Indholdsfortegnelse for No. 279 i Retro Gamer

It’s very important for you to know one thing: I’m not an actor. I might have a couple of YouTube channels, but I’m generally more comfortable behind the camera. Nevertheless, by the time you read this you might’ve seen my face pop up – quite literally – in an advert for the HD remaster of R-Type Delta. Not being an actor, I’m still not entirely sure why they asked me to feature in the ad, beyond them needing a middle-aged bloke to sit up in bed and scream like he has just woken up from a bad dream. What I will say is that when you see it… just remember I had to do multiple takes of that shot, and I spent the next week with a bad back. But…

As the global economy continues to stutter, the world needs a win for the underdog – so who better than Little Mac? Punch-Out!! earned a comeback fight after a lengthy absence, and it was a strong showing. The game earned 91% from Official Nintendo Magazine, with the review stating that it looked “absolutely incredible” and had “loads of cheeky winks that will appeal to fans of the series”, but had a “weak” multiplayer mode. NGamer gave it 85%, saying that the game “boasts the sort of design clarity that went out of fashion when consoles started coming with 20-button controllers in the late ’90s” and that “the big surprise is how well the motion controls work”. The review concluded that it was “an odd choice for a revival, but it…

» ATARI 2600 » 1980 » DAVID CRANE Although I never owned an Atari 2600 on release, several kids in my area did, so I regularly got to play on one. All in all, I think I knew four people with the console and they had a decent number of games between them, so there was never a shortage of things to play. I’m pretty sure the first time I played Fishing Derby was during this period and I was instantly interested because my grandad had recently taught me how to fish (a hobby I never pursued) and the game itself had nice, chunky, eye-catching visuals that really appealed to me at the time. Fishing Derby is a good example of an early title that excels as a two-player experience, but…

CRACKDOWN ■ Leaping around as a super-powered police officer in this open-world crime-fighting caper felt great back in 2007, and an Xbox 360 sequel followed in 2010. Unfortunately, Crackdown 3 suffered delays due to a troubled development, and released on Xbox One to middling reviews in 2019. DEAD RISING ■ Capcom’s homage to Dawn Of The Dead offered plenty of amusing ways to ambush amassed ambulatory corpses. Dead Rising 2 and two downloadable episodes also appeared on the Xbox 360, and two further main games on later platforms. A remaster of the original was released in 2024. GEARS OF WAR ■ This third-person shooter series is arguably the most recognisable franchise to originate on the Xbox 360, and four games appeared on the console. It’s still going strong today –…

PAC-MAN CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION ■ Toru Iwatani returned to the arcade hit he created for his final foray into game design, and it was a real treat. It’s very much like the original, but you’ve got five minutes to score as many points as possible inside a maze with regenerating walls and pellets. SUPER STREET FIGHTER II TURBO HD REMIX ■ Backbone Entertainment could have just overhauled the graphics and sound for this port, but the team had a more ambitious outlook and aimed to create the ultimate version of the game, implementing tweaks and balance changes. R-TYPE DIMENSIONS ■ Irem’s classic shoot-’em-ups are always a treat, but this downloadable delight didn’t just package the first two arcade games together – developer Tozai Games saw fit to give them a 3D…

PEGGLE ■ Doctor Of The Peggle Arts requires players to clear every single peg in every Adventure Mode level, of which there are a whopping 55. Only one percent of players on the Achievement tracking website TrueAchievements have earned this one, which rewards you with 30G when completed. CLOUDBERRY KINGDOM ■ Just 19 of the 7,254 Cloudberry Kingdom players on TrueAchievements have earned Shenanigans!, the 20G reward for completing Chapter 7 of the game. Its difficulty arises from the chapter consisting of 80 dynamic, increasingly challenging levels, with the rules changing from stage to stage. SUPER MEAT BOY ■ Only five percent of TrueAchievements players have earned The Kid, a 45G Achievement for unlocking the guest character, the Kid. This can only be done by fighting through his Warp Zone,…

» GAME GEAR » 1995 » SEGA Sometimes, it’s best not to make things more complicated than they need to be, and I like to think that the existence of Ninku Gaiden: Hiroyuki Daikatsugeki is a good example of this. In my mind’s eye, someone at Sega saw that the company had obtained a licence for an anime series with a penguin in it, and simply said, “Didn’t we do a game with a penguin back in the day?” Then, after swiftly clarifying that they meant Pengo and not Doki Doki Penguin Land, this spin-off was born. Regardless of whether that’s how the game actually came to be, I’m certainly glad it exists because it’s a great take on the classic maze game. Almost all of Pengo’s standard mechanics are present…

PASS PLANT ■ This handy spell sends the Magic Knight from a flower to the power plant and back again. You find the Elf Horn in the power plant, but as this location drains the knight’s energy you need to get him out quick. SPELL OF WONDER ■ Perhaps not as wonderful as its name suggests, this incantation increases the knight’s strength a bit while draining his magic. Since many of the actions in the game require magic this isn’t a great trade off. MAGIC FULCRUM ■ Pulling the correct levers to repair the teleporter isn’t as easy as it sounds. If you make a mess of it then you always have the option of using the Magic Fulcrum spell, which instantly resets all the levers. DIMENSION MERGE ■ The…

Ask many gamers to name the most iconic puzzle games of all time and Tetris would likely come out top. Created by Alexey Pajitnov, it not only heavily influenced the puzzle genre, it demonstrated to developers and publishers just how lucrative such games could be. Among the titles that followed in Tetris’ wake was Pipe Mania and few players realise just how much the Russian classic influenced its design. Developed by The Assembly Line in 1989, the game took the core concept of fitting pieces together under pressure, albeit with a fresh twist – one that turned it into a major hit. When two of The Assembly Line’s cofounders, John Dale and Martin Day, began producing the game, however, they didn’t imagine it would have resonated with players to such…

Rare’sDonkey Kong Country was a smash-hit platformer that proved the SNES wasn’t about to roll over and surrender to the flashy new 32-bit consoles. Aside from posing a satisfying challenge and boasting masterly crafted levels, the game was praised for its pre-rendered 3D visuals created on Silicon Graphics workstations. It was also notable for its superb soundtrack. Composed by David Wise, Eveline Novakovic and Robin Beanland, it hit the spot immediately with Theme, a tune blessed with a pulsing bass line and ambient jungle noises. The soundtrack continued to please ears with the jaunty Simian Segue, the jungle beat of the DK Island Swing and the old-time rhythm of Cranky’s Theme. The more gamers played, the more these undoubted classics would enthral. They just kept coming, elevating the game’s overall…

UPGRADEABLE ARMOUR ■ Motivated by the popularity of 16-bit RPGs, Mega Man X devs sprinkled hidden capsules throughout Mega Man’s first SNES adventure which allow X to upgrade his armour, Arm Cannon and leg boosters, essentially improving his mobility, defence and attack power. A SOPHISTICATED STORY ■ Longtime series artist and designer Keiji Inafune, said that a big part of reinventing Mega Man for the more advanced SNES involved creating a mature storyline. We see this notably in the ending, which leaves X pondering the very nature of existence. A MODERN MOVESET ■ Mega Man X honours the core gameplay concepts of the NES Mega Mans but modernises player mobility in major ways. X can dash along the ground, scale walls, and slide down vertical surfaces, giving ample opportunity for…

MEGA MAN XTREME Game Boy Color • 2000 ■ The first game in the Mega Man X Game Boy Color series blends a new story with stages, enemies, and bosses from the SNES versions of Mega Man X and Mega Man X2. It is smaller in scale compared to the SNES originals, and the graphical cutbacks hurt, but it’s a decent portable Xperience (sorry). MEGA MAN XTREME 2 Game Boy Color • 2001 ■ The second Game Boy Color MMX game features the ability to switch between X and Zero and adds the DNA Soul System for upgrading your chosen character. Like its predecessor, Xtreme 2 was decent in its own time, but was quickly eclipsed by the Game Boy Advance Mega Mans.…

What are some of the first videogames you remember playing, Brian? I remember visiting my cousins’ house for a holiday, or family gathering, and they had a NES with Tetris and the Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt double cartridge. On my dad’s side of the family, they had The Legend Of Zelda, Bubble Bobble and GOAL! Two. Whenever I visited, I would just immediately disappear to play Nintendo. They always joked they never saw me. I was instantly hooked because I didn’t have a videogame console at the time; my parents had an old Apple computer. When did you finally get your first videogame console? It was Christmas ’92 and I remember begging my parents for a games console. I had opened all my presents and there was no Nintendo under…

» MANUFACTURER: Sony » YEAR: 2011 » COST: £229.99 (launch, Wi-Fi only model), £90+ (today, boxed), £65+ (today, unboxed) Though the PSP didn’t manage to unseat Nintendo as the dominant force in handheld gaming, it was a popular machine, so it’s understandable that Sony didn’t change too much for its follow-up. The analogue slider was replaced with two proper sticks, both touch-screen and motion control features were added, and you could even add a SIM card for 3G mobile internet access. However, it was the beefy hardware under the hood that was the real draw, refreshing the PSP’s pitch of console-quality gaming on the go for a new generation. The Vita was a powerhouse, and early games demonstrated that well. However, the system struggled due to the increasing popularity of…

THE TERMINATOR TIGER ELECTRONICS HANDHELD, 1988 ■ Dedicated LCD games were just about holding on by the late-Eighties, and Tiger didn’t give up easily, flooding the market into the following decade. As you’d expect, this Terminator adaptation is limited, but somehow its gallery shooter gameplay entertains, at least for a short while, thanks chiefly to its variety of weaponry. TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY GAME BOY, 1991 ■ Despite not following the plot of the film to any meaningful degree, this is a fun movie adaptation. Stepping into the shoes of the T-800, the game mixes eras across Cyberdyne’s offices, wastelands and a steel mill and controls well. While hardly ground breaking, it’s one of the better T2 games. TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY GAME GEAR, 1993 ■ This Game Gear game,…

» PC » 2004 » TEAM SILENT I’ve always enjoyed the Silent Hill series, particularly the Team Silent games. Those early titles offer a mix of grotesque imagery, well-written characters and complex puzzles that often help them stand apart from similar games in the genre and I never tire of playing them. Silent Hill 4: The Room is generally regarded as the worst of the Team Silent games and while I can see that reasoning, I still think that there’s plenty about it that’s worth investigating. Protagonist Henry Townsend may not be as complex a figure as James Sutherland from Silent Hill 2, but his story arc is compelling enough that you’ll want to learn why he’s been trapped in his flat for so long and why the strange hole…

» System: PC (version tested), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, Switch, Switch 2 » Buy it for: £26.99 » Buy it from: Online, retail (PS5 and Switch only) Digital Eclipse is back with its latest kompilation, and this time the subject is one of the biggest fighting game franchises of all time. You get all of the major Mortal Kombat arcade releases and a variety of home conversions of those games, plus PlayStation versions of Mortal Kombat Trilogy and spin-offs Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces, and Game Boy Advance versions of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. There are some impressive inclusions here – the WaveNet version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 has been something fans have sought-after for years, and we can’t remember seeing a…

» System: PC (tested), PS5, Switch, Xbox Series S/X » Buy it for: £19.99+ » Buy it from: Online, retail We were huge fans of the original Lumo, so it’s disappointing that Gareth Noyce’s sequel can’t quite match it. It’s a much more ambitious game this time around, with its homages extending to numerous classic games, from Uridium and Impossible Mission to Space Harrier and Ant Attack. Sadly it’s hampered by the same sluggish and finicky controls as the original game and its isometric viewpoint also makes many of its jumps painfully tricky. It’s nice to see new abilities opening up new areas of other levels and the music is superb in places, but Lumo 2 feels far too ambitious for its own good. As a love letter to 8-bit…

Dear Retro Gamer, Many thanks for such a great magazine, I’m relatively young (mid-30s) so I find reading about systems that came out in the Eighties and Nineties to be fascinating. I’m lucky that my dad has always been into his games, so I got to play some of these systems and games when I was younger and can appreciate them in a way other people my age might not. Having said that, I do hope that we can start seeing more modern-ish stuff in the magazine. The PSP was the first console I was able to buy with my own money (a combination of birthday and pocket money) and it was fantastic seeing it on the cover a few months back. I loved playing games like Lumines, Patapon and…

The gaming world was in mourning recently, over the news that Tomonobu Itagaki, the creative force behind such series as Dead Or Alive and the rebooted Ninja Gaiden franchise had passed away at the age of just 58. Known for his focus on high-intensity action games, his love of wearing sunglasses at all times and for being incredibly outspoken (a relative rarity within the Japanese development community) the news of Itagaki’s passing was announced on 16 October, with his family sharing his last words via a Facebook post. “Final Words,” the poignant post began. “The flame of my life is about to go out. The fact that this message has been posted means that my time has finally come. I am no longer in this world. (I have entrusted someone…

Are you pining for the glory days of channel surfing, left cold by the rise of streaming services? If so, you may well be tempted by the interplanetary televisual treats of Blippo+, which recently arrived on Switch and PC after making its debut on Playdate earlier this year. It’s an unconventional game, but Claire L Evans and Jona Bechtolt aren’t conventional game designers, being far better known for their band Yacht. We caught up with them to learn more about one of our favourite indie games of the year. What inspired you to make a game themed around old TV? Jona: In 2020, I don’t know – it arrived in my head like a flash of lightning, that we should start with an electronic programme guide and then build something…

When Robbie Bach outlined Microsoft’s ambitions for the successor to the Xbox in 2005, they were simple but undeniably bold. “Last generation we were thought leaders. This generation we plan to be market leader.” Sure, the original Xbox was a powerful console with plenty of great games, but its lifetime sales only barely scraped past those of the GameCube – Nintendo’s least successful traditional console to that point – leaving Microsoft as a distant second-place player in the homeconsole market. What’s more, the mammoth corporation had racked up $4 billion in losses over four years to get that far. Few companies would have been able to absorb such costs, but Microsoft was willing and able to pay for a foothold in a potentially lucrative market. This time around, things would…

■ While many champion Xbox Live Arcade as one of the best features of the Xbox 360, far fewer mention the Community Games – or Xbox Live Indie Games, as they were later rebranded. These small games developed using Microsoft XNA didn’t require formal age ratings or even approval from Microsoft – they were vetted by community members. They could incorporate Avatars but not Achievements, offer a trial period of eight minutes, and could only cost 80, 240 or 400 Microsoft Points. “While the barrier to entry for XBLA was high, the barrier to entry for XBLIG was virtually nonexistent. And tragically, no one cared,” says Ska Studio’s founder James Silva. “What XBLIG should have been celebrated for was how well it lowered the bar for hobbyist console development. Never…

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■ Xbox Achievements have been pretty consistent over the years, with only minor tweaks to the system. Most notably, base games still provide a potential 1,000 Gamerscore to be earned, as is required by Xbox. At the time of the Xbox 360’s release, studios had a maximum of 50 – and a minimum of five – Achievements that could be shipped with the game, but that limit has since increased to 100, with the minimum also doubling to 10. Studios will allot Gamerscore to their Achievements as they see fit, while adhering to an upper limit of 200G per Achievement, until they hit that 1,000 Gamerscore. Digital games have seen more tweaks – initially, Xbox Live Arcade games were limited to 200G across a maximum of 20 Achievements. That cap…

In early 1985 the UK home-computer boom was widely reported to be over; it was also when David Jones debuted his 8-bit protagonist the Magic Knight in the budget platformer Finders Keepers. Two arcade adventure sequels followed: firstly Spellbound, which was later expanded for the Spectrum 128K, and then Knight Tyme, which was designed for the 128K system and then squeezed into its 48K namesake. David subsequently used his maturing tech, active imagination and the experience he had gained from making Knight Tyme to make a sequel that ultimately became known as Stormbringer. “I had an engine and lots of ideas for more Magic Knight games,” David reflects. “I had designed a system to be very flexible so that I could add all sorts of concepts, puzzles and storytelling into…

THIS MONTH IN JULY 1991 The Amstrad CPC brand was struggling in 1991. Attempts to refresh it with the Plus models had failed. Amstrad had also made a brave stab at entering the console market with the GX4000, but it was not to be and the curtains were closing. Great games kept coming though, and the Amstrad was still getting unique versions of top titles, with covertapes presenting them to eager readers. This month’s Amstrad Action tape includes a demo of the fantastic Switchblade, along with the complete Future Knight, as well as an excellent reader game and a demo of a cloned arcade classic. THE MAIN EVENT: SWITCHBLADE DEMO With its anime stylings, bandana-clad hero and tense combat, Switchblade seemed effortlessly cool in 1991. It oozed quality, but despite…

THINK AND PLAN ■ You can’t simply look at the bottom tile when considering where to place pipes on the grid. You need to quickly scan all of the pieces in the dispenser and work out where they likely best fit. It’s inevitable you’ll end up with gaps while you wait for suitable pieces to fill them. MAKE USE OF RESERVOIRS ■ On later levels, the game becomes much more interesting and you’ll come across features such as reservoirs. When the Flooze flows, you’ll find these reservoirs take longer to fill up so use them asap to buy yourself some time if – and when – things start to get a little frantic. LOOP BACK ON YOURSELF ■ Using bonus or reservoir pieces helps to boost your score but if…

Aquatic Ambiance is arguably Donkey Kong Country’s standout track with its watery echoes, soft synth pads and reflective, meditative tone. Yet David wasn’t sure it’d be well received. In fact, he felt the entire score was destined to be changed by Japanese composer Koji Kondo. “I was several months into development before I learned that Nintendo were happy with the music and both myself and Eveline were okay to carry on creating the soundtrack,” he says. The success of Aquatic Ambiance, therefore, surprised him. “It wasn’t until I was midway through Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest that I read in a music magazine that Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails quite liked it,” David says. “That was the first inkling that Aquatic Ambiance had legs. And it wasn’t…

MEGA MAN X2 SNES • 1994 ■ Capcom’s sequel shares much of the first game’s core elements but punches up the action and graphics with help from the SNES Cx4. It’s an in-cartridge enhancement chip which allowed for 3D wireframe effects and transparencies. It’s bigger, better X! MEGA MAN X3 Various • 1995 ■ This was the final Mega Man X game to release on the 16-bit SNES, and the first to debut on the 32-bit Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. It stuck to the tested X formula but introduced Zero as a (limited) playable character. MEGA MAN X4 Various • 1997 ■ Mega Man X4 was the first game in the series to be developed exclusively for the 32-bit systems, and it was easily the most ambitious X series…

■ There are plenty of ways to play Mega Man X today. Hardware purists can simply fire up the old CRT, click the cartridge into their SNES, and hit the power switch. Unlike many old SNES carts, which use a battery for their save game feature, Mega Man X uses passwords. No battery (or soldering) required! Mega Man X was remade for the Sony PSP in 2005. This updated version eschewed the original’s sprites for a 2.5D presentation that’s charming in its own way. And then there’s the convenience of Mega Man X Legacy Collection, a two-part compilation which packs all eight main Mega Man X games into two releases. Available for the Switch, PlayStation, Windows (Steam) and Xbox, Legacy Collection features several screen size and filtering options, save features…

» PLAYSTATION » 1997 » G-ARTISTS Shortly before I started on Retro Gamer, I had a housemate whose boyfriend would always turn off the music in videogames if given the option. I was baffled by that choice, as music is often crucial to creating the mood the developers intended, so I always leave it on. There’s only a single game that I’d follow his lead on, and of course it’s one that doesn’t give you an option to disable the music. Kurushi is a puzzle game in which you’ve got to clear blocks as they advance along a platform, without getting crushed or eliminating forbidden blocks. I first encountered it on a demo disc, and it made a massive impression with its austere presentation. You’re just some guy, stuck on a…

Lightning arcs across the dark sky as a garbage truck goes about its early morning duties. The driver flees as a magnetic ball, a glowing transport of matter through time, materialises, revealing its passenger. It is the arrival of the Terminator, and cinema will never be the same again. Directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in the titular role, the Terminator rampages through Eighties Los Angeles as it pursues its singular quest: to kill the mother-to-be of John Connor, the human resistance leader, thus ensuring the machines’ domination over humankind forevermore. “I was in Kingston with a friend,” remembers David Perry, programmer of the 1992 Sega game based on The Terminator, “and to get out of the rain, we went into a cinema to watch something called The…

Not content with fusing Tetris and VR to great effect, Tetsuya Mizuguchi and his talented team at Enhance have pulled off the same trick again with his long-running puzzle series. The most important thing to realise about Lumines Arise is that Mizuguchi and his team haven’t dramatically reinvented it – because let’s face it, there’s no real need to. While it’s not quite as simplistic as the brilliantly designed Tetris is, Lumines’ core gameplay remains arguably as compelling and that certainly hasn’t really been tinkered with for Arise. As a result you’ll be manipulating your dual-coloured squares and trying to form larger blocks of the same colour before the game’s Timeline sweeps across the screen and erases them, hopefully resulting in additional combos as new blocks form. It’s a great…

» System: PC (tested), PS5, Switch, Xbox Series S/X » Buy it for: £24.49 » Buy it from: Online, retail PlayTonic’s update of Yooka-Laylee is a huge improvement over the original game. In addition to enhancing it visually and audibly, it’s been mechanically changed in numerous ways, all of which are for the better. The pair’s abilities are now available from the game’s start, it’s far easier to navigate the game world thanks to a redesigned map, while numerous challenges have been updated, along with the 3D camera. It can still be a little frustrating tracking down missing Quills and some of the challenges feel a little too simple for their own good, but when it comes to capturing the magic of old-school 3D platformers, this is one of the best…

<INTRO> THE HOMEBREW SCENE CERTAINLY SHOWS NO SIGNS OF SLOWING DOWN. OUR MAIN FEATURE LOOKS AT A NEW WAY OF CREATING GAME BOY TITLES, THE CHAMPION CODER IS ATTEMPTING AN AMBITIOUS ATARI CONVERSION, AND WE LOOK AT AN AMSTRAD CPC REMAKE. WITH PLENTY OF NEWS AND THE USUAL REVIEWS, IT’S ANOTHER PACKED COLUMN. AND NEXT TIME WE’LL BE LOOKING FORWARD TO THE GREAT GAMES YOU WILL ALL BE PLAYING IN 2026… </INTRO> <MAIN HEADER> BACK TO BASICS <INTRO> TONY WANG HAS CREATED GAMEBUILDER BASIC, AVAILABLE VIA BIT.LY/GB-BASIC, DESIGNED FOR WANNABE GAME BOY PROGRAMMERS TO MAKE THEIR OWN GAMES </INTRO> <BODY> Software developer Tony is a longtime fan of Nintendo’s Game Boy. “As a player, I have deep nostalgic ties to it,” we’re told. “As a developer, it’s my favourite platform…

THE COVER STAR XBOX 360 Used working consoles can be picked up for as little as £30, along with a selection of games. As you’d expect, boxed consoles are more expensive and can range in price from £50 to £100. Limited-edition models can fetch even higher prices. STORMBRINGER (ZX SPECTRUM) Although quite hard to find complete, Mastertronic’s classic title can be purchased for as little as £5 if you’re lucky. PIPE MANIA (AMIGA) Various versions of this classic puzzler exist, but none should cost over £20. Loose copies can be had for under £5. SUPER MARIO BROS (NES) Loose carts cost as little as £7.50, but mint copies can go for hundreds if not thousands, in some cases. MEGA MAN X (SNES) Japanese carts cost about £15 (search for Rock…

ARE GAMES REALLY EXPENSIVE NOW? Dear Retro Gamer, I’m fascinated by the debate on the rising price of AAA games and totally understand people feeling challenged or ripped off by prices hitting £70. That said, I forked out 50 quid for Ocarina Of Time back in 1998 (£112 at current prices). I tend towards optimism, so I think the cost of games is less of a problem than the tedious shift towards virtual game cards and monthly passes that keep you locked in. Keep up the good work, Ian Darby While you’re absolutely right that games are still relatively cheap once inflation is considered, the cost of living feels far more of a factor now than it did then, Ian. We absolutely agree with you on Virtual Key Cards and…

Revolution Software has announced that it is working on a remaster of the second Broken Sword game, originally released in 1997. Entitled Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror Reforged, it will be available on current-gen consoles, the PC, PS4, Xbox One and Switch, and is pencilled in for a spring 2026 release. It will follow 2024’s remaster of the original game, Broken Sword: Shadow Of The Templars Reforged. To find out more, we went straight to the horse’s mouth: Revolution Software managing director and Broken Sword originator Charles Cecil. Charles acknowledges that remastering Broken Sword II is the logical move after giving the same treatment to the first game, “It all started with our community saying, ‘Why are you not producing these games on the modern consoles?’ I‘ve always hung back,…

I am starting to come round to the idea that the Xbox 360 is the greatest console of all time. Not the most powerful, don’t be silly. That’s clearly the 3DO. But the 360 always seemed to me like it was built by magic. First of all, the design is simply magnificent. After the chunky and intimidating OG Xbox, this thing looked like it had been on the Ozempic in comparison. Of course, at the time we didn’t have wonder drugs that would not only help us lose weight but also make us feel constantly nauseous, so we couldn’t phrase the comparison in that way. It was clear though that technology had jumped about a million light years. You know what the sexiest thing on the 360 is? It’s the…

■ The Xbox 360 arrived at a time when console manufacturers were beginning to issue regular system software updates, designed to add and improve features as well as make hardware more resilient against piracy. Microsoft’s efforts went further though, as the Xbox 360 received various updates that refreshed the look and feel of the console dashboard. The console initially launched with the ‘Blades’ dashboard, a simple but highly functional 2D interface that Mike Mika loved. “It had this clean, almost tactile quality to it, like flipping through the pages of a book,” he explains. The first and most drastic change came in 2008 when the ‘New Xbox Experience’ was introduced, replacing the old interface with a 3D cascade of options. Apart from the visual overhaul, the update introduced Avatars, customisable…

■ The Xbox 360 wasn’t alone for long with its Achievements system, with Valve following in its footsteps in 2007, adding Achievements to its own games such as Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life 2. A year later, Sony introduced its own Achievement-based system to the PlayStation 3 with what it called Trophies, almost two years after the console’s release. Both Steam and PlayStation grew to have Achievement systems that could match the novelty of the Xbox’s, allowing players to hunt for the same Achievements across multiple platforms. With Steam’s ever-evolving platform, players can now even include a Completionist Showcase on their profile, which displays games they’ve earned 100% Achievements in. PlayStation offers a Platinum Trophy for games in which players have earned all other Achievements. Notably, the other gaming giant…

LEVELLING UP ■ You lose energy by moving as well as by walking into hazards, so look for bottles of energy drink. Wearing the Ankh raises your energy to 60 if it drops to zero, and wearing the Talisman keeps your magic high. CUNNING DISGUISES ■ The newspaper in Stormbringer has a job ad for either a footman, guard, wizard, chambermaid, white witch or warrior. You have to disguise the Magic Knight as the character in the advert to get into the castle. TRICKY TELEPORTER ■ You first get a code from Rachel and convert it to seven digit binary. You then look for levers in seven sequential rooms and pull those that correspond to a ‘1’ in the binary. Doing so repairs the teleporter. BESTING BEARWOOLF ■ There’s an…

BALLDOZER ■ Balldozer is a Sokoban game by New Zealand reader Jeroen Erkens, who also contributed a Connect Four game the following year. Rather than crates, you’re tasked with pushing crystal balls around a miniature tower to earn yourself a part-time job at Merlin’s magic shop. Balldozer has two graphics modes which look very different, but keep the same gameplay, with the colourful lo-res Mode 0 looking far more cheerful than the mostly blue Mode 1. If you back yourself into a corner, there’s a handy undo function, plus a restart if it all gets too much. There’s also a bonus counter, giving you an incentive to solve puzzles efficiently for a higher score. All in all, it’s a very solid, enjoyable reader game. MEGA PHOENIX DEMO ■ Mega Phoenix…

AMSTRAD CPC ■ Although it looked a tad drab, Pipe Mania lost none of its charm on the 8-bits in general. With plenty of levels (36), this CPC version included a host of features ranging from subgames and scoreboosters to two-player head-toheads and collaborations. COMMODORE 64 ■ Programmed by Adrian Sheppard, this version didn’t make great use of the SID chip and it suffered from a bit of lag. Still, it was a nicely presented port thanks to graphics by Kevin R Eyre and it boasted some pleasant animations and a fun two-player mode. MAC ■ This port, with its blue-pink combo, wasn’t much to look at but it was still fast, fluid and fun, neatly playing in a window for a quick sesh. “I was pleased with the Mac…

By 1990, Mega Man had sold over three million copies across three NES titles. But as 1991 approached, the Super Nintendo was the new toy, and games for the 8-bit NES began to be seen as second-rate. Mega Man 4, 5, and 6, released between 1990 and 1993, each received greater critical scorn than the one which came before it. For Mega Man 5, GamePro magazine quipped that, “Capcom must get [a] cash rebate for recycling videogames.” EGM went harder on Mega Man 6, saying “Mega Man was fun […] when the letters ‘N E S’ meant something. […] But this series has to end soon.” Capcom’s most recognizable character needed a 16-bit upgrade, a brand-new adventure to reinvent Mega Man for the modern console generation. The answer was Mega…

■ The success of Mega Man X and its sequels birthed a multimedia franchise. A manga adaptation of the first four games in the X series by Yoshihiro Iwamoto ran from 1994 to 1998, while an original story by Shigeto Ikehara based around the events of Mega Man X, called Irregular Hunter Rockman X, ran from 1994 to 1995. Manga from Hitoshi Ariga and Daisuke Inoue has also been published by Comic BomBom, and characters and events from the X series have appeared in Archie Comics’ Mega Man and Sonic The Hedgehog runs. Completing a playthrough of Maverick Hunter X, the 2005 PSP remake of Mega Man X, unlocks a 25-minute anime called The Day Of Sigma, which details Sigma’s path to becoming a Maverick leader, and brings you right…

When the first Fatal Fury game made it to arcade machines in 1991, it marked a significant moment in the history of the iconic outfit SNK. In time, the Japanese firm would go on to stand as one of the most important developers and publishers of fighting games globally. And it unquestionably owes much of that success to the birth and evolution of Fatal Fury. Adopting the conventional template for head-to-head fighters – which had only really been cemented in the previous couple of years – series opener Fatal Fury: King Of Fighters was designed by Takashi Nishiyama, creator of the original 1987 Street Fighter. Having left Capcom, as his former colleagues worked on Street Fighter II, Nishiyama joined SNK, with a vision to make a game that offered a spread of…

■ Recently, Fatal Fury Real Bout 2: The Newcomers re-entered the ring, with a Steam release created by developer Code Mystics. At a surface level little has changed. The visuals, fighter rostrum, and gameplay are retained. What has been added is rollback netcode, promising smooth online matches, effectively unleashing the game into the modern connected era. But with so many celebrated Neo Geo games to potentially port to PC, why did Code Mystics decide now was the time for Real Bout 2’s return? “Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 marks the completion of the Real Bout series, with a balancing of all the characters returning from Real Bout Fatal Fury Special, and very fast-paced gameplay,” enthuses studio producer Laurent Vernézy. “We came recently to the conclusion that RB2 needed to return…

T-800 ■ The grunt of the Skynet forces, the T-800’s head houses a neural net processor and is capable of advanced machine learning. Strong and powerful, it’s the most common enemy in Terminator games, its glittering chassis and crimson eyes instilling fear in even the bravest resistance soldier. HUNTER KILLER ■ These flying predators scour the skies looking for humans to strafe with their powerful lasers and bombs. Impossibly speedy, they make a memorable debut in Sega’s Terminator games, strafing the player whenever they dare to cross open land, and feature intermittently throughout the games. T-800 INFILTRATOR ■ The classic. Wrapped in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s muscular form, this stealth variant boasts a triple armoured endoskeleton with an organic sheath, making it indistinguishable from a regular person to the human eye. While…

■ “All the close-up images of the characters in the game had to be signed off by the actor’s representatives,” recalls Jas. “We submitted some art for Sarah Connor for approval. They came back with a comment, ‘Her bangs are too small, make them bigger.’ We thought it was an odd request, but we dutifully made her breasts a bit larger and resubmitted. Again, it came back with the same comment. So bigger ‘bangs’ and the image sent back again. This went on for a couple more rounds, and we were thinking this is getting crazy. So the last time, we made her breasts massive and waited. Still the same comment! I can’t remember exactly how we came to the correct conclusion – I think somebody in the office must…

» System: Switch (version tested), PS4, PS5, PC » Buy it for: £29.99+ » Buy it from: Online, retail (PS5 and Switch only) It’s been a long time since we’ve seen the Sonic Wings series, but unfortunately this reunion isn’t one you’ll love attending. The shoot-’em-up action is generally competent and not overly difficult, the fun characters return and the music has been put together by a talented crew. So it’s a real shame that the game is beset by a variety of visual issues, which go beyond the evident blandness of the graphics. Bullets are usually clearly visible, but it’s not always particularly easy to tell where the enemies firing them are, and the Switch struggles to keep up as the action intensifies later in the game, dropping frames…

L’ABBAYE DES MORTS <INFO BY: FORMAT: GAME BOY/GAME BOY COLOR/SUPER GAME BOY CREDITS: ALEKMAULSTUDIO PRICE: 39.99 EUROS (PHYSICAL EDITION PREORDER) WEB: BIT.LY/ABBAYE-GAMEBOY /> <BODY> Locomalito’s original PC game was inspired by Spectrum graphics and has had multiple conversions over the years. Now the French Alekmaul team brings it to Nintendo’s handheld. The background is the persecution of the religious group, the Cathars, in 13th century France. Driven out of Languedoc, Cathar Jean Raymond is pursued by Crusaders at the start of the game and takes refuge in the ruined abbey of the title. Here, he discovers that the 12 brothers have disappeared, and he must recover 12 crosses to reveal the secret of why they have gone. There is something dark lurking deep in the ruins… Jean can jump and…

THE GAME While Fire Emblem is a series that’s now well known in the West, that wasn’t always the case. The series first debuted on the Famicom in 1990, building on the mechanics that Intelligent Systems had first introduced with its Advance Wars series, but adding a Westernised fantasy setting and permadeath amongst other changes. Despite proving popular enough to spawn several sequels, the series never made it outside of Japan – that is until the release of Fire Emblem, which made its European debut in 1994, a full 14 months after its original Japanese release. Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade (as it’s now canonically known) is actually the second game in the series to appear on the Game Boy Advance (the first being Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade) and…

What’s your favourite Xbox Live Arcade game? Steven Hall Peggle. I was obsessed with the little ball. I think I was desperate for approval from FatPlumber It’s either one of the Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved games or OutRun Online Arcade. Both are tremendous to play and insanely addictive. Some of the best games on the hugely missed service. PhorV I really liked the side-scrolling Shadow Complex. The 2.5D world, satisfying combat, and tons of secrets still hold up today, and the game’s Foam Gun is still one of the best Metroidvania power-ups. FixItFire Castle Crashers. One of the best co-op couch games out there. Me and my wife played it for days, it was addictive and fun and we wanted to unlock everything! Bill Coniglio While it was only a…

» PLAYSTATION 2 » 2004 » EA REDWOOD SHORES My first encounter with The Third Age was when I reviewed the Xbox version, either for games™ or XBM a long, long time ago. Even though it’s blatantly a rip-off of Square’s Final Fantasy games, I certainly enjoyed The Third Age for what it was, so I have always had a copy of it in my collection. Created by EA Redwood Shores, The Third Age is a grandiose adventure that, rather than letting you control The Fellowship Of The Ring, instead focusses on a group of other, no less capable adventurers led by Berethor, a captain of Gondor’s Citadel Guard, who is travelling to Rivendell to seek out Boromir. He soon teams up with a number of other heroes and their…