Do you have games that you enjoy just firing up and chilling out with? Games that don’t have any real “point” to them, but you find them enjoyable regardless?
Simulations are a great way to satisfy that particular gaming need — particularly if they err on the more freeform, unstructured side of things. So I thought they might provide a good backdrop for a nicely chilled out, irregular series where we can just chat; I can tell you what I’ve been up to of late, and you can enjoy some pleasantly relaxed, comfy action.
Check out the first installment of this occasional series in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!
Back in the early days of the Atari 2600 — and indeed throughout gaming history in general — there have been plenty of games that never made it to market for one reason or another.
Stunt Cycle, an Atari 2600 version of Atari’s own home port of its own arcade game, was one such example. Its 2600 version was complete and ready to go, but never made it out the door. It also never quite became a Dukes of Hazzard game, like was considered for a while. But it did eventually see the light of day in 2003.
You know me, I’ll find any excuse to play TimeSplitters 2. So even though we looked at the PS2 version a while back, here’s the mostly identical Xbox version. Because I felt like playing it.
TimeSplitters 2 is an amazing game that still feels just as fresh and enjoyable today as it did back in the early years of the 21st century. And in its Xbox and GameCube incarnations, you even had four controller ports to enjoy split-screen multiplayer to the max without the need for any extra hardware! Apart from controllers, obviously.
“Let’s make a video game about doing our taxes!” thought John Freeman and Anne Westfall of the brand spanking new software company Free Fall Associates. “I’m sure that will resonate with the game-playing community!”
Sadly, it did not — but that doesn’t mean that Tax Dodge for Atari 8-bit isn’t a good game. Quite the opposite, in fact — it’s a really fun, interesting take on the maze chase genre with a non-violent twist. Although it does benefit you to have at least a passing understanding of all things financial, especially if you don’t have a manual to hand…
A lot of people think of the concept of “street racing” as a relatively recent thing, though that’s only really looking at the modern type.
In fact, it’s pretty much been a thing for as long as cars have been around, as the ancient old bangers on the front cover of 1977’s Street Racer for Atari 2600 will attest. So here we have a video game for up to four players about the concept — though this being 1977, the format of “the racing game” hadn’t quite been nailed just yet…
Opinions vary greatly as to which PC Engine shoot ’em up is the best — largely because there are so many of the damn things. I most certainly am not complaining.
Most people can agree that Hudson Soft’s excellent Soldier Blade is near the top of the rankings, though, thanks to its high-speed action, its satisfying power-up systems and its excellent music. It’s also highly accessible to shoot ’em up newcomers, so if you suck at the more intense titles — like I do — then this is a great title to cut your teeth on.
The design’s weady! Ergonomicawwy tewwific! We’ve conquered the sector! We’ve nuuuuked them! We’ve won!
Ah, Mega-Lo-Mania, such an iconic game — and not just for those wonderful speech samples, but also for its excellent gameplay. Many people regard this as one of the first examples of a real-time strategy game — though it does things a little differently from its fellow genre progenitor Dune 2, which came out a year later.
After enjoying the Atari 5200 adaptation of Star Raiders a few weeks back, I thought it was probably time we looked at its most well-known and well-loved incarnation: the original Atari 8-bit release from 1979.
Regarded by many as the “killer app” for the Atari 8-bit home computers, at least on its original release, Star Raiders is an all-time classic — and a genre-defining game that helped to establish first-person, real-time space combat games as a viable genre. It’s been one of my favourite games ever since I first played it, so let’s celebrate it the way it was always meant to be enjoyed.
One of the oldest video games out there is the old “Star Trek” game that people used to play on mainframe computers. Like many other mainframe games, this was ported to home systems in various forms over the years.
One of the most surprising ports of this game came in the form of Stellar Track for the Atari 2600, a surprisingly impressive and full-featured version for a platform not best known for its text-based games. And if you enjoy boring people with retro game trivia at parties as much as I do, you can also tell them that this was one of just three 2600 games that was exclusively sold at Sears through their Tele-Games label.
Retro games are wonderful, aren’t they? That’s why I’ve set up a new series that is just for exploring whatever retro nonsense I feel like enjoying from week to week.
Today, we take a look at Midtown Madness 3 on the original Xbox — yes, like it or not the original Xbox most certainly is “retro” these days — and have a lot of fun with the Paris bus.
