Tag Archives: retro games

Waifu Wednesday

Waifu Wednesday: Nene

4 Comments

I’ve been playing a lot of Warriors Orochi 3 lately, so I feel it’s high time we had another Warriors waifu to celebrate.

This time around it’s the turn of Nene, a character who has had several names over the years. While she’s known as Nene in the Warriors Orochi series, she’s also been known as One (pronounced oh-nay), Nei and, probably most commonly when referring to the real historical figure, Kōdai-in.

Like most of the characters from the Warriors series, there’s a variety of interesting things to learn about her. So let’s dive in and investigate!

Continue reading Waifu Wednesday: Nene →

short;Play, Videos

short;Play: Dead Rising

1 Comment

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

1 Comment

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

1 Comment

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!

header-4165360

Announcements, Community

Around the Network

1 Comment

Good evening everyone! Only a few more sleeps until Christmas, though it’s going to be a bit of a strange one for most people this year, I suspect — especially here in the UK where we’re dealing with Mutant Super Virus funtimes.

Anyway, there’s nothing like taking your mind off the killer virus in the air like some good old-fashioned video games, so that’s what I fully intend to continue providing you with over the holiday season. Articles and videos will continue as normal for the most part, though with Christmas itself being on a Friday I may take a break on that day and post the next part of the Atelier MegaFeature on either Thursday or Saturday. We’ll see.

But that is then, and this is now, so let’s see what you might have missed out on from the “then” in the other direction. Join me after the jump!

Continue reading Around the Network →

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: RealSports Basketball

Leave a comment

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!

header-4165360

Atelier

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

3 Comments

cropped-atelier-megafeature-header-1-8868334This post is one chapter of a MegaFeature!
< Prev. | Contents | Next >

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

1 Comment

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

1 Comment

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!

header-4165360

Waifu Wednesday

Waifu Wednesday: Bianca Whitaker

1 Comment

Looking back over past installments of this column, I’m surprised I haven’t given Bianca any love yet. I mean, in Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride, the game in which she first appears, she literally becomes your wife. Assuming you make the correct choices, that is.

Of course, you have two other options for who to wed in that game. But as someone who grew up as whatever the middle-class equivalent of a country bumpkin is, Bianca spoke to me right from the first moment I met her. And I knew right from that first meeting that I was going to wed her.

Them other girls dun’t matter, y’hear? Well, they do, but not right now. Bianca!

Continue reading Waifu Wednesday: Bianca Whitaker →