still also just play the arcade game if you want, too… but where there’s a “career” of sorts it’s worth getting stuck in, huh? Hit the jump to see how I got on today…
Continue reading Sunday Driving: Pipped to the Post… Twice – OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast #2
A little late for New Game Plus this week, I know, but I had to prioritise finishing off Maiden of Black Water, which I’m delighted to say I have now done. Please read my piece on it!
In New Game Plus, it’s right back to the beginning of the Project Zero series for us as we kick off a full-on actual New Game Plus run of the main story mode — this time on Nightmare difficulty.
Everything you ended the game with — film, healing items, camera upgrades — carries across into a new game, so this should be easy, right…?
Continue reading New Game Plus: Return to Himuro Mansion – Project Zero #4
Back in the ’90s, there was a bit of a rivalry between people who played games on home computers and those who played games on consoles.
What am I talking about, “back in the ’90s”, this is still a thing! Well, the difference is that back then, the home computer players were secretly envious of the console players, since during that period, consoles were the more powerful, specialised games machines.
As such, we saw a fair few computer games that attempted to emulate the success of “mascot games” on consoles. One such example that saw some success — and a couple of sequels — was James Pond, a rather British underwater agent with a penchant for environmental do-gooding…
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Did you think we were done with the adventures of the Samurai Warriors? Well, nope, we weren’t quite finished…
Today we tackle the final side mission of the Samurai campaign in Warriors Orochi, which culminates in another tough battle against King Snek himself.
Who will prevail? I mean, you know it’s me eventually, but hit the jump anyway and see how this final final battle actually went…
“Digging games” were a bit of a mainstay of the games industry in the ’80s.
Some tried their best to ape the formulae of successful arcade titles such as Namco’s Dig Dug and Universal’s Mr Do! — we’ve already seen one example of the latter here on Atari A to Z in the form of Adam “Elektra Glide” Billyard’s quick-and-dirty cash grab of a game, Henri.
Others, like DataSoft’s O’Riley’s Mine, did something a little bit different by eschewing the usual “falling boulder” hazards in favour of other ways to meet your maker beneath the earth. Better keep one step ahead of that rushing water…
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It’s time to start our engines and kick off a new series of Sunday Driving.
This time around, we’ll be exploring Sega and Sumo Digital’s wonderful OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, which you may recall is a game that I am a big fan of.
This is a classic racer that I’ve been meaning to revisit for quite some time now, so what better time than the present to jump back into an officially licensed Ferrari (from before Sega lost the license) and set course for the distant horizon?
Continue reading Sunday Driving: Sega Blue Skies – OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast #1
Load up your film, kiddies, we’re going for another photography field trip.
This time around, we take on the last tier of Project Zero’s Mission Mode, featuring battles against multiple ghosts at once and a rematch against the game’s final boss, Kirie.
There are some great rewards on offer, but there are also some stiff challenges in our way… hit the jump to see how I got on!
Continue reading New Game Plus: Kirie Eleison – Project Zero #3
Today’s Atari ST game is one of my favourites from my childhood… and a cool example of a developer thinking creatively.
Interphase, developed by The Assembly Line and published by Image Works and Mirrorsoft, is a game about infiltrating a building. The twist is, you don’t control the one doing the infiltrating; instead, you are hooked into the building’s electrical systems, manipulating them from an abstract 3D representation of “cyberspace”, while your off-screen companion is doing the difficult bit of actually getting through the building.
It’s a really cool game, and one that had a decently long lifespan too, thanks to its original commercial release being followed up by the complete game being given away as a freebie on an ST magazine’s cover-mounted floppy disk — ST Format, if I remember correctly. It remains solidly playable today, and well worth a look.
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