Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 249 i Retro Gamer

DECEMBER 2006 – The new generation of consoles continues to gather momentum as the Wii goes worldwide and the Xbox 360 gets into gear. Nick Thorpe hops into his trusty time machine to bring you all the exciting action from this heavyweight holiday season The Wii launched in Japan, Europe and Australia this month and got off to a very strong start. Japanese customers snapped up 371,936 consoles in the system’s first two days on sale, with Wii Sports being the most popular game with 176,880 copies sold. Nintendo announced that the Wii had sold out after just two days in Europe, setting a new record for the region’s fastest-selling console with 325,000 sales. The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess shifted 240,000 copies, making it the region’s most-popular game. 32,901 Wii…

Knuckles is one of the most popular characters in the Sonic cast, as fans instantly took to his rough-and-ready demeanour and cool abilities. He’s one of just a few Sonic characters to have been given his own starring roles, including the 32X game Knuckles Chaotix, various comics and the forthcoming Paramount Plus series Knuckles, a spin-off of the Sonic movies in which Idris Elba will reprise his role as voice actor. Here’s what makes the red echidna tick.…

If you’re looking to play Sonic 3 & Knuckles on modern consoles, the only way to do it is as part of Sonic Origins, which was released in 2022. The compilation also includes Sonic 1, 2 and CD, and all of them are presented in remastered form via the Retro Engine, with FMV intros, widescreen display, the ability to retry special stages and a brand-new Mission Mode. There are plenty of goodies to unlock too, including concept art, music and videos. We reviewed the compilation in issue 235 and gave it 80%, saying that while the new versions are “mostly very good” a variety of changes and minor bugs meant that “Mega Drive purists may wish to consider other options”. Sonic Origins has recently been upgraded with the Plus Expansion…

Remember in the early Eighties when developers invented fantastic names for the technical advances that set their games apart? We had Sandy White’s Softsolid 3D, Ultimate’s Filmation and Melbourne House even coined the term ‘4D graphics’ around 25 years before Sony had the same silly idea. And then there was Mike Singleton’s The Lords Of Midnight, which was billed as “the world’s first Epic game”. Elsewhere, publisher Beyond described it as a “living fantasy novel”. When the game was released for the ZX Spectrum in summer 1984, players quickly discovered that this was no case of hyperbole – The Lords Of Midnight was indeed epic. It featured a huge game map consisting of 3,904 locations, and at each location the player could turn in eight directions, resulting in almost 32,000…

CITADEL OF XAJORKITH This is the home of the free, hidden within the Mountains Of Corelay in the south of Midnight. If Xajorkith falls then Doomdark will have one hand on victory, so it’s vital that you keep watch and resist any foul hordes that manage to make it this far south. TOWER OF DOOM This is the location of the Ice Crown and your destination when attempting Morkin’s quest. It lies at the northern tip of the map, beyond the Citadel Of Ushgarak, near to the Mountains Of Death. Lovely. To avoid detection, Morkin must approach the tower alone. TOWER OF THE MOON This is where all campaigns and quests begin, at the tower surrounded by the Forest Of Shadows, situated in the south-west of Midnight. Standing alongside Luxor…

Having met as colleagues at the electrical distributor Laskys, Ian Stewart and Kevin Norburn decided there was enough momentum in the home-computer industry to set up their own shop, Just Micro. The store became a magnet for young programming talent, and soon Ian and Kevin’s ambitions exceeded the small building in Sheffield city centre. Their dream began in 1984 with Gremlin Graphics. Having already secured the services of Monty Mole creator Peter Harrap, Gremlin moved swiftly in gaining a second programmer, Commodore 64 whiz Tony Crowther, as an independent developer. Tony’s first game, Percy The Potty Pigeon, became Gremlin’s debut before mega-hit Wanted! Monty Mole cemented the publisher’s reputation. A conveyor belt of high-quality 8-bit hits followed as Gremlin recognised (and often employed) the talent behind some of its best…

IN THE KNOW » PUBLISHER: BITMAP BUREAU » DEVELOPER: BITMAP BUREAU » RELEASED: 2019 - 2023 » PLATFORM: MEGA DRIVE, VARIOUS » GENRE: SHOOTER DEVELOPER HIGHLIGHTS 88 HEROES (PICTURED) SYSTEM: PC, VARIOUS YEAR: 2017 NINJA SHODOWN SYSTEM: PC, VARIOUS YEAR: 2017 FINAL VENDETTA SYSTEM: PC, VARIOUS YEAR: 2022 When Mike Tucker and Matt Cope founded Bitmap Bureau seven years ago, they set a confidently straightforward plan in place. The longstanding friends weren’t looking to revolutionise the cutting edge of contemporary AAA gaming, or even wildly reinvent retro genres for new modern audiences. “It’s a bit of a cliche, but I just wanted to make games that appeal to me,” reveals Mike, Bitmap Bureau design director and cofounder. “Since I was a kid, I’ve had ideas for games in my head…

DIAGONAL COVER WORKS As is the case with Xeno Crisis’ influencer Shock Troopers, a reliable strategy is to try to hold firm in a corner firing diagonally across the screen’s centre. It’s not infallible, but a good number of enemies will be drawn into your ordnance using this method. DOG-TAGS MATTER When you start out as a Xeno Crisis player, dog-tags might seem rather trivial in their value. But collect them up and you can spend them in a store following bosses. The dog-tags can then be invested in health improvements, weapon power, extra continues and more besides. TACKLE SIDE ROOMS There’s a bounty of optional side rooms available, and you should explore and clear them whenever possible. Beyond offering up extra action and a chance to save allied hostages…

IN THE KNOW » PUBLISHER: OCEAN » DEVELOPER: DIGITAL IMAGE DESIGN » RELEASED: 1991 » PLATFORM: AMIGA, ATARI ST, PC » GENRE: ACTION DEVELOPER HIGHLIGHTS F29 RETALIATOR (PICTURED) SYSTEM: AMIGA YEAR: 1989 WRC: WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP SYSTEM: PLAYSTATION 2 YEAR: 2001 MOTORSTORM SYSTEM: PLAYSTATION 3 YEAR: 2006 As intrigued journalists crowded around an Amiga monitor, Martin Kenwright loaded a preview of the RoboCop 3 game with some trepidation. Martin and his team at Digital Image Design had just spent a year crafting a movie tie-in that rebelled against the trend of somewhat staid, half-hearted computer games that had tended to accompany new Hollywood releases. They’d pushed at boundaries by engineering true 3D graphics, adjustable camera angles, movie-like cutscenes and various gameplay styles into one game. But had they overreached? Looking…

CAR CHASE Exploring an open map of Detroit in a police cruiser, your mission is to chase down criminals and apprehend stolen vehicles by ramming them off the road. Switch camera angles at any point to get various side-on, top-down or isometric views of the action. URBAN SHOOT-OUT Another first-person segment where you’ll purge the streets of punks. There’s a high density of enemies so try not to hit civilians. Look out for landmarks to get your bearings. Remember to shoot grenades to avoid major damage. CLOSE COMBAT The final level of Movie Adventure mode pits you in a battle to the death against a robotic ninja, who leaps and somersaults flamboyantly as you pursue. Keep your distance from his deadly sword attack, throw some hefty punches and then reach…

TINY SKWEEKS 1991 (PC) A puzzle game with 101 levels requiring the player to guide balls of fur to specific spots. It’s also known as The Brainies and The Tinies. COGITO 1992 (MAC) This is another puzzle game, although this time, the player needs to recreate a requested shape over 120 challenging levels. FURY OF THE FURRIES 1993 (PC) An extremely cute-looking platformer where furry characters use several abilities, like hooking on a rope to any surface. PAC-IN-TIME 1994 (SNES) This is a Pac-Man-branded version of Fury Of The Furries, and sees Pac-Man collecting all Pac Gums in order to progress. SAVAGE WARRIORS 1995 (PC) A fighting game with 15 distinctive characters, cartoon cutscenes and hectic two-button gameplay.…

COMPLETELY NEW GRAPHICS This isn’t just a reskin and a higher resolution, Nightdive Studios has recreated all the models, graphics, textures, animations and everything else to create a game that can stand alongside its modern equivalents. It shouldn’t matter much, but it’ll help in reducing the barrier for younger players. REWORKED LEVEL LAYOUTS It might seem offensive to alter a classic game’s levels, but there’s no denying that certain design principles – especially that of level design – have been vastly refined and improved over the years. Here a lot of the maze-like sections have been removed, and rooms have been opened up. MODERN COMBAT The enemies in the original were slow and clunky, and they had to be because the player had a slow and clunky interface to fight…

It has been almost eight years since it was revealed that System Shock 3 would, or rather could, be making it to this world. By December 2015, the world had finally realised how much it loved the series, so the teaser trailer that revealed an HD and properly animated SHODAN was met with great excitement. Better still, it was announced to be in development at OtherSide Entertainment, a new studio created by many of System Shock’s alumni including Looking Glass founder Paul Neurath and Warren Spector. Even the original voice of SHODAN was returning. A gameplay trailer later revealed a very promising System Shock-type experience, leaning into the horror elements with modern visuals. For the story, the plan was to focus on a TriOptimum Blacksite and would look into the…

NEW YORK Although far from an exact replica of The Big Apple, Midnight Club: Street Racing’s New York lets you tear past famous landmarks such as Times Square and Central Park. It also gives you a taste of New York culture with its range of colourful opponents, who taunt you as you race them. PARIS The twisting, turning cobbled alleys of Paris make a nice change of pace after completing Midnight Club II’s Los Angeles challenges. You’re taught how to drive on two wheels in the French capital, and you have to learn how to deal with environmental challenges such as rain and fog. LOS ANGELES The depiction of Midnight Club: Los Angeles’ host city is simply stunning. It’s set up for gameplay, of course, but it’s also a living,…

» DREAMCAST » 2000 » SEGA DIGITAL MEDIA It’s strange to think just how popular voyeurism was at the turn of the century. Big Brother was the hottest new show on TV, and if you weren’t satisfied with watching six episodes of edited highlights per week, you could tune into the 24 hour live feed to watch the contestants doing incredibly mundane things. Over on the other side of the world, Japanese Dreamcast owners were enjoying something similar in game form – but instead of watching gleefully as a group of strangers descended into a bickering mess, they were trying to improve the life of one guy living alone. The vast majority of your time in Roommania #203 is spent watching young Neji in his studio flat. Left to his own…

Taito’s classic arcade game has been rebooted in VR and it’s a lot of fun. While you’ve still got access to your Uzi, other weapons are also available, including a pistol with unlimited ammo, a machine gun and a rather naff shotgun. There are no comfort options, but the on-rails movement is at a sedate pace meaning VR sickness shouldn’t be an issue. There’s nothing sedate about the enemy, however, with attacks coming thick and fast, imitating the hi-octane thrills of the original game. It also includes some inventive boss fights and multiple routes through stages, which is nice. It is very short with only an extra Survival mode to extend longevity, but it’s a lot of fun while it lasts. Score 70%…

<INTRO> PRODUCTION ON THE GAME BOY ENDED 20 YEARS AGO, BUT THERE ARE STILL MANY CREATORS MAKING NEW GAMES, WITH THE HELP OF TOOLS INCLUDING GBSTUDIO – THE SUBJECT OF OUR MAIN FEATURE. AND THERE WILL BE A PHYSICAL MAGAZINE DEDICATED TO GBSTUDIO, THANKS TO GBSTUDIO CENTRAL – BIT.LY/GBSTUDIOMAGAZINE WE HAVE MORE SPECTRUM INTERVIEWS TOO, ALONGSIDE OUR USUAL GAME REVIEWS. AND WATCH OUT NEXT TIME FOR AN ISSUE 250 SPECIAL. </INTRO> <MAIN HEADER> STUDIO STYLE <INTRO> We talk to two designers who have used GBStudio to turn their ideas into new Game Boy games </INTRO> <BODY> “I like journeys, I like stories that take characters somewhere,” says Alexander Hamilton of Gnome King Games. “I like it when encounters lead to fruitful conversation and lasting friendships. That made me want to…

» COLECOVISION » 1984 » ACTION GRAPHICS If I’m looking for an easy way to occupy myself, a good maze game or a good puzzle game will usually make for a safe bet. If you give me a game that combines both, there’s a good chance that I will stay up until the early hours of the morning – and that makes Zenji a very dangerous game. Originally designed for the Atari 8-bit range by Matthew Hubbard, Activision had the game converted to a variety of systems and it’s the ColecoVision one that I first came across. The basic goal of the game is to ensure that every piece of the maze is connected to a central point, which you’ll achieve by moving around the maze and rotating sections one at…

“Even I was surprised by the idea to use Lock-On cartridges to make Knuckles appear in Sonic 2,” says Takashi Iizuka. “Nowadays it’s easy to update older games with a patch, but you obviously can’t change the code on a game contained in a ROM cartridge. The programmers who made it happen were just amazing.” Indeed, the inclusion of Knuckles in Sonic 2 seems technologically miraculous – Sonic 3 had been created with the Lock-On cartridge in mind, but Sonic 2 was completed well before it was conceived. The truth is that the game was essentially rewritten to take Knuckles into account. When Sonic & Knuckles boots up, the first thing it does is to check the header data of the locked-on cartridge. If Sonic 2 is detected, control is…

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AMSTRAD CPC This is a straight port by Rick Brown that suffers from slow screen updates (looking around and moving takes a smidge too long compared to the original). The use of Mode 1 graphics results in some unfortunate colour choices too, but it plays well and that’s what counts. IOS/ANDROID Chris Wild’s mobile version is a wonderful way to revisit Midnight on touch-screen devices. Navigating the world has never been easier and it features a built-in map that populates as you explore. This and Doomdark’s Revenge are free to download. ZX SPECTRUM The original version was a revelation on release, cramming so much game into the machine’s meagre memory. The graphics were also cleverly designed and presented to overcome attribute issues. Mike had real affection for the Spectrum and…

WHAT’S YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE SERIES AND HOW DID YOU FIRST CONNECT WITH MIKE SINGLETON? I used to play Lords and Doomdark when I was about 14, and a few years later, around 1990, I became interested in how they worked. I reverse engineered them and got them running on a 286 PC. I was going to make them available for people to play via FTP or some such, but I wanted Mike’s permission. I was using some of the Usenet newsgroups and asked if anyone knew how I could contact him. Jon Ritman got in touch and passed on my request to Mike, who agreed. Then about 1994 I was working at SCi and a producer from Domark contacted me saying they were releasing The Citadel and that Mike…

» MEGA DRIVE » 1992 » IMAGITEC DESIGN If there was anything that could drag me away from the consoles as a kid, it was Gladiators. It was more than a TV show – it was an essential part of Saturday nights in my family, and an obsession for me personally. I had the sticker album, I had the toys, and we went to the opening of my local Blockbuster Video just to see the stars of the show. Since my karate dojo was in the same sports centre as Ace’s gym, I’d often see if I could spot him after classes. I was even aware of the show’s American origins prior to the international series, as I had the American Gladiators Joust set before the UK toy line was…

While Xeno Crisis was born on the Mega Drive, it soon made the journey to numerous other systems, including the Neo Geo MVS and AES, Neo Geo CD, Dreamcast, Evercade, GameCube and N64. It’s also appeared on modern machines; namely PC, PlayStation 4, Switch, Vita and Xbox One. Even in those contemporary cases, however, the game is committedly old school. There’s no saving or automatic checkpoints in place. At most you can save the settings and the scores – and achievements or trophy rewards have also been added. Interestingly, however, committing to the retro form did birth a modernisation on today’s platforms. Studio cofounders Mike Tucker and Matt Cope wanted to stick with the original 4:3 aspect ratio presentation when porting Xeno Crisis to new systems; consoles that typically default…

It feels safe to say Digital Image Design’s Amiga creation is the most celebrated game adaptation of RoboCop 3. It was also the first to be released, arriving in 1991 – two years ahead of the critically panned film. But there were also two entirely separate licensed RoboCop 3 games that followed. Confusingly, all of these releases share the same name. Super Nintendo owners could get their hands on a side-scrolling arcade shooter developed by Eden Entertainment Software and published by Ocean in 1992. Versions of that game came to the Mega Drive, Game Gear and Master System in 1993. Gameplay closely followed the blueprint of the first two RoboCop games Ocean had published, but it was criticised for its difficulty. Separately in 1992, Probe Software released a platforming shooter…

In 1993, Bandai had held a keen interest in the videogame market for some time – as well as being a publisher, the company had been a distributor of Nintendo consoles in some European territories. The toy giant wanted a bigger and more direct role in the market, and requested that Apple build a scaled-back version of the Macintosh computer to sell as a console. Apple absorbed the research and development costs, retaining the rights to license the Pippin technology to other manufacturers, while Bandai handled manufacturing. The Pippin platform was announced in December 1994 and finally launched as the Atmark in Japan in March 1996, by which time Bandai had reportedly spent $93 million on the product. The @World followed in the USA in June. The highly priced system had…

AL UNSER JR ARCADE RACING 1995 (PC) A licensed racing game, which sold over a million units. It includes 15 tracks, Indy cars and multiplayer. DARK EARTH 1997 (PC) A post-apocalyptic adventure game with pre-calculated set rendering and dialogue depending on the character’s mood. NIGHTMARE CREATURES 1997 (PLAYSTATION) A very dark, fast-paced action game with a light dose of adventure gameplay, set in 1834 London. ULTIM@TE RACE PRO 1998 (PC) This is another of Kalisto’s ambitious arcade racing games. It features solid drifting mechanics and a fantastic soundtrack. THE FIFTH ELEMENT 1998 (PLAYSTATION) A 3D action game offering shooting and martial arts, which integrates cutscenes from the film between gameplay sequences. 4 WHEEL THUNDER 2000 (DREAMCAST) Kalisto’s sole Dreamcast racer is based on Midway’s popular Thunder licence and offers plenty…

» PLAYSTATION » 1995 » DELPHINE I didn’t get a PlayStation until 1997. Melanie wasn’t too happy about me buying one as we’d recently taken out our first mortgage and money was rather tight, but she eventually relented on the basis that I found one that was reasonably priced. After a fair amount of looking, I settled on a deal in Currys – the package contained the PlayStation, Rayman, Croc: Legend Of The Gobbos, Porsche Challenge, Fade To Black and one other game that I can’t remember for the life of me. Still, it was about £50 more than a base PlayStation and seemed far better than the other bundles that were available. Fade To Black was the first game I played, because I loved Flashback and knew this continued…

BIOSHOCK Let’s start with the obvious one, since it shares the ‘Shock’ appendage. For Irrational Games, the idea of BioShock was to take the core immersive sim gameplay of System Shock 2 and make it more accessible for a console-driven market, and it’s clear to see how certain mechanics transferred across. DUES EX Since this was made by the same developer and only a year after System Shock 2 released, it might be a stretch to call this a spiritual successor. Regardless, a lot of the lessons learned in creating the System Shock series carried over to Deus Ex, which allowed Looking Glass Studios to refine (and arguably perfect) the immersive sim genre. PERY 2017’s Prey wasn’t just a reboot of the 2006 game, but it had switched from standard…

SUPPLIED BY EVAN AMOS 84 | RETRO Sega made a lot of effort to position the Dreamcast as a cheap way to access the internet, but the standard controller wasn’t exactly ideal for the task. A keyboard was made available at the console’s launch, but surprisingly the official mouse didn’t follow until 2000, and early browsers don’t actually support it. The mouse itself is fairly unremarkable and typical for the time, utilising a ball rather than optical tracking, and it features two regular buttons, a third button located on the left of the body and a scroll wheel. Although the main intended use for the mouse is obvious, some Dreamcast games also support the device. While some of these are quite surprising, like G.Rev’s puzzle game Doki Doki Idol Star…

NITRO The nitro mechanics in Midnight Club II strike a nice balance. How many shots you have depends on your vehicle, and that’s decided by how advanced a model you’ve unlocked. This comes down to how far you’ve gotten in the game, which is fair considering nitro can make or break races. ROAR Best described as a sonic wave, Roar first appeared in Midnight Club 3 as one of three class-specific power-ups. Essentially, it blows away any vehicles in your immediate vicinity. Appropriately enough, it’s restricted to models with noisy engines, like muscle cars and choppers. EMP Introduced in Midnight Club: Los Angeles, EMPs disable the electronics of nearby vehicles. As well as getting you up a position or two when you’re at the back of a scattered pack, if…

As a rare release that only appeared in Japan and Scandinavia, Sunsoft’s NES platformer arguably didn’t get the audience it deserved in the early Nineties. It’s a technically impressive but challenging game, so the addition of quick saves and a rewind function will be welcomed by many players. For the hardcore, the Speed Run mode and online leaderboards will be welcome too. The way the game lays out its options is very odd, with certain key options only available from the in-game menu rather than the main menu, and graphical features we’d expect like scanlines just aren’t present. It’s a game that’s good for those who relish a challenge. Score 77%…

IN THE KNOW » PUBLISHER: SEGA » DEVELOPER: SEGA TECHNICAL INSTITUTE » RELEASED: 1994 » PLATFORM: MEGA DRIVE » GENRE: PLATFORMER DEVELOPER HIGHLIGHTS SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2 SYSTEM: MEGA DRIVE YEAR: 1992 SONIC SPINBALL SYSTEM: MEGA DRIVE YEAR: 1993 COMIX ZONE (PICTURED) SYSTEM: MEGA DRIVE YEAR: 1995 Sonic The Hedgehog 2 was a game that really redefined the standards for a blockbuster videogame release – its extravagant hype campaign and co-ordinated international release were very uncommon at the time, but they paid dividends for Sega as the game sold millions of copies worldwide. But the creation of that game was fraught – a large number of concepts were scrapped outright, a prototype cartridge was stolen from a toy fair in New York and major changes were still being made during…

Michael Jackson had a long-standing association with Sega during his life, from the Moonwalker games to Michael Jackson In Scramble Training and Space Channel 5. It is also pretty well established that for some time, the pop icon was involved in creating music for Sonic 3 – Sega figures including Yuji Naka, Naoto Ohshima and Roger Hector have all confirmed that he was linked with the project, as have Brad Buxer, Doug Grigsby III and Cirocco Jones, songwriters credited on both Sonic 3 and Michael Jackson’s music. What remains contentious is whether or not any of Jackson’s music actually made it to the finished product. Michael Jackson’s name does not appear in the game’s credits list, though this is no surprise – Sega would have wanted to distance itself from…

» ARCADE » 1982 » IREM Although R-Type has now become synonymous with Irem, the developer has plenty of other fantastic arcade games in its back catalogue. One of my favourites is Moon Patrol and I’ve been playing it a lot lately thanks to its inclusion on Blaze Entertainment’s Irem Arcade 1 (which also features the aforementioned R-Type). While I can’t recall the year I first encountered Moon Patrol, I do remember the location – the annual funfair at King’s Park. Every year it would turn up like clockwork and every year my dear grandparents would take me along so I could experience the dodgems, try and win a goldfish and play the many arcade games that were there. One of the reasons that Moon Patrol stood out so appealingly,…

DOOMDARK’S REVENGE This excellent follow-up tells of Shareth, Doomdark’s daughter, who lures Luxor to the land of Icemark to extract her revenge. Everything here is bigger – there are now 6,144 locations and 128 playable characters. It’s also cleverer, with updated AI giving characters more freedom and intelligence. Unfortunately this also makes the game more random, preventing some of the strategic planning that you could do in the original. THE EYE OF THE MOON The trilogy capper was planned from the beginning but it sadly never materialised. Mike did some work on the game and it was to feature the biggest map yet with more than 16,000 locations split into 12 kingdoms, with a challenge to complete in each one. This is the only screenshot ever published, showing a new…

“On top of the look of the game, the music was really important to me,” says Mike, on beginning to unearth Xeno Crisis’ captivating, pumping soundtrack. “At some point I discovered this guy who claimed that he was writing music for the Mega Drive sound chip. He was called Savage Regime, and we found his stuff, and it was incredible. It was so good I just thought there was no way it was really Mega Drive compatible; really running on Mega Drive hardware. “It sounded like it could be a Mega Drive piece of music, but something really special; even impossible,” Mike continues. “So I got in touch with him and he confirmed to me that it was all genuine and would work on natural hardware, and I was just…

It all started with Nicolas Gaume’s huge appetite for computer science, elaborate fantasy and sci-fi worlds. Born in 1971, he devoted most of his childhood free time from 1979 to analysing his father’s Apple II, incidentally becoming an expert at Pac-Man at the local arcade. “I started programming at nine,” explains Nicolas, “and I could visit IT forums thanks to the later purchase of a modem. I was also part of the first generation consuming a lot of pop culture. “At the time, the biggest part of the videogame business belonged to distributors, retailers, and publishers to a lesser extent, but developing games was hardly considered as a job.” Classically, he participated in demo parties and software development (a sound-design tool for instance), meeting other Apple enthusiasts in his first year…

ADVENTURE GAMES From the beginning, the team’s ultimate goal had been to create games with effective storytelling and gorgeous graphics. Dark Earth embodied this achievement, offering rich post-apocalyptic environments and adventure game mechanics. APPLE IIGS At the heart of Kalisto Entertainment’s early years, when the studio was named Atreid Concept, Apple and the Apple IIGS played a major role in the company’s growth. Later on, it released a Macintosh port of Michel Ancel’s Pick ’N Pile. RACING GAMES From the development of Al Unser Jr Arcade Racing to the release of NYR: New York Race, the studio never failed to offer good racing thrills. Specialising in Indy cars, monster trucks, stock cars and futuristic vehicles was one of Kalisto’s trademarks. AMAZING SOUND The original soundtracks of Kalisto Entertainment’s games easily…

It’s funny to think that back when System Shock first launched, it wasn’t met with such a big audience. That’s not to say that those who played it didn’t love it, in fact to those people it was immediately captivating and unlike anything they had ever experienced before. It was even wellreceived by critics, so it wasn’t like there weren’t people raving about it. Yet while it did manage to sell enough to be considered a worthwhile effort, it was termed by those involved at the time a ‘disappointment’ in terms of sales. So it’s funny to think, because now if you say the name System Shock to a gamer, not only will they likely know what you mean, but there’s a high chance that you’ll elicit a rather excitable…

ROLE-PLAYING HORROR Because of the influence of Doom, the second attempt at System Shock was more RPG oriented. This meant that the sequel could be distinguished from more action-based FPS games, and also that players could have control over how they played. MOUSE-LOOK CONTROLS The original System Shock is still an outstanding game and for all its dated systems and mechanisms, you can still get a sense that it was ahead of its time. But that means of looking up or down with awkward controls or via the little UI slider… that needed to go. INVENTORY MANAGEMENT It was a super-cool concept with the original game that its multi-display menu interface could allow the player to customise it to show what they found important. But it was nothing if not…

MOTORCYCLES A mainstay from Midnight Club II onwards, motorbikes add variety and replay value to the series. Racing around the games’ cities on them is such a different experience to racing in a car. They have blistering top speeds and tight cornering, but they don’t cope well with collisions. CUSTOMISATION Although you could customise the look of your vehicle in the first two Midnight Club titles, it wasn’t until the third game that you could ramp up the performance of your rides. You’re able to improve every mechanical aspect of your car, truck or bike – as long as you can afford to. DAY & NIGHT Until Midnight Club: Los Angeles, the races in the series had been set at dawn, dusk or midnight – at night, in other words.…

Bad news: you start off Ghost Trick already dead. Good news: your new ghostly powers let you possess and manipulate inanimate objects, allowing you to prevent more murders while investigating your own. You can only move between nearby objects though, which sets up plenty of excellently crafted puzzles. Engaging characters ensure that you’re highly likely to stick with the plot through all of its twists and turns. The HD remaster works very well due to the original choice of art style and since the original DS release didn’t make much use of the dual screens, nothing is lost in transitioning to just one display. Score 90%…

» XBOX 360 » 2007 » GAMELOFT It’s funny how your opinion can change over time. When I first reviewed Prince Of Persia Classic in issue 40’s round-up of Xbox Live Arcade games, I couldn’t speak highly enough of it and went so far as to call it “the best-looking game on Live Arcade”. I praised the new moves that had been implemented and its “beautifully paced gameplay”, but I’m wondering now if I was perhaps a little overzealous in my appraisal of Gameloft’s game. I’ve been playing it again recently, and while there’s no denying that it’s entertaining, it’s not quite the brilliant slice of platforming action that I once suggested it was. Don’t get me wrong, the core level design is every bit as good as it was…

SUPER BASES LOADED » We at Retro Gamer want to shed light on the creation of your favourite games and let you get to know the people who made them. But we’re always playing catch-up, and there are always more stories to tell. Jaleco’s staff didn’t feel the need to wait, and left messages in the credits of Super Bases Loaded – let’s see what they said… » When we hear ‘designer’ we usually think they worked on game design, but in Japan it’s usually a job title for artists. HG confirms his role here, letting us know that he worked on the game’s animation. » The musician Tatsuya admits that while he worked on a baseball game, he’s not actually much of a player himself. He certainly would have had the chance…