(Retro) What have you been playing this week? Vol.2

[JazzFunk]

Spent all last night playing NES ROMs in an effort to truly reappraise the format's benefits, the NES has always been a machine I've always kinda hated (didn't help that I got one *after* the PCE, Amiga, MD, SNES).

I'm glad I went back to it, and I can't believe how many bloody ROMs this thing has on it.

Yeah, it's like there's plenty of stuff with that horrible NES choppiness and blobby aesthetics, say CHEETAHMEN 2, but there is also an incredible amount of superbly programmed stuff like SHATTERHAND, S.C.A.T. and the Sunsoft BATMAN games. Loads, in fact.

Found myself playing a lot of stuff based on Brit home computer games, even struggled to play CYBERNOID 2 (ROCK hard!!!!). Barely touched the surface, so far.

In 1993, I had a NES and a stack of about fifty games and I just never played 'em, bar maybe MANIAC MANSION and DEFENDER OF THE CROWN. But now, twenty three years later, I'm enjoying the beast.

Just annoyed that the CASTELIAN (NEBULUS) ROM won't boot. Really wanted to see the tower rotation effect, it knocked my socks off back on the C64 and still looks amazing today!!!

[JazzFunk]

Oh, yeah, TROJAN, too. Never played it on NES before and it's great.

But not STRIDER. Ooooooh, no.

[Cepp]

Been playing more Ridge Racer 4, it really is amazing what Namco managed to get out of the original PlayStation and its still probably my favorite RR game, the tracks, handling and graphics are all fantastic and the soundtrack is simply superb and still holds up to this day. I also enjoyed the stories in the grand prix mode which really added to the game, something they unfortunately dropped in all of the Ridge games after R4

Mine too, what an experience even to this day.

[chopemon]

Been playing Lost Kingdoms over the weekend. It's a pretty low budget From Software Gamecube exclusive and really feels like a Simple Series game. It's a level based action RPG lite. You explore levels fighting monsters and doing whatever the conditions are to clear the level (normally beat a boss). In combat you have a deck of cards from which a hand of four is drawn at the beginning of each combat. Each card is assigned to a face button and you play a points cost to cast the card. Some cards are direct damage (e.g. a knight appears in front of you and swings a sword), some are independent monsters (E.g. summon a skeleton to fight for you under it's own AI) and some cards take control of your character to perform an action (e.g. become a mind flayer to shuffle previously used cards back into your deck).

The game is very, very basic but there's the seed of good ideas in there. It's only a few hours long and I'm on the last level now. It's hard to recommend unless you're really interested in seeing From's history but I'm enjoying a breezy game after playing a couple of long games recently.

[importaku]

Only just recently found out that wonderful Dizzy existed, been playing that for most of the morning the puzzles seem pretty easy so far as lot more logical than some of the previous Dizzy games. It's a lot of fun to see the tiny spectrum start producing graphics that look like this so much vibrant colour use it makes me wish that these new game graphics engines could be sent back in time so devs had this ability in the spectrums heyday, people would have lost their minds to see the stuff that people can make now.

[Hirst]

I love it when new games push the capabilities of old systems, it frustrates me that just as the developers figure out how to really push a system we move onto the next one.

I imagine most of us will have seen the Spectrum port of Castlevania by now (it was a few years back), but it's nice to look at. Have to wonder what we could have got out of the Saturn or something by now.

[importaku]

This is what i will never understand, people are always in this manufactured rush to jump onto the next machine. Time and time again the stuff released at the very end is stuff been made using all the tricks that devs have learnt but people have already moved on and the cycle repeats.

[samanosuke]

I love it when new games push the capabilities of old systems, it frustrates me that just as the developers figure out how to really push a system we move onto the next one.

I imagine most of us will have seen the Spectrum port of Castlevania by now (it was a few years back), but it's nice to look at. Have to wonder what we could have got out of the Saturn or something by now.

Huge sprites? Check
Lots of frames of animation? Check
Copious amounts of colour and zero clash? Check
Multiple layers of full-screen parallax scrolling? Check
Particle effects? Check
Transparencies? Check

Shall we make it a 128k game? Sod that, way too easy... has to be 48k...

Now you’re just showing off!

[Colin]

I posted a few days ago about finding my original 360 hard drive and desperately wanting to play some games that were on it (Assault Heroes 1&2). [MENTION=8265]CMcK[/MENTION] helped me out by selling me a 360 console so I could play them again and I was grinning ear to ear when I saw everything that was on the drive, most importantly, Outrun Arcade! Happy. ****ing. Days!

[CMcK]

All about the Saturn this week. Getting my shooter fix via Batsugun and Image Fight. I’ve also tried the English language text patch for Grandia which has just hit a release candidate at version 0.91. What a great piece of work by TrekkiesUnite118 and a very impressive game too. Production values are high and it uses the Saturn hardware well.

[wakka]

I loved Grandia on PS1 back in the day. I'd really like to try that Saturn version now that it's available. Must sort a way to get my Saturn displayed - either an OSSC or even a cheeky mini BVM/PVM.

[Jaz]

I think Grandia 1 and 2 got rereleased on Switch recently.

[samanosuke]

So tonight I managed to spend a good six hours or so gaming - lockdown has some benefits!

Started with Paprium. I’ve throned Tug and now I’ve been trying to finish the lower section mission. I’m playing on the hardest difficulty to make up for the sucky AI, but the last two levels, Powder Zone and Bhopal 82, are absolute killers as there are no food regeneration pickups on either. To compound my misery, Bhopal 82 has quite a few mid level bosses, almost to the point it’s a boss rush level. The CPU player is normally dead before I get to these last two levels so could use a proper human second player to help me complete this. Maybe after lockdown, eh,

Then I moved on to Shining Force CD. Been playing this on and off for the last couple of months and boy, is it long! I managed to finish battles 15 & 16 from Book 2 so into the final stretch now. From what I gather, books three and four are much shorter. Good job as although it’s a fun game, fatigue is starting to set in.

Next up was Castle of Illusion. Such a wonderful, magical game but it’s the fourth level that’s doing me in. After dying in the cup of tea bit I didn’t have the conviction to start a new game all over. Will have another stab later in the week methinks. I need to practise this one to get through the later levels.

Lastly I finished up with Sonic CD. I’m trying to get the good ending which I’ve never done before, and managed to make good futures for the first two acts. Next one was Tidal Tempest and I didn’t have the patience for a water-themed level, not after I’ve been playing games for six hours, so I switched it off at this point. One thing the frustrates me is the bonus stages... probably the worst in a Sonic game in my opinion. It’s all well and good using the scaling and rotation but those UFOs are so hard to hit, and landing on the water penalises you far too much even if you’re on it for just a split second. Good job it’s got the time travel/exploration/destroying the machine method of reaching the good ending, which is what makes this such a refreshing and enjoyable Sonic title.

[Colin]

My old Xbox 360 hard drive is throwing up some real gems. I’ve spent pretty much all of my free time today playing Mark Of The Ninja, what a game!

[Cepp]

I wanted to try Giana Sisters on C64 but its still an effort to remap controls with Vice so that Up is mapped to a button.

I looked around for a replacement and found hoxs64 which lets you do it in seconds. Giana Sisters seems to run well on it as well although I'm no C64 expert.

The game is pretty rough but it's interesting to finally play it after all this time.

I'm gonna try and beat it.