I have no idea why I decided to play this. I have very little interest in the Apogee same-game-slightly-different-graphics PC games of the early 90s (see also Commander Keen and Duke Nukem) and I know from experience they’ve aged badly. And yet here we are. It’s pretty boring. There’s a lot of backtracking as you often have to get to the other side of the level to get the key to open the exit which is right near the start. …
One of my favourite platformers and a game I’ve probably mentioned on here before. We all know how this is the western version of Magical Flying Hat Turbo Adventure, but both games are excellent if different. Didn’t have any problems on my play through. I didn’t remember all the level layouts, but did remember the route to skip one of the bosses!
Flashback is a great game. It always was a great game and I was slightly worried playing it might reveal it to be all rose-tinting. Luckily, once I’d turned off all the graphic-ruining “modern” filters (which are on by default), it turned out it was still excellent. I remembered the plot, and most of the first half of the game (the bit in the jungle and the bit in the city), but I thought that completing the Death Tower gameshow …
Another game I really enjoyed, but rarely completed, back in the day. Some people suggest that the C64 version of Action Biker is superior, but they’re wrong. It’s a totally different sort of game, for a start! This version involves you riding around a town, searching houses for parts for you bike to enable you to travel underwater and in an area which is pitch black for some reason. You need to find your friend Marty (for some reason you …
Way back when, this was one of my favourite games. The main reason being that it had a built in level editor, but the catchy music has remained in my head for decades. My copy was one of four games in a compilation, the other four being Panzerdrome (which was impossible), Tidy Tony (which was a bit like Atic Atac only rubbish), and Steelyard Blues (which I liked until many years later when I found out it was a hacked …
Another of the SEGA Ages releases, and so it’s pretty much perfect. Except, of course, Tails is in it. But I suppose they couldn’t take him out so I had to manage with him there, getting in the way. Nicking rings on the Special Stages only to lose them because he’s stupid. Getting a hit in on a boss just before Sonic does so Sonic falls through him and dies. Tails is a bloody liability. Thankfully, the game is great …
I’m not sure I’ve ever played this before, but I was always a big fan of the original game in the arcades. I was a little worried it wouldn’t be any good, because of both being a sequel and the passage of time, but I needn’t have worried – it was excellent. It is, of course, more of the two-layer, door-entering, duck-and-shooting that the original was, and it played well despite being pretty difficult. You see, as well as having …
Time passed, and so I decided to play Mega-lo-Mania again. This time, I completed it on my new RetroFlag GPi – the thing that looks like a Game Boy but houses a Raspberry Pi. I played as Madcap, and once again (see previous posts) I reached the final level with nobody else having put anyone in suspended animation to get there with me, so I instantly won. It’s the best game, despite that.
I got a Retroflag GPi case today. It means I now have a Retropie emulation device in a Game Boy style handheld. It’s very nice. And I played and completed the Atari VCS classic game Adventure. On Mode 3, if you know what that means (basically everything is in a random place), and completed it. It’s not a hard game, or a long game, but it is a fun game and it’s one of my favourite games of all times.
I’d never heard of this game before, and I only gave it a go as I noticed it on the NES Online service thing on the Switch today. Surprisingly, it was actually pretty good. I say surprisingly, because it very much reminded me of two terrible games I’ve played recently: ESWAT and Ninja Gaiden. Somehow, though, it’s much, much better than either of those. It has the same sort of platforming, bosses, and even a plot not too dissimilar to …
I thought I’d completed the Master System version of this a few months ago, but it turns out it was actually May last year. How time flies! This version is the Sega Ages remaster of the original arcade version, which I’d expected to be virtually the same as the Master System on (albeit with better graphics), and although it was very similar the differences still threw me. For a start, it’s a lot harder. Like, several difficulty levels harder. This …
As I got closer to the end of this game, I realised that I’d almost certainly never completed it. I recognised every level up until the 7th one (in the cave), and then have vague memories of a castle, but I think the castle memory may even have come from the Mega Drive Alex Kidd game. I also realised why I don’t think I’ve completed it. There are a few tricky sections (the one near the end with the spikes …
This week I’ve been playing games on the retro game streaming service Antstream. I have a lot to say about the platform, but not here. One of the games I played was Sly Spy, and it’s the first one on there I’ve completed. It’s not a great game. Much of it plays a bit like Rolling Thunder, but without the hiding and dodging abilities that make that game so much fun. Getting through each level without being shot constantly is …
Is Golden Axe III going to be a good game, given the previous two were not? Go on, have a guess. At least it tried. Instead of being almost exactly the same as the other games, the graphics are all new, the animation is new, and most of the baddies are new. Reminiscent of those before, but new. There’s a different art style too, but actually, it’s worse. And there are two new characters but they’ve relegated the best one …
