We’ve got a great show that runs a bit on the long side, but we guarantee every minute of it is packed with retro gaming awesomeness. The trio ask if a video game had ever made them cry, and things get vicious in the Retro Showdown. Be sure to vote and tell us what you think of the episode!
Red Alert is a great example of what I would deem as the golden age of the real time strategy genre (RTS). There is no need for “action per minutes” or a need to utilize a “rock paper scissors” approach to combat. No, you need to know your army, and you need to know what it does well.
Read on to find out what Red Alert did well, and how it surpasses a lot of games that came after it.
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When I was just a wee lad, growing up in the mean streets of Spring Hill, FL, Nintendo released a console that would greatly impact the rest of my life to date. That console, as you may have gathered from the title of this feature, is the Nintendo 64. I remember my father having to sell me on it because I wanted a PS1 and we could only afford one or the other. He said, “This thing has 64 bit graphics. It will never get better than this.” Snicker if you will, but he sold me. He was partially right, too. Games have gotten prettier, yes, but better? Not necessarily. N64 games brought something to the table you couldn’t print on the back of the box. They brought originality, heart, ingenuity, and produced good old-fashioned, down home enthusiasm for nearly every title (sorry, Superman 64). That’s something I wish I saw more of in our current-gen consoles. Still though, I always wonder what would happen if some of those games that essentially formed me as a gamer, finally got their sequels on current-gen consoles. I thought of 5 in particular, that I would like to see more of.
Greetings Readers! Carl’s donned a flannel shirt and is wielding an axe, ready to cut an endless amount of trees down as they pop out of the ground. Help him meet his quota of trees before his boss gets angry! What’s that? I hear someone yelling something in the woods…… TIMBERRRR!!!
Damn you Skyfall…
After talking The Duel last week, I felt that good old James Pond deserved better than a mere cameo mention so here it is: not so much a full-on review of The Pondmeister’s first Genesis game but rather a general look at just how random the whole thing is.
In continuation of this most festive Halloween season, I thought it would be a good time to bring up Firebrand, a character that some of you may not be completely familiar with by name, but I guarantee almost everyone will remember him because of the game, Ghost ‘N Goblins.
I thought that for this article, it would be more appropriate that I talk about the initial introduction to Firebrand, as well as the other games that were significant in the character’s history.
It’s almost time for the film that combines video gaming generations with Disney marketing, as Wreck It Ralph approaches quickly.
This film already contains an almost literal who’s-who of video gaming history, including classic characters from Pac-Man, Frogger, Dig Dug, Q*bert, Super Mario Bros., Sonic, Street Fighter and even Tapper! Screen stills have shown uncommon arcade titles such as Food Fight and even Agent-X are in the film.
However, even with characters from uncommon arcade titles showing up in the previews for the film, there are still characters that I’d be surprised to see appear. Here are some that I’d totally freak out for an appearance by.
At this point, some of you will be looking at the title of this article and thinking: “Here comes another article about how yet another 2600 game is amazing, ahead of its time, and the greatest thing in gaming ever.” Well, think again. Missile Command is one of the least interesting games you can find for the 2600, and for a console whose catalogue consists mostly of Pong clones, that’s saying a lot.
We all know by now that golf games are a dime a dozen, but this week on the Nintendo eShop sees the release of Camelot software’s Mario Golf for the Game Boy Color. Is this unique sports/RPG hybrid worth your time this week? Check after the jump to find out.
Jason forgot to bring a REAL GAME this week again, and instead brought another mod to contend against the honest and true games that the Erics brought. The trio also discuss whether a perfect video game could exist, and in an unforeseeable twist of fate, they come to no clear consensus. Tell us what you think in the comments!
When one looks back at Team Fortress Classic, the most noticeable element is that the game is more in line with a traditional military-based shooter, as opposed to the colourful, hat-simulating sequel we play today. However, while it may not be as charming as today’s releases, it more than holds it own based on mechanics alone.
So let’s take a moment and trace the history of this game, which serves as one of the most persistently successful Half Life and Quake mods of all time.
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Paul, the usual author in this space, is absent this week, leaving me, Eric Bailey, to fill in for him. This is a tall order, and I am honored to borrow Carl for the noble purpose of giving a game The Fair Shake treatment. However, in respect to the usual great work done in this column, my pick is not exactly the standard fare you may consider here. No, I did not choose an obscure game, nor something found on a very hard-to-find console. I picked Kid Icarus, a classic title for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System.
GoldenEye this, GoldenEye that…
It’s the Bond game everyone remembers and talks about.
But although I did, of course, play GoldenEye quite a bit back in the day, as well as the likes of Nightfire on the X-Box, the 007 game I always recall playing the most has to be The Duel, on the Sega Genesis.
I come across these people all the time… a current crop of gamers who proclaim themselves as hardcore die-hards, yet also consider the original Halo to be “old school” gaming.
They have no idea of the past, the true past, of video gaming. It recently had me thinking of what it would be like to dump these people into a time machine and see how they reacted to some of the things in video gaming’s past.
Here are some of the things I feel would freak them out.
This may be an unusual Character RETROspect this week, but I’ll try to explain how the town of Silent Hill is a legitimate character in the Silent Hill franchise. While it may not be a traditional “character” in the sense that we are used to, I will defend my opinion of this with the fact that because of its mood and overall composition, it is as integral a character as any protagonist or major enemy. It changes and adapts to whomever enters, using techniques that are meant to breakdown a person’s psychological processes and bring forth imagery that is pertinent to that individual.
Is it a game? Is it a mod? Is it a taco? The 1 More Podcastle trio cut up this question for the ages into bite size, sushi-style chunks of wisdom for your auditory consumption. We don’t guarantee that the question actually gets answered, but to distract you from that there is a good bit of discussion earlier about how important music is in retro gaming. Have an opinion on retro game music or what constitutes a “game”? Let us know in the comments!
Released in 1982, Deadly Duck is notable for two things. The first is having some insane-looking box art that turns out to be EXACTLY what you’ll find in the game. Deadly Duck is a game where flying crabs drop bricks at a duck that can shoot from its mouth. If you think it sounds like a really stupid premise for a game, you’d be 100% correct. It is a stupid premise for a game, and the box art only gives you half of the story, which brings us to the second notable thing about the game: It’s essentially a Scrooge McDuck video game, even though he isn’t technically in it.
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The 90’s were a glorious era for PC gaming. The rapid adoption of the internet by consumers led to online multiplayer becoming a norm for games. Increased processing power let game developers further realize their ideas, from both an artistic and narrative standpoint. But most of all, it was also a time of breakfast cereal tie-ins.
Chex Quest not only managed to revive a fading brand, but also captured the hearts and minds of millions of budding gamers.
Take a trip into the best and worst of the world of game porting with D-Ported, our newest video series! Alex starts the series off with Chex Quest: a Doom total conversion mod distributed as a pack-in with Chex cereal.
Movie crossovers…
The problem with stuff like Freddy vs Jason, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus or Alien vs Predator is that there’s really no one to root for. I mean, how much can you really get behind a villain? Let alone two of them!
Fighting each other!
RoboCop vs The Terminator gets we need a hero in there, regardless of whether both robo-dudes make sense in the same universe or not.
Los Angeles, Detroit: potato, potahto.
Past, present, future…
Three more potatoes spelt in various other ways.
Not only is it a genuinely retro-gasmic concept, the very mention of it prompting mind-boners the likes of which you only dream of as a kid, but it’s one hell of a game!
On the Genesis, that is. Read More