I got an Evercade for Christmas, and this – originally an Atari Lynx game – was the first title I completed. Not sure why I chose it, but a brief play as I was running through the various games hooked me a little and soon I’d finished it. It’s a platform shooter, except you don’t jump much as you have a jetpack. Across about 15 levels, all of which feel exactly the same, you have to find elements of a …
Yes, the original NES game, here in the Castlevania Collection on the Switch. And oh my was it harder than I remember. Mainly the medusa heads in the later levels. It’s still a great game, and having played other NES platformers this year so many of them just don’t play well these days – and they’re all the bloody same. But not this one!
Yes, I have played and completed this before. A fair few times too. But! This is the Switch version, on the Super Mario 3D All-Stars pack that recently came out, where the game is (slightly) upscaled, (slightly) less blurry, and with a nicer looking HUD and font. I’ve said before that Super Mario 64 is one of the best games ever made. It sits comfortably in my Top 5, and was probably at Number Two (after Run Baby Run of …
This too was the All-Stars version of the game, and like the All-Stars version of the original Super Mario Bros, it still looks fantastic today. I used some warp pipes, but did play through more levels than just the bare minimum. I got lost a lot on World 8 and seemed to go round in circles on the map, so I obviously don’t remember it as well as I thought I did. Bowser was a lot easier than I remember …
Yes, I’ve completed Super Mario Bros yet again. But this time it was, at least, different in that I played the Super Mario All-Stars version rather than the original as it appeared on the Switch Online service this week. It’s still excellent, and the 25-year-old “new” graphics still look amazing even now. And yes, I used warps. Because why would you not when they’re part of the game, eh?
I had a copy of 2do Arukotoha Sand-R on the Sega Saturn many years ago. It was, pretty much, the same sort of game as WarioWare or Bishi Bashi although I played it before I’d even heard of them. Being all in Japanese, the mini-games that needed instructions were somewhat more difficult than they’d normally be, and I remember one, where you had to choose a fish, being completely baffling. I never managed it. Anyway, imagine my surprise when years …
Even though I own three copies of this, or perhaps even more, and it had great reviews at the time, AND I like Treasure’s games, it surprises me that I’ve never played it past the first level or two. It wasn’t because it was hard (it wasn’t, but… see later), or I didn’t enjoy it, so who knows. Only this time, while flicking through the Mega Drive Collection on my Switch for something to play, it caught my eye and …
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.
