Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 251 i Retro Gamer

Fans have recently produced a pair of impressive ports of WipEout. WipEout: Phantom Edition is a new PC port based on the original PlayStation version that adds high-resolution support, an uncapped framerate, new collision options and more. Very soon after, Dominic Szablewski got the game up and running in web browsers complete with music and touch controls. Visit bit.ly/WOphantom for the Phantom Edition port, which you’ll need a copy of the North American PlayStation version to use.…

With the excitement of Christmas long past and the new consoles all out – unless you were still hanging on for the PS3’s European launch – February was a rather light month for gaming thrills. The game that attracted the most interest was Sony’s flagship racing game MotorStorm, in its Japanese import form. In an 8/10 review, games™ felt that it was “unforgivable” that the game had launched without Time Trial, Arcade and Multiplayer modes, but that it was still “the finest arcade racer since Burnout Revenge”. Next3 also awarded it 8/10, saying that it “may be the best-looking videogame in history” and Play gave it 82%, praising it for having “a sense of chaos unmatched by any of its contemporaries”. If you were still enjoying the older vintage of…

HOW DID YOU START WORK AT LUCASARTS? I was working at Spectrum Holobyte, running the Falcon project. A friend had left Spectrum and joined LucasArts and asked me to join him. I met them, and they said come on over, and you get to pick the project you want to build. That’s when the Dark Forces project began. WHAT WERE THE GAMING INFLUENCES BEHIND DARK FORCES? I wanted to do a Star Wars version of a 3D shooter like Wolfenstein – Doom hadn’t been released at this point. But it also went back to Spectrum Holobyte. We had a cockpit there with all the controls and a stereo system, and before I left, X-Wing came out. We immediately loaded it up into the cockpit, and that was where it really…

“The original game [Dark Forces] was one that I played when it first came out,” remembers Larry Kuperman, director of business development at Nightdive Studios. “I was not playing it with my dad, but with my son, which was kind of the opposite end of the spectrum. It was the first game that really thrust me into the world of Star Wars. I really felt like I was part of that.” Larry also recalls the many technological advantages that LucasArts’ game made over its competitors. “There was nothing quite like it technically – I recall the sense of being immersed in that world,” he says. Committed to creating updates of classic retro games, Nightdive had already successfully updated Nineties games such as Quake II, Blood and System Shock; now its…

Many of the earliest Star Wars games put you in the pilot’s seat of the spacecraft from the original movie trilogy, but the first of these that could be considered a combat flight sim was 1993’s Star Wars: X-Wing, and it led to a long-running series. These popular titles were developed by Totally Games, but the opportunities presented by the second Star Wars trilogy persuaded its publisher LucasArts to create a combat flight sim of its own, as designer Tim Longo remembers. “The Star Wars prequel movies were coming out, and LucasArts wanted to do a PC-based flight sim in the style of X-Wing and TIE Fighter,” Tim notes. “Daron Stinnett, the project lead, was taking inspiration from hardcore flight sims like Falcon 3.0, but then the PlayStation 2 came…

FORCE SHIELD ◼ Although all of the ships in Jedi Starfighter have a certain amount of shielding, this typically gets depleted in the course of missions. Jedi Adi Gallia’s Force Shield is different, in that it gives full protection against laser strikes, and can be called on at any time. FORCE LIGHTNING ◼ There’s more to Force Lightning than you might think. It’s a lightning strike that Adi can target enemies with, but if their craft are near others then it engulfs them too, making it great for attacking swarms of foes. Its one failing is that it doesn’t work on big ships. FORCE REFLEX ◼ Essentially Bullet Time for Jedis, Force Reflex’s advantages become clear when you’re attacking larger craft that take a lot of hits to dispatch. Besides…

◼ “Manfred loved the main theme of the 1986 Chuck Norris movie The Delta Force, and absolutely wanted it to be in Katakis,” Chris Huelsbeck tells us. “I also was a big fan, and so I sat down and programmed it into my Soundmonitor tool. Manfred loved the result, and so he and Andreas sent more and more tapes with some of their favourite songs my way that they wanted me to put into the game’s soundtrack as well.” The result was that four of the seven available level tracks are more or less cover versions of contemporary music – the theme of levels 3, 7 and 11 is based on Alisand by Hugh Bullen (1985), the level 4 track is also known as My Dream by Shamall (1986), levels…

» PLATFORM: Master System » YEAR: 1987 » COST: £39.95 (launch), £75+ (today, boxed), £55+ (today, unboxed) If you were looking for a sense of depth in your console games during the late-Eighties, Sega had a rather literal realisation of that desire for you. These glasses plug into the card slot of your Master System, and give a 3D effect when used with compatible software. The trick to these active shutter glasses is that they use LCD lenses to cover each eye in rapid succession, so that each eye sees a slightly different perspective. This produces a darker image and limits games to 30 frames per second, but the illusion is convincing. Despite their futuristic appeal, the 3-D Glasses were not particularly successful. Not only did they cost more than…

» MEGA DRIVE » 1991 » SEGA AM7 While I’ve got a natural competitive streak, I do love a good bit of co-op gaming every now and again, and I genuinely think that beat-’em-ups might just be the best co-op genre. The setting is what does the trick. I’ve played the modern co-op classic Overcooked and since there are no traditional enemies to speak of, when things go awry your initially harmonious kitchen inevitably descends into bickering that would stun Gordon Ramsay. It just so happens that when you’re dealing with knife-wielding thugs rather than tomato soup, the common threat you face ensures that your mind stays focussed on who your real foe is. My greatest example of this came at the London Gaming Con in 2011, when I picked…

Ever wished for a community of friends you could always rely on for laughter, camaraderie, adventures across time and space and several universes’ worth of puns? Welcome to Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon. Josh Mandel’s point-and-click adventure for Legend Entertainment might not have received the acclaim it deserved on its release in 1997, but it has since won a well-deserved cult following for its humour and warmth. Josh – one of Sierra On-Line’s leading lights before his departure after changes at the top robbed the adventure game powerhouse of its creative verve – had been a big fan of sci-fi author Spider Robinson’s stories about Mike Callahan and his loveable set of barflies for a while when the opportunity to develop the game arose. Even so, in some distant universe where computer…

When a publisher has a hot property on its hands and wants to create a spin-off, chances are it will make a puzzle game at some point. Major series like Mario, Street Fighter and Bomberman have all taken advantage of the genre’s versatility over the years, and the likes of Puzzle Bobble have arguably even eclipsed the games they were based on. Picross is a particularly flexible base for such a game since you can theme it around pretty much anything that can be drawn, without much need for mechanical innovation. With that in mind, it’s no shock that the idea of putting Pokémon and Picross together occurred soon after the roaring success of the original Game Boy games, but the convoluted route towards it actually happening is rather surprising.…

PLAYSTATION ◼ The PlayStation game (in emulated form) seems to be the game of choice for the active community of players still devoted to Hogs Of War. The original DualShock controller was widely in use by the time Hogs Of War arrived, and its analogue sticks are great for moving your pigs and changing weapon trajectory. Smooth controls aside, the graphics are jagged and blocky but vibrantly colourful. PC ◼ The PC game packed an increased polygon count, hence higher-fidelity graphics, plus multiplayer networking capabilities. Much of the experience is shared with the PlayStation version. But in both the version published to Steam and GOG in 2014 and the prior PC release, there seems to be a notable AI downside compared to PlayStation – computer-controlled hogs rotate and fire, but…

With a background as a QA lead and game artist, Owen Mason-Burns started a popular Hogs Of War YouTube channel in 2018. He’s since become lead designer for Lardcore – an official remaster sanctioned by Ian Stewart, the original CEO of Gremlin Interactive and current IP holder for the game. “There are definitely elements of the original we are trying to capture, that deep gritty First World War aesthetic for one,” Owen tells us. “But we’re also balancing that with the level of humour the original did so well. Our most basic intention is to bring Hogs into the modern age and give it a face lift, but also improve on several areas.” Access to the original codebase has been key. “We are using that original code to run the…

CALL OF DUTY ◼ The original PC hit imbued Medal Of Honor’s formula with a new sense of shock and awe. Iron sights brought the action in close, and muzzle flare made it frightening for the first time. A rare FPS that balanced power with vulnerability. CALL OF DUTY 4: MODERN WARFARE ◼ An adventure in embodying impossible perspectives, this most zeitgeist-y of CODs let you attend your own execution at gunpoint, and dropped a nuclear bomb on your head. In 2007, it was all anyone could talk about. CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2 ◼ Infinity Ward jumped the shark here. The follow-up to a behind-the-headlines SAS story, this was a bombastic interactive Bond movie, which courted controversy with an infamous level about shooting up an airport packed with…

◼ Hardcore fans of the series will know that Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare III, a reboot of the popular 2011 game, is due to launch 10 November. Following on from the plot of Modern Warfare II, it offers various multiplayer modes, an ambitious open-world Zombies mode and new Open Combat Missions, which will offer players multiple ways to approach objectives. More news on its extensive multiplayer will be revealed in Call Of Duty NEXT on October 5, with Open Access for PlayStation owners on 6-7 October and an Open Beta from 8-10 October. Crossplay Beta begins on 12-13 October with Early Access and Open Beta from 14-16 October. We’ll hopefully see you online (except for Nick of course).…

» System: PC (version tested), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch » Buy it for: £16.99 » Buy it from: Online, retail This fighter takes inspiration from SNK’s classics and it’s been a while since we’ve seen an indie fighting game so packed with features. It boasts ten initially available characters and three more to unlock, plenty of modes including a full Story mode and online play with rollback netcode. The game has sufficient depth and features like frame data for enthusiasts, but also does a lot to explain itself to newcomers and features a simplified control scheme. Unfortunately the CPU is brutal – opponents will escape your throws and hit massive combos from the very first round of Arcade mode, so it’s best enjoyed with friends. >> Score…

<Amiga: The Swords & Sorcery AmiGameJam has now ended. Expect more coverage soon, but head here for the meantime: itch.io/jam/amigamejam/> <Apple II: Million Perfect Tiles, based on Takuzu puzzles, from A2_4am, supports 64K memory, mouse and Mockingboard sound. Find it at bit.ly/million-perfect-tiles/> <Atari 2600: Development continues porting Space Taxi. Follow the progress at bit.ly/spacetaxi-atariage/> <Atari XL/XE: At Lost Party 2023, Krzysztof Swiecicki released Doom – inspired by Kweepa’s VIC-20 version. Its features include automap, converted MIDI soundtracks and DOS sounds, multiple weapons, and plenty of levels. Download it at moodler.pl/doom.zip/> <C64: The latest arcade-inspired title from LC-Games is Dig Dug Revival, with improved graphics and procedurally generated levels. Go digging for it at bit.ly/digdug-revival/> <DOS: Juan Martinez released Gold Mine Run (top), his entry for the DOS Game Jam 2023. Visit…

<BODY> “When I was a kid, I used to draw on my brother’s ZX Spectrum,” Ric Lumb tells us. “My favourite tools are pencil and paper (I made my own set of squared jotters for drawing sprites) and I make mock-ups using Aseprite.” Ric creates games with three different programming friends. “With Jeff Murray (PsychicParrot) I’m working on Gherbert In The Garden. The first Gherbert was very popular, so we have always wanted to make it a trilogy. With Nigel Critten (100TinSoldiers), we’re currently working on Babyman Vs The Terminatots, a flip-screen beat-’em-up with weapon pick-ups. “Rich Hanson (RichPea) sent me an idea for a train-track game. We’ve gone with the name Chuffin Nora as we like to inject childish British humour and puns into everything we create. I’m also…

It’s a long time ago: 1995. Plans are afoot to resurrect the Star Wars franchise in cinemas with the Special Editions, but it will be four years before fans can finally enjoy new material in the form of Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. Along with Attack Of The Clones and The Revenge Of The Sith, this was to be the start of Star Wars’ much-maligned prequel trilogy; the pre-New Hope theme continued into the world of videogames as LucasArts released Star Wars: Dark Forces early in this year. Dark Forces stars Kyle Katarn, an undercover rebel agent and ex-operative of the Imperial Special Operations Division. Driven by a hatred of the Rebel Alliance that supposedly killed his parents, Kyle plunges into the world of Imperial intelligence gathering and operations, slowly…

RHYS DALLOWS ◼ Rhys Dallows is the ideal player character to begin Starfighter with, as you join him during flight and aerial combat training on his home world Naboo. The missions he undertakes get gradually tougher, until you take him into the game’s finale as part of a Naboo squadron. VANA SAGE ◼ A Naboo Starfighter pilot from the age of 15, Vana left when her planet’s security forces refused to strengthen its weak defences. In her first Starfighter mission, she’s testing ships for the Trade Federation, but she joins the fight against it when it tries to kill her. NYM ◼ A polar opposite to clean cut Rhys Dallows, pirate captain Nym is rough around the edges, takes no prisoners and leads a crew that’s always focussed on its…

» ATARI 2600 » 1983 » STARPATH One of the things that has always impressed me about the Atari 2600 is its versatility. There’s an interesting range of games across the console’s lifespan, covering a large number of genres and some of them are very technically impressive. That versatility also extends to the many add-ons and peripherals that were created for the console, with one of the most interesting being the Starpath Supercharger. Originally released in 1982, it only lasted two short years due to its creator Starpath filing for bankruptcy. It’s a fascinating device however, as it literally ‘supercharges’ your humble console. The Supercharger is able to play suitably enhanced games on the system thanks to it adding an additional 6KB of RAM to the machine. Games are loaded…

◼ “Manfred and I were huge fans of the arcade version of R-Type and wanted to bring a game like that to the C64.” This is how Andreas Escher describes their main motivation for creating Katakis in the first place. They knew the original game inside and out, and transferred their favourite parts into Katakis, including the indestructible satellite, the rechargeable Super Shot, a huge spaceship as a level, enemies dragging spider web-like obstacles behind them – even the congratulatory ending text is lifted verbatim from R-Type, with the exception of one word (Machine instead of Bydo) and one typo (anhinilated). According to Teut Weidemann, no one at Rainbow Arts ever tried to secure the official R-Type licence from Irem. “This simply was not the business model of Rainbow Arts…

DOUBLE DUTY DONKEY KONG CLASSICS DEVELOPER: NINTENDO EAD RELEASE: 1988 ◼ As one of the most popular arcade games of the early Eighties, Donkey Kong’s home releases were a big deal for licensees Coleco and Atari. But Donkey Kong is a Nintendo property and we’re going to focus on the Nintendo console releases here to keep things simple – and this is the most cost-effective way to enjoy some classic Donkey Kong on real 8-bit Nintendo hardware. Donkey Kong Classics doesn’t just contain the original platform hit, but its sequel Donkey Kong Jr in which the titular protagonist goes on a mission to rescue his dear old dad from that dastardly Mario. The games aren’t quite perfect – Donkey Kong is notably missing the cement factory stage from the arcade…

HEAVY WEAPONS ◼ Investing in some artillery experts is a wise choice. Their bazookas have unlimited use and deal decent damage. On further promotion, mortars provide a powerful (but hard to aim) attack from very long ranges. Troops that reach the Pyrotechnic level can let loose with flame-throwers. ESPIONAGE ◼ Any pigs on this path are hidden from the map and can hide during their turn, transforming into a crate, a tree or whatever else is nearby. Sniper rifles become available at the Spy level – or you can just pickpocket them from enemies before that point. MEDIC ◼ From close-range healing to medicine darts and balls, your medics can play a valuable role in bringing your troops back from the brink. Don’t expect them to contribute much on the…

» MANUFACTURER: Nintendo » YEAR: 2008 » COST: £149.99 (launch), £20+ (today, boxed), £10+ (today, unboxed) By the time Nintendo began to create the DSi in late 2006, it was already clear that the DS was a monster hit, so the goal of the new handheld was simply to provide a strong mid-generation refresh. That goal was accomplished, with a faster CPU and four times the RAM of prior models, as well as internal memory and an SD card slot for storing DSiWare games from a new online store. The console also offered slightly larger screens and two cameras. Not all of the changes were positive, though. A lower-capacity battery offered less game time per charge than the DS Lite, and the removal of the Game Boy Advance cartridge slot…

AMERICAN ◼ Private Martin lands in France as a paratrooper in June 1944. With his unit scattered, he joins a ragtag impromptu fighting force to take out anti-aircraft positions ahead of D-Day, the events of which were covered in Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault. After that success, he’s assigned to rescue two British officers, Captain Price and Major Ingram, from a Bavarian manor. BRITISH ◼ Captain Price leads a unit, including the player character Sergeant Jack Evans, to clear Pegasus Bridge in Bénouville of Wehrmacht soldiers. Before long, Evans is transferred to the SAS, with whom he sabotages the Eder Dam. Evans and Price then pose as Kriegsmarine sailors to infiltrate the battleship Tirpitz and disable its defences. In many ways, this is an early prototype for Modern Warfare’s campaign.…

» ARCADE » 2004 » SEGA ROSSO I do love a good bit of wordplay, and after hearing Tom Campbell’s plot for a Gran Turismo film on the Cultaholic Wrestling podcast, I’ve been imagining a sitcom featuring human versions of driving games. In one house, Grant Turismo – a chap who takes motorsports very seriously and loves tinkering with his car. In the neighbouring house, wacky old Dave-tona USA, who can be heard singing for miles around whenever he’s driving on a sunny day. And if they had to have a reasonable neighbour who gets along with both of them, but invariably ends up suffering for their wacky shenanigans, it’d be Ian-itial D. Along with Namco’s Wangan Midnight series, Sega’s Initial D games represented something of an evolution in the…

» System: PC (version tested), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch » Buy it for: £21.99 » Buy it from: Online Muchacho Man Randy Santos, inspired by the legacy of Randy Savage, wants to be the greatest wrestler in the world – but he’s an action figure, fighting in a bizarre world of plush toys and Pez dispensers. This RPG’s combat system features active elements to keep you engaged and rewards you for incorporating certain dramatic moments into your matches, while the plot allows you to become a villain or a fan favourite. If you’re amused by the idea of helping a wrestler choose between a neon-painted surfer gimmick and a goth phase, or the notion of a 141 and two-thirds chance of having fun, this will be…

<INTRO> THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO MAKE AND DISTRIBUTE HOMEBREW. IF YOU FELL IN LOVE WITH THE NES, CHECK OUT NESMAKER – BEING USED TO CREATE MYSTIC SEARCHES. ASTEBROS IS OUT NOW ON STEAM AND MEGA DRIVE CARTRIDGE, AS WELL AS APPEARING ON EVERCADE LATER THIS YEAR. ITCH.IO HOSTS GAMES FOR DIFFERENT FORMATS, INCLUDING THE WORK OF SPECTRUM ARTIST PUTTYCAD. OR BE LIKE CHAMPION CODER WLS AND HOST YOUR GAMES ON YOUR VERY OWN WEBSITE. </INTRO> <BODY> “At seven, videogames became the language by which I experienced science fiction and fantasy,” Joe Granato IV tells us. “Many friends had a NES before me, and I remember being incredibly jealous. I was accessing fantastic worlds through The Legend Of Zelda, Mega Man, and Castlevania. The original sketches for Mystic Searches were…

<INFO BY: FROM: HUNGARY WEBSITES: WLS.HU LACOSTE42.ITCH.IO FORMAT: GAMEBOY / GAME BOY COLOR PREVIOUS GAME: MUSICAL NOTES (GBC), NINJA MASTER (GBC) WORKING ON: TOM THUMB (GBC) /> WHEN DID YOU START WRITING GAME BOY HOMEBREW GAMES? <In 2020, I saw a very rudimentary version of GBStudio. I really liked it and then I wrote my first game, Treasure Island GB. I really like that it’s a system bound to limits and you must use a lot of tricks graphically to make the game more enjoyable. They are constantly improving the system because a lot of things are added that make it even more usable. Today, I would also make the old games differently, because when I made them, many new developments were not yet available./> HOW DID YOU START CONVERTING…

» Our leading lady has acquired the final part of her ensemble, a lovely gown. Though she and Ken have been an item for years, she still puts some effort into date night to show how much she cares. It’s sweet. » Barbie enters the room, knowing that she looks the part – she always does. But tonight, she’s a little unsure of how her latest venture has gone. Could this platformer really compete with Super Mario Land? » “Honey, I told you I’d always be honest with you, and this game is no Mario,” Ken tells her. “But it’s not embarrassing either. If you want to see embarrassing, I hear they’re doing a live-action Mario film.” » Barbie is perplexed. “So what can I do to make my mark on gaming?”…

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◼ After wrapping up the C64 version of Katakis, Manfred and Andreas intended to port the game to the Amiga – but right then they had neither the time nor the necessary technical understanding to do so. Enter Factor 5, or rather The Light Circle, which was the name of the demo and cracker group around Achim Moller, Willi Baecker and Lutz Osterkorn: three young friends from Cologne who not only shared a passion for programming but also for playing games – particularly fast arcade shooters. At the Cebit fair in Hanover in 1988, they were able to take a look at the then hot PC-Engine, which ran an excellent port of R-Type. They were so enthusiastic about it that on the way back from Hanover to Cologne they decided…

C64 ◼ The ever-reliable Ste Ruddy delivers the best home conversion of LED Storm. Featuring full-screen graphics and smooth scrolling, combined with a nice parallax effect, this is technically excellent. The gameplay is great too, but it is difficult. Still, you won’t mind putting in the practice. AMSTRAD CPC ◼ Visually this is not far off the C64 version, but it can’t match it in the speed or smoothness stakes, and there’s no parallax scrolling. The most disappointing thing though is the lack of music. Tim Follin is credited with the audio, but there’s no Tim tuneage, just some spot effects. ZX SPECTRUM ◼ It’s monochrome, yes, but it’s really fast and the parallax effect is one of the best examples on the Spectrum. The only thing that detracts is…

» PLATFORM: PC ENGINE » RELEASED: 1993 » DEVELOPER: CAPCOM Given the coin-op success of Street Fighter II, it’s no surprise that Capcom wanted to get the one-on-one fighter into homes, and the SNES and Mega Drive were obvious destinations for conversions because of their huge international audiences. The PC Engine wasn’t quite as natural a fit, but it made some sense too. Even though the machine was already over five years old and had only achieved mainstream success in Japan, it still had an audience worth tapping into – and with the support of platform holder NEC as a publisher, it wasn’t a risky business for Capcom. The PC Engine had previously hosted a conversion of the original Street Fighter, bizarrely retitled as Fighting Street, as a launch game…

» PLAYSTATION » 2001 » KONAMI COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT TOKYO After going to the London Gaming Market and clearing out a large number of games, I decided to start investigating the library of Sony’s original PlayStation and grabbed a few titles I couldn’t typically justify buying. One of those games was Castlevania Chronicles, essentially an upgrade of a Sharp X68000 game, which in turn was an update of Castlevania on the NES. After a little umming and ahhing I grabbed a Japanese copy for £90, which is expensive, but a darn sight cheaper than the US version, even if it does have a few bugs and lacks a couple of extras from that later edition. Still, what a great little game it is. In addition to including the X68000 game in…

There were plenty of novel ideas packed into Hogs Of War – not least its uniquely porky protagonists. But the warm fuzz of familiarity is also a big part of why the game remains cherished 23 years on from being released for PlayStation and PC. The vintage wartime aesthetic carried strong shades of Blackadder, making it only too fitting that a star of that show – the since sadly departed comedy legend Rik Mayall – was enlisted to record riotously over-the-top voice-overs for the hogs. When added to the marching song from Monty Python’s Flying Circus chiming out cheerfully as you navigate menu screens, you can understand why many fans of classic British comedy felt right at home. Familiarity also shines through in the gameplay, which has some heritage in…

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST REACTION TO THE CONCEPT FOR HOGS OF WAR? I was extremely excited. I got into the games industry in the hopes of working on a big era-defining project. Maybe Hogs wasn’t big big, but it left a mark, and was a huge departure from all of the sports titles Gremlin was working on at the time. 3D pigs with Worms gameplay? Who isn’t going to love the idea of working on that? HOW WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE OF PROGRAMMING THE GAME? It certainly was an interesting project to work on, full of ups and downs. We were a young bunch of people, for some of us Hogs was our first major project, so of course we had challenges. At one point we reverted back to what we…

“UP UNTIL THAT POINT, A LOT OF GAMES WERE HYPER-COLOURED AND BRIGHT AND SHINY, AND THIS WAS NOT”BRAD ALLEN “Steven Spielberg started Medal Of Honor,” says artist Brad Allen. “He sent us a video one time, commending certain things that he was liking in the game as we were progressing. It was super neat to get to work on a Spielberg project.” Brad’s role at 2015 Inc was his first games industry job. In fact, although the studio had secured a modicum of credibility in first-person shooter circles with its SiN expansion, Wages Of Sin, it was mostly populated by young and inexperienced developers – nearly all of whom had travelled to Tulsa, Oklahoma from elsewhere in America to seize their breakthrough opportunity. “I had moved out there from California,…

MEDAL OF HONOR: PACIFIC ASSAULT ◼ After the loss of the Allied Assault team to Activision, EA handed the future of Medal Of Honor to its LA studio – the one that had birthed the series in the first place. Pacific Assault introduced some intriguing features, like squad commands and the ability to be saved from death by your comrades. But it also marked the start of a decline in quality that led EA to abandon Medal Of Honor completely. BATTLEFIELD 1942 ◼ In the beginning, Infinity Ward and DICE weren’t direct competitors. The former valued its single-player campaigns above all else, and the latter developed almost exclusively in multiplayer, offering only bot battles as solo diversions. But with Medal Of Honor’s fortunes waning, publisher EA increasingly positioned Battlefield as…

» Buy it for: £29.99 » Buy it from: nintymedia.net Fans of Nintendo’s Game Boy would do well to seek out Paul Murphy’s new book. While it’s lacking in interview content and feels a little pricey at £30, it remains an interesting read thanks to Paul’s obvious love for the subject matter and some well-chosen aspects of the popular handheld. There are breakdowns of some of the system’s biggest franchises and an interesting look at the WorkBoy. Some of the entries don’t go in as much detail as we’d like, but they’re well-written and most of the Game Boy’s biggest games are covered. Special mention needs to go to the gorgeous illustrations that are found throughout the book, as they really help to bring the subject matter to life. There’s…

DUNGEONS AND DOOMKNIGHTS <“It’s crammed with just the right balance of nostalgic charm and classic NES gameplay – Adam Bohn understood the assignment!”/> TURTLE PAINT <“Joe Sherman’s 8-bit colouring book, completely outside of what NESmaker was created to do, demonstrates how far the software can be pushed.”/> KUBO 3 <“Created by Dale Coop’s son SJ and with an official release through Limited Run Games – it shows NES development is about more than nostalgia.”/> DOODLE WORLD <“It’s a familiar feeling, a simple platformer that invokes the imagination of a kid with its [distinctive] graphic style.”/> MYSTIC ORIGINS <“It’s the one that started the whole thing, after all. Set in the same world of Myrinda, the daydreams of an eight-year-old child.”/>…

ASTEBROS <INFO FORMAT: MEGA DRIVE / STEAM / SWITCH (TO BE RELEASED) CREDITS: NEOFID STUDIOS PRICE: DIGITAL ROM €17.99 / STEAM £14.29 / CARTRIDGE FROM €59 / SWITCH TBC WEB: NEOFIDSTUDIOS.COM/ AND BIT.LY/ASTEBROS_STEAM /> <BODY> The prequel to Neofid’s Demons Of Asteborg sees three heroes – the knight, the ranger and the mage – set out to discover the treasure of Asteborg. After a short tutorial sequence, the heroes set up camp which leads to the main adventure. From here you choose a hero to tackle the next procedurally-generated dungeon, either on your own or with a second player. If you die in the dungeon its locations rearrange, but you can handily find a map during a run to show where items and the boss are located. Chests reveal extra…

» XBOX 360 » 2007 » LLAMASOFT Jeff Minter is an absolute legend. His studio Llamasoft has been around for over 40 years and in all that time he’s remained on the fringes of gaming, determined to do his own thing. Sure, he’s teamed up with some big names over the years and made quite a few versions of Tempest during that time, but he does what he wants and how he wants it. That may not have made him into the household name he clearly deserves to be, but you have to respect someone who refuses to bend their vision for the sake of money or fame. And make no mistake, Jeff is a visionary genius, particularly when it comes to the shoot-’em-up genre – and Space Giraffe is…