Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Elevator Repairman

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As we’ve seen a few times previously on the Atari A to Z series, the North American Atari-centric publication ANALOG was a prime source of top-quality machine code games that you could type in yourself, then save to a disk or cassette and enjoy whenever you pleased.

Today’s game hails from ANALOG issue number 34 (September 1985), and is a simple but enjoyable arcade game about avoiding elevators and climbing buildings. That main character looks a little familiar, too… though of course any resemblance to certain Italian plumbers, living or dead, is almost certainly unintentional and should not be considered any sort of infringement on established, trademarked intellectual property. Or something. Probably.

Enjoy the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Community, One-Shots

Hololive English: Examining a Worldwide Phenomenon

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Over the weekend of the 12-13 September 2020, the world was treated to the debut streams of “HoloMyth”, a group of five virtual YouTubers specifically designed to entertain the English-speaking online community.

HoloMyth, or Hololive English as they’re also known, are part of the rapidly growing Hololive agency run by Japanese “virtual entertainment” company Cover Corporation. To date, the numerous Hololive virtual YouTubers have been primarily aimed at the Asian market, though several of them have enjoyed breakout worldwide success thanks to the efforts of community subtitlers — and the talent’s own enthusiasm to embrace their overseas viewers.

Hololive English demonstrates that Cover Corporation is very much aware of the international enthusiasm for virtual YouTubers, and is keen to provide entertainment to that market. It just makes good business sense, after all — but is it worth English speakers finally diving down that rabbit hole if they haven’t already? Let’s take a closer look.

Continue reading Hololive English: Examining a Worldwide Phenomenon →

Announcements, Community

Around the Network

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Good afternoon everyone! Hope you’re having a pleasant Sunday. I stayed up much later than I should have done last night watching the debut streams for Hololive English, but I’m glad I did; the whole day was just utterly joyful.

I am suffering a little bit for it today, but at least it’s not a working day, so I can take the time to recover a bit before returning to the day job duties tomorrow. It was definitely worth it; I hope those girls have a great future ahead of them, as they were all a delight to spend time with yesterday.

Anyway, enough talk about virtual people who straddle the line between “existing” and “not really existing”, let’s take a look at what you might have missed in the last week!

Continue reading Around the Network →

Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Miniature Golf

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Miniature Golf on the Atari 5200 is absolutely nothing to do with Miniature Golf on the Atari 2600.

It’s another unreleased game for the Atari 5200 that was a casualty of Atari not really knowing what they wanted to do with this console — and eventually canning it and its games altogether. Thankfully, we now get to enjoy this high-resolution physics puzzle for ourselves — and without having to suffer the original 5200 controller — thanks to Atari Flashback Classics!

Enjoy the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more.

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Atelier

Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland – Tradition, Modernity and Belief in Oneself

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cropped-atelier-megafeature-header-1-8868334This post is one chapter of a MegaFeature!
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As our exploration of Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland comes to a close, it’s time to contemplate the game’s narrative component.

As we talked about when we looked at the game’s overall structure, Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland is somewhat more non-linear than previous installments in the series. There’s a core linear progression based around Rorona’s assignments, but the bulk of the narrative content comes from the wide variety of optional events you can enjoy with the ensemble cast.

Between all those events, you get a good sense of what sort of place Arland is — and who Rorona and her friends really are. So let’s take a closer look!

Continue reading Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland – Tradition, Modernity and Belief in Oneself →

One-Shots

Olympic Games Tokyo 2020: The Game of the Games That Never Were

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With a few exceptions, officially licensed video game adaptations of the Olympics tend to be little more than footnotes in video gaming history.

Often regarded by critics as collections of minigames rather than anything of real substance, they tend to enjoy a brief period of popularity around the time of the real-life Games they find themselves based on, then afterwards fall into complete obscurity, never to be seen again. Which puts Sega’s Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 – The Official Video Game (Tokyo 2020 hereafter) in a rather interesting position.

First releasing in Japan in July of 2019, a full year before the actual Tokyo 2020 games were set to begin, it now finds itself in the peculiar position of being an official adaptation of an event that never happened — and that, at the time of writing, we’re not 100% sure will happen as the global COVID-19 pandemic continues. Which makes it an interesting historical curiosity at the very least — but thankfully it’s also an entertaining game, too. Let’s take a closer look.

Continue reading Olympic Games Tokyo 2020: The Game of the Games That Never Were →

Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Xevious

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It’s dangerous, it’s devious… it’s Xevious! Again. This time for the Atari ST, after we’ve previously seen the Atari 8-bit and Evercade versions.

The Atari ST port of Namco’s classic, genre-defining vertical scroller was handled by Probe, a company whose output varied enormously from game to game. As it happens, their version of Xevious was a very solid port of the game… it was just a bit late. All right, a lot late. But at least it showed up eventually!

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Waifu Wednesday

Waifu Wednesday: Yasuko Yamanouchi

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At the time of writing, I haven’t yet finished a full readthrough of Kogado Studio’s Nurse Love Syndrome, but I did want to show some love for one of its main characters. (And probably some more in the near future.)

For the unfamiliar, Nurse Love Syndrome is a visual novel that explores new nurse Kaori Sawai’s early days on the job, and everything that entails — both good and bad. Yasuko Yamanouchi is a character who is introduced early on as one of the more experienced members of the nursing staff but… well, let’s just say she’s a bit of a character.

And she’s voiced by Yumi Hara, too, so if you ever wanted to hear Yumi from Senran Kagura playing someone who isn’t Yumi for once… well, now’s your chance!

Continue reading Waifu Wednesday: Yasuko Yamanouchi →

short;Play, Videos

short;Play: Magicami DX

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I’ve been writing a bit about new free-to-play “city pop magic girls” game Magicami DX recently, so I thought I’d show you it in action.

This footage is from the relatively early hours of the game, but it’ll give you a good overview of what to expect from the presentation of this game — and what you’ll spend most of your time doing. We don’t get into gacha rates, endgame strategies or deep dives into mechanics or anything — hopefully this quick teaser will give you a good idea of what the game is like, though!

Enjoy the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

One-Shots

Frogger Hyper Arcade Edition: Froggy Moves One Step At a Time

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Xbox Live Arcade and its contemporaries are interesting places to look back over. Since XBLA and PSN were some of the first high-profile digital storefronts for console gaming, a lot of companies decided to get a bit experimental with their low-cost, download-only releases.

For some developers, this meant the opportunity to experiment with new and exciting styles of game that probably wouldn’t have gotten greenlit by retail publishers at the time. For others, it was a good excuse to return to some of their classic properties that had lain dormant for a while — and a chance to bring these beloved names kicking and screaming into the digital, high-definition age.

Konami’s Frogger: Hyper Arcade Edition from 2012 very much falls into the latter category, as you might expect. And while it’s a far from essential part of any digital console library, it does manage to keep the essence of Frogger intact while providing some intriguing new ways to play — particularly if you have friends over.

Continue reading Frogger Hyper Arcade Edition: Froggy Moves One Step At a Time →

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