Atari ST A to Z: Purple Saturn Day

You know how these days Japanese games are often stereotyped as being “weird”? Well, in the early to mid ’90s, it was French developers who were saddled with this perception.

To be fair, it was at least partially justified — although it may perhaps have been a little more polite to refer to these developers’ works as being “creative” rather than “weird”.

They don’t come much more creative/weird than Purple Saturn Day, a game developed by a branch of ERE Informatique that claimed to be receiving their inspiration directly from an interdimensional technological god-entity named Exxos, and a title that put an interesting sci-fi twist on the multi-sports formula.

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

How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?: Moe-Tivational

My arms ache. And it’s all because of this stupid anime.

I’ll be 100% honest with you here, dear reader: my initial interest in How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?, the new anime from Doga Kobo (Yuru Yuri, Plastic Memories, Gabriel Dropout) was for less than wholesome reasons — as I’m sure it was for many other people, given the provocative nature of the teaser image that was initially circulated.

But after watching the first episode, I signed up for the gym. Three episodes in at the time of writing and I’m already making more positive lifestyle choices. What state will I be in by the end of the run?

Continue reading How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?: Moe-Tivational

Waifu Wednesday: Jessica de Alkirk

I thought I’d go classic for this week’s Waifu Wednesday.

I’ll freely admit that it’s been a very long time — far too long, in fact — since I played Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete on PS1, but back when I did play it for the first time, I fell in love. Several times. With the game, with its setting, with Working Designs’ localisation… and with Jessica.

’90s waifus still got it going on, y’know.

Continue reading Waifu Wednesday: Jessica de Alkirk

Warriors Wednesday: Overly Ambitious – Warriors Orochi #47

There I was, thinking that things were going a bit too well and things felt a bit “easy” as I started the Wei campaign on Normal difficulty. “Why not try Hard?” I thought.

This, it turns out, was a bit of a mistake. It appears that at the start of this campaign I’m in a bit of a limbo, where having acquired over a hundred levels’ worth of passive abilities in the previous storylines, my characters are now a bit too tough to have any real challenges placed before them on Normal, but not quite tough enough to stand up to the challenges Hard presents them with.

Oh well. At least now we know, eh?

The Zelda Diaries: Part 4 – Peace and Quiet

I’m not an especially active or outdoorsy type… but I’ve always enjoyed the atmosphere of being out in nature. You know, so long as it isn’t trying to bite, sting, cut, burn, poison crush or otherwise bring me to harm in one way or another.

Some of my fondest memories are from childhood, when I had the good fortune to be able to go camping with both my class at school and my Cub Scout pack. My most longstanding, happiest recollections of those trips do not involve the many activities we participated in — but rather simple things, such as gradually drifting off to sleep to the soothing sound of rain on canvas (occasionally punctuated by class clown Christopher Smith farting) or feeling a quiet sense of awe at the almost complete silence around us, save for the leaves on the forest’s trees rustling in the wind.

Breath of the Wild is making me extremely nostalgic for all this sort of thing. And, best of all, I don’t have to go out in the blazing hot British summer sunshine and/or torrential British rain to enjoy it.

Continue reading The Zelda Diaries: Part 4 – Peace and Quiet

Atari A to Z: Vultures III

The concept of the “video game auteur” is regarded as something of a modern thing, with Japanese creators like Hideo Kojima, Hidetaka Suehiro, Goichi Suda and Taro Yoko typically being held up as some of the best examples.

But back in the Atari 8-bit era, we had our fair share of recognisable names, too. Okay, they tended to be renowned more for technical ability and prolificacy than the artistic achievement and vision that tends to get celebrated today, but there were definitely “big names” working in both commercial and public domain software.

One such example of the latter was Stan Ockers, who is sadly no longer with us having departed this mortal coil in mid-2017. In the early days of home computing, Ockers gave us a wide variety of games and software composed in BASIC, initially published in the newsletter for Eugene, Oregon’s Atari Computer Enthusiasts user group and later in Antic and Page 6 magazine.

Today’s game, Vultures III, is perhaps not his best work, but is a good example of how he could harness the limited power of Atari BASIC to produce playable and addictive games — and, like most of his other creations, provided something for aspiring programmers and designers to study and learn from.

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

The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode 25 – WTF Space Tarantulas

Bonan whatever it is in your area, and welcome along to another episode of The MoeGamer Podcast, featuring my good self and a highly caffeinated Mr Chris Caskie of MrGilderPixels.

The MoeGamer Podcast is available in several places. You can subscribe to my channel on YouTube to stay up to date with both the video versions of the podcast and my weekly videos (including the Atari A to Z retro gaming series); you can follow on Soundcloud for the audio-only version of the podcast; you can subscribe via RSS to get the audio-only version of the podcast in your favourite podcast app; or you can subscribe via iTunes. Please do at least one of these if you can; it really helps us out!

Or you can hit the jump to watch or listen to today’s episode right here on MoeGamer.

Continue reading The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode 25 – WTF Space Tarantulas

Around the Network

And so, another week draws to a close, as Death idly sharpens his scythe, sighs (quite an achievement without any lungs) and goes back to watching the sands of time trickle away, one grain at a time.

But don’t you worry yourself about all that. There’s a whole load of things to catch up on first! We’ve got cute girls learning Esperanto, elf boys climbing cliffs and whip-crackin’ demon-slayin’ action, among other things. Plus, a new episode of The MoeGamer Podcast is on the way for you tomorrow!

So let’s dive in and see what you might have missed this week.

Continue reading Around the Network

Atari A to Z Flashback: Sprint 2

Back before makers of arcade games figured out how to do a vaguely convincing 3D effect, racing games tended to be strictly top-down affairs.

Sprint 2, developed by Kee Games (actually Atari in disguise so as to get around contractual obligations) was one of several examples from this early era. Pitting either one player against a computer-controlled car or two friends against one another over twelve different tracks, it helped define the early days of a genre that has grown and changed significantly over the ages.

The oldies can still be goodies, though, and I still have a lot of time for Sprint 2, as simplistic as it is!

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

The Expression: Amrilato – Suddenly Voiceless

cropped-amrilato-header-7970256This article is one chapter of a multi-part Cover Game feature!
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The prospect of learning a new language is a daunting one for many people — particularly English speakers, who tend to take their language’s position as “default” for granted.

What this means, more often than not, is that if you’re not put in a position where you have to learn a new language, chances are you won’t. There are exceptions to this rule, of course — some people learn a new language to improve their career prospects, some learn to broaden the range of language-dependent arts and entertainment they can engage with and some just do it for fun — but for the most part we, as humans, are rather lazy when it comes to this sort of thing.

When The Expression: Amrilato’s protagonist Rin finds herself in a version of her hometown that seems to be all “wrong”, she soon finds herself learning firsthand what being in a position where you have to learn a new language is like.

Continue reading The Expression: Amrilato – Suddenly Voiceless

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