Pixel Gallery

Antarctic Adventure

Retro Platforms: ColecoVision, Famicom, MSX

Platform Reviewed: MSX

Stressed out from work demands in real life? Searching for a wacky and cheerful game to help you temporarily escape from reality? Well, never fear, because Antarctic Adventure is here! Initially released by Konami for the MSX computer in Europe and Japan, this is a simple racing-like title that features an adorable penguin named Penta, a character who would later become a recurring mascot in the Parodius shoot ‘em up games. With running speeds that mathematically surpass even the world’s fastest hedgehog, Penta’s mission is to race the clock to reach various research stations located around the South Pole, and the game challenges you to complete as many levels as possible. The graphics are cute, the gameplay’s fast-paced, and the overall experience is a fairly relaxing one. It’s not without its faults though, but let’s examine the components of this strange tale, shall we?

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Playing With Power

Playing With Power – Nintendo Power #4

After patiently waiting since first being announced in issue 3 of the Nintnedo Fun Club News, we finally get a full length feature on Zelda II: The Adventure of Link!  Highly anticipated by everyone who played the first game, Zelda II was very different than the original Legend of Zelda and the game was much more difficult than the first game.  If you ever wanted a perfect picture of the 80’s though, just look at the cover of this issue.  The mullets, the perms, and is Link wearing an earring in that picture???  The cover of the magazine could have been the cover to a rock album of the day.

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N64 Connoisseur

Remastered Review: N64 Review #1- Blast Corps

If you’ve spent any time looking through my Nintendo 64 reviews here at 1 More Castle, the question may have crossed your mind as to why on earth the reviews start with #9. When I first started reviewing N64 games, I did so on my own personal website. After a while, it just didn’t make sense to have two places where I wrote about the Nintendo 64 and at the time, I was looking to do something a bit different with my personal website, so I folded those reviews into the N64 Connoisseur series. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, I left the first eight reviews on my website instead of moving them over with the project. Well that is silly and today the end of that begins. I am going to be moving those reviews over to 1 More Castle and touching them up a little bit as necessary. At the same time, I want to leave them as intact as I can, so some things in these reviews may sound dated. I begin with the review that started it all. This originally posted on March 31, 2013. N64 Review #1 is Blast Corps. Read More

The Retro Critic

Mystery Quest

Every so often, a side-scroller comes along and, through a concept involving uncovering various secrets, unlocks a dormant part of you.

A masochistic part of you even you didn’t know was there.

It’s that little forgotten corner of your brain which accepts whatever torture a game has to offer and momentarily takes over the rest of your consciousness thereby forcing you to continue playing said game like some kind of mindless automaton.

Milon’s Secret Castle is one of those games. Read More

1 More Podcastle

121 – King of Retro

We have a very special guest with us today. The new editor-in-chief of Retro Magazine: Daniel Kayser! He fills us in on everything past, present, and future of the magazine.

RETRO is giving away a free digital subscription to a randomly selected person who joins the conversation about this episode on Twitter with the hashtag #ReadRetroShowdown between now and next Monday’s podcast release! Get tweetin’!

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Retro Power

Retro Power: Issue 3

Helloooooo, reader folk! So nice to see you again. We hope your new year is going well so far– we automatically renewed your Retro Power subscription for you! You’re welcome!

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Raising a Gamer

Mario Teaches Typing

In an attempt to prepare my daughter, Mae, for the inevitable soul-crushing derision that is the American public school system, I thought it prudent to begin teaching her some basic keyboarding skills. I remember one of my go to keyboard practice games as a kid was Typing of the Dead and thoughtyea maybe not appropriate for a 4 year old. After some more searching and a few rounds of Typer Shark (look it up, it’s awesome), I had put the keyboarding lessons on hold for a bit. Recently, while listening to the fantastic inaugural episode of The Hall Way I was reminded of the massive library of MS-DOS games that are now available to be streamed in your browser for free (thanks, Tom). Hidden within the library of Sim games, 8 bit Strip Poker variants, and Street Fighter ports was a somewhat obscure Mario title that ended up being pretty fun and felt like a real way to introduce typing concepts like finger placement. Mario doesn’t venture away from Nintendo consoles often, but we should all be excited that he did for Mario Teaches Typing. Read More

My Two Gils

How Motion Controls Ruined Gaming

Yes, you read that right. The Wii, the Kinect, the Move… THEY ruined the gaming world. Don’t try to blame this on EA, Ubisoft, DLC, early access, microtransactions or the misplaced egos of entryway mechanism fanatics. Gaming’s downfall started with the Wii and ended… who knows how long we have left… We’re already so deep. Luckily, we have retro gaming. I mean, there’s a reason why the 1 More Castle cutoff platforms stop at the Gamecube, Xbox and Playstation 2. While some people would say the limit wasn’t set to exclude motion gaming and cater to my every desires and needs, I certainly disagree. Read More

GMZ

GMZ – The Gumzies

The Gumzies

Hey everyone! It’s Daniel. I know this is late, but things have been a little crazy here around the office. A couple of interns died, and we are busy sorting through the paper work to prove that we are not at fault (I don’t know how the company pool was filled with electric eels, but I certainly didn’t put them in there. And last I checked, interns weren’t allowed to use the company pool). Read More

Playing With Power

Playing With Power – Nintendo Power #3

So after the controversy of issue 2’s cover, Nintendo scaled back the cover of issue 3 for one of the most boring covers…a pair of tennis shoes.  Sure they are tennis shoes with rockets…but shoes none the less. Not too much changed with the issue, the format is the same and the amount of coverage per game is still pretty expansive.  A couple firsts in the issue…role playing games were given a true introduction with an explanation of how they are different than other games as it relates to slower action and longer gameplay and then proceeds to highlight Ultima and Legacy of the Wizard, neither which are greatly remembered these days.  Also, for anyone who might remember the cartoon Captain N: The Game Master, the character was introduced in this issue with a short story about the origin of the character.  The story isn’t the same as the one from the cartoon but it’s interesting to learn that the character did originate in the pages of this magazine. Enjoy issue 3!

On another note, as I’ve started working through my issues of Nintendo Power I have found I am actually missing issues 7, 8 and 9.  I am going to start searching online to purchase the issues but if anyone has a copy of any of these issues and would be willing to donate, please send me an email at ce_owens80@yahoo.com.  Thanks and see you next time!

Play with power!

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N64 Connoisseur

N64 Review #17- Tetrisphere

Da da da da, da da da, da da da, da da, da da da da da da. Huh? Oh. That’s the Tetris theme we all know and love. Or at least I know and love it. I also love me some Tetris. I always have. It’s just so very captivating and addicting. I’m not even that good at it, it’s just plain fun. The Nintendo 64 was more than up to the task of quenching my thirst for the beloved puzzler. Perhaps one of the most unique uses of the franchise, however, comes in the form of Tetrisphere. Read More

The Retro Critic

Plok

As some of you may know, I left it to Twitter people to choose which Super Nintendo game I would review this week and, although I received some inspired bad game choices, after playing Plok for a bit, I just couldn’t resist reviewing that one.

So if the review sucks, make sure you complain to @UrzasRage on Twitter. Read More

Playing With Power

Playing With Power – Nintendo Power #2

Happy New Year!  Welcome to 2015 and issue 2 of Nintendo Power!  I’m slightly changing the set-up of my posts.  In my first few posts, I’ve been commenting on certain pages of the magazines if I notice something interesting or noteworthy but that worked when the issues were only 30 or so pages.  Now the issues are going to be 100+ pages so scrolling through all the pages to find the comments will be difficult going forward.  Also, I realized that this will be the first time many of you will be reading these magazines and I would much rather you enjoy the issues for what they are without my comments interfering with your enjoyment of the magazine.  So for that reason, I will keep my issue notes and comments to the paragraphs. Read More

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