Tag Archives: gameplay

Evercade A to Z, Videos

Evercade A to Z: Checkered Flag

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Every gaming platform worth its salt needs at least one great racing game to keep the petrolheads amused. And in the case of the Atari Lynx, that role was very capably fulfilled by Checkered Flag.

The game is a challenging “vanishing point” racer that offers a wide selection of tracks and options to customise your experience, plus a great showcase of the Lynx’s hardware scaling capabilities. Plus you get a big ol’ snog from a hottie (male or female, depending on preference) in a swimsuit if you win. And now you can enjoy it as part of the Atari Lynx Collection 2 for the Evercade!

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

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Mercenary III

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I’ve been a big fan of Paul Woakes’ incredibly ambitious open-world adventures in the Mercenary series since a young age, and returning to them with adult eyes has given me a whole new appreciation of them.

Take this third installment, for example; while I grasped the basic concept of the game when I played it as a kid — and even beat it, if I remember rightly — as an adult I have to respect the sheer ballsiness of a developer putting out a game that is, in essence, a first-person political intrigue game more than anything else. Even more so because Woakes managed to pull it off and still keep the game interesting, enjoyable and amusing — thanks in part to the fascinating universe he created, and also to the biting satire in the writing.

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

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short;Play, Videos

short;Play: Dead Rising

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We’ve been in the “HD era” for a while now — so long, in fact, that titles from the early days of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 probably count as being “retro”.

An all-time classic from this early period — a dark time when developers apparently didn’t know what VSync was — was Capcom’s Dead Rising, an ambitious quasi-open world affair that saw you battering your way through hordes of zombies in an attempt to solve the mysterious outbreak in a sleepy Colorado town. There are better ways to play this today, but I’ll always have a soft spot for the original Xbox 360 version — particularly with how cheaply you can acquire a copy today.

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

Evercade, The Oliver Twins Collection

FireHawk: Lafia Strike

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Helicopters are cool. At least they used to be in the ’80s and early ’90s. I’m not sure we’d get a TV show where the helicopter was the star today.

Anyway, with how fashionable helicopters were in this time period, it’s not surprising that we got a fair few video games where helicopters played a leading role. And one such example was FireHawk, developed by the Oliver Twins and published by Codemasters and Camerica in 1991 as an unlicensed cartridge for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

It’s not one of the Oliver Twins’ better-known pieces of work, but it is a fun time. And, as luck would have it, we now have easy access to it as part of the Oliver Twins Collection for the Evercade retro gaming platform. So let’s take a closer look!

Continue reading FireHawk: Lafia Strike →

Videos

Atari A to Z: Shamus

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Shamus is one of those games that probably every Atari 8-bit enthusiast has played at one point or another; like many other games from publisher Synapse Software, it’s an all-time classic.

Developed by Cathryn Mataga (credited as William Mataga in the game), Shamus is a top-down action adventure that draws some inspiration from the classic shoot ’em up Berzerk and combines it with a more coherent world that you need to explore in order to proceed to the next level. Offering massive mazes and tons of replay value, Shamus is still a great time today.

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

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Warriors Orochi 3

Warriors Orochi 3: One Hundred and Forty-Five Warriors Worth One Hundred and Forty-Five Thousand

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One of the interesting things about the Warriors Orochi series is quite how many playable characters each installment has had on the roster. And, of course, this is a number that has only expanded over time.

In fact, the most recent installment at the time of writing, Warriors Orochi 4, scored itself a fairly meaningless Guinness World Record for “most playable characters in a hack-and-slash video game” thanks to its 170 cast members. Warriors Orochi 3 isn’t far behind, though, with a full 145 peeps to take charge of in the Ultimate release of the game.

But when presented with that many playable characters, what exactly do you do with all of them? Are you expected to level them all up? Where do you start? Let’s talk progression!

Continue reading Warriors Orochi 3: One Hundred and Forty-Five Warriors Worth One Hundred and Forty-Five Thousand →

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: RealSports Basketball

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Ever wanted your Atari 5200 to trash-talk you? Enter RealSports Basketball, a game that is more than happy to give you a mouthful.

This is another unreleased prototype sports game in the RealSports series, originally set to come out in 1983 but never quite making it. It’s a tad better than the rather bare-bones RealSports Basketball for Atari 2600, but still a little lacking in features where it counts. There’s some fun to be had, though, particularly if you can rope a friend into playing with you.

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

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Atelier

Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland – The Fight For What’s Important

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cropped-atelier-megafeature-header-1-8868334This post is one chapter of a MegaFeature!
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In keeping with how Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland’s alchemy mechanics aren’t just a straight rehash of the other Arland games, the battle and exploration mechanics also feature a pleasing blend of old and new.

By taking the basic structure of battles from the earlier Arland games and then supplementing this with a variety of brand-new tactical considerations, Atelier Lulua provides us with an enjoyable combat system that keeps things consistently interesting for the game’s duration. And some really nice “quality of life” features mean that the whole game feels nicely streamlined and efficient to play without sacrificing any sort of mechanical depth.

That’s how you do a good follow-up — from the perspective of game design, anyway. Let’s take a closer look at these specific elements of Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland.

Continue reading Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland – The Fight For What’s Important →

Evercade A to Z, Videos

Evercade A to Z: Scrapyard Dog

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One of the things that excited me about the Evercade pretty much from the moment it was announced was the fact that a number of Atari Lynx games would be coming to the system.

The Atari Lynx, one of Atari’s numerous failed experiments in the ’90s, played host to a variety of interesting and genuinely unique games — most of them simply weren’t available on any other platform. The release of the two Atari Lynx Collection cartridges for the Evercade marks the first time many of these games have been widely available for a very long time!

In today’s video, we check out Scrapyard Dog from the Atari Lynx Collection 1 cartridge. Check it out below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Legends of Valour

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If you ever wanted to know who or what to blame for the endless rereleases of Skyrim on every platform under the sun… well, today I’ve got the game where it arguably all started.

Legend of Valour is a supremely ambitious first-person texture-mapped role-playing game that Todd Howard has specifically cited as being a key influence on the development of the Elder Scrolls series. Up until quite recently, I had thought it was an MS-DOS PC exclusive — but it turns out there’s an Atari ST version, too.

Well, there’s no way we’re not checking that out, is there? Let’s do just that in the video below. Don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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