Retro Rumble: Round 4

[Team Andromeda]

Honestly, you should really organise a weekend away to Bury with all your old mates. I try to get up there at least once a year, if not twice, and me and my mates have a right laugh. We’re going up to the Leeds one for the first time next month.

It's hard enough to get all us gaming mates to stick to our Games Day that happens every year on the 27th Of December. I've asked before and like with the Oktoberfest. It's yeah we'll all go, only for it to never happen. I'll love to go to that Arcade Club. The upcoming Blackpool one could be a goer as we tend to have a boy's weekend up there, every couple of years.

Wish they would open one in Liverpool as me and her go up there regularly

[Team Andromeda]

I only knew one kid with an Atari ST and he didn't like me because I had an Amiga. I think he was jealous. But I remember being fascinated with the Atari ST around 1986-88 in magazines, because it was 16-bit and had some interesting games.

I never took sides when it came to gaming because I was interested in nearly all computers and consoles. So I'd always be trying my best to get my hands on all sort of systems. I had this really strong curiosity for everything game-related, so I wanted to experience everything. I even tried to get an AES in 1991, but me and my dad agreed that the games were way too expensive. £350 for the console and a puzzle game.

geek/nerd never worried me. I did hide my love of Star Trek at the time mind. In my neck of the woods, the ZX Spectrum was king and then the Master System. In my Comp school and year group, they were a lot of Atari ST owners and I made friends with all of them and we used to love going to each other's house and playing the likes of Cirus Games and also Jimmy White Snooker. Only one rich kid had an Amiga and it was he who showed me the difference and power of the system with the likes Xenon II, First Samurai and the incredible 3D driving stages to Batman.

Great times I still remember all them being amazed at how good Strider looked on the Mega Drive compared to Atari/Amiga versions when the MD game was used for a GamesMaster challenge and we all talking about in school.

[hudson]

Easy.

Super Metroid - the greatest game ever made.

Super Mario World - Remember flying under end of f level gate to get to a second secret gate on Cheese Bridge? Ah man.

Street Fighter II Turbo - Many many hours spent on this with my mates in the nineties. The artwork too.

[Leon Retro]

geek/nerd never worried me. I did hide my love of Star Trek at the time mind. In my neck of the woods, the ZX Spectrum was king and then the Master System.

The Amstrad and Master System were the most popular machines in my area in the mid to late '80s. People loved how you got a monitor with the Amstrad CPC, and the Master System was a really affordable console with some fun games.

Great times I still remember all them being amazed at how good Strider looked on the Mega Drive compared to Atari/Amiga versions when the MD game was used for a GamesMaster challenge and we all talking about in school.

Another bad case of the Amiga getting a lame ST port. On the other hand -- the Mega Drive version was something extra special.

I loved GamesMaster -- and went to the GM computer show in Birmingham around 1992. I loved how buzzing the gaming scene was back then, but the history books won't tell people that gaming was also a huge thing back then. No, they paint a picture that gaming was a niche hobby for anti-social people.

[Leon Retro]

Super Mario World - Remember flying under end of f level gate to get to a second secret gate on Cheese Bridge? Ah man.

Yeah, secrets like that added so much to the game. Such brilliant design.

Street Fighter II Turbo - Many many hours spent on this with my mates in the nineties. The artwork too.

It was the game all my mates wanted to play throughout 1993. We must have spent hundreds of hours on it.

[Leon Retro]

Super Mario World: 8 votes
Super Metroid: 5 votes
Street Fighter 2 Turbo: 4 votes
Streets of Rage 2: 4 votes
Virtua Racing: 3 votes
Power Drift: 1 vote

Super Mario World trounces the competition.

[Team Andromeda]

The Amstrad and Master System were the most popular machines in my area in the mid to late '80s. People loved how you got a monitor with the Amstrad CPC

Only knew one person who had the Amstrad and sadly all us ZX Spectrum fans made fun of his system, sorry

Another bad case of the Amiga getting a lame ST port

I had the game for ages by that point and went to school thinking nothing of it's showing on Gamesmaster Tbh. I was just amazed at a few of the ST fans coming up to me and asking is that really what Strider looked like on the MD, they couldn't believe how good it was on GamesMaster.

Those were the days

[nakamura]

Lemon squeezy

Mario World, SF2 Turbo, Metroid.

[CMcK]

Out of that list it's pretty easy to pick.

1. Street of Rage 2 - One of the finest beat 'em ups ever and a giant amongst the MD catalogue. I still play it regularly. Absolutely phenomenal soundtrack.
2. Virtua Racing - I popped many a 20p coin into the arcade original at my local laser tag game arena BITD. It felt like the future had arrived and plays very well.
3. Super Mario World - A pretty good game I don't have any real affection for unlike the other two mentoined above.

[Wools]

I also miss being young and in my 20's full of life. These days I can't be bothered to do much LOL

I hear you man, I hear you.

I'm still as passionate and excited about games as I was when I was younger, but life now affords me more oppertunities, more passtimes, more friends but so little time to just fill, games take a back seat now. Also, all my close mates are just like me; Love games but have families, jobs and responsibilities that we probally complete less than 5 games a year.

I do miss the days where come Saturday morning at 10am, I'll be off on my bike around a mates house to either play on an Amiga, Mega Drive, PlayStation, N64 or PC all day or scramable enough cash together to get a Bus into town to soak up what's new at Electronic Boutique or my old indie, the Kart Klub. I think the last time me and mates were absorbed by gaming on a couch was around 2002 with the Xbox era; Halo, Project Gotham 2 and Moto GP Ultimate Racing Technology. We were all single, just moving out into real jobs so had cash but not enough to do a lot with it, we just hanged around each others flats. They were epic times and I do miss them. **** me, I'm old!

Anyway, choices! I would choose Super Mario World, Streets of Rage 2 and Virtua Racing in that order. Super Mario World is almost perfect and every platformer that came after its wake was lacking in creativity and the same sense of discovery that only Mario ever really nailed. Streets of Rage 2 is a lesser game than the original but I would still class SOR and SOR2 as the pinacle of the scrolling beat 'em up. Virtua Racing... Well, it was the first 3D Arcade game I ever saw and it left a big impression on me but because of the poor home ports, I slowly lost my love for it over the years, prefering other SEGA Arcade racers. But with the exceptional Switch port, I've begun to love it all over again and despite it's simplicity, there's a purity to it. If only more modern games that get swooped up in the story and graphical immersion looked back to games as simple as Virtua Racing sometimes, to remember how good a core gameplay mechanic can be, without the need for stuff that doesn't improve the actual game.

[Leon Retro]

Only knew one person who had the Amstrad and sadly all us ZX Spectrum fans made fun of his system, sorry

I used to encourage my brother to ask for computers & consoles for birthdays and Xmas so we also had a second hand ZX Spectrum alongside the Amstrad CPC.

As much as the Amstrad had a really nice colour palette and decent audio, I also really liked the Spectrum. Speccy games have their own distinct look and vibe that appeals to me. There were loads of really well made Spectrum games to enjoy.

I'm glad I also had an Amstrad though, as its best games showed off the good points of the system. It also never had any problems loading games -- unlike the Speccy.

I also ended up with a C64C with disk drive after going to a computer fair in 1988 and some guy was selling a bundle for £60. I had always been interested in the C64, so it was nice to find out how good it was after the Amstrad and Spectrum. The SID chip blew me away.

When it comes to those three these days -- I'd say I like the C64 the most, the Spectrum in second, and the Amstrad doesn't have many games that appeal to me. Although, the Amstrad homebrew scene is pretty amazing.

and asking is that really what Strider looked like on the MD, they couldn't believe how good it was on GamesMaster.

Yeah, it seemed like a perfect arcade port back then. It felt like having the coin-op in your home, which was always something to show off to friends and family. I felt the same about Golden Axe on the MD.

1. Street of Rage 2 - One of the finest beat 'em ups ever and a giant amongst the MD catalogue. I still play it regularly. Absolutely phenomenal soundtrack.

Yeah, easily one of the best MD games ever made. I love how it stands the test of time perfectly.

Yuzo Koshiro is a genius.

2. Virtua Racing - I popped many a 20p coin into the arcade original at my local laser tag game arena BITD. It felt like the future had arrived and plays very well.

I loved how well Sega made the transition from sprite scaling racers to proper 3D. Virtua Racing felt really solid and ultra slick to play. Such an addictive experience.

[samanosuke]

Thought I’d better offer mine seeing as part 5 is out now:

SMW - seen a few posts declaring it the greatest platformer of all time. Never mind that, it’s the greatest game of all time. Closer to perfection is every conceivable way that any other game I can think of.

SF2 Turbo - the greatest arcade game of all time, although I did spend most time on CE back in the day and in retrospect felt it was a much bigger/better upgrade than T/HF

Streets of Rage 2 - best beat ‘em up of all time and wow, what an improvement over the original. Bigger, better sprites, smoother gameplay, stunning and varied backgrounds, bigger movesets including specials with risk/reward, more (and more varied) characters, and still the same stunning soundtrack that the original had. Very nearly perfect and if only it had the same enemy AI as Final Fight where you really need to learn crowd control to beat it, it’d be held in even higher regard today.

Special mention to Super Metroid which I think is also one of the greatest games of all time but damn, choosing just three this time was really hard when four of my GOATs were in it.

[Leon Retro]

SMW - seen a few posts declaring it the greatest platformer of all time. Never mind that, it’s the greatest game of all time. Closer to perfection is every conceivable way that any other game I can think of.

SF2 Turbo - the greatest arcade game of all time, although I did spend most time on CE back in the day and in retrospect felt it was a much bigger/better upgrade than T/HF

Streets of Rage 2 - best beat ‘em up of all time and wow, what an improvement over the original. Bigger, better sprites, smoother gameplay, stunning and varied backgrounds, bigger movesets including specials with risk/reward, more (and more varied) characters, and still the same stunning soundtrack that the original had. Very nearly perfect and if only it had the same enemy AI as Final Fight where you really need to learn crowd control to beat it, it’d be held in even higher regard today.

I share your sentiments. All three should feature in any Top 50 retro games list. SMW is platforming perfection. SF2 Turbo is a brilliant 16-bit fighter. SoR2 is considered to be the finest beat 'em up by many retro gamers.

[samanosuke]

I share your sentiments. All three should feature in any Top 50 retro games list. SMW is platforming perfection. SF2 Turbo is a brilliant 16-bit fighter. SoR2 is considered to be the finest beat 'em up by many retro gamers.

SMW should be in everyone’s top 1 of all time, not just retro. I’m not having it any other way!

[Leon Retro]

SMW should be in everyone’s top 1 of all time, not just retro. I’m not having it any other way!