Tag Archives: platform game

Retro Select: Bonk’s Adventure

Every console platform has its mascot. Sonic has Sega, Nintendo has Mario, Sony has… sad murderous lesbians, I guess.

The PC Engine’s mascot for quite some time was Bonk, also known as PC Genjin or PC Kid. He starred in a number of different games, each of which was quite different from the last. His first adventure, seen here, was a solid and creative platformer whose slightly unsettling aesthetic has been quite influential over the years!

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

Atari ST A to Z: Kid Gloves

Do you like pixel-perfect jumping and dodgy hitboxes? Then you’re gonna love this pretty platformer from Millennium and Logotron!

This is one of those games that I remember seeing screenshots of back in the day and thinking it looked really cool thanks to its console-style visuals. Gameplay-wise, it’s not terrible — but be prepared for plenty of frustration as you battle your way through 50 screens of precision platforming!

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

header-5603011

Atari A to Z: Ninja Commando

Video games have always had a budget sector — and much like low-cost digital download games are often highly creative today, the same was true for the straight-to-cassette budget sector for the Atari 8-bit.

Zeppelin Games was one of the more noteworthy budget specialists, in that they consistently produced high-quality games and then released them for pocket money prices. Sure, you had to wait more than 15 minutes for them to load on the Atari 8-bit’s excruciatingly slow tape drives, but it was usually worth it!

Here’s Ninja Commando, just one example of Zeppelin’s excellent output for the platform. Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

header-5603011

Atari A to Z: Lode Runner

Lode Runner is an all-time classic of gaming that is still going strong today, thanks at least in part to its popularity in Japan.

The original game has quite an interesting story behind it — and the Atari 8-bit version was part of that initial story. It’s a stark reminder of how far we’ve come in gaming when you consider that “the ability to move a pixel at a time” was considered to be a selling point for a programmer trying to pitch their game to a publisher!

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

header-5603011

Atari A to Z: Karmic Caverns

The 8-bit home computing era played host to some great single-screen platform games: Donkey Kong, Miner 2049’er and Jumpman, to name but a few.

I hadn’t come across Karmic Caverns before. There might be a good reason that people haven’t talked about this much over the years — but it does have a few interesting ideas, most notably with how it’s more of a mobility puzzle than an action platformer.

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

header-5603011

Evercade A to Z: Claymates

Interplay put out a fair few “claymation” games in their time, of varying degrees of quality!

One that was on the slightly better end of things was Claymates, an inventive and enjoyable side-scrolling platformer with some interesting level design and some peculiar mechanics.

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

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!

Atari ST A to Z: One Step Beyond

Whenever someone mentions the Atari ST to you, doubtless the first thing you think of is the delicious, relatively low-calorie cheesy potato snack known as Quavers.

What do you mean, no? Well, that might all change after today’s game, in which the erstwhile mascot of this longstanding British junk food favourite is tasked with clearing a series of puzzle-tastic levels while attempting not to fall into the abyss inside his computer. It makes about as much sense as it sounds, but it’s a surprisingly fun time — and the product placement isn’t as obnoxious as you might expect.

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

header-4165360

Evercade A to Z: Scrapyard Dog

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!

Evercade A to Z: Tanglewood

The Evercade isn’t just about old games — it’s also about new games developed for old platforms. Tanglewood, one half of the eleventh cartridge in the system’s library, is a great example.

Developed in 2018 making a specific effort to use authentically ’90s-style techniques and tools that Mega Drive programmers would have used back in the day, Tanglewood is a charming puzzle platformer with a clear artistic vision and some enjoyable gameplay to back it up.

Check it out in the video below, read my writeup to find out more, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube when you’re done!