OK, so I’ve played a few of these NES Dizzy games now and without wanting to point out they’re all the same… they are a bit? I mean, some of the puzzles are very similar, and there’s a whole heap of asset reuse, but it’s different enough. I think. This was longer than Dizzy the Adventurer, but actually easier. The puzzle solutions were more obvious (especially if you’ve read Alice in Wonderland on which much of the game is based), …
I’d never played this Dizzy game before, although many parts of it seemed familiar. Was is a retitled reworking of another one, perhaps? It was much, much easier than Treasure Island Dizzy, not least because it looks like the only way you can die is by falling in water, and I only did that once. There’s a bit of an anticlimax at the end too when you don’t get to fight Zaks like I was sure you would (and I …
I don’t know how my mind works regarding which game I want to play next. The thought thread here was along these lines: Oh, there’s a new C64 game out that looks good (despite being a C64 game lol) I wonder if I can play it on my RetroFlag GPi? I’ll test it. What’s a game I could test it with? Impossible Mission is decent on the C64 right? OK, I’ll test that. Oh, VICE doesn’t work well on here …
Yes, that’s really the name of the game. Luminous Avenger is a sort of sequel to Gunvolt Striker 2, in that it follows on from that albeit about 100 years later and with you playing as Copen, Gunvolt’s nemesis. Although it turned out Gunvolt and Copen were really on the same side, sort of, but from different directions. Anyway, mankind has been mostly enslaved or destroyed by the bad guys from the previous games and Copen is now a machine …
Bezier is what would happen if Geometry Wars and Deus Ex Machina had a baby. All the neon eye cocaine of the former, with the disembodied narration and storytelling of the latter. And both bits are great. The gameplay is pure arcade. A twin-stick shooter with Gradius-like powerups, Blasteroids-like “bosses”, and a lot of dodging and weaving and sometimes running away. It looks, and sounds, incredible, and there’s some meaty feedback when big things explode. Like Out Run, there’s a …
Having finished the first game I went right on and started the second, which was just as well as the first one just ended without a proper final conclusion. The sequel is, as I’d expected, more of the same. Slightly better animation, larger areas, and much more snow, but still Kate Walker being called by her full name while she tries to get her train even further north. The puzzles were mostly on par with the original, although one right …
There was a lot of hype surrounding this game before and soon after it’s original release on the Mega Drive. Not least because it was a home made but professional quality Mega Drive game coming out some 20-odd years after making a Mega Drive game had been a financially viable prospect. It looks amazing, and has some fantastic animation (especially on the fox you control), and I saved a load of money getting it for the Evercade instead of other …
OK, so it’s no Jimmy White’s Whirlwind Snooker, and it does only have an overhead view with no zooming and a shot guide which isn’t even nearly granular enough for a pool game, but I was somewhat hooked. Even with the way you play a frame (on your own!), then have to do a trick shot, and if you fail the trick shot, you have to play another frame. You only progress to the next round if you – lets …
Since I mostly gave up computer gaming back in the early 2000s, the Syberia games passed me by completely. In fact, point and click games – a mostly PC based genre at the time – were lost almost entirely, until Telltale came along with console versions of their adventures. Now of course, they’re on everything. I’d eyed up Switch ports of Syberia and its sequel on the eShop a number of times, but never got round to buying them until …
Not a huge amount to say about this, aside from I’d never played it before and it was much like the first game only you can play the levels in any order. It has some good, mostly dinosaur based, bosses, a stupid plot about cavemen (who live in tents rather than caves) and a magic crown. I mean, I know there’s some issue with cavemen existing around the time of dinosaurs but magic now? Come on. It’s definitely a game …
Although I’d heard of this game, I’d always put it down as a poor-man’s Street Fighter II, like so many other 16bit games that turned up around the same time, like Body Blows and Art of Fighting and Eternal Champions and so on. Turns out, it’s actually much better than I’d convinced myself. In fact, it’s almost as playable as Street Fighter II itself. Sure, it has a number of shameless clone characters and backgrounds, not to mention moves, but …
I’m a fan of the original Mappy, and it’s the first game I test whenever I set MAME up on yet another device, but I’d never heard of Mappy Kids. I was expecting it to be similar to the original, but actually it’s totally different. Instead of being some hybrid of Bonanza Bros and Burger Time, it’s a side scrolling platformer where you have to collect money and valuable items. At the end of each level you play a minigame …
No, I didn’t cop out and “just complete a game of Patience”. Well, I did complete it, but only after more than FIVE HUNDRED attempts over more than thirty hours play. There are three modes – one with all the cards being the same suit, one with them being one of two suits, and one with all four suits. I completed the first two within a couple of goes each, but the four suit mode? Aw hell no. So, if …
I’m a big fan of the Shantae games. They’re great looking, slick, and happy blue-skies Metroidvania games, and this – the latest in the series – is no exception. This time round, Shantae augments her whippy hair with instant transformations into animals, which are unlocked as you progress. A turtle that smashes through rocks, a newt that can climb walls, and a frog who can swim, for example. Where dances in previous games transformed you into animals, these transformations happen …
I realised today that I hadn’t completed Mega-lo-Mania this year and the year was almost up, so thought I’d better do it! I picked up my RetroFlag GPi again (it’s the best way to play, although apparently it’s coming to the Evercade in a few months!) and once more, beat The Best Game, this time as Caesar. Only! This! Time! Not only was I not the only person with people for the final battle, I had TWO opponents! Both of …
