Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 259 i Retro Gamer

It’s all change for Evercade, as Blaze has announced a number of new products. First up, a new Giga Cart format has been announced – higher capacity cartridges retailing at £22.49, compared to £17.99 for a standard cartridge. According to Blaze, the new format is “designed specifically for larger and more modern retro games, mostly originally released on CD”. Tomb Raider Collection 1, comprising Lara Croft’s first three adventures is the first Giga Cart to be announced. A standard cart featuring 11 Thalamus games was also revealed. Two new pieces of hardware replace the Evercade VS and EXP this July – the Evercade VS-R has a new grey and turquoise colour scheme but is otherwise similar to the VS, and will come bundled with one controller and Tomb Raider Collection…

There’s a good chance that you’re already familiar with Mike Diver’s work – he’s written for publications including The Guardian, Edge and Retro Gamer and has a variety of gaming books to his name. Now he’s back with two brand-new books – The Console: 50 Years Of Home Gaming and From Coin-Ops To Table-Tops: The Essential Electronic Games Book. Covering the history of home consoles is a pretty big task. How did you first decide you wanted to tackle that? I think it’s as simple as realising that it was coming up to 50 years of the Magnavox Odyssey and 50 is a nice number, and 5 0 looks a bit like S O and that fits into console, and honestly I think that’s probably where the seed started. I’ve…

We’ve always found Metroidvania to be an odd term, largely because adventures like Aztec, The Maze Of Galious and Nodes Of Yesod existed long before both Metroid and Castlevania. It was arguably Metroid that helped crystallise the concept for many gamers though and that concept was largely refined and perfected in 1994. The game in question is Super Metroid, Yoshio Sakamoto’s hugely ambitious sequel, which would not only take full advantage of the Super Nintendo’s extra power, but would serve as an end to the story arc that had first begun with the 1987 Famicom Disk release of Metroid and continued with Metroid II: Return Of Samus on Nintendo’s Game Boy. We’d also argue that it’s probably the Metroid game most gamers think of whenever the term Metroidvania comes up.…

A RARE CELEBRATION ISSUE 250 ▪ Want the definitive article on Rare? This is where you’ll find it. A Rare Celebration breaks down every era of the studio, from its early days as Ultimate Play The Game to its exciting N64 years. It concludes with a look at Rare’s last two decades at Microsoft and classics like Rare Replay and Sea Of Thieves. Don’t miss it. 40 YEARS OF THE ZX SPECTRUM ISSUE 232 ▪ This in-depth article features a number of prominent game developers and breaks down the lifespan of the humble Speccy on a year-by-year basis, from its early innovative games to its exciting homebrew era which is still going strong today. If you’re a Commodore 64 fan you’ll find a similar feature on that system in RG…

Phil Ulrich has always been fascinated by human history and metaphysical questions. As Captain Blood’s creator and scenarist, his personal life of adventures influenced the videogame greatly. “Before the age of 20 I already had travelled once around the world,” he tells us, “going through many interesting episodes in Polynesia, for instance. It opened my mind on many subjects and metaphysical questions have haunted me since. Where are we from? Where are we going? Who are we? As a teenager I created what I called then a ‘cosmic vision’. Every time I would have to solve a problem, I would put myself into the skin of someone living outside planet Earth. In these conditions, you analyse situations differently and put them into perspective.” Phil was also interested in Einstein theories,…

The mid-Eighties brought a nadir to the James Bond movies. Roger Moore had finally hung up his PPK after appearing in A View To Kill at the grand old age of 57, and the search for a new Bond was on. Yet despite the travails of the series, the public’s interest in espionage and spy movies remained as high as ever. Meanwhile, the famous Japanese arcade manufacturer Namco was also enduring a lull of sorts. Having made its name with arcade hits such as Pac-Man, Galaxian and Dig Dug, the company was beginning to diversify into home consoles, specifically the Nintendo Entertainment System. While its mid-Eighties output remained solid, it failed to live up to the fame of its earlier games. Could combining these two flagging behemoths produce a winning…

When Capcom released Street Fighter II in the arcades in the early Nineties, it revolutionised the fighting game genre forever. By the end of that decade however, the gaming landscape was looking very different. Arcades were on the decline as technological leaps in hardware meant you could essentially have arcade-quality experiences at home. 3D graphics also gave rise to 3D fighters like Virtua Fighter, Tekken and Soulcalibur (a trend Capcom admittedly also tried to capitalise on with spin-off Street Fighter EX with less success). Taking this into account, Street Fighter III, another sprites-based fighter didn’t feel like the evolution of the series that many hoped for when it made its arcade debut in 1997. So how did its third iteration beat the odds becoming fondly remembered as one of the…

» PLAYSTATION » 1995 » MEDIA VISION When the PlayStation first came out, it didn’t really excite me like the Saturn did. Granted, there was no denying that early 3D games like WipEout, Ridge Racer and Tekken were incredibly impressive, but I was more interested in 2D games with jaw-dropping pixel art and they simply weren’t pushed in Europe like they were in Japan. When I finally did get a PlayStation in late-1997 it was Rayman and not Fade To Black, Porsche Challenge and Croc: Legend Of The Gobbos that got the most play and it was largely because of its gorgeous sprite work. But it was the incoming November release of Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night that had really fuelled my purchase, and one other game, Media Vision’s Rapid Reload. Described…

<BODY> When he was younger, Locomalito’s parents did not want him to get hooked on slot machines. “I used to stand nearby to watch other people play arcade games. I ended up studying the design by observation. I used to write down what I had seen, add things I would have done differently and fantasise about making my own games,” we’re told. Discovering GameMaker gave him that spark. “I use GameMaker as the main tool. For graphics, I used to use Iconomaker but some years ago I started using the excellent Aseprite,” says Locomalito. Fellow Spaniard Gryzor87 creates music and sound. “We met at a dinner party organised by our partners, who have been friends since high school,” Locomalito continues. “I’m always shy about showing my projects because people don’t…

Every now and then I will remember a game that I haven’t thought of in a million years and become obsessed with it. The last few weeks I have been completely unable to get Sim out of my mind. Sim came out in 1984 on the BBC Micro and I bet hardly any of you will remember it. Actually, I bet some of you will remember one bit about it and nothing else. The bouncing Channel 4 logos. Yeah, now you got it. Sim seems to have all but vanished from the internet. There is two minutes of gameplay footage on YouTube and that’s about it. A few listings on some old websites and nothing more. And yet I was completely in love with this game. I got it as…

With video rental giant Blockbuster set to sell the high street gaming retailer Gamestation, Game swooped in with a bid for its biggest competitor – though it intended to maintain both brands in the immediate future. “Supermarkets, online brands, entertainment stores, toy outlets and even clothes shops are now selling games and that means healthy competition,” said Game’s deputy CEO David Thomas, addressing concerns from games™ that the move would be bad for consumers. The company would have a bigger test ahead in convincing the Competition Commission of its position, though as games™ noted, online retail was a growth area and both Game and Gamestation “still trail the two biggest operators, Amazon and Play.com, by a wide margin”. One of the most intriguing games of the month was Stranglehold, a sequel…

Could California Games be any more Eighties? With its sunny vibes, wild fashions and goofy excesses, it’s hard to imagine how it could be – until you discover that it was almost titled Rad Sports! According to project lead Matt Householder, this was the working title during initial development. Elaborating on the story (see RG 149), the idea for the game occurred when he and his wife were out walking near their home in San Francisco and some kid tore past them on a skateboard. As they continued walking, he added other alternative sports to the mix – including surfing, roller-skating and BMX racing – and the basic concept for the game was born there and then. We guess that shows the benefits of a stroll in the sunshine. Although…

Spun off from book publisher Melbourne House in 1980, Beam Software was established to design games for its sister company to release. After developing for early home computers, Beam helped define the Spectrum throughout 1982, with triumphs like the Pac-Man-inspired Hungry Horace and the popular text adventure The Hobbit. Beam releases then came thick and fast, with highlights including the platformer Sir Lancelot and the mobster sim Mugsy. Then in 1985, Beam arguably had its finest hour with The Way Of The Exploding Fist, which introduced beat-’em-ups to many gamers. In the same year, Beam continued its success with The Hobbit follow-up Lord Of The Rings: Game One and the Elite-influenced Starion. In 1987, Melbourne House was sold to Mastertronic, allowing Beam to focus on development. The following year, Mastertronic…

» SNES » 1995 » HUMAN ENTERTAINMENT It’s always nice when someone brings you a gift back from a holiday, and one of my old housemates really spoiled me some months back by bringing me an octet of Super Famicom cartridges. The big highlights were Final Fantasy IV, V and VI, which I aspire to be able to read in the future, while the rest were mostly typical bargain-bin games like a pachinko game and the horse racing-sim Winning Post. However, nestled in there was a real diamond – Super Fire Pro Wrestling X. This being the sixth SNES entry in the series, it’s just about as refined as 16-bit grappling gets. If you’ve played other wrestling games of the era, you’d expect this to involve a lot of button-bashing. However,…

Play the first Broken Sword game and, despite it being partly influenced by the book The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail, there’s one thing you simply won’t find. “The absolute nonsense of the Priory Of Sion,” says series’ creator Charles Cecil. For while the book and the game make copious references to the Knights Templar – a military order of the Catholic faith which existed for a couple of decades during the Middle Ages – Charles draws the line at suggestions the group was created by a secret European society hellbent on championing the alleged bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. “My nemesis Dan Brown fell for it absolutely, hook, line and sinker,” Charles smiles, referring to the author of The Da Vinci Code, a novel which presents the…

» MANUFACTURER: Sony » YEAR: 2009 » COST: £224.99 (launch), £75+ (today, boxed), £50+ (today, unboxed) While Sony was no stranger to tinkering with its hardware, the PSP got a lot of attention over the years – the PSP Go was the fourth major iteration of the hardware, and the most radical redesign. The new sliding form factor that hid the system’s controls beneath the screen was certainly striking, but far bolder was the decision to launch a digital-only system, with no UMD drive to support the hundreds of PSP games and films available. Owners of previous PSP models were unable to use their Memory Stick Pro Duo cards with the PSP Go, as well as any mini-USB peripherals such as the Go! Cam and the GPS receiver. The experiment…

When the mini-console movement started to pick up steam, there were plenty of systems we expected to go through the shrink ray – and if we’re being completely honest, the Atari 400 wasn’t one of them. The 400 Mini is fashioned after the Seventies computer and aims to support the entire family of Atari 8-bit computers as well as the much-maligned Atari 5200. The system comes via Retro Games Ltd, which has built up a reputation for solid plug-and-play machines thanks to its previous work on a series of Commodore-themed devices. First impressions of the physical product are good. The 400 Mini is a half-size recreation, and as with previous Retro Games machines it is faithful without much in the way of bells and whistles – for example, the cartridge…

BUBBLE BURST Good afternoon, Through all my years of gaming from the late-Seventies to current day I have never emailed or written in before to any mag, whether it be Micro User, Zzap!64, Amiga Format, CVG or any of the plethora of games mags I have enjoyed reading over the years. I thought now is as good a time as any and I just couldn’t let this go. I appreciate ‘greatest’ lists are always going to be subjective. I do not, for example, like JRPGs but I can appreciate their appeal to someone who enjoys the genre. However it seems unless I am mistaken and need an eye test that the legendary Bubble Bobble is omitted from your The 100 Greatest Retro Games list?! Do not think that listing Rainbow…

Over two decades after it became the first museum to host the Barbican’s touring videogame history exhibition Game On, The National Museum Of Scotland in Edinburgh is preparing to host it once again from 29 June to 3 November. The interactive experience has attracted millions of visitors in 24 cities worldwide, and allows visitors to get their hands on over 100 games, from handhelds and consoles to arcade cabinets. “We were the first site outside of London to take on Game On, so we’re very excited for it to return to us more than 22 years later,” says Dr Geoff Belknap, keeper of science and technology at the museum. “Gaming is a really important subject for us, and has been really exciting for our audiences over the last 20 years.…

The first game I ever played online was Unreal Tournament. Up until then I’d always resisted online gaming. In fact, there were very few times I even played single-screen multiplayer games. For sure, we used to huddle around to play Mario Kart or Micro Machines in the Digitiser office. Yes, on a Friday night, after a few beers, my mates and I would try to kill one another in GoldenEye. But… even with games that were supposedly better with two or more players I’d prefer to challenge a CPU opponent. I guess part of it comes from never really being that good at games. Yes, that’s an irony for somebody who used to be a professional games journalist, and who now presents a retro gaming magazine show on YouTube… but it’s…

» ATARI 8-BIT » 1987 » CHRIS MURRAY Online social media platforms have a lot to answer for. It’s lovely to be able to chat about classic games with like-minded folks, but occasionally I do encounter some bugbears, and one of them is how some American gamers can be very dismissive of home-computer platforms, and particularly European games. I recently saw someone talking about the idea of getting into Amiga games “with a hazmat suit”, and it’s a bit frustrating to see the foundation of our hobby reduced to jokes about the use of water dripping from the ceiling as a hazard. However, I ended up mentally returning to those discussions this month because of one game on The 400 Mini. Henry’s House is a pretty typical single-screen platformer of the…

» MASTER SYSTEM » 1986 » SEGA The Master System will always hold a special place in my heart as it’s the first console I bought with my own money. I was working full time at Gateway and paying off small instalments for the console pack that included the Light Phaser. Along with a copy of Shinobi, the built-in games were all I owned for a few months so I played each of them religiously and got pretty good at them. In addition to Snail Maze, I also had access to Hang-On and Safari Hunt, which was designed to make use of my new lightgun. Safari Hunt is an incredibly simplistic game, even by the standards of the time. Think of Nintendo’s Duck Hunt but with a greater range of…

If you’re going to adopt a common storage method across a range of computers, it makes sense to make the hardware as widely compatible as possible – and that’s just what Commodore did with the Datasette, known by the model numbers 1530 and C2N. The technology was originally integrated into the Commodore PET, but external tape decks soon became available. The model featured here was introduced to match the styling of the new VIC-20, with the form factor retained for years to come with the introduction of new compatible machines such as the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128. The Datasette isn’t a particularly fast storage device, with a typical speed of just 60-70 bytes per second thanks to an emphasis on reliability over speed. Fortunately, programmers got creative with fast…

If you’ve popped into a seaside arcade or a bowling alley in recent years, you’ll know that the kinds of games that thrive these days are racers, lightgun shooters and giant versions of mobile games that have been adapted for ticket redemption. Finding a traditional game with joysticks and buttons is far from guaranteed – but if you do, it’s likely to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Raw Thrills. So why try making a multiplayer beat-’em-up for a coin-op scene in which they’re practically an endangered species? “We’re all Turtles heads from way back, and we love the original Konami arcade games,” enthuses Eugene Jarvis, president of Raw Thrills and legendary designer of games like Defender and Robotron: 2084. “The other thing we were really excited about was the…

Burnout 3: Takedown is one of the greatest sequels of all time. The first two Burnout titles may have been well received, but the third entry is in a league all of its own, offering thrill-packed, adrenaline-fuelled races where even crashing out is a joy, thanks to the inspired Aftertouch mechanic (see the Improving The Formula panel). And bizarrely, it came about as a result of a doomed attempt to remake a 1987 skateboarding game. Fiona Sperry, who was studio director at Criterion at the time, recalls that EA had asked whether the Guildford-based developer would be interested in rebooting its Skate Or Die! series, and the team leapt at the chance. It made a lot of sense. Skateboarding games were huge in the early Noughties thanks to the stratospheric…

» XBOX 360 » 2009 » HARMONIX As you’re probably aware, we don’t have the biggest reviews section. The reason for that should be obvious – the strength of Retro Gamer is in its behind-the-scenes features, not its reviews of modern games. And yet there have often been times when I’ve desperately wanted to cover new games which I feel would be of interest to Retro Gamer readers and The Beatles: Rock Band was certainly one of them. Generally, our rule for review coverage is new games with retro mechanics/aesthetics or sequels/remasters of established classic franchises like Resident Evil and Super Mario Bros. Space plays a part too, which is one of the main reasons you’d rarely see Call Of Duty or FIFA games reviewed inside the magazine. So with…