Indholdsfortegnelse for No. 275 i Retro Gamer

When new releases slow down in the new year, magazines usually do one of two things – a big preview feature for the coming year, or an awards feature for the previous one. Choosing to run the latter with reader votes deciding the outcome, 360 had Fallout 3 as Game Of The Year, well ahead of Fable II and Grand Theft Auto IV in second and third respectively. Official PlayStation Magazine’s readers went for Metal Gear Solid 4 in first place, ahead of LittleBigPlanet and GTA IV. NGamer’s forum users picked Super Smash Bros Brawl as Wii Game Of The Year and The World Ends With You on DS, but the magazine team picked Mario Kart Wii and Professor Layton And The Curious Village respectively. Skate 2 was the sole multiplatform highlight…

» ZX SPECTRUM » 1986 » GREMLIN GRAPHICS Although I owned Auf Wiedersehen Monty on the Amstrad, I’ve always felt that the Spectrum version looks superior. There’s certainly no denying that the Amstrad game looks great with its chunky pixel art and smart colour choices, but there’s something about how sharp the Spectrum version looks and its clever use of colour that has always impressed me. And before any of you who own this game on other systems start gnashing your teeth, these are simply the two versions I had access to back in the day. Auf Wiedersehen Monty is also my favourite Monty Mole game and you can tell that its designers Peter Harrap and Shaun Hollingworth really understood the formula by this point, delivering plenty of cleverly constructed screens…

A1000 ■ The original 1985 Amiga model has the names of the designers (and a paw print from Jay Miner’s dog) embossed inside every case, such was the pride in its creation. The 256KB of chip RAM was expandable to 512KB using an expansion slot. A500 ■ A more compact and affordable iteration of the A1000, the A500 was released in 1987 and became the most successful model. It was followed by the A500+ in 1991 which boosted the built-in chip RAM from 512KB to 1MB (further expandable to 2MB). CDTV ■ In 1991, Commodore targeted the same ‘all-in-one multimedia machine’ market as the Philips CD-i, with the CDTV (Commodore Dynamic Total Vision). Housed in a sleek black case, it was fundamentally the A500 with a CD drive. Sales faltered,…

POPULOUS Bullfrog Productions 1989 ■ Bullfrog blessed the Amiga with fine games including Syndicate, Theme Park and Powermonger, but it all started here. Populous tasks you with growing your civilisation via both direct and indirect interventions, with the goal of triumph over a rival civilisation. No other game did as much to popularise the god game genre. FORMULA ONE GRAND PRIX Microprose 1991 ■ The first in Geoff Crammond’s series of racing simulators was a true technical marvel. At a time when even arcades rarely hosted true 3D games, it was incredible to see polygonal cars and tracks at home, and they gave the game a sense of realism that other racers just couldn’t match. LEMMINGS DMA Design 1991 ■ Tiny little creatures walk to their death, unless you assign…

ZX81 » MANUFACTURER: Sinclair Research » YEAR: 1981 » COST: £69.95 (launch, assembled), £60+ (today, boxed), £50+ (today, unboxed) After finding success with the ZX80 computer, Sinclair Research wanted a new model on the market for 1981. The new machine would carry over many of the characteristics of the ZX80 – its small size, its low price, the membrane keyboard and most of its internal components. However, a redesigned case gave the new machine a sleeker appearance, the machine was able to run programs and draw to the screen at the same time, and a new 8KB ROM provided an improved BASIC interpreter. The ZX81 was significantly more limited than other computers on the market, with a monochrome display, no audio and a paltry 1KB of RAM. However, it was…

GET CLOSE ■ Your firepower has limited range for a shmup – and yet the fire rate is aggressively high. That means that like it or not, you’ll have to get close when serious damage needs doing – especially to the largest tanks and ships in the game, otherwise it will take ages to destroy them. SWEEP-’EM-UP ■ One classic shmup play strategy works well when Tiger-Heli gets busy; try sweeping movements continuously heading from one side of the screen to the other, back and forth, moving up or down to adjust to bullets or pivot direction when reaching the screen’s edge. A GROUNDED STRATEGY ■ Much of your scoring will come from destroying passive ground targets, so take a pop at every vehicle, building, and grounded plane. On more…

How did you first find an interest in games? Like a lot of people of my generation, I suppose just being blown away by this amazing kind of space-age technology that allowed you to press buttons and move things on the screen, and just being absolutely amazed by it, like it was witchcraft. I still think it’s witchcraft, I still don’t understand it. As my dad was blown away by rock and roll, I was blown away by videogames. What kinds of games did you find yourself drawn to? Pretty much anything, I suppose. I played all those really early arcade games. I think the ones that I really loved were vector stuff, so Asteroids, and then Battlezone, and I suppose that directly leads into my favourite game from the…

Rayman, as a character, was fully created by the French game designer Michel Ancel during his teenage years. When he decided to present his Rayman videogame project to Ubisoft, he brought a 150-page file describing the whole game and a demo. Totally convinced, the Guillemot brothers gave him two years to create his game for the expected Super Nintendo CD-Rom hardware. The ways of videogame history decided otherwise and Rayman became an Atari Jaguar project, and was also ported to the incoming PlayStation, thanks to Ubisoft’s recently created Tokyo branch. Often considered as reflecting his designer’s somewhat eccentric personality, Rayman is a 2D cartoon-style character deprived of arms and legs, capable of launching his fist to defeat opponents or flying short distances thanks to his helicopter hairstyle. Very unique artistic…

■ Considering Game Boy’s success over the years, there is no need to explain why Ubisoft wanted a Game Boy Color port of its latest platformer. Developed by Ubi Studios UK and released in 2001, this version gets naturally back to traditional 2D platforming on Nintendo’s handheld device. Rayman gets all his abilities at the start of the game, as opposed to the previous Rayman Game Boy iteration. Offering pleasant and varied 2D platformer-style gameplay, its background story stays similar to the console versions. Its level design definitely offers less opponents to face, but can sometimes remind you of Donkey Kong Jr or even Donkey Kong Country at times, especially when your partly dismembered hero starts navigating the sails and ropes of pirate ships. Some parts are especially tricky and…

JILL JILL OF THE JUNGLE, 1992 ■ The success of Commander Keen inspired young programmer Tim Sweeney to develop his own platformer. However, it was not jumped through by an action hero, but by a real jungle queen, a female Tarzan called Jill. Jill hopped, swam and flew through three adventures, and went on to make cameo appearances in Jazz Jackrabbit (1994) and Epic Pinball (1995) – but never again in a game of her own. LOLLY LOLLYPOP, 1994 ■ Lollypop was the debut work of the small Danish development studio Brain Bug. It’s a charming platformer centred around the wind-up doll Lolly, which, despite its sugar-sweet exterior, offers a decent challenge. The game, published exclusively in Europe by Rainbow Arts, wrote “to be continued” in its credits – but…

 How did you get into games, Tony? Someone I went to school with got a ZX81, so we started going round to his house to play on this thing. We saw 3D Monster Maze, and we couldn’t believe it. I was just hooked, really, from then. How did you make the leap to writing your own games? We found a BBC Micro in a storage cupboard at school, and we got permission to use it at lunchtime. All there was with this BBC Micro was the welcome tape, so what else are you going to do with it, apart from write games in BASIC? How did you go from coding games on your lunch break to doing it for a living? I was having a very bad time at school,…

CHANGEABLE GUARDIAN ESTIQUE <The superb NES and Famicom shoot-’em-up featured in RG268 and earned a deserved Retro Sizzler award in RG271. /> DATA MAN <Olof Naessén took us behind the scenes of this Robotron inspired NES game in RG256. It ended up receiving a score of 86% in RG262. /> FLEA 2 <We interviewed Alistair Low all the way back in RG241, and this hyperactive NES sequel scored 88% in RG267. It’s a highly enjoyable follow-up. /> INSPECTOR WAFFLES: EARLY DAYS <Available for Game Boy Color and on Steam, this cute feline detective story was previewed in RG255 and reviewed well in RG267. /> SKATE CAT <Another great NES game we previewed, talking to Dale and his son SJ in RG246. Skate Cat is also available to play on the Switch…

<INFO FORMAT: AMIGA AGA/CD32 (PAL DISPLAY, 1.6 MB CHIP RAM) CREDITS: RETREAM (SIMONE BEVILACQUA) PRICE: $5 OR MORE (DIGITAL DOWNLOAD AS ADF, LHA, ISO) WEB: BIT.LY/GEMDALUS / > <BODY> Gemdalus has you controlling a gem harvester, which starts each level in the central home square. As the harvester moves away from home, it leaves behind a pipe and can only change direction at intersections. The harvester can retreat along the pipe by holding Fire (lifting any sections it passes over until Fire is released) and the aim is to clear all the on-screen gems while avoiding the patrolling drones. The harvester can kill drones, but if a drone touches the pipe (or the harvester hits its pipe), a life is lost. Bonuses include the Zapper that lets the pipe kill…

THE GAME While you could imagine stumbling across Ninja Cop in an Eighties video store, due to its cheesy-sounding name, it’s actually an impressively acrobatic platformer from Hudson Soft. Released for Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance in 2003 and known as Ninja Five-O in the States it has received cult status in more recent years due to its known quality as an entertaining action game and the high price of entry if you want to take the plunge and buy a physical copy. Hudson Soft’s game has a simple premise, placing you in the athletic form of Joe Osugi, a skilled ninja who is waging a vendetta against the Mad Masks, a terrorist group who have kidnapped a bunch of hostages and are holding them captive across five challenging missions. In…

Why is the Amiga special to you? Alan Mealor It came with Deluxe Paint II. Simply put, this was a game-changer for me. The computer ceased to be just about games and became a tool to create things. What started with DPaint II and the Screen Gems pack in 1991 turned into a full-blown career in 2001 and has continued ever since. Like the advert says, “Only Amiga makes it possible.” Conservation of Anger Momentum The music. I didn’t have an Amiga, but a buddy dubbed a whole load of tracker files to tape for me. Shiryu It was the first home computer I saw connecting to a BBS from Portugal to Finland over the phone line… in 1989! It gave me a glimpse of things to come and it…

When the Amiga arrived in the mid-Eighties, it was a real generational leap, a platform that seemed to offer just about everything a computer user could possibly want. Commodore’s 16-bit hardware offered a sophisticated desktop environment, and its multimedia capabilities made for graphical and audio packages that aided many an owner’s creative ambitions. But of course, we’re here for the games, and the powerful custom hardware of the Amiga opened up new possibilities for developers. The audiovisual capabilities of the machine allowed for arcade conversions and similarly styled games with detailed, colourful graphics and rich sounds that had never been possible in the home before, while the raw computing grunt allowed for greater depth and more detailed simulations in the slower-paced, more thoughtful games that have typically been the preserve of…

Nothing could quite beat the excitement of hearing that familiar whirring-clicking sound, as the Amiga drive head moved across the tracks of a floppy disk, while a brand-new game loaded. And what a selection of games there were. Some of those games, like Lemmings, Sensible Soccer, The Secret Of Monkey Island and Shadow Of The Beast, would go on to be considered classics. For Shadow Of The Beast creator Martin Edmondson, as with others who had a background programming 8-bit machines in their bedrooms, the Amiga represented “an incredible leap forward”, he tells us. “The obvious changes were vastly more memory, higher resolution, far greater colour bit-depth, general programmability and flexibility, and most importantly perhaps, heaps of custom arcade-style hardware.” One example Martin gives is the ability to have multiple…

CAN YOU RECALL YOUR FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH THE AMIGA? I I got my A500 in 1990 – a Batman Pack, so there were a lot of good games out for it already. Having seen [DMA founder] Dave Jones toy with it for a while beforehand, I had a fairly good idea what it was able to do. I actually started on the Atari ST first which let me mess around with 68000. So when I finally got an Amiga, I was able to jump right in. The Amiga hardware was great fun, incredibly flexible, and the Copper was amazing. After coding on the ST, the Amiga had a lot more toys to play with and I loved tinkering with it. LEMMINGS WAS A HUGE DEAL FOR THE AMIGA. WHAT ARE…

When Commodore went bankrupt in 1994, the sad decline of the Amiga seemed to have arrived. Game releases gradually fizzled out. Hardware production halted, and one by one, the magazines that had kept keen Amiga gamers informed shuttered their offices. And so it was that, for many years, the Amiga seemed to have become a thing of the past. But in reality, many enthusiasts never stopped using and modifying their machines. In recent years it’s become more and more visible that the platform is alive and kicking, thanks to a passionate community of gaming fans, hardcore hardware tinkerers, software developers, podcasters and content creators who hold the Amiga close to their heart. A superb example of this community in action is Roguecraft, a modern Amiga game by Norwegian indie developers Badger…

Magnetic Field’s Lotus series drove right to the heart of gamers and it’s easy to see why. Boasting smooth-scrolling, pseudo-3D road effects, speedy gameplay and adrenaline-fuelled, split-screen, two-player action, the three entries (Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 and Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge) published by Gremlin Graphics, pushed the abilities of the machines on which they appeared. The games also sounded great! Lotus’ audio is seen as one of the main draws of the trilogy and while Shaun Southern and Andrew Morris did a superb job composing the tunes for the first game – creating audio that could be chosen via an ‘in-car’ radio interface – the work of Barry Leitch on the second simply blew listeners away. The Scottish composer had begun composing music for videogames in 1986,…

THIS MONTH IN NOVEMBER 1998 The month of November was a good time to be a PlayStation owner. Its growing library was packed with strong titles, and Official UK PlayStation Magazine was usually the first to present them to its 300,000 readers. But change was on the horizon. With the Dreamcast out in Japan and the magazine downplaying rumours of an imminent PS2 launch, a new era would soon be here. Developers had mastered the PlayStation though, as this month’s disc shows. There are big demos of Tomb Raider III and Spyro, forgotten gems like Colony Wars and Future Cop, and even an early homebrew console game. THE MAIN EVENT: TOMB RAIDER III After two hit games, Tomb Raider was a phenomenon by 1998 and the third entry was hotly…

NINTENDO 64 ■ As the lead version, it offers smooth graphics and textures, nice environments as well as interesting gameplay and varied level design. Controls are sometimes erratic during sliding or rocket-riding moments, adding to the sometimes high difficulty of these sequences. PC ■ This version offers the same game and level designs as the Nintendo 64 lead version, adding enhanced graphics and sound, as well as a better framerate. The GOG version is playable on modern PCs, but it is not possible to experience it with a controller without some digging. DREAMCAST ■ Possibly the most enjoyable and definitive version on home devices. Keeping the gorgeous PC version’s graphics and sound enhancements, it offers a few new minigames to experience, more opponents and a widescreen option for the first…

» SATURN » 1997 » SEGA AM1/SCARAB Taking Wolf Hawkfield and Jeffry McWild and pitting them against legendary grapplers like Kenta Kobashi, Toshiaki Kawada and the late Mitsuharu Misawa might fall just a tad short of the wide appeal of something like Avengers: Endgame, but it’s the sort of crossover that appeals directly to my interests as a big fan of both Virtua Fighter and pro wrestling. However, even if you can’t tell = from John Cena, this is a wrestling game that’s worthy of your attention. The major reason for that is that the game respects the promotion’s dramatic King’s Road style of in-ring storytelling, with a game design that incorporates both the sport and entertainment aspects of pro wrestling. It’s no good finding one effective move and repeating…

■ While Drakan: Order Of The Flame wasn’t a mega-hit, it was successful enough to warrant a sequel – which was released exclusively on the PlayStation 2. According to Alan, the reason for this was as follows, “Psygnosis was owned by Sony Europe and was run fairly autonomously at the time. They were free to kind of do what they wanted, so launching on PC wasn’t a big deal. But by the time Drakan finished up, Sony was getting more involved in what Psygnosis was doing and they wanted to focus on Playstation exclusives. The PS2 was on the horizon and Sony was very interested in us building a Drakan game exclusively for that system. We felt like this was a great opportunity to launch on this next-gen console.” The…

» GAME BOY ADVANCE » 2003 » CAPCOM With Capcom’s Onimusha series back in the public eye, it feels like the perfect time to revisit this lesser-known spin-off. While the publisher seems to be slowly remastering its way through the original PlayStation 2 releases, it’s highly unlikely we’ll see any sort of remaster of Onimusha Tactics (although a digital release via the Nintendo Switch Online service doesn’t seem out of the question). If you’ve never played it before, it’s a tactical RPG that looks very similar to Square Enix’s Final Fantasy Tactics Advance series. It’s a far simpler take on the genre though and is perhaps best thought of as a My First Tactical RPG. That’s not to say it’s bad of course, but those coming to it after Square’s…

» System: Switch (version tested), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X » Buy it for: £19.99+ » Buy it from: Online, strictlylimitedgames.com This collection brings Irem’s shoot-’em-up heritage to the fore, featuring the arcade games Dragon Breed and Mystic Riders, plus Mr Heli (or Battle Chopper) for arcade and PC Engine. There’s no quibbling with the quality of the games included, and they feel varied despite belonging to the same genre. In-game features are good too, with quick saves, rewinds, cheats and online rankings, as well as a choice of Japanese or English language releases. However, at this price we’d expect some extras like artwork to sweeten the deal, and you don’t really get any. Genre enthusiasts will have fun, but those less sure should wait for a price drop. >> Score 74%…

<Atari STE: Matt Lacey converted Rob Caporetto’s ZX Next game Invasion Of The Emerald Saucers (the latter is available via the same link). Name your price and grab it from bit.ly/emerald-ste / > <C64: Tyrian’s Towers is ICON64’s take on the isometric arcade game Crystal Castles, with tape and cartridge versions also on sale from Psytronik. Grab it at bit.ly/tyrian-c64 / > <Game Boy: Castle Of Terror is the latest title from PCNONO Games and can be found at bit.ly/castleofterror-gb – with the physical cartridge to preorder at pcnono.es/ / > <Jaguar: Ricco59 converted the Atari ST shmup Space Zot (see RG240’s preview). Get blasting by visiting bit.ly/zot-jaguar / > <PC: Space-Time Games released its remake of the Spectrum classic Batty, with 15 levels from the Spectrum game and 64 recreated C64…

<BODY> Max became a Game Boy fan in high school. “I also got into making pixel art. I started making texture ROM hacks for Super Mario Land and Link’s Awakening. Then, I discovered GB Studio. Candy Quest is being made with the latest version, and Aseprite for the background and sprite work.” The player controls the Pumpkids, collecting candies for the Pumpking. “Candy Quest was originally going to be an Animal Crossing themed platformer,” says Max. “The Pumpkids are inspired by the pumpkin masks you could obtain in Animal Crossing: New Leaf.” Max hopes eventually to produce a physical cartridge. “The game still has a decent chunk of content left to be worked on – the entire fourth world, which is what I’m currently tackling, a shorter fifth world, story-centred content…

At the age of seven, Mark Smith was about to embark on a journey that would create lasting friendships. “In 1992, my parents took me to the local toy store to get me a Master System II and a copy of Sonic The Hedgehog,” he tells us. “That was it for me, I was videogame crazy after that. Every kid on the street ended up getting a Master System as well, so we would be forever at each other’s houses to hang out and borrow or swap games.” Sometime later, Mark discovered a new console to indulge in. “When my lifelong friend Charlie got the SNES a few years later, that was the game-changer,” Mark remembers. “We would spend countless hours playing F-Zero, Starwing, Super Mario World and whatever weekly…

VINTAGE VISUALS Dear Retro Gamer, For a while, we associated ‘vintage graphics’ with pixel art, but early 3D aesthetics are making a comeback, with N64 and PlayStation graphics and their quirks particularly in fashion at the moment. What we consider retro is simply a side-effect of a given system’s limitations. Just recently, I was playing King Kong on my PS2 (thanks to your excellent article), and again, the style influenced by the system’s specs and the era’s zeitgeist took me back to simpler times. So, retro is not Eighties, retro is ‘about 20 years ago’, which means that one day, PS5 graphics will seem retro too. How? It’s difficult to say, as you never can tell at the time, but my non-gaming wife recently made a comment about the characters…

A major winter storm hit the UK and Ireland on 1 February, causing major damage and disruption, as well as four fatalities. All London bus services were cancelled on 2 February, over 4,500 schools were closed on 3 February, and both Heathrow and Dublin airports closed completely at points during the week that followed the initial snowfall. On 7 February, a series of bushfires ignited across the Australian state of Victoria following a heatwave, during which temperatures in Melbourne exceeded 43°C. The day became known as Black Saturday as 173 people died as a result of the fires, which continued burning into March. It remains the deadliest bushfire incident in Australian history. The 81st Academy Awards took place on 22 February. Slumdog Millionaire won the most Oscars, taking eight awards…

In a back room at the 1984 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, an early prototype of an Amiga was unveiled for the first time – and jaws duly dropped. It was “the most amazing graphics and sound machine that will ever have been offered to the consumer market”, swooned Creative Computing journalist John Anderson a few months after the event. “Just what kind of technical foundation does Amiga have?” his glowing news report continued. “Well the VLSI chipset was designed by Jay Miner, the man who designed the super chipset of the original Atari machines.” Indeed, Jay Miner had strong form by this point. The talented hardware engineer had left Atari with an auteur reputation, and an ambition to create a powerful computer using the new Motorola 68000 microprocessor. Among…

BATMAN PACK ■ Tim Burton’s Batman film was everywhere in 1989. What better way to sell tonnes of Amiga 500s than to ride that wave? The Batman Pack contained Ocean’s excellent Batman, plus The NewZealand Story, flight simulator F/A-18 Interceptor and Deluxe Paint II. SCREEN GEMS ■ Continuing with the silver-screen theme, this pack brought together Back To The Future II, Night Breed and Days Of Thunder. Deluxe Paint II made a return, while Shadow Of The Beast II had nothing to do with Hollywood but fitted with the theme by being visually striking. CARTOON CLASSICS ■ This was another savvy combination orchestrated by Commodore UK managing director David Pleasance. It combined the Amiga 500+ with TV tie-ins The Simpsons: Bart Vs The Space Mutants and Captain Planet, plus Lemmings…

THE A500 MINI ■ While many still enjoy using original Amiga hardware, The A500 Mini by Retro Games Ltd is an excellent plug-and-play option. It emulates both the original A500 and the AGA technology of later models. There are 25 games included and more can be added. AMIGA ADDICT ■ A community-driven magazine with carefully curated content, Amiga Addict carries the torch for the old guard of Amiga magazines with its fun, upbeat vibe. Covering both technical hardware deep-dives and new and old Amiga games, it’s well worthy of your time and support. ZZAPI AMIGA ■ The classic Zzap!64 magazine first started covering Amiga games in 1988, and these days there’s the dedicated Zzap! Amiga to meet your needs. Released every two months, it has the brilliantly vibrant cover art…

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» AMSTRAD CPC » 1989 » CONSULT SOFTWARE I was recently lucky enough to play System 3’s incoming The Last Ninja collection. As I was battling cops in New York and taking on multiple fighters in IK+, I suddenly realised that I’d love to play Tusker again. Sadly, the Amstrad version by Consult Software borrows heavily from the ZX Spectrum version of the game, rather than the C64 original and as a result it looks rather disappointing. While admittedly well detailed with some surprisingly robust animation, the game is effectively displayed in just two colours, yellow and black, and as a result isn’t the prettiest looking of Amstrad games. It’s challenging too and when you’re not being beaten down by Tusker’s many varied enemies, you’re struggling with the inventory system and…

■ The soundtrack for the third Lotus game was composed by Patrick Phelan but Barry Leitch’s talents were put to good use on Gremlin Graphics’ Top Gear – a game that, bizarrely enough, became a cult favourite in Brazil. For this racer, released for the SNES in 1992, Barry remixed tracks from the Lotus series, using the Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 ending for Top Gear’s title tune. “I liked the idea of carrying on from where I left off with the last racing game,” he says. Barry also arranged the songs Hiroshima, Bordeaux and Frankfurt from songs created by Shaun Southern for Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge. “But I’d argue Top Gear’s Las Vegas piece is the most iconic,” he admits. “It was created from the ingredients I had on hand:…

■ A 2D version of Rayman 2 was planned to be released about a year after the first iteration. Sources like Michaël Guarné’s book about the history of Rayman or GameFan issue 11 (vol 7) confirm with interviews that when Ubisoft teams presented a prototype at E3 in 1996, discovering Crash Bandicoot on the showfloor, they were strongly impressed by its 3D gameplay and the technical performance behind it. 3D started to become widely used and to conquer the audience massively. The choice was made to abandon the 2D project and launch a new one in 3D. The prototype offered two layers of level design: one in front, as you can find in the first Rayman game, and one in the background, where you could teleport. It is possible to…

CLAIR OBSCUR: EXPEDITION 33 THE BACKGROUND It would be fair to say that no one expected a game like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to turn up in Xbox’s Summer Showcase in 2024, or any other showcase. This year already had several other big-name JRPGs on the calendar, such as Metaphor: ReFantazio and Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, which proudly follow the genre’s traditions of turn-based commands. More divisive was the previous year when Final Fantasy XVI pivoted to full-blown action with perfect dodges and larger-than-life boss battles that feel more like a PlatinumGames joint. This is not however a traditional JRPG, or at least not one originating from Japan. Rather it’s the work of a new studio based in Montpellier, France, founded by a former Ubisoft employee and a core…

■ Tony has spent most of his career working with Revolution head Charles Cecil, although the pair couldn’t be more different, with Tony’s quiet, methodical manner juxtaposed against Charles’ fanciful, gregarious nature. But they complement each other. Every dreamer needs someone practical who can make those dreams a reality. “I basically implemented Charles’ games, and made sense of what was coming out of the design process,” says Tony. “He’s always been quite good to work for in a slightly chaotic sort of way: you never quite know what’s going to happen next. You can never see too far into the future with Charles. I call it the fog. It’s not like there was ever a spec, so I wrote very flexible engines that could anticipate crazy stuff coming, when the…

Nintendo’s first new game since the release of the Switch 2 is an absolute belter and proves that when it comes to platforming, it really is in a league of its own. Donkey Kong Bananza is quite simply fantastic, bursting with ideas, creativity and, most importantly of all, fun. But then, we’d expect nothing less from the team behind Super Mario Odyssey. Structurally, Donkey Kong Bananza is similar to Nintendo EPD’s earlier game in that there’s a strong focus on exploring sandbox levels, while battling enemies, completing numerous challenges and meeting each area’s charming residents, known as Fractones. The big difference here though is the focus on Bananza’s destructive environments, which not only neatly highlight Donkey Kong’s sheer strength, but also allows the player to remould levels in exciting new ways.…

» System: PC (version tested), PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X » Buy it for: £8.50 » Buy it from: Online The latest expansion pack from Zen Studios offers two tables based on the exploits of Lara Croft. We had a huge amount of fun with Secrets Of Croft Manor due to its numerous ramps, clever missions and its overall table structure. Adventures Of Lara Croft (pictured) is a far tougher proposition thanks to its large open table space, lack of ramps and challenging missions that will require a lot of precision to hit. As with other games in the Pinball FX range there are additional challenges to complete in separate game modes, items to unlock and place in your virtual Pinroom and authentic feeling ball physics. It’s…

<INTRO> TURNING YOUR GAME INTO A PHYSICAL PRODUCT CAN BE DIFFICULT. THAT’S WHERE THE HOMEBREW FACTORY COULD HELP, AS OUR MAIN FEATURE DESCRIBES. THERE ARE GREAT CONVERSIONS BETWEEN FORMATS AND AN INTERESTING HANDHELD RELEASE IN THE REVIEWS. JAGUAR FANS WILL BE ENJOYING A CLASSIC ARCADE FIGHTING GAME SOON, COURTESY OF OUR CHAMPION CODER, AND THERE’S A CANDY QUEST IMMINENT FOR GAME BOY COLOR. WHETHER YOU BUY PHYSICALLY OR DIGITALLY, CHECK OUT THESE GREAT GAMES SOON. </INTRO> <BODY> Antoine Gohin launched Broke Studio with his NES game Twin Dragons in 2017. “I did all the code, the PCB design and pretty much everything else regarding manufacturing,” Antoine tells us. “Having the production line in place to manufacture NES games, I thought that it would be interesting to offer my services to…

THE COVER STAR AMIGA 500 Commodore’s classic computer isn’t a hard item to find for sale. However, prices vary wildly depending on condition. Loose used units can be as little as £100, with mint boxed ones going for as much as £200. Those wanting the matching monitor could be looking at paying several hundred more pounds on top, so keep that in mind. AUF WIEDERSEHEN MONTY This timeless Speccy title can be purchased for under £10 if condition isn’t an issue. You’ll pay up to £30 if you want it in good condition. TIGER-HELI Those looking for a loose NES cart of Toaplan’s scrolling shooter can spend as little as £12. Even nice condition boxed copies can be had for under £40 if you’re patient. TUSKER The Amstrad version is…

MAGAZINE MEMORIES Hi there, I just wanted to drop a quick message to say how much I’ve been enjoying the mag – I’ve been reading/collecting them since issue 7. Your new features that look at other retro games magazines (Magazine Craft and Covermount Corner) are a fantastic new addition and I hope become a regular part of Retro Gamer. To me personally, magazines are a huge part of my interest in retro gaming. I have fond memories of reading my dad’s copies of Crash and Sinclair User, and chatting about what games we might get next. Thanks for keeping me entertained, Rob Blanks Many thanks Rob, glad to hear you’re enjoying the new features. You’re one of many readers that have told us that they like the addition of Magazine…

TOP HUNTER: RODDY & CATHY » You might think that Roddy and Cathy would be Top Hunters, being that there’s two of them, but they just don’t get the credit any good double act deserves. They weren’t originally going to take on the space pirates, but Rod, Jane and Freddy turned the job down after they learned about the lack of pluralisation. Erm, where were we? Oh yes, the ending… » The head of the space pirates has been defeated, and it turns out he was bald the whole time, just like in Scooby-Doo. Anyway, Roddy and Cathy know that the time to exit has arrived. » The bounty hunter duo book it in their spaceship, not wanting to wait for the explosion that the baddies are inevitably going to have…