Embarrassing fact: This game was one half of a compilation tape I got as a kid. You can see a copy of the original inlay over there.
Thing is, I didn’t know that Bouncing Berty and Eskimo Capers were, in fact, two different games. I always referred to the Eskimo game as “Bouncing Berty in Eskimo Capers”, and hated my poor gaming skills as I was seemingly never good enough to get to the “pyramid level”.
Then, one day many years later, Eskimo Capers refused to load. After several attempts, I decided to load the other side of the tape instead – and my eyes were opened wide. How stupid I felt.
These mock-ups of some recent games as they might appear in the 80s and 90s are amazing. And not just amazing – in many cases they’re actual games I’d really want to own.
I also like how they’ve been imagined – Bayonetta as a bullet-hell shooter, and Brutal Legend as a point-and-click adventure game.
I’d like SNES Pikmin and Super Mario Sprint made first, please!
Pete Cooke was one of the “heroes” of 8-bit game programming. He had a talent for slickly presented games, and many of his creations also had some sort of Easter Egg built-in.
In the case of Zolyx, the best Qix clone for the Spectrum, he included an entire Game of Life routine. For no reason. You can play with that if you like (pick Freebie from the menu), but I suggest you get stuck in to the game proper – it’s very good! Read the rest of this entry »
Who doesn’t like piloting expensive war planes, weaving through buildings and shooting missiles up the backsides of other expensive war planes? Nobody, that’s who.
Here’s a trailer for the latest Ace Combat game from Namco Bandai. Which does all of the above:
Press release:
Fighter fans, now is your chance to marvel at the latest in the ACE COMBAT series
‘ACE COMBATTM ASSAULT HORIZON’ PREPARES TO TEAR THE HEAVENS APART
NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe kicks the tires, lights the fires and makes its peace with terra firma for the announcement of ACE COMBAT ASSAULT HORIZON, coming 2011 to Xbox 360® and PlayStation®3. Never before has aerial combat been so fast, so in-your-face and so vicious. It’s time to set the sky on fire.
The demanding Project Aces development team at NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc. in Japan weren’t satisfied. They wanted more from the series. They wanted planes that tore apart limb from limb right in front of your face, spewing their oil lifeblood across the sky. They wanted to scrape the streets and dodge the steel skyscrapers of real world cities at blistering speeds, in an enthralling war drama that spanned the globe with a web of intrigue. They wanted players to pick up the controller and become deadly combat pilots in seconds, pulling off breathtaking kills at impossible speeds, and doing battle online in a multiplayer sky littered with fiery supersonic debris. What they wanted was steel carnage in the sky.
The result is not a sequel in the multi-million selling smash hit ACE COMBAT series, but a complete rebirth, a phoenix from the ashes flying at three times the speed of sound. The Project Aces team is building ACE COMBAT ASSAULT HORIZON from the ground up, with new technology fuelling their passionately realised vision of a game that puts players in the dark heart of the fight like no aerial combat game has done before.
“For us, this is a rebirth of the Ace Combat series, and a chance for us to take the series in a completely new direction,” said Kazutoki Kono, Producer at Project Aces, NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc. “We’re confident that we’re going to create a new kind of action shooting (high-speed and destruction) experience with ACE COMBAT ASSAULT HORIZON, and we’re pouring passion, vision and skill into making a game like no other. We want to bring players closer than ever to the action so they feel the energy surge through them with every shot fired.”
ACE COMBAT ASSAULT HORIZON for Xbox 360® and PlayStation®3 is scheduled to launch across EMEA and Asia Pacific in 2011.
We’re currently in the process of migrating servers from Server 2003 to Server 2008, which is proving a right old pain for various reasons. This morning’s headache was reinstalling a load of network printers on the new 2008 install that worked perfectly well on the 2003 install.
64-bit 2008, by default, only installs printers with the 64-bit 2008 and (for some printers, it seems, but not others) the 32 and 64-bit Vista/Windows 7 “User Mode” drivers. The old-style 2000/XP/2003 drivers don’t get a look in. There doesn’t seem to be a way to add them on the server either.
Thankfully, someone else has already found a way of sorting it. Basically, you navigate on an XP client to the Printers and Faxes share of the 2008 server, then click File > Server Properties > Drivers > Add, and point it at the XP (and other, if necessary) drivers for the printer.
There are a few issues, particularly if the 2008 and XP drivers have different names, but these can be resolved or worked around.
In a change to previous Let’s Play Friday posts, today’s game isn’t a Spectrum one. Nor is it a retro game in the truest sense. It’s not even right here on this page to play.
No – instead, it’s Ed Fries’ Atari 2600 port of Halo. That you can play in your browser here. It’s amazing. Probably.
Well, there are probably some missing. And many aren’t games consoles. In fact, some didn’t have all that many games at all, and some are really one-title TV games and not actually video games. But anyway.
Derided in the magazines, KP Skips adver-game Action Biker (starring one-tip corn snack shill Clumsy Colin) was actually pretty good. Well, I played it a lot anyway, which is sort of the same thing.
Unlike the more action-based C64 version, the Speccy game had you visiting houses looking for items to make your bike better. Items that let you drive through the mysterious “Dark Area”, prevent you from skidding on oil, and so on. Oh yeah, and you have to find Marty and take him to the airport on time – meaning you can’t endlessly have cups of tea with friends’ mums, who also occupy some of the houses.
And did I mention this is all in Colin’s dream? Amazing.
Apparently, it’s smaller than the old one. And a different shape. And shinier! It’s also Kinect-ready. As the thing says: “250 Hard Drive, Built In Wi-Fi & Ready for KINECT. Here Today, Ready for Tomorrow.”. But tomorrow never comes! Or is that dies?
Embarrassing fact: This game was one half of a compilation tape I got as a kid. You can see a copy of the original inlay over there.
