In the Spectrum days, some of the most graphically impressive games came from Don Priestley. Oversized graphics were his trademark, and his games were a mixture of puzzle and arcade. The first I ever played was Flunky, where you play a hard working butler in the Royal household. Find freckles for Fergie! Help Prince Andrew play boats in his bath! Avoid being shot by beefeaters, for seemingly no reason! Amazing.
Clearly this is true. If it were not true, why would I punish myself so? Why, after all my posts and tweets and moans about Sega and Sonic and how I hate them now and never ever want to see another Sonic game, did this happen? In case it isn’t obvious, this is a screenshot of the end of the first level of the iPhone version Sonic 4. Which I downloaded in my lunchbreak. YES. I BOUGHT SONIC 4. Don’t …
Would you look at what I was pointed in the direction of today: Utterly amazing! Clearly the Best Game Evar. £1.79 from the iTunes App Store.
When I got my Megadrive in the early 1990s, it was for one single game – Sonic the Hedgehog. I’d played it often at the local game shop, and didn’t just want it, I needed it. Once I had my own Sega console to play it on, I was hooked on Sega games. In fact, for a good decade or so, I loved pretty much all of Sega’s major-title output – I suppose I was a Sega Fanboy (although Mario …
No, not these ones here, which are about 2/3rds the size of a normal controller. These ones here, that I saw in Adsa this week – that are less than half the size: The best thing is that they’re a bit like a Pez dispenser – letting you fill them with sweets, so you can encourage kids to put their real Wii remotes in their mouths. Hurrah for Nintendo!
Over on That Newsgroup Wot I’m In, we were talking about whatever the first proper FPS game was. Back before Wolfenstein, before Doom, before Faceball 3000. I think we pretty much established that if you widen your definition of “First Person Shooter” enough, then Atari’s Battlezone was one of the very first. Apparently there were older, but none that many people really remember. Anyway, part of the discussion threw up the old Incentive Software “Freescape” games. Although technically adventure, puzzle, …
You know the £20 Rule? That one where I pledged I wouldn’t pay more than £20 for a game? It’s great, isn’t it? It used to be a £25 Rule, but I made it harder. I’ve spent three years sticking to it too, and I’ve done really well – only breaking it once (but thanks to Game screwing up my payment for Fallout 3, I ended up not breaking it). But now I have a confession. On Thursday last week, …
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 …
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! See the rest here.
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 – …
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 www.acecombatassaulthorizon.com ‘ACE COMBATTM ASSAULT HORIZON’ PREPARES TO TEAR THE HEAVENS APART NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe kicks the tires, lights the …
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. The Insane Console History Video 2.0 from Elder-Geek on Vimeo.
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 …
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?