Last Retro Game You Finished And Your Thoughts

I love Deadly Premonition but there's no way it's a better game than Binary Domain, which has some of the best gunplay in all of gaming.

Deadly Premonition in some aspects like gameplay compared to Binary Domain isn't as good but overall the complete package I prefer DP.

All good games, and Remember Me isn't close to that group, still good and if you've got a PS360 think worth looking at or if it gets a Remaster Me.

Jimbob wrote:

Weird tangent: given that I'm not exactly finishing my current game project, I was thinking about game-i-fying a sport that only turns up at the Olympics and that we don't watch any other time. Track cycling or field hockey or Rugby 7s etc. Actually the first one sounds the most promising if I make it look like Tron. Anyway, sorry, don't know where I'm going with this but I'm not deleting it now

GNamer Jimbob’s Super Mixed Doubles Curling 64, I’d play that 


~
 
I’ve got the disc for Remember Me knocking about somewhere, although I don’t Remember Where It Is. It’s a Capcom game, isn’t it? If so, you know it’ll get a digital re-release someday, there’s no fear of that.

So it is, I had no idea.
Honestly, I thought it already had a digital release, but maybe I'm confused because Vampyr came out.

Yeah Capcom picked up Remember Me after PlayStation past on it, so then went multiformat as well.

Sonic 2


Watching the trailer for the third Sonic movie got me in the mood to play a Sonic. I've always dabbled with the Blue Blur - I grew up with a Sega-owning grandmother, I read some comics, I watched some cartoons, I enjoyed Sonic Rush and Sonic and the Secret Rings and Sonic Colors, but I'd always bounced off attempts to get into the originals.

Somehow, it clicked this time. Maybe forcing myself through the DKC tilogy earlier this year has unlocked my ability to appreciate platformers that don't control as delightfully as Mario? Who knows. I enjoyed my short journey through this game, and the sounds and sights were nostalgic. I still maintain that the best Sonic plays worse than the worst Mario, but I've had sexual partners less pleasing than Mario's gameplay, so that shouldn't be a surprise.

I want to play more, hopefully I can enjoy stuff like Sonic the Comic and the movies alongside the games, get the full experience. That'd be nice.

What's the best way to play Sonic 3 (and Knuckles), Sonic CD etc? Sonic Origins is half price right now . . .

Origins is a neat package so probably best to go for that, plenty of QoL touches and a mission mode that's easy to get stuck in to, the only major thing missing is the Michael Jackson produced tracks in 3 but as you can imagine they don't exist in any commonly available re-release.

I think those tracks are the reason there just aren't many releases of Sonic 3 at all.

They are which is madness because I very much doubt Mr. Jackson would want to prevent sharing it around.

Michael would have no problem with getting into more kids' hands, but we all know how that family wants every cent they can get.

Happy Halloween and all that bollocks.

~

“I want to play an Aliens game”
 
“We have Aliens at home”
 
Aliens at home:




 
Liberally ‘borrowing’ its whole identity from the Aliens films, Alien Breed on the Commodore Amiga has you assume the role of a lone marine running around the maze-like corridors of alien-infested outer space research centre. Playing like a classic top-down run-and-gun shooter, you strategically manage your limited offensive resources to exterminate wave after wave of Xenomorphs and complete mission objectives level-by-level, until you reach ground zero and kill off the mother alien. Collecting keys to access new areas and collecting money to purchase new weapon upgrades is as crucial as watching your ammo; without keys, money and ammo, you’re defenceless.
 
I admit that science-fiction isn’t my thing, but I’m fine with labyrinth games and I typically enjoy top-down shooters. Even if a game’s as tough as old boots, I’m not one of these wee tadgers who thinks it’s morally wrong to be using save states in their retro gaming. It’s got just about everything going for it…but I’ve got to admit that Alien Breed bored me more and more as I went along.
 
It’s got a suitably tense atmosphere and the combat is almost non-stop, but I think it’s the generic, metallic level designs put me off a lot. The colour palette doesn’t change, it’s just the same stoatin’ about for the right keys, or for the right doors, or for the right things to blow up. Likewise, blasting at the constantly respawning aliens doesn’t give off a lot of jeopardy, they’re easily disposed of and oftentimes best avoided altogether. While never unplayable, Alien Breed doesn’t really give me a lot of excitement at any point. It doesn’t remind me so much of Aliens as it does unseasoned chicken. It’s just a bit bland for my tastes.
 
I understand that it’s regarded as a British microcomputer classic, I recognise that it had long-lasting chart success and I know it’s the first entry into a beloved series. Yet I’m afraid I don’t get the hype around Alien Breed. Maybe it’s one of those ‘you had to be there’ types of game? 5/10.

Gabrielle’s Ghostly Groove 3D is a long-forgotten rhythm-action game that combines appealingly colourful visuals and offbeat gothic iconography with a really disappointing gameplay experience. You control Gabrielle, a teenager who’s spirit leaves her body after sneezing too hard (aye) and you try to return to her physical form and the living world by scaring humans and collecting the energy of their screams through dance routines. It’s simplistic stuff, where you tap, flick and slide the touchscreen in tempo with the games twenty-odd tunes. It’s not original, but on the other hand I can’t think of any of any other games that blend Elite Beat Agents with Monsters Inc..
 
There’s lots that could be enjoyed about Gabrielle’s Ghostly Groove 3D. The controls are responsive, the copyright-free soundtrack is ironically lively and the vivid cel-shaded graphics have a timelessness that I feel a lot of games from the early 2010s really don’t. Yet the game suffers hugely from its long-winded and tedious dialogue. It’s excessive, to the extent that it really detracts from Ghostly Groove’s good qualities. When I first played it, it took me a good ten minutes to get into my first performance section – and after the first couple of scenes all that time was spent battering the A button to try and plough through these non-stop reams of text as quickly as I could. These cutscenes aren’t narrated, and they’re not telling an important story that needs to be read. The stretches of inactivity between each song and dance are stupidly long, starkly juxtaposed with how brief the rhythm sequences are. It’s plain to see that the chit-chat is only included to pad the game’s length out, it has no other purpose. Gabrielle’s Ghostly Groove 3D is so poorly structured altogether. It’s easy, short and basic while being overwrought, bloated and annoying. 3/10.

Best known to me as a £65 PlayStation game that’s sat gathering Monster Energy-scented dust in my local CEX since about Halloween 2021, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is perhaps better appreciated as an important title in the history of the action-RPG genre. The debut title in the acclaimed Legacy of Kain series, it’s one with a deep and complex narrative about a betrayed and murdered nobleman who is resurrected from the dead by a necromancer and brought back as a vengeance-fuelled vampire. For sustenance you feast on the blood of the living, and for revenge you primarily engage in combat using different weapons, armoury, items and magical spells.  In different tactical contexts you can shapeshift in different forms, such as into a bat to fast-travel to different beacons across the world and such as into a wolf that lets you move fast and jump.
 
At nearly three decades old, it feels like a properly ancient game in 2024 right enough. Blood Omen’s gameplay features a top-down perspective and focuses on combat and exploration, but oftentimes that combat just amounts to basic combos bashed out with one button and the exploration lacks actual guidance. It’s just as well that it’s a pretty linear game, and it’s probably for the best that the interaction you have with the environment is limited to occasionally breaking an obstacle with your mace or axe. There’s loads of menu management in Blood Omen too, with each of your spells/weapons/items/transformations mapped to a different shoulder or face button. It’s not very intuitive though, and even after a full playthrough I couldn’t accurately tell you what each button does. The graphics are similarly aged, and while that’s forgivable I’m not impressed that Blaze – who handled the Evercade port that I’ve played – didn’t turn up the game’s brightness settings. They’ve taken the fact that Blood Omen is supposed to be a ‘dark’ game quite literally, making it unnecessarily difficult to see where doorways are in dungeons or to see enemy projectiles.
 
All of that had the potential to put me off Blood Omen, but I’m very glad I stuck with it – and in all honesty completing it was never in doubt. Despite its modern-day drawbacks I felt Blood Omen provided an engaging experience. That was through telling an interesting story, having unique gameplay mechanics (at least by my standards), and by having a brilliantly dark ambiance that fits excellently with the mature and gothic theme that its developers had strived for. The soundtrack and voice acting contribute significantly to this, enhancing the experience while sometimes overshadowing the fairly one-note gameplay. In particular, the superb delivery of Kain’s lines really makes him a memorable anti-hero.
 
Outdated and clunky as it is, I feel that Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain can be appreciated for being immersive, atmospheric and for having a richly developed world. When it comes to PlayStation Premium later in the year, it’s well worth a butchers. 7/10.

Oh damn, now I want to play it. You're someone who won't hesitate to call a game shite when you bounce off it, regardless of reputation or story elements, and you've made it sound worth giving a go. How long do you reckon it took?

Despite playing it from the start several times in my youth, I have finally finished

Full disclosure, I did make and abuse a save state before the final section, as, like most Rare NES games, there's a difficulty spike that seems there purely to upset renting customers

The difficulty is not necessarily a smooth curve (often later planets are easier than their predecessors) and there's probably some deeper game logic that needs fixing (realistically you only lose lives through sheer recklessness, given the ability to jetpack back to the mothership for a new pod if your existing one splodes; the last planet's treasures are irrelevant as there are no shops to spend your money; the middle ship upgrade allows you to tow the local warps, but the best ship upgrade allows you to travel through them but loses the ability to tow them, etc etc). But - and this is probably an 80s British thing - not many NES games do remotely as good a job at creating the spooky isolated in space atmosphere (mostly thanks to David Wise's ambient synthery) while at the same time add some incongruous silliness (salvaged cargo containers can house: Bananas; Easter Island Heads; a Telephone Box; Absolutely Nothing. Also half the planet names are pub language puns).

Given that this has been in my possession since about 1992, I'm glad I finally sat down and finished this properly. I don't know why I never did as a kid - the password system would've made it quite possible - but this feels like finishing an important chapter of a an important book.

Nostalgia/10

Buskalilly wrote:

What's the best way to play Sonic 3 (and Knuckles), Sonic CD etc? Sonic Origins is half price right now . . .

Dunno if you've already got around to playing S3&K, but the best way would be the unofficial PC port Sonic 3 AIR. Feels the best to play and the music isn't compressed. The Origins version is fine though.

Sonic CD I think is the same in every modern release, including Origins.

My retro thread Christmassy game write-ups are as much a festive tradition as decorating the tree, singing carols and blocking the toilet with a hefty jobby on Boxing Day.



I genuinely had hopes of playing through some of the best-regarded ‘Christmas games’ that’re going, to really get that jolly and jaunty festive feeling flowing. Time quickly passed and life got in the way though, and so I’ve scrambled for what straight-to-the-point yuletide-ish fodder that I can. So let’s step in Christmas with Two Crude, a game which happens to have a Christmastime level where the boss is a grenade-lobbing goblin dressed as Santa Claus.
 
Two Crude is the 1990 arcade sequel to Bad Dudes Vs. Dragonninja, a title that’s gamers from all eras seem to have a lot of affinity for. I’ve honestly got no idea why. It’s always struck me as bottom-of-the-barrel toot, it’s the sort of thing that’s been licensed to about a hundred companies a hundred times, probably for a total cost of £2.38. Bad Dudes is just too shallow, too repetitive, and altogether too straightforward to be worth the high esteem it’s seemingly held in. What can’t be debated is that it’s a much better game in every regard than Two Crude. I went into Two Crude expecting a mildly diverting beat ‘em up platformer, but it’s unexpectedly one of the worst games I’ve played all year.
 
I think Bad Dudes Vs. Dragonninja had it’s success back in the day purely because of its infamous tagline: “are you a bad enough dude to save the President?”. Two Crude doesn’t massively change the script from that – you’re assuming the role of a mercenary tasked by the U.S. government to reclaim New York City from a terrorist group following a series of nuclear explosions. “Are you tough enough to save the city?”, Two Crude demands to know.
 
If there was ever anything good about Two Crude – perhaps the bright visuals, the voice clips, and the ability to pick up almost anything and lob it – then it’s long since faded through time. The personality is once had has really dated too. It’s not just unfashionably ‘90s, it’s obnoxiously ‘90s. Yet the most loathsome thing about Two Crude is its extraordinary difficulty. I played this on Evercade via it’s recent Data East Arcade Collection 2 cartridge, which cost me something like £15. And let’s say at an arcade in 1990 you’d be paying 10p a credit for a shot on Two Crude. I can reliably tell you that I comfortably used more than 150 credits completing this game and would have spent much, much more than my £15 on completing it in an arcade.
 
It absolutely batters you, to the point it’s a wholly unenjoyable experience that’s only beatable through brute force. Two Crude? Mare like 2/10.

I think when you say it's "a title that’s gamers from all eras seem to have a lot of affinity for" I think it is literally a title that gamers have a lot of affinity for. Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninjas is an excellent title.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

I went into Two Crude expecting a mildly diverting beat ‘em up platformer, but it’s unexpectedly one of the worst games I’ve played all year.
 
2/10.

I had a friend who showed me Two Crude Dudes back in the 1990s, and it was a mini revelation based purely on the fact you could pick up pretty much anything as a weapon. After binging on beat ‘em ups like Streets of Rage, it had some fun gimmicks like whacking vending machines (I feel like Fighting Force either copied this or included this as a nod). I’m not surprised it hasn’t held up, but many years ago, it was something I enjoyed and imagine many others did too. Shame it hasn't held up.

Buskalilly wrote:

I think when you say it's "a title that’s gamers from all eras seem to have a lot of affinity for" I think it is literally a title that gamers have a lot of affinity for. Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninjas is an excellent title.

Yeah, people just ironically like the text. No-one can tell you anything about the game itself.

Bad Dudes was absolute pish, stop ruining Christmas.

~



That’ll be many of my personal and time-honoured Christmas Eve traditions coming to an end tonight. My SEGA Saturn is humped, so there’ll be no annual playthrough of Christmas NiGHTS Into Dreams. The local church minister can’t be jiggered to deliver a service, so there’ll be no carols being “sung” by me tonight. And sadly, my GNamer Secret Santa hasn’t arrived in the post, so unfortunately there’ll be no pre-bed unwrapping of my bunny slippers/book about vodka/poundshop Barbie doll (all that happened one year, amazingly). Still, I can’t give up and I can’t let the world conspire against me. Half-arsedly scribbling some notes about a old Christmassy game I’ve recently played for about four people to read is about the only yuletide convention that I’ve got left.

Moley Christmas is a festive platformer that was given away as a cover tape for Your Sinclair magazine back in 1987. It’s got a quirky premise behind it: you start off a Gremlin Graphics HQ where you begin to program your cover tape. In later screens you press the cassette tapes, cross the M1 and then hand-deliver the tapes to the magazine printers in time for the Christmas deadline. It’s a plotline that I’d definitely like to see used in the next Xenoblade or Fire Emblem game.

With just six screens it should be a sub-five minute piece of piss, but it’s actually a deceptively challenging game. It’s one which requires precise timing and a logical - and sometimes illogical - approach. It’s this strange strategy-setting that makes Moley Christmas’s difficulty feel punishing, and I had to rely on plenty of trial and error in order to make my way to the end. It’s never that apparent what you’re supposed to do and how you do it. The pixel perfection that it seems to demand is hard to explain in a write up as well. 

Despite that, I enjoyed it as a product of it’s time, and as a look into games culture outwith of the usual stuff I play from the ‘80s. And with that, there’s nothing else to say but Merry Christmas!  /10

Ah stinks about your Christmas lad, sorry. I'm glad Moley Christmas brought some stability back to your pattern.  Merry Christmas Ross.

Free games with magazines. What a time to be alive. (I wasn't.)

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Moley Christmas is a festive platformer that was given away as a cover tape for Your Sinclair magazine back in 1987. It’s got a quirky premise behind it: you start off a Gremlin Graphics HQ where you begin to program your cover tape. In later screens you press the cassette tapes, cross the M1 and then hand-deliver the tapes to the magazine printers in time for the Christmas deadline. It’s a plotline that I’d definitely like to see used in the next Xenoblade or Fire Emblem game.

You would replace the physical distribution with a section where you beat the shit out of arseholes complaining about things being woke on Twitter.

Balladeer wrote:

Free games with magazines.  What a time to be alive.  (I wasn't.)

FUCK YOU FOR BEING YOUNG ALSO MY BACK HURTS

So does mine unfortunately.

What you didn't get your free copy of SEGA Swirl for Dreamcast?