Tag Archives: Interplay

Evercade A to Z: Boogerman

Boogerman: A Pick and Flick Adventure is a game I was prepared to write off as yet another ’90s mascot platformer filled with grossout humour.

And to be fair, it certainly is that, but it’s actually a pretty solid game, too. With strong animation, good quality music and sound effects and some responsive controls, it’s a surprisingly good platformer — albeit one that has a bit of trouble with its overall pacing.

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

Boogerman: It’s Easy Being Green

It’s easy to write off Boogerman: A Pick and Flick Adventure as a product of its time that’s not worth bothering with today. A 16-bit mascot platformer from ’90s Interplay featuring deliberate grossout humour and “attitude”? Hmm. Not what we might call a winning combination… at least if prejudice is to be believed

I must confess, I never played Boogerman back in the day and indeed don’t remember seeing much about it at all. So my first real experience with it has been the SNES version, which can be easily found today as part of the Interplay Collection 1 cartridge for the Evercade retro gaming system. And you hopefully know by now that one of my favourite things about that platform is the fact it provides us with the opportunity to explore and celebrate some of the lesser-known (or lesser-loved) titles from the land of retro, as well as some of the big names.

So get ready to pick it, lick it, roll it, flick it; we’re heading in for the snotty adventure of a lifetime. Bring a tissue or three.

Continue reading Boogerman: It’s Easy Being Green

Evercade A to Z: Incantation

Late-era releases on a console are always interesting to look at, because they can often provide a tantalising glimpse of what the hardware was really capable of.

Titus’ Incantation certainly proved beyond doubt that the dear old 16-bit Super NES was more than capable of beautifully presented games with stunning pixel art, lovely big sprites with lots of frames of animation, and consistently smooth, slick scrolling.

It’s a shame it’s a bit of a chore to play, then — but at least you don’t need to pay through the nose for an original cartridge any more, thanks to its inclusion as part of the Interplay Collection 1 cartridge for the Evercade retro gaming system. Enjoy the video below, find out more about the game here, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

Prehistorik Man: Titus Made Good Games Sometimes

Titus, it’s fair to say, is not one of the most fondly regarded names in classic gaming — though a fair amount of their work was at least memorable for one reason or another.

That doesn’t mean it was a company completely incapable of putting out a good game, however. And in fact, when Titus was on top form, they actually made some really good titles that still hold up very well today.

One of those games is Prehistorik Man, originally released for Super NES and now brought to a whole new audience as part of the Interplay Collection 2 cartridge for the Evercade retro gaming platform. Let’s take a closer look!

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The Brainies: Furry Balls

As we’ve seen a number of times already at this point, Blaze’s Evercade retro gaming platform is home to a wide variety of obscure titles that many people probably haven’t played — and which certainly haven’t been rereleased many times over the years.

Some great examples can be found on the two Interplay Collection cartridges, which include not only games that are associated with Interplay themselves, but also titles hailing from developers that subsequently ended up under the Interplay umbrella.

Interplay Collection 2, for example, plays host to a rather entertaining puzzle game featuring small, round, furry creatures. Let’s take a closer look at The Brainies, also known in some territories as Tiny Skweeks or The Tinies.

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Titan: Break Out, In and All Around

How do you improve on a classic formula? It’s a question many artists have explored over the years, and an easy answer for a lot of them seems to be “add more stuff”.

Atari’s Breakout is an immensely influential game, which subsequently begat Taito’s wonderful Arkanoid and all manner of other imitators from over the years.

French developer Titus Interactive observed that most Breakout clones over the years stuck rigidly to the “paddle at the bottom, single screen of blocks” formula. So in 1988, they set out to make something a bit different. The result was Titan, a title that has been newly resurrected for modern audiences thanks to the Interplay Collection 1 cartridge for the Evercade retro gaming system.

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The Adventures of Rad Gravity: Creative Vision

We talk quite a lot about “video game auteurs” these days, and how modern technology allows game designers to realise their visions like never before.

This sort of thing has been going on for quite some time, however — and in some respects, it’s even more impressive when a developer clearly expresses their creativity through a work from the earlier days of gaming.

Such is the case with The Adventures of Rad Gravity, a 1990 release for NES developed by Interplay, designed by Brian Fargo (of Bard’s Tale and Wasteland fame) and published by Activision. Oh, and no need to brave the second-hand market to find a copy any more, either — it’s part of the Interplay Collection 2 cartridge for the Evercade retro gaming system.

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Incantation: Having a Wizard Time

Nintendo’s widely beloved Super NES continued to get new games long after the Sony PlayStation and its rivals had brought in the “next generation” of gaming in 1994.

As you might expect, many of these titles from the latter days of the 16-bit era have very much flown under the radar over the years, and a lot of them have become expensive rarities that only those with deep pockets can hope to collect.

Incantation, a 1996 release by Titus, and a game that subsequently fell into the hands of the Interplay brand, is one such example, with carts commanding three-figure prices on the collectors’ market. As of the time of writing, you no longer need to pay through the nose for it, though, since you can find a modern rerelease of it on Interplay Collection 1 for the Evercade retro gaming handheld. Let’s take a look!

Continue reading Incantation: Having a Wizard Time

short;Play: Descent

The mid ’90s was a great time to be playing PC games. It was a time when the platform was really starting to find its feet, and it saw a variety of innovations in lots of different genres that we’re still feeling the effects of today.

Enter Descent from Parallax Software, then — a fully texture-mapped, polygonal, 3D, six-degrees-of-freedom first-person shooter that plonked you in the cockpit of a spacecraft and taskes you with blowing up a series of mining installations from within. There really was nothing quite like it at the time.

It’s a game that’s held up extraordinarily well over the years and is still a ton of fun in the 21st century. Check out the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

Atari ST A to Z: Borrowed Time

“Sam, you’re a dead man.” And how; Activision’s Borrowed Time, an “illustrated text adventure” from 1985, really, really, really wants you dead.

An early game from Interplay with involvement from Brian “Wasteland” Fargo, Borrowed Time is an early attempt to break out of the pure text format of adventure games with a graphical, mouse-driven interface. It’s not quite a full-on point and click adventure just yet, but it’s a first step in that direction.

It’s also a monstrously difficult game, fond of murdering its protagonist at regular intervals right from the very outset. You’re doing well if you manage to survive just leaving your office for the day…

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