(Retro) What have you been playing this week?

[TheForce]

Been playing Rygar (MAME) again, but somehow I just can't get passed level 21 (without using continues) mess up there once and you lose all your powers and you're in deep ****... I won't give up though !

[HC_O]

Picked up Rockman 7 on the SFC recently, seems pretty decent so far.
Rockman/Megaman is one of the few 16bit/8bit era game series that I've not really checked out so thought to give this a spin.

[Skull Commander]

I wanted to like Oogie's Revenge more than I actually could. I thought it was actually a really repectable tie-in to the Nightmare Before Christmas franchise. It wasvery familiar and had been handled really well by the developers, but it was just a drag to play. Maybe just dumbed down too much, as I wasn't compelled to keep playing.

That's how I feel. Unless I'm missing something the combat is overly simple and there just doesn't seem to be enough to do.

[nakamura]

Fifa 95 on the Picodrive. Has to be my fav version of Fifa along with Fifa 10. In fact the only Fifa game I really enjoyed apart from 2010.
Still plays a fantastic game and has a surprising amount of depth to it. Perhaps the best 16bit football game.

[Tetsuo]

I've played and finished Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg on the GameCube over xmas, and although I thought it was clunky at first, I really grew to love it. The vibrancy of the whole game is obvious, but the amount of ideas going on through each level is very clever, it's much more akin to Super Mario 64 than something like Sonic. An excellent game overall.

Now I've moved onto obscure GameCube title Largo Winch, which I'm already liking. It's essentially a 32bit-era Broken Sword, all in 3D, with worse voice acting.

[Family Fry]

Last night from start to finish (with my headphones on) I truly remembered just how great games can be.



Gitaroo Man would happily be in my top five of the decade.

[nakamura]

Aero Fighters (Sonic Wings) on SNES, can't believe I missed out on this years ago, it is an incredibly visceral vertical shooter - with all the sprites and bullets everywhere, it's hard to believe it's on the SNES! It has a great feel to it, the shooting is lovely, but it also possesses a great level of challenge (bullet hell, almost), the attack patterns initially feeling like a well-speeded up version of 1942's attack patterns. Love it.
.

Wow just got this on your recommendation and its very good. Never played it myself, just dismissed it as a run of the mill shooter and its a lot of fun like you say. Looks great, nice level of challenge with decent graphics too.

[JazzFunk]

^Yeah, it's nice, innit? Glad you tried it on the strength of my impressions.

Had a bit of a saddo night tonite, decided to play through Jaleco's Rushing Beat Shura (Rival Turf 3, basically) on SNES via emu, then proceeded to play through the altered US version of it (The Peace Keepers) because I quite enjoyed it and was curious to note how different both versions were.

It's a pretty decent beater-upper, slightly blighted by control lag and fudgy hit connection but in no way is this as bad as the previous incarnations. It's got a lot going for it graphically, there is a wonderful use of colour, everything appears almost over-solid, and many of the sprites are beautifully designed, chunky and extremely well-defined. The Final Fight influence still courses strong through the series' veins, but this is quite a big step-up for the series, it really is quite pleasant to witness, even if what you see is always what you get, do not prepare to be stunned (well, bar one decent boss*...).

The gameplay is still a bit awkward, not as accurate as Final Fight and Streets Of Rage 2, and some of the move choices are mega-****e (Norton's grab and swirly punch? It looks absolutely terrible, a cheap and tacky, 2-frame animation, it just lets the side down, ffs) Plus, you'll be lucky to land a punch without taking pain, so it's a game where Grapple > Attack X3 > Throw is your best technique. It lacks finesse, it's still quite a clumsy game, limited, but it's somehow very enjoyable, it makes you want to progress, has decent bone-crunching SFX, plus it doesn't take that long to finish and looks rather neat.

The differences between US/JP:

* Well, in the US version, ALL the names of the characters (bar 'Norton') have been completely changed, possibly because one of the JP main characters is called 'Dick'.

* Some of the sprite colouring for various characters has been altered - alarmingly, one of the main 4 characters you start off with in the JP version has had his race changed for the US, he's been turned from a white soldier into a badass black fella, and his avatar (see below) looks more like an Ice Cube mugshot painted by someone with 'difficulties'!

* The cool, arcade-style 'character select' avatars from the JP game, well, they've been changed to these blurry, semi-digitised images that look like they belong in Double Dragon V. All of them. Norton's is particularly bad, his face resembles a multiple skin graft (he IS called 'Norton' in both versions, strangely).

* There is NO INGAME MUSIC in the US one, the jaunty, maybe overly upbeat synth/jaunty jazz numbers of the JP game have now been replaced with ambient noise and sound effects (for instance, you start off in a factory and hear all kinds of metal clanking in the background, a later level is set in a futuristic laboratory and you hear a very similar ambient noise to the one used aboard the Enterprise in the original 60s Star Trek etc.)

It does give a different feel to the game, in which you're battling some deranged scientist who is intent on creating genetic mutations (just like Resi), it changes the atmos, makes it feel more sombre and stark, you can hear the punch/groan effects better, it's good in some ways. But, even though I quite liked the removal of music in some respect, to completely erase it is folly, TO HAVE NO CHOICE IS LUDICROUS, and I'd recommend the JP version anyday.

* The 'robotic spider' enemy has completely been removed from the US version.

* The US version is a bit less difficult than the JP one, punches and kicks seem to connect slightly more frequently, which makes it a bit more playable than the JP version (though that game has infinite continues, whereas the US one has loads, but not infinite).

* There are NO CUTSCENES between stages in the US version, which makes a mockery of the main baddie, who appears in every between-level cutscene in the JP version, he 'feels' like the baddie, yet in the US you barely know who he is when you see him! He's actually a great baddie, this highly implausible Shakespearian 'king' character, clad in purple and yellow hose, Lord Fauntleroy blonde hair and all that.

You see this guy between each stage in the JP version, sitting in his 'electro-palace', he spouts a fair bit of dialogue (which I couldn't understand) BUT, in the US version, you barely see him, but when you do he spouts this amazingly cool, over-egged grandiose prose, it's great, funny, but it'd be great if the US version had kept the cutscenes and added more great dialogue. But they didn't, the nutjobs.

*Finally, just to mention this biorganic boss from midway through the game, it's possibly the easiest boss in the entire game, but he just looks so good and feels so satisfying to continually bodyslam into the floor. It's called "?????????????" and looks so much like the Bandersnatch out of Code Veronica, it's uncanny. It even has a telescopic arm (just like the Bandersnatch) a head that's (just like the Bandersnatch) yet this came out almost seven years prior to that game.

Anyway, it's worth a blast.

(EDIT and PS; For completist purposes, I also have to mention that the last boss has a dragon/wind attack in the JP version, and the US one has an "electrical" attack, which looks completely different. And though there are ninjas in both games, there are no black-coloured ones in the JP version, but black ninjas are pretty plentiful in the US one as they're over-compensating the omission of Mr Robot Spider. I think that's most of the differences sorted now, lol).

[samanosuke]

Perhaps the best 16bit football game.

You're joking, right? Everyone and their dog knows that Sensi is the daddy!!

[Skull Commander]

Rushing Beat Shura is a very decent beat 'em up. It feels more like Streets of Rage, rather than Final Fight (as the first one did), but has it's own identity. I only discovered it about 4 5 years ago, but based on it I also bought the second game (Rushing Beat Ran), which isn't up there with the third one, but still a good game in it's own right.

[smouty]

oops wrong thread.

[garyfoo182]

Gave SIM City 2000 a bash on the PS1 last night. SO SLOW compared to the PC version I played years before.

Also actually really enjoyed Toejam and Earl (the first one) - I was never a fan before. The second one however is awesome

[Cauterize]

You're joking, right? Everyone and their dog knows that Sensi is the daddy!!

QFT!

Sensi > Anything

The way I've always broken it down though, is like this...

Fifa games are for people who like watching football, but have no real major interest in games. Hell, the game plays itself for you pretty much, what more could you ask for.
Where as Sensible Soccer, Pro Evo Series and all the other great arcade-y football games like Super Sidekicks are for gamers who are also into football.

[nakamura]

QFT!

Sensi > Anything

The way I've always broken it down though, is like this...

Fifa games are for people who like watching football, but have no real major interest in games. Hell, the game plays itself for you pretty much, what more could you ask for.
Where as Sensible Soccer, Pro Evo Series and all the other great arcade-y football games like Super Sidekicks are for gamers who are also into football.

This is largely nonsense in a 16bit sense.

Sensi is indeed an excellent game but its really rather limited.
16 bit Fifa and really for me only Fifa 95 still feels really good to play and gives you complete control.
You can pass, knock and run, shoulder to shoulder, chip, sprint, volley, header, backheel, etc etc etc. You can pass the ball around nicely and it has some brilliant moments of smashing the bar, one handed saves, deflected goals.
I was a huge ISS fan but its aged really badly. It plays nothing like football at all where Fifa 95 still does it well.

J-League 96 Dream Stadium is also good on the SNES. I liked Super Sidekicks also. All the games mentioned are good games.

[Cauterize]

This is largely nonsense in a 16bit sense.

Sensi is indeed an excellent game but its really rather limited.
16 bit Fifa and really for me only Fifa 95 still feels really good to play and gives you complete control.
You can pass, knock and run, shoulder to shoulder, chip, sprint, volley, header, backheel, etc etc etc. You can pass the ball around nicely and it has some brilliant moments of smashing the bar, one handed saves, deflected goals.
I was a huge ISS fan but its aged really badly. It plays nothing like football at all where Fifa 95 still does it well.

J-League 96 Dream Stadium is also good on the SNES. I liked Super Sidekicks also. All the games mentioned are good games.

This really needs a topic of it's own! There are a million reasons why Sensible Soccer is better than Fifa :-P