Videos

Atari A to Z: Bacterion!

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One of the best things about the 8-bit age was the prolific public domain scene, with many high-quality pieces of software being published in listing format in magazines.

One US publication that was particularly prolific in this regard was ANALOG (Atari Newsletter And Lots Of Games), which regularly published commercial-quality machine code programs for readers to type in, save to disk or cassette and enjoy at their leisure.

Today’s game hails from those hallowed pages. I give you Bacterion! The Plague of 2369. Nice.

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.

Cover Games, Senran Kagura

Senran Kagura Bon Appétit: The Fastest Route to the Heart

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When the Senran Kagura series first launched, I’m not sure anyone could have quite predicted the trajectory it would take.

While some fans lament the fact that the series has deviated somewhat from its original course of “cool female ninjas fight youma, also there are breasts and bums”, I can’t say I’m the slightest bit sorry for the existence of games like Senran Kagura Bon Appétit (also known as Dekamori: Senran Kagura in Japan).

It’s a game that bills itself as a “hyper busty cooking battle”, and gives us the opportunity to see that enormous cast of delightful characters in a rather different context to normal. What’s not to like?

Continue reading Senran Kagura Bon Appétit: The Fastest Route to the Heart →

Announcements, Community

Around the Network

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Goodness me, the last couple of weeks have been some of MoeGamer’s best for a long time in terms of visitors. So a hearty “welcome” if you’re new around here!

I’m delighted that so many new people have come along to see what I’m up to; I’m perhaps less delighted about the circumstances which prompted such an influx of readers — as you’ll find out more about shortly — but at the very least, I hope those new readers have found a place where they can enjoy their favourite things without judgement or censure.

As you’ll know if you’ve been following for a while, I don’t have any great grand plans for MoeGamer to be a one-stop daily gaming resource — I don’t really do “news”, for example — but I do make a point of, at the very least, taking titles the mainstream press have treated like crap and giving them the respect they deserve. So stick around if you want to see more… and check out what you might have missed this week in this article!

Continue reading Around the Network →

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: 3D Tic-Tac-Toe

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One of my favourite things about working on this series is how I come across interesting bits of trivia during my research.

Did you know, for example, that today’s game, 3D Tic-Tac-Toe, was the work of Carol Shaw, an immensely talented programmer perhaps best known for one of my favourite games of all time: River Raid?

It’s not really all that surprising that someone who is good at programming worked on more than one thing in their career, I guess, but, hey, I found it interesting. And 3D Tic-Tac-Toe is a lot harder than it looks!

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.

Essentials, Taito

Taito Essentials: The New Zealand Story

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New Zealand, as beautiful a country as it is, is not a place that gets a lot of attention. I mean, it’s tucked away down there right in the corner of the map where everyone forgets about it.

However, back in 1988, the country left a sufficiently lasting impression on one of Taito’s programmers that, upon his return from holiday, he wanted to make it a setting for a new arcade game.

The result was The New Zealand Story. And it’s one of Taito’s most interesting games.

Continue reading Taito Essentials: The New Zealand Story →

Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy Marathon, Videos

Final Fantasy Marathon: Wrath of the Lich King – Final Fantasy I #8

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In today’s episode, the Warriors of Light score their first major victory over the Four Fiends and cleanse the Cavern of Earth once and for all.

The fact that this part of the game makes you seek out the advice of an inconveniently located sage then re-run a dungeon in a different context was something pretty distinctive at the time of original release; an audience of players more accustomed to linear “straight line to the finish” games may well have found themselves surprised and baffled when they discovered what was necessary in order for them to progress.

We now know that to be the nature of RPGs, of course; but someone had to define and codify the conventions we take for granted today, didn’t they?

Cover Games, Senran Kagura

Senran Kagura: An Almost-Comprehensive Look at Gessen’s Use of Classical Music

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senran-kagura-header-9065113This article is one chapter of a multi-part Cover Game feature!
<< First | < Previous | Next > | Latest >>

The Gessen girls, introduced in Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus on PlayStation Vita and pretty much a fixture ever since, are certainly a distinctive lot.

Taking a rather different approach to being “good” shinobi than Asuka and friends at Hanzou National Academy, the students of Gessen Girls’ Academy learned everything they know about the world from their adoptive “grandfather” Kurokage.

And that includes their musical tastes, which is reflected in the games’ soundtracks; Gessen girls’ themes make extensive use of Western art music. So I thought that might be interesting to take a closer look at.

Continue reading Senran Kagura: An Almost-Comprehensive Look at Gessen’s Use of Classical Music →

Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Uninvited

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Horror games really took off with the advent of the “survival horror” subgenre that Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil introduced in the late ’90s.

That’s not to say that there were no horror games prior to that, however. And one of the most creepy, disturbing and unsettling of them all was Uninvited by Icom Simulations.

Uninvited was one of Icom’s “MacVentures” series of point-and-click games, but it was ported to numerous platforms after it proved popular on its original platform. One of those was Atari ST, so here we are…

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.

Community, One-Shots

We Need To Get Better At Talking About Sex

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Sex is great and all, but have you tried talking about it?

This is something that the games industry in general appears to struggle greatly with, since adult gaming is still in a weird niche where it’s commonly understood to exist and is appreciated by its core audiences, but at the same time it’s still not particularly accepted by mainstream outlets, who will take every opportunity to deride and downplay it.

The latest of many examples at the time of writing was presented by Nathan Grayson of Kotaku, who derisively pointed out that “two of Steam’s top games last month were anime sex games” before going on to complain about creators catering to “straight men’s sexual fantasies”. But really this is a broader issue that has been worth talking about for some time. And now’s as good a time as any.

Continue reading We Need To Get Better At Talking About Sex →

Videos, Warriors Wednesday

Warriors Wednesday: It’s A Trap… Again – Warriors Orochi #52

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You can count on several things in a Warriors game: firstly, that pursuing Lu Bu is usually a bad idea; secondly, that the commander is struggling and that you should assist at once; and thirdly, that “it” is usually a trap.

It’s a trope at this point; if a particular encounter in a Warriors battle feels mysteriously easy, or there don’t seem to be very many enemies around on a suspiciously large map, you can guarantee that something bad is going to happen to your forces at some point. It’s just a matter of when…

And, of course, that’s exactly what happens today, as Cao Pi and friends attempt to seize a strategically advantageous garrison…

The best of overlooked and underappreciated computer and video games, from yesterday and today.