Community

#LoveYourBacklog Week, 2020

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Hello! Are you following Later Levels? If not, get on that; Kim writes lots of lovely things about games, occasionally assisted by guest stars!

Kim’s also one of those people who is great at organising others, and encouraging them to do cool things like supporting charitable efforts and writing community blog posts. She also runs a thoroughly pleasant Discord where you can find support and advice from your fellow writers — as well as some people to read what you’ve written!

Last year, Kim encouraged us to embrace our backlog of unplayed or unfinished games, not fear it. This week, #LoveYourBacklog is back once again… and who am I to stand in the way of such an admirable endeavour?

Continue reading #LoveYourBacklog Week, 2020 →

Videos

Atari A to Z: Zybex

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We made it to Z once again, folks, and it’s time for an all-time classic shoot ’em up for the Atari 8-bit: it’s Zybex, from Zeppelin Games.

Zeppelin began their life as a company specialising in budget-priced titles on cassette; the first time I came across them was when they released today’s game Zybex and motorcycle racer Speed Ace for £2.99 each. Speed Ace was fairly decent, from what I recall — though at the time of writing it’s not one we’ve revisited as yet — but Zybex was something truly special.

Featuring frantic shoot ’em up action for one or two players, Zybex truly brought the arcade-style scrolling shoot ’em up home in style — and it still holds up pretty well today.

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

Podcast

The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode 34 – Acid Bass, Smack Around the Face

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After a mildly chaotic start to the year, we’re back with an all-new podcast, featuring my good self and 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 and listen on Spotify. Please do at least one of these if you can; it really helps us out!

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

Continue reading The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode 34 – Acid Bass, Smack Around the Face →

Announcements, Community

Around the Network

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Good evening folks! I slept in until lunchtime and then spent the rest of the day editing a new podcast episode, which will be making its way into your ears and eyes tomorrow. It’s a good ‘un!

While that renders — and while I decide whether or not I want to eat the Rustlers burger in my fridge having consumed a sufficient quantity of Starburst to make me feel a little queasy — I figured it was as good a time as any to do the weekly roundup.

So here is the weekly roundup! Join me after the jump and we’ll check out what you might have missed this week.

Continue reading Around the Network →

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Codebreaker

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With the digital revolution, many classic tabletop experiences have fallen by the wayside. But back in the late ’70s and early ’80s, you could count on most households having a copy of Mastermind.

Mastermind was a code-breaking game developed by an Israeli telecommunications expert named Mordecai Meirowitz, and it was based on an earlier pen-and-paper game named Bulls and Cows. The concept is simple: one player develops a code consisting of four coloured pegs, and the other player has to guess this code in as few steps as possible, making use of the codemaker’s feedback.

Codebreaker is essentially a digital adaptation of this game, making use of numbers rather than coloured pegs. It also features an adaptation of the ancient mathematical game Nim, for those who enjoy taking the last chocolate in the box. As a complete game package, it might look a bit limited from a modern perspective, but there’s fun to be had here.

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

MegaFeatures

The Atelier MegaFeature: Prelude

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cropped-atelier-megafeature-header-1-8868334This post is one chapter of a MegaFeature!
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We’re trying something new here on MoeGamer for 2020: something I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to do for a while. How, exactly, to tackle a series of significant length — both in terms of number of games and the sheer amount of time it takes to play them?

I was initially prompted to think about this by Falcom’s Trails series, which I’d very much like to cover when (if?) it’s finished. Each of those games are upwards of a hundred hours, and their narratives are interlinked, so they’re not things you can easily analyse in isolation. Or rather, given that interlinked nature, they’re not things I want to analyse in isolation.

That’s not the only series I wanted to explore in depth, though. One that’s been steadily filling up my shelves for the past few years is Gust’s long-running Atelier series… and given that the series as a whole is subdivided into smaller trilogies and duologies, it seemed like an ideal opportunity to experiment with the format.

And thus, I welcome you to the first MoeGamer MegaFeature!

Continue reading The Atelier MegaFeature: Prelude →

Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy Marathon, Videos

Final Fantasy Marathon: The Liberation of Fynn – Final Fantasy II #6

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The time has come for the Wild Rose rebellion to take back what is rightfully theirs: the city of Fynn and its castle!

Well, before that there’s the small matter of extracting Princess Hilda from Palamecia, but surely such a straightforward task won’t prove a problem for Firion and company after all their training to date!

Today’s episode is a good example of how Final Fantasy II makes a strong effort with worldbuilding and a sense of narrative progression, bringing back characters you encountered earlier in the game and showing you places in different contexts. Besides its unusual progression system, this side of things is probably the most noteworthy thing about the game in the context of the series as a whole.

Sega Ages, Switch

Fantasy Zone: Intergalactic Monetary Fund

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An unstable economy might not sound like it would make the setup for a compelling video game, but Fantasy Zone is here to prove you wrong!

To be fair, the premise is little more than a justification for the fact that all the enemies in the game drop coins that you can use to upgrade your ship; Fantasy Zone is instead much better known for being one of the progenitors of what came to be known as the “cute ’em up” subgenre, alongside Konami’s Twinbee.

First released to arcades in 1986 and subsequently ported to a variety of different platforms, Fantasy Zone has been a beloved part of Sega’s back catalogue for many years now. And, at the time of writing, the recent Sega Ages version for Nintendo Switch promises to bring it to a whole new audience. So let’s take a closer look at that particular incarnation of this colourful blastathon!

Continue reading Fantasy Zone: Intergalactic Monetary Fund →

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Slaygon

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There was a time when we couldn’t take first-person adventures for granted; a dark time when you could only turn by 90 degrees and move by 5 feet at a time.

Okay, we still have games like that, but at least we have a choice these days. Back when Slaygon was released for Atari ST, it’s pretty much all we had if we wanted to infiltrate some sort of complicated installation… such as a futuristic tech company looking to unleash a deadly virus into the atmosphere for… some reason!

Slaygon put an interesting twist on the dungeon crawler formula by putting you in control of a futuristic cybertank with all manner of fancy systems for you to use. It was still all about finding the right keys for the right doors though…

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

Videos, Warriors All-Stars, Warriors Wednesday

Warriors Wednesday: Beautiful Flowers – Warriors All-Stars #16

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Today in the world of Warriors All-Stars, it’s a day of gradually conquering the map and inching towards a new Dramatic Battle.

For the uninitiated, a core mechanic in Warriors All-Stars is your area of control over the overall map. This is most broadly affected by the major battles you complete, such as story battles and character unlocks, but fine-tuned by the more “generic” battles you encounter along the way. As such, in order to expand your sphere of influence — and thus the battles you’re able to participate in — you’ll need to engage in skirmishes right on the front lines.

Today our main goal is reaching the “Beautiful Flowers” battle, which pits some of the prettiest ladies of this Warriors world against seemingly overwhelming odds!

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