Indholdsfortegnelse for No. 278 i Retro Gamer

On 18 September, retro-gaming YouTuber Billy Hudson passed away following a battle with cancer. Billy was known for co-hosting The Game Chasers with Jay Hatfield, a show in which they toured around the USA seeking retro-gaming treasures at flea markets, garage sales and other locations. The pair also had a spin-off show, The Toy Chasers, which used the same format for vintage toys. In his post announcing the sad news, Jay told fans, “Billy loves each and every one of you and appreciates the love and support you’ve given him.” Billy was a well-liked figure in the YouTube retro-gaming community, with fellow creators paying tribute on Twitter. Metal Jesus Rocks said, “Early in my YouTube career Billy helped me a lot behind the scenes with making videos, editing and other…

■ “The way that Stop ‘N’ Swop came about was that Paul Machacek, who worked on Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie, noticed that when you turned the power supply to the N64 off and on quickly the contents of the RAM were preserved. So the things you had written to the memory were still there. He thought that since that was the case, if he switched off the N64, took out one game, put in another game and switched it back on – and then instead of clearing the memory, if he checked the same location in RAM, then he could find information from the previous game. So he devised a technique where there was this particular place in memory where he could write information from Banjo-Kazooie detailing the things you had…

REFUSE COLLECTOR AS SEEN IN TRASHMAN ■ This genius offering from Malcolm Evans tasks you with keeping the streets of Bath clean by dumping a set number of bins into a slowly moving dustcart. It’s far from an easy job though as you have to contend with dangerous vehicles, angry dogs and a tight time limit. At least you don’t have to worry about developing a bad back. BARTENDER AS SEEN IN TAPPER ■ Bally Midway’s arcade game doesn’t require you to create cocktails or flip and spin shakers but you’ll still need plenty of dexterity to please the game’s many thirsty patrons. Orders come thick and fast and you not only have to pour drinks for customers but also collect their emptied glasses. Thank goodness they leave you tips.…

ZX SPECTRUM ■ Introducing a health bar, a host of diamonds to collect, a new character in Dizzy’s sister Dora and, of course, a whole new set of puzzles to solve, Magicland Dizzy proved to be another hit for Codemasters. This version had colour clash and an annoying tune but was otherwise fluid and fun. AMSTRAD CPC ■ Magicland Dizzy on the CPC was almost identical to the Spectrum version. It looked and sounded pretty much the same (regardless of the different choice of palette) and it even shared the odd development error of having the Eat-me Cake hovering above the water on the Drawbridge screen. C64 ■ Coded by Neal Gray, this version used graphics from the Spectrum game but the overall look was more impressive thanks to the…

ZX SPECTRUM ■ With its stark monochrome graphics, which for once perfectly suit the gameplay, The Great Escape is one of the computer’s finest arcade adventures. Slick, smooth and supremely atmospheric, it proved that even by 1986, there was still life in the isometric projection style of gaming. C64 ■ While its gameplay is intact, this version is a missed opportunity. Critically, sound is absent, and the display appears to have been ported directly from the Spectrum, with the C64 struggling to move and scroll at any decent pace. With more effort, this could’ve been a fantastic wartime experience, and even the flag’s gone, replaced with a simple counter. AMSTRAD CPC ■ Sadly, another by-the-numbers Amstrad port from a Spectrum original. Presentation is mildly updated with a dash more colour,…

INTO THE EAGLE’S NEST ■ Or rather, Gauntlet in World War II. Capitalising on the popularity of the Atari coin-op (and its US Gold home conversion), this top-down arcade shooter places the player inside a German schloss. Your mission: rescue three fellow saboteurs, steal back antiquities and blow the place sky high. SPITFIRE 40 ■ Mirrorsoft plunged Spectrum owners into the heat of the Battle Of Britain in 1985, taking to the skies to eliminate the Luftwaffe menace. Starting as a raw cadet on a training mission, you’re soon flying wing-to-wing against the Germans – can you survive long enough to make group captain? THE TRAIN: ESCAPE TO NORMANDY ■ This conversion of the Commodore 64 original puts the player in the shoes of a French Resistance fighter, determined to…

DON’T SPRAY AND PRAY ■ It’s tempting at times, especially when the screen is swarming with enemies, but avoid holding down the trigger like a crazed John Rambo. Conserve your ammo by taking out enemies in controlled bursts – prioritising those in the foreground and working back. CONSERVE YOUR ROCKETS ■ Bullets are limited, rockets even more so. You begin the game with just five, so you must use them wisely. Save them for helicopters, which are bullet sponges, taking ten hits to destroy. Ideally, try and get two (or even three) helicopters lined up for maximum return. SHOOT THOSE LOVELY COCONUTS ■ You can find ammo hidden behind crates, but most bonus items are more creatively hidden. For example, in the Jungle stage, shoot the coconuts to earn more…

» PC » 1990 » ORIGIN SYSTEMS I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this issue about my love of Star Wars, so it makes sense to mention Wing Commander as well. On its release in 1990, Chris Roberts’ ambitious sci-fi space opera was the closest I could get to reliving the epic space battles of George Lucas’ iconic trilogy. X-Wing hadn’t even been conceived, and the Star Wars arcade game, while still fun, wasn’t exactly new by this point, so Wing Commander felt revolutionary at the start of the Nineties. Rightly acclaimed on release for its striking visuals, rich story and comprehensive game world, Wing Commander felt like no other space game I’d played and easily scratched an itch for Star Wars-styled space fighting. Although it’s a simulator, Wing Commander is more focussed…

THIS MONTH IN MARCH 1998 The PlayStation was riding high in 1998. Its success had pushed gaming into the mainstream and gamers basked in a new sense of cultural relevance. PlayStations were now found at nightclubs, as well as bedrooms and living rooms. Talk of the next PlayStation had started, and a new Sega contender was expected, but neither had been officially announced. For now, the games continued to get better, with developers pushing the system ever further. The month’s big demo was Resident Evil 2, accompanied by Dynasty Warriors, Rascal and Gex. Terra Incognita also impressed. THE MAIN EVENT: RESIDENT EVIL 2 DEMO Resident Evil 2 was eagerly anticipated and this timed demo didn’t disappoint. Hideki Kamiya took over from Shinji Mikami in the director’s chair and delivered an…

“I’D BEEN WORKING IN INDIE FILM AND WRITING MUSIC FOR MYSELF FOR YEARS AND I WAS REALLY EXCITED TO DO THE GAME. LIKE, FALLING ALL OVER MYSELF EXCITED!”JEFF TYMOSCHUK The dawn of the new millennium ushered in the sixth generation of videogame consoles – and with it, the peak era of James Bond interactive titles. The crop of Bond games released across the early Noughties represented bespoke adventures, separate from the film series, with unique storylines and locations which Bond himself had yet to visit. Among the most-beloved titles of this period is Nightfire, offering a blockbuster mashup of the franchise’s greatest hits, with plot inspirations taking root in everything from Moonraker to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. For the game’s action-packed score, composer Jeff Tymoschuk took a similarly reflective…

TRANSLATION ASSISTANCE FROM KYOKO YAMASHITA From his very first experience with videogames, playing the black-and-white Pong at a friend’s house, Tetsuya Mizuguchi has always believed in the power of games to bring joy in ways unmatched by other media. “The gaming industry was just beginning,” Mizuguchi tells us. He’s speaking with us via video call from somewhere in Japan. While it’s afternoon for him, our local time is fast approaching midnight yet we’re happily sacrificing sleep to speak with the legendary games creator. “I studied media aesthetics,” he says, “and I could foresee a future in which 3D technology will come, and real-time computer graphics, and maybe even a virtual reality type of technology, and I thought videogames might be an amazing new form, a new media, a very experiential…

LUMINES II ■ Lumines’ sequel released on the PSP in 2006. The game added a Mission mode, Skin Editor and introduced dynamic music videos as backgrounds from such American musicians as Missy Elliott and Beck. Mizuguchi’s own virtual band, Genki Rockets, contributed their well-loved song, Heavenly Star. LUMINES: ELECTRONIC SYMPHONY ■ Released in 2012 on the PS Vita, Electronic Symphony has been called by some journalists “the best in the series”. It added new game modes, character avatars with special abilities, new types of puzzle blocks and optional touch controls. All this, plus an always killer soundtrack. LUMINES REMASTERED ■ This 2018 release importantly included Nakamura’s original high-bitrate music, which had previously been down-sampled for the original PSP version. Mizuguchi and his team also added a feature in which up…

» System: PC (version tested), PS5, Switch » Buy it for: £34.99 » Buy it from: Online, retail (PS5 and Switch only) This classic golf series has been away from the course for a while, but it’s back with a new developer, Hyde. Everybody’s Golf has always been a more casual, accessible take on the sport and this entry is no different – getting into the game is intuitive and the anime-style characters are appealing. That’s good, because you’ll be following their stories in the World Tour mode, which is but a part of the wealth of content for solo players, while the power-up enhanced Wacky Golf is great with friends. Unfortunately, noticeable performance stutters and unhelpful camera angles do put a dampener on what is otherwise a strong return effort.…

<BODY> The Halls Of Talamh Domhain looks incredible, with multiple influences, as Grayson tells us. “The Wizardry series, Swords And Serpents, Silent Debuggers, and Shin Megami Tensei – all inspired exploration, combat, and vendors,” we’re told. “The Diablo series inspired looting and crafting. Additionally, the design work of Alan Lee, Wētā, Four Horsemen Studios, and D&D have all been great visual references.” Grayson is really pleased with how everything is progressing, telling us, “Thanks to creative use of the MMC3 mapper, we’re carefully programming everything in 6502 assembly to get the absolute most out of the hardware. The monsters and NPCs are the work of a very talented artist.” The user interface is well designed and important, too. “One guiding principle is to minimise the use of text and menu…

While our latest curator is a collector of games, Shawn Reed also has a specific focus on one series in particular: the games of Team Ico. As you can imagine, his quest began with the release of Ico. “I started collecting Team Ico memorabilia right from the jump in late 2001,” Shawn tells us. “I had read reviews of the game in magazines like Game Informer and EGM which is what initially put the game on my radar. And the positive reviews were spot-on. It’s awesome.” Obviously in terms of games themselves, there are only a handful of titles, so what is it about their design that makes them so compelling? “With Fumito Ueda’s games, it’s really the whole package,” Shawn says, “beautiful music, atmospheric and strange locales, and the…

Real-time strategy isn’t the genre you’d necessarily associate most closely with the Wii, but the Pikmin-alike Little King’s Story delighted reviewers this month. Official Nintendo Magazine gave the game 92%, saying, “From its simple, approachable beginnings, Little King’s Story builds and builds, adding ever more complex elements. It’s perfectly paced – you’re always on the verge of feeling overwhelmed by everything that’s going on but just as you’re about to panic, a new element is introduced that pulls everything together.” Similarly impressed, games™ gave it 8/10 and called it “an achingly cute real-time strategy game that’s as well made and as funny as Pikmin”. Edge gave it 9/10, saying that it was “as rich as it is long, and it’s a very lengthy game indeed”. With NGamer’s 92% exclusive review last month,…

» ATARI 2600 » 1982 » IMAGIC As much as I liked Missile Command in the arcades, its trackball-based controls weren’t really suited to home systems. While there’s no denying that Rob Fulop’s take on the popular arcade game worked surprisingly well on the Atari 2600, its lack of pace was something that really bothered me. There’s no such problems with Atlantis, as Dennis Koble’s fast-paced game is zippy, frantic and exhilarating to play, and because it’s built with the Atari 2600 in mind, it has a delightful straightforward control system that adds to its accessibility. Whereas Missile Command on Atari’s console utilises a slow-moving cursor, which directs the groundfire of your bases, Atlantis simply assigns control directly to your three ground-based guns. So a simple press of the fire…

■ “The only restriction we had was that in an ideal world the story for Grunty’s Revenge had to tie into the N64 games but not affect them in any way, which was why it was set in between the first game and the second one. That was why Grunty was freed from the rock in Grunty’s Revenge but ends up back under it. It was so that it didn’t really change any of the canon. That was one of the main stipulations. I don’t know if that came from Rare or from our team, but we wanted to tie Grunty’s Revenge into the N64 games as much as possible. We didn’t want it to feel like some random side project. We wanted people who played it to realise that…

WHY DID PLAYTONIC MAKE A SPIRITUAL SUCCESSOR TO BANJO-KAZOOIE? There was still a lot of interest online about Banjo-Kazooie. People felt that they needed a new Banjo game that was in the style of the first two games. Obviously there was Nuts & Bolts, but for a lot of people that wasn’t the game that they were hoping it would be. So Yooka-Laylee was really to satisfy them. We also had many of the people who had worked on the first two Banjo games at Playtonic. WHY WAS YOOKA-LAYLEE AND THE IMPOSSIBLE LAIR 2D? In the first game we originally had ideas of having 2D sections similar to what you saw in Impossible Lair. So then we thought why didn’t we tackle that side of things and make something that was just…

The fourth iteration of Dizzy was, by and large, the same as the previous three. But Codemasters’ popular series of graphic adventures, which spawned many an ‘egg-cellent’ pun in the computing press, was also a tad different. Those first three games – Dizzy: The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure, Treasure Island Dizzy and Fantasy World Dizzy – had been written by Philip and Andrew Oliver, aka the Oliver twins. But since the brothers were looking to crack the fast-growing console market with the NES-lead adventure/platformer, Fantastic Dizzy, they had no choice but to pass on the design baton to someone else. “Fantastic Dizzy was a huge undertaking and it consumed most of our time,” Philip says. “The 8-bit Spectrum and Amstrad markets were clearly fading by 1990, with players moving to the…

» COMMODORE 64 » 1989 » HEWSON It’s fair to say that I was completely ignorant about the Commodore 64 when I received it as a hand-me down from my cousins. Their favourite magazine, Commodore Format, was still soldiering on but I wasn’t aware of that at the time, since our newsagent didn’t stock it. I didn’t even get any of their old magazines, just lots of the covertapes, so I largely decided what to play based on how much the title appealed to me. Mission Impossibubble scored pretty highly there, just because it sounds like a title my mum would come up with – she’s the kind of person who says “bubble bubble wibble wobble water” when she can’t remember what a hot tub is called. Fortunately, this highly…

■ Available alongside Operation Night Strikers is the CS Pack. The paid DLC features various home conversions of the four main games, including the NES/Famicom and Master System versions of Operation Wolf. The two versions are quite similar, although the Sega game is more polished, and is probably the best of all the 8-bit ports that were released. Also included is the 1994 SNES version of Operation Thunderbolt, which was originally only released in the United States and adds a choice of six playable characters, plus a non-linear mission structure. The 1992 Master System version of Space Gun and the 1993 Mega-CD version of Night Striker round out the package. As you’d expect from M2, the standard of emulation is excellent. It’s a shame there are no home-computer conversions included,…

Back in the early Nineties, the point-and-click adventure genre was dominated by giant American companies like Sierra and Lucasarts, but over in the UK, a handful of tiny studios were giving their all to compete with the big boys. One such developer was the family run Adventure Soft, led by Mike Woodroffe and his son Simon, out of Sutton Coldfield. The pair created a number of ambitious adventures over the years but their biggest hit by far was Simon The Sorcerer, a Monkey Island-like game starring a sarcastic teenager, magically transported to a comedic fairytale world by the wizard Calypso in the hope of defeating the evil Sordid. The first game released in 1993 for Amiga and PC, and was instantly likeable thanks to its stunning pixel-art visuals and hand-painted…

■ Simon hasn’t just appeared in adventure games. In 1998, during the long gap between Simon 2 and Simon 3D, Adventure Soft published two spin-off titles exclusively for PC. Simon The Sorcerer’s Pinball is exactly what you’d expect, a digital pinball table featuring designs and sounds from the series. It’s not bad but it’s not great either; just one single table with fairly unremarkable design. Then there’s Simon The Sorcerer’s Puzzle Pack, a compilation of desktop distractions, including a series of solitaire card games, a sliding block puzzle and a virtual pet. The star attraction of the compilation is Swampy Adventures, which promises an adventure focussed on the Swampling rescuing his children from Sordid but is, in reality, a rather tedious Sokoban-style puzzle game. Both titles were eventually bundled in…

GEX 3D DEMO ■ Gex is a technically impressive platformer with varied levels and a charismatic main character. You’re a gecko and are exploring a haunted mansion in the game’s Smellraiser level. There’s a good variety of obstacles and enemies and you have a deadly tail and tongue to help defeat them with, though your worst enemy is the camera. Gex’s quips, voiced by the late Leslie Phillips in the UK version, are sadly absent from the demo, but his personality shines through in the expressive animation. TERRA INCOGNITA ■ This is an impressive Net Yaroze homebrew game by Japanese developers Team Fatal, whose programmer Mitsuru Kamiyama would go on to join Square Enix and work on the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and Dragon Quest series. Set on a mysterious…

■ Fans of the game have long searched for a supposedly genuine, limited-edition pressing of the game’s soundtrack. The truth is that it was just a sneaky Christmas gift made by the composer himself. Shortly after the game’s initial console release, composer Jeff Tymoschuk unofficially made a series of albums as Christmas gifts for his family. “I burned all the CDs myself,” Jeff recalls, “with all of the stuff I’d done on the game, and I sent it out to my family and people I knew. It was just to go, ‘Hey, this is the thing I got to work on this year.’” With the latest Bond film in cinemas at the time, interest in the franchise was at its height, and one of Jeff’s gift albums went beyond their…

UNCHARTED: DRAKE’S FORTUNE PLAYSTATION 3, 2007 ■ Naughty Dog’s debut PS3 adventure married breezy platforming with cinematic gunfights. The cover system allowed Drake to pop up with quips as easily as bullets, ensuring firefights felt like a movie scene rather than a clunky shoot-out. GEARS OF WAR XBOX 360, PC, 2006 ■ Epic Games didn’t just borrow cover – it built an entire franchise around it. Gears transformed crouching behind waist-high walls into an art form, with weighty controls and gory executions cementing cover shooting as Xbox 360’s flagship style of combat. TOM CLANCY’S RAINBOW SIX: VEGAS XBOX 360, VARIOUS, 2006 ■ Ubisoft redefined tactical gunplay with a slick cover mechanic that blended seamlessly with first-person and third-person perspectives. Vegas encouraged slow, methodical advances, making each firefight feel dangerous and…

■ When we asked Mizuguchi what it feels like to go back and revisit his classic games, in some cases more than 20 years after he first dreamed them up, his answer was characteristically more philosophical than technical. “There’s a reason we’ve decided to bring Lumines back, and it’s all about making a new experience. It was the same with Rez and Rez Infinite,” he says. “We wanted to revisit Rez and bring a whole new experience. For us, experience is king and synesthesia is queen. But above that is a word we use in Japanese called Kando, which means ‘emotions’ or how we share a moving experience. Of course we want our games to be fun, and we love to create new experiences. But to us, these things are…

» PLAYSTATION 2 » 2007 » EA UK Though Burnout’s particular style of combat racing always packs a punch, there are a lot of people who don’t particularly love Burnout Dominator, and I can understand why. Dropping the popular Crash mode was always going to upset fans, and the linear structure of the challenges did feel like a bit of a step back from previous games. Despite all that, I really enjoy some of the other changes EA UK made for the game. I felt like the Traffic Checking mechanic from Burnout Revenge made driving in the right lane too safe, so I’m happy that it doesn’t feature in Dominator, and I love that the developers reintroduced chaining Burnouts because it encourages you to take some huge risks. While I…

The classic match 3 RPG battler is back in a definitive form and it remains just as hellishly compelling as before. In terms of extras it features 4K visuals (on supported systems), all of the game’s expansion packs, a brand-new character class, extra quests and over 40 brand-new items. It retains the same classic gameplay, so you explore an overworld meeting NPCs, gaining quests and growing your citadel, while combat takes the form of match 3 battles. The AI feels a little unfair at times and the user interface can be a little fiddly to navigate, but there’s no denying it remains as more-ish as ever. >> SCORE 81%…

THE COVER STAR BANJO-KAZOOIE (NINTENDO 64) If you want to enjoy Banjo and Kazooie’s original adventure you’ll be shelling out £40 for a boxed PAL copy. US versions are far pricier, typically hitting £80. MAGICLAND DIZZY (AMSTRAD CPC) You don’t need magic mastery to conjure up this game, as copies are plentiful and rarely top £5. You’ll need more powerful magic to find the Dizzy Collection for under £50 though. OPERATION WOLF (MASTER SYSTEM) Grab a Light Phaser and track down this excellent conversion while it’s still cheap. You shouldn’t have to pay more than £15 for a complete copy. THE GREAT ESCAPE (ZX SPECTRUM) You won’t have to dig deep into your wallet for this Ocean gem, both big box and Hit Squad variants rarely pass £10. WING COMMANDER…

What’s your favourite Banjo-Kazooie memory? Luke The Fox VA I first got the game for Christmas 2000 and I love the huge vibrant worlds and the silly British humour. I remember talking to my family about it over Christmas dinner. MeltingMan234 I remember watching a promo VHS tape for the game at a friend’s house. I was amazed with the levels and stuff they showed off. And that game was the reason I got a Nintendo 64. Matteo Fossi Being traumatised by the shark in Treasure Trove Cove at the age of eight. Come on, it shaped my childhood courage. ZombiWorkshop I grew up with all the Banjo games, and my fave memory was with Nuts & Bolts. From unlocking the first few boxes and breaking the level boundaries with…

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■ Did you know that Dizzy had a cousin called Danny? You will if you’ve ever played Dizzy Three… And A Half!: Into Magicland since it’s the only time the character has ever made an appearance in the series. Programmed by R Fred Williams with graphics by Neil Adamson, this small, five-screen ZX Spectrum game was a covertape exclusive mounted on issue 84 of Crash magazine. Designed as a prequel of sorts for Magicland Dizzy, it tasked players with rescuing Danny and getting Grand Dizzy’s teleport machine working to allow Dizzy to embark on his new adventure. “The marketing team at Codemasters had a great relationship with Newsfield which published Crash and Zzap!64,” says Dizzy creator Philip Oliver. “They came up with the idea of a short exclusive Dizzy game…

Even wars have rules. First formed in the latter half of the Nineteenth century, the Geneva Conventions continue today to govern many aspects of military conflict. In 1931, it updated the earlier Hague Regulations directing the treatment of prisoners of war. Covering provisions, clothing, religious requirements and more, the 1931 Geneva Convention set down the rules as to how combatants on both sides were to treat prisoners during wartime, a prescient update with another devastating war breaking out eight years later. Sadly, it wasn’t always obeyed during World War II. In Ocean’s The Great Escape, you’re a captured soldier, sent to a high-security prisoner-of-war camp, an adapted castle and its grounds, overlooking the chilly North Sea. Your fellow POWs are veterans of the prison, and have given up, accepting their…

BEWARE THE CAMP COMMANDANT ■ The camp’s boss patrols his domain randomly (including your room), checking not only the prisoners but his own guards. If you’re innocently going about your day in the correct location, then he’s no threat; however, he can see right through a disguise, so tread carefully when wearing the guard’s uniform. KEEP THE ROUTINE ■ Each prisoner has a set routine they must follow, and the player is no exception. Keep to roll call and meal times, and the guards will relax, especially if you leave the computer to handle your POW during these moments. Sneak off between these periods or at night to see what goodies you can find. INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE ■ Once the player picks up an object, it becomes ‘live’ and discoverable by…

The noisy RAT-A-TAT-TAT of Operation Wolf’s machine gun reverberated around arcade halls when the game was released in November 1987. The worldwide success of Operation Wolf similarly reverberated around the arcade industry, triggering a wave of copycat lightgun games from Sega, SNK, Namco and more. Taito itself would license a dozen home conversions and produce three arcade sequels, beginning with Operation Thunderbolt in 1988. But for a game that was so ground-breaking and influential on its release, Taito did not set out to create, what it later coined, “The world’s no.1 arcade game.” In fact, director Toshiaki Kato reveals that the original plans were much more conservative. “Operation Wolf was a product designed with conversion from older game cabinets in mind,” he tells us. “From the initial planning stages, we…

OPERATION NIGHT STRIKERS INCLUDES OPERATION WOLF PLUS OTHER LIGHTGUN GAMES. WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE WHEN PORTING THESE TITLES? Yujiro Yamamoto: Without a doubt, the biggest problem we faced was the controls. Most of the games M2 has ported so far have used joysticks and buttons, but this know-how was useless when it came to working with games where the controller itself was unique. This meant we had to come up with new specifications from scratch. Fortunately, the Nintendo Switch has gyro controls, so we were able to achieve controls as close as possible to the original gun controller. Additionally, there are two other methods – mouse controls and stick controls – allowing users to find what works for them. During development, a thought crossed my mind several times, “If only this project…

FEELING IDLE ■ Simon’s idle animation sees him rock out to his Walkman. Simon The Sorcerer Origins will tell us what he was listening to. THE REAL SIMON ■ The intro features a rare glimpse of Simon’s teenage life in the real world. Expect to see more of this in the next game. A GIANT PROBLEM ■ Blasting your sousaphone at this sleeping giant isn’t quite loud enough to wake him, but it will make him stir and knock down that tree. PARTY OF ONE ■ At the kingdom’s loneliest birthday party with the swampling and his homemade swamp stew. Eww, yuck! HAIR-RAISING STUFF ■ Climbing all they way up to meet Rapunzel turns out not to be worth the effort. She’s (quite literally) a bit of a pig. TRUFFLE…

In 1996, you created one of the Amiga’s best fighting games, Fightin’ Spirit, and now you’re making a sequel to a classic Amiga adventure. Do you have a strong affinity for the computer? The Amiga is a computer to which I owe most of my love for this sector, my knowledge, my practic, and my career. I love it. I still have a station at home that’s been active since the late-Eighties. I loved Lucasarts and Sierra adventures. It was during this time that I met Simon The Sorcerer and I adored him. The character was one of the most believable in games of the time, and that fantasyadventure mix with 32-colour graphics on screen… wonderful. To what extent did you collaborate with Mike and Simon Woodroffe on the new…

Was writing something you’d aspired to do, coming out of school, Steve? I got a bunch of O levels at school, but I wasn’t really thinking about a career at all. I fell into chemistry because I quite like the sciences, and we had a really nice chemistry book. Because I was in the West Midlands, we were surrounded by industry, and I eventually got a job at a company called British Industrial Plastics. So I was, for eight or nine years, studying to be an industrial chemist – I got a degree in chemistry. A few years later, I was introduced to the ZX Spectrum by a friend at work. I just remember going around his house, and we were playing with the flight sim game, which I think…

You probably remember kill.switch as a distant, hazy memory – late nights spent popping out from behind cover, avoiding the risk of being shot in the face and blind-firing at goons. However, few players know how this obscure title came into existence. The roots of kill.switch trace back to Namco Hometek’s earlier title, Dead To Rights. Producers Matt Sentell and Chris Esaki were dissatisfied with its cover mechanics. That game embraced a hard-boiled cop ethos: run headlong into danger, guns blazing and pay no mind to cover. Chris and Matt envisioned the opposite. They wanted something different. Instead of another gung-ho hero spraying bullets, why not make cover the heart of the action? “Chris Esaki and Matt Sentell both disliked Dead To Rights game’s mechanics,” lead programmer Gil Colgate recalls.…

3DS » MANUFACTURER: Nintendo » YEAR: 2011 » COST: £229.99 (launch), £85+ (today, boxed), £75+ (today, unboxed) Following the enormous success of the DS, Nintendo didn’t feel the need to reinvent the wheel. The 3DS employs the familiar clamshell design with vertically stacked dual displays, but both screens have a slightly higher resolution and the top screen is a slightly wider, glasses-free stereoscopic display. There are a couple of other visible changes – you get an analogue slider and a new Home button – but the primary changes are under the hood, as the 3DS is considerably more powerful than its predecessor. The 3D display required a very steady hand, and developers ultimately decided it was surplus to requirements in many cases. Sales were initially slow due to its high…

THINK IN BLOCKS ■ Lumines’ core mechanic is all about creating 2x2 (minimum) squares, or clusters of squares and rectangles. Instead of thinking in rows or columns, think in block structures and build. Once you’ve got a 2x2 square, try to increase its area before the Time Line sweeps it away. TIME THE DROP ■ Lumines is a musical puzzler, and timing is everything. The Time Line marks the tempo and sweeps away any 2x2 or greater blocks that you’ve made. Sometimes it’s better to hold a block momentarily to make a big move on the next sweep of the line. USE THE GIMMICKS ■ Each game in the Lumines series introduces its own unique mechanic and twist on the formula. The PS Vita’s Electronic Symphony, for example, gives you…

It’s a brave developer that takes on a revered series like Silent Hill, but Neobards Entertainment certainly hasn’t shirked from the challenge. While Silent Hill F doesn’t quite reach the dizzying heights of Team Silent’s original trilogy, this is an assured addition to the series that, whilst not always looking or playing like a Silent Hill game, absolutely feels like one. Silent Hill F takes place in Ebisugaoka, a quiet rural village in Sixties Japan and follows Shimizu Hinako, a young woman who meets up with her friends after having another argument with her parents. It’s not long before their tranquillity is disturbed by grotesque-looking monsters and an unsettling growth of Red Tiger Lilies that consume everything in their path. With the village getting overgrown, Hinako soon gets separated from…

» System: Switch 2 (tested), Switch » Buy it for: £58.99 » Buy it from: Online, retail Two of the greatest 3D platformers of all time return with a rather hefty price tag. This is the second time that Super Mario Galaxy has appeared on the Switch but it has been suitably improved over that version with better visuals, an extra chapter in Rosalina’s picture book and a music soundtrack to listen to. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (our favourite of the two) looks even better and comes with similar extras, including a brand-new book. Grabbing stars with the new Joy-Cons isn’t as accurate as on the original Wii releases, but still works fine with the gyroscopic controls. While that price will feel high for many, the quality of the games…

<INTRO> RECENT CHANGES TO THE “DE MINIMIS” RULE FOR PARCELS POSTED TO THE USA HAVE CAUSED PROBLEMS FOR HOMEBREW CREATORS. EUROPEAN PUBLISHERS INITIALLY SUSPENDED ORDERS AND SHIPMENTS UNTIL THE RULES WERE CLEARER AND POSTAL SERVICES SET UP NEW SYSTEMS. BROKE STUDIOS AND THE HOMEBREW FACTORY TOOK A DIFFERENT APPROACH, PARTNERING WITH DAYLEN GAMES TO HANDLE DISTRIBUTION OVER THE ATLANTIC. LET’S HOPE THE NEW AND UPCOMING GAMES FEATURED HERE ARE NOT AFFECTED BY POSTAL PROBLEMS </INTRO> <MAIN HEADER> BASIC BEGINNERS <INTRO> INTERESTED IN WANTING TO PROGRAM IN SINCLAIR BASIC? WE TALK TO TWO PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN LEARNING AND EXPERIMENTING THEMSELVES </INTRO> <BODY> Alex Cooper’s YouTube channel, Animated ALex, demonstrates his BASIC games. “Back in 1986, I made a game called Monster Trucks. The BASIC programming faded away until The Spectrum…

YANDEX RGB COMPETITION 2025 <INFO FORMAT: ZX SPECTRUM CREDITS: COMPETITION RUN BY THE YANDEX RGB MUSEUM PRICE: FREE WEB: YRGB.ORG/> <BODY> This year’s competition offered cash prizes, attracting 15 great entries judged by the fans and a panel of Spectrum celebrities. Honourable mentions go to Cindy Block (where you shoot blocks to clear the falling shapes, based on Konami’s Quarth/Block Hole) and Kubanoid (Stardust’s colourful puzzle game), who shared 3rd place in the Sound category. We also enjoyed Frostland, a strategy game where you must survive in an icy land (inspired by the Frostpunk games). 3D racing game Travel Unlimited (developed by Manu & Kit) got 3rd in both Gameplay and Graphics, and features options to upgrade your car. Runner-up was the tough but good-looking run-and-gun platformer Asymmetry, also by…

THE GAME The Burning Rangers are a team of futuristic spacefaring rescue operatives, and you’re the new recruit. Taking control of Shou Amabane or Tillis, you’ve got to fight fires and rescue stranded victims in settings such as a power plant and a space station, moving quickly to prevent the disasters from escalating. No matter which character you pick, you’ll have a jetpack to help you dodge unexpected explosions and reach high places, giving a platforming dimension to gameplay. Though the game does have boss battles and occasionally other enemies, fire is the key hazard you’ll face. You can charge up your extinguishing laser for powerful shots, but it’s better to use basic shots if you can, as putting out fires this way generates crystals. As with Sonic’s rings, one…