Between the fancy sit-down cabinet and the blisteringly quick sprite scaling, there was little doubt After Burner II would be anything other than huge hit when it launched in arcades back in 1987, even though the differences between this "sequel" and the already popular original are quite small. The game was so successful the numerous home ports … Continue reading Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol.10: After Burner II
It's that time of year again! Time to have a rummage through the past twelve months of gaming and find out exactly what I did and didn't like, highlight something that pleasantly surprised me, spend a paragraph or three sticking the boot into a game that disappointed me for some reason five months ago, and … Continue reading And my game of the year is…
CONTENTS "Enter the survival horror." "Those of you who still have the will to live…" "It looks like he's been dead for a while." "You Are Dead" "He must really be afraid of Umbrella." "An emblem of armor is carved into the lock" "Wonder what's on the other side of this door…" "Take a piece … Continue reading Fight your fears and survive.
There's really not much out there like Gain Ground, even though it debuted in all the way back in 1988 and gaming has collectively had plenty of chances to produce their own take on this oddball mash of almost-genres since. The arcade original's vertically-orientated screen and every version's masses of projectiles bring classic shmups to mind, although the … Continue reading Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 9 Gain Ground
The straightforwardly titled Baroque Typing debuted in 2002, several years after both the Saturn and PlayStation releases of Baroque as well as the later Baroque Syndrome adventure. My strongest thought before playing this type 'em up for myself was mostly "What on Earth possessed them?". Of all the spinoffs that could naturally arise from the dark and decaying world of Baroque, … Continue reading Typing of the Baroque
How do you play Wizardry, 1981's hottest RPG, in 2022? "With some difficulty" is the only honest answer, as official access to Sir-Tech's pioneering dungeon crawling adventure is virtually nonexistent. The Ultimate Wizardry Archives for DOS/Windows was as close as the series ever got to a convenient compilation, but that came out so long ago the pack's now … Continue reading WELCOME TO THE WIZARDRY WORLD
It turns out the Magic game I've always wanted to play, simply (and unhelpfully) titled Magic: The Gathering, not only already exists but has existed for about a quarter of a century, received a local release, and really I could've bought it at any time between then and now if only I'd realised the game was … Continue reading Magic: The Microprosing
Surely nobody back in 1993, the same year Phantasy Star IV debuted in Japan and Starfox's Super FX powered polygons were busy wowing people everywhere, hoped the NES would receive it's own version of Capcom's Final Fight - a late '80s game that by then had already been ported to the SNES (twice), appeared on various home computers ranging from … Continue reading Sometime in the 1990’s…
3D had already been done many times before Virtua Racing came along - just look at Atari's arcade game I, Robot or The Sentinel's tense puzzle-action on various home computers, both displaying colourful worlds made of filled polygons as far back as the 1980s - but it was Sega's 1992 Model 1 racer that marked a true turning point in … Continue reading Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 8: Virtua Racing -FlatOut-
OhaSta Dance Dance Revolution GB is just one of an astonishing five DDR games made for the Game Boy Color, and those are just one part of a wider range of BeatManias and Pop'n Musics Konami made for the same format. That's not a bad showing at all for a genre that thrives on combining physical interaction with catchy tunes, especially … Continue reading Dancing with digits
Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster 