Tag Archives: gameplay

Evercade, Interplay Collection 1

Earthworm Jim: Shiny, Groovy People

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Earthworm Jim is, for many people, a defining game of the 16-bit home console era. Perhaps not in quite the same way as titles like Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog, but it’s definitely a title people look back on fondly.

Probably the main reason for its enduring appeal is its incredible animation, which combines traditional hand-drawn techniques with digital pixel art to create something with a very distinctive and memorable aesthetic.

To my shame, I never played it back in the day. Thankfully, I can now correct that gap in my knowledge and experience thanks to the Mega Drive version being included on the Interplay Collection 1 cartridge for the Evercade retro gaming system. So let’s dive in and see what I’ve been missing!

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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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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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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.

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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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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.

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Miniature Golf

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Miniature Golf was a popular pastime in the 1970s, so it made a lot of sense for there to be an adaptation for the shiny new Atari Video Computer System when it released in the latter years of the decade.

In those early days, though, game developers hadn’t quite mastered what made the 2600’s innards tick — or indeed what made a good game. But Miniature Golf, a game which, bizarrely, ended up pulled from sale a year after launch, unlike the rest of the 2600’s early lineup, has a bold attempt at… something.

Is it successful? A bit of yes, a bit of no. Find out what works and what doesn’t in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more.

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Atelier Arland

Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland – Living the Arlandian Life

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cropped-atelier-megafeature-header-1-8868334This post is one chapter of a MegaFeature!
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So far in our exploration of Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland, we’ve seen how the game features a return to the time-limited nature of early Atelier games, and how the alchemy system has an unprecedented level of depth.

Today, we continue our look at this important and influential installment in the series with a closer look at how the whole game is structured, and how this differs significantly from the previous five games.

Most notably, Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland kicks off a subseries of Atelier that, while seemingly providing more restrictions than in the past thanks to the time limit, actually provides a lot of freedom for you to approach your long-term goals as you see fit.

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Data East Collection 1, Evercade

Midnight Resistance: Under Lock and Key

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Throughout the 8- and 16-bit home computer and console eras, we saw numerous developers “paying homage” to one another’s work — and often developing their own interesting twists on the formula in the process.

One cannot look at Data East’s 1989 release Midnight Resistance and not think of Konami’s Contra from two years prior, for example, but in practice the two games play quite differently, developing their own distinct identities in the process.

These days, Contra is by far the better known game, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explore Midnight Resistance for yourself. And, as luck would have it, Midnight Resistance can be found in its Mega Drive incarnation on the Data East Collection 1 cartridge for the Evercade retro gaming system — so let’s take a closer look!

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