Innehållsförteckning för No. 258 från Retro Gamer

The world renowned manga author Akira Toriyama passed away on 1 March, at the age of 68. After first rising to fame with the manga Dr Slump in the early Eighties, Toriyama began Dragon Ball in 1984 – an enormous, internationally popular franchise consisting of manga, anime, toys and more, including dozens of videogames. Toriyama would also work directly in videogames, most notably in RPGs. He contributed character designs to the original Dragon Quest in 1986, and remained involved with the series throughout his lifetime. He then proceeded to design original characters for Dragon Ball games and games related to Weekly Shonen Jump, the publication which serialised his manga, before providing the character designs for the classic SNES game Chrono Trigger. Later on, Toriyama’s work would appear in the two…

Nintendo is a company known for marching to the beat of its own drum, and its early experiences with handheld consoles go a long way to proving the benefits of that approach. The Game Boy’s four shades of grey may not have dazzled like the colour graphics of the Lynx and the Game Gear, but its affordability and the appeal of Tetris ensured that it comfortably outsold both. When the Game Boy Color finally arrived in 1998, it was actually comparable to the capabilities of those old rival systems, without the hefty battery bill that came with them. Nintendo could afford to move at such a glacial pace because of an absence of serious challengers in the portable console market. That’s not to say that Nintendo wasn’t exploring its options,…

» BANDITS AT ZERO ◼ DEV: SHAUN SOUTHERN ◼ YEAR:1986 ◼ This C16/Plus/4 exclusive saw Mr Chip programmer Shaun Southern’s talents shine again. Essentially a Defender clone, Bandits At Zero continued Mastertronic’s support of the lesser Commodore machines into its MAD range, retailing at £2.99. The extra pound was well justified with this sleek and engaging shoot-’em-up that impresses with its exceptional parallax scrolling. Another C16 marvel from Shaun. » RESCUE ◼ DEV: STE CORK, MARK O’NEIL & TONY WILLIAMS ◼ YEAR:1987 ◼ By 1987, Mastertronic was a regular in the reviews pages of magazines, so the absence of Rescue (save for a mention in Your Sinclair’s end-of-year budget round-up) is mystifying, especially given it’s a worthy little maze shooter. As a security officer, your task is to rescue scientists…

CAN YOU EXPLAIN HOW THE PROCESS WORKED FOR EACH ILLUSTRATION? The process was rather basic. I’d go to the ad agency in downtown Chicago, which was within walking distance of my little loft, and the art director would describe the game. Then he’d give me all the material he had on it which was never very much. I never got to play any of the games but sometimes they would give me VHS tapes of the gameplay so I could get a feel for the characters. HOW MUCH CREATIVE FREEDOM WERE YOU GIVEN, AND WERE YOU EVER ASKED TO TONE ANYTHING DOWN? Creative freedom varied. Sometimes the art director had something very specific in mind. Other times they would just unleash me and let me go. I don’t recall ever…

To this day, Fantasia is probably the most un-Disney Disney film ever made. What was shown in selected American cinemas in November 1940 was unlike anything else at the time. No cartoons, no slapstick, no southern drama, no cowboys – instead classical masterpieces such as Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata And Fugue In D Minor, Modest Mussorgsky’s Night On Bald Mountain and Franz Schubert’s Ave Maria featured. It was spectacularly performed by more than a hundred members of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Maestro Leopold Stokowski, in unprecedented sound quality, and accompanied by absolutely fantastic images, whose brilliant animations are precisely synchronised to the music. With his third major animated film, Walt Disney intended to bring the beauty of classical music to the masses, tell stories exclusively in pictures and sound, and…

» PLATFORM: AMIGA » RELEASED: 1993 » DEVELOPER: THE BITMAP BROTHERS It’s fair to describe The Chaos Engine as a little unforgiving, and this becomes apparent soon after leaving its character selection screen. As you might expect, all six of the mercenaries you can play as or partner with start with less than optimal capabilities in one or more areas, which means that you’re in for a challenging opening level regardless of your choices. As you enter the first stage’s wooded maze, merciless robotic opponents fire upon the pair of you from all sides. While you’re dodging their ammo and taking them out, you also need to search for cash and other useful collectables. You additionally have to activate satellite dish-like nodes by blasting shells into them, and of course…

◼ Before Anthony started on Alpha Storm, he had been working on a PC game based on the Spawn comic book, by Todd McFarlane. “Spawn was for the Psygnosis London office,” says Anthony. “I was the off-site lead, and I wrote some code to take a rendered image and its z-map and from those identify floors and obstacles. The images that still linger in my memory are of the inside of an insane asylum.” For reasons long since forgotten, Spawn was repurposed into another game called Bedlam, which remains one of a small handful of unfinished titles in Anthony’s back catalogue, including the Spectrum conversion of Firebird’s Star Trek: The Rebel Universe (cancelled when the platform was no longer commercially viable), a Nintendo GBA version of his and Peter James’…

“WE WANTED REALISM, BUT WE DESIGNED FOR A BROAD AUDIENCE ON A CONSOLE THAT WAS PRIMARILY PLAYING WITH A DIGITAL GAMEPAD AND LIKELY OWNED A 14-INCH TV”GAVIN RAEBURN Although superficially similar, racing sims of the mid-Nineties such as Geoff Crammond’s Grand Prix 2 and arcade racers from the same period such as Sega’s Daytona USA were fundamentally different from one another. These two worlds collided in 1996, when a team from Codemasters worked with the British Touring Car Championship to create a PlayStation title that would appeal to both racing camps. Former Codemasters producer Gavin Raeburn explains how the firm approached the task, “TOCA Touring Car Championship was all about building a team and the foundations for what we expected to be a series of games. We were working within…

BRITISH TOURING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP The TOCA tournaments of the Nineties are faithfully recreated in the first, second and fourth TOCA games. TOCA is defined by tight packs of cars driving at top speeds on British tracks, where the weather is as much of a concern as your rivals. NORTH AMERICAN CHAMPIONSHIP The global aspect of TOCA World Touring Cars allows for sun-baked tracks and gaudy paint jobs. This is best demonstrated by the game’s North American Championship, which really lets you know that you’ve left the likes of Silverstone far behind. CLASSICS DISCIPLINE TOCA Racer Driver 3’s Classics Discipline offers a quite different challenge to any of the others in the game. Its sequence of unlockable tournaments is ordered by the vintage of vehicle being driven, from Thirties race cars…

The naming convention for SimCity 3000 might allude to some sci-fi elements, but the fact is the focus is still on starting from the year 1900 and growing exponentially from there. With SimCity 2000 acting as the foundation in all regards for the third game in the series, there weren’t so many drastic changes to the simulation. The most obvious improvement is to the map size, which is significantly bigger than SimCity 2000 and as a result it’s possible to reach a population in the millions. The underlying systems were all overhauled, too, with a more robust and realistic land value metric being the most significant. Transportation was also improved with miniature cars and trains navigating the environment to replace the moving pixels of SimCity 2000. It also became possible…

While it offered interesting ideas and solid action, Contra: Rogue Corps wasn’t the Contra game that many fans had hoped for. That may explain why Konami has decided to reboot the classic franchise as Akiyoshi Chosokabe explains. “In order to develop the franchise in the future, we thought it was time to go back to basics and reboot Contra,” we’re told. “We wanted to start a new evolution while returning to our roots, so Contra: Operation Galuga is not a remake faithful to the original, but rather a new game based on the first with extra elements added.” That sentiment of Contra: Operation Galuga being a new experience is reinforced by Tomm Hulett, the game’s director. “While the setting and plot is the same as the original game, the level…

PC ◼ The PC version of Slave Zero was the one the team finished first, featuring all the classic graphic options one might expect from a PC game. Slave Zero on PC features a higher resolution than its console counterpart, a smoother framerate with more polygons and models but, unfortunately, no co-op or multiplayer modes of any kind. Also, its original release was marred by a few bugs and, today, it is definitely not easy to run on modern PCs without the help of a few specific programs. DREAMCAST ◼ The Dreamcast version was the one that the team spent months polishing, after finishing work on the PC build. It runs quite smoothly on the Sega hardware using the Ecstasy 3D engine, which was also created to allow the original…

» PLAYSTATION 2 » 2005 » CAPCOM PRODUCTION STUDIO 2  Some games have great concepts and ideas that never live up to their potential – Shadow Of Rome is one such game. Tasked with creating a game that would appeal to Western audiences, Motohide Eshiro’s team came up with a fictionalised version of Julius Caesar’s assassination which would follow two characters and see players switching between them. Agrippa is a burly Roman centurion who soon falls foul of the scheming senate when his father is accused of Caesar’s murder, while Octavianus is Agrippa’s best friend and Caesar’s nephew who suspects foul play and attempts to clear his friend’s name. Shadow Of Rome’s leads couldn’t be more different and this is mirrored by the game mechanics they utilise. Agrippa’s story threads are…

» System: PS5 (tested), PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC, Switch » Buy it for: £15.99 » Buy it from: Online QuByte Interactive’s latest collection offers slick 16-bit racing. It gathers together Top Racer, Top Racer 2, Top Racer 3000 and Top Racer Crossroads (sadly, just Top Racer with four new cars). While Top Racer is the highlight, Top Racer 2 is a lot of fun too with good additions like buying upgrades and car damage, which leaves Top Racer 3000, an average futuristic take on the series. Outside of the solid emulation various changes have been made such as new menus for selecting cars, creation custom tracks, quick races and time trials – there’s even the option to play online. The games may be showing their age, but…

CUTSCENES <Clever animated cutscenes appear in the intro and between missions to advance the storyline. /> DIALOGUE <The General and other characters – including the Megacopter itself – give you updates during the mission. /> TUTORIAL <The tutorial mission helps you learn to fly the Megacopter, with visible button prompts and target practice. /> FOG OF WAR <Not all of the map is visible until you explore; hacking the Surveillance Towers reveals more of the current level (and enemy positions). /> MIXED MISSIONS <Among the traditional rescue and destructive missions, a tower defence mission sees you using movable flame towers to protect the Pizza Bear./>…

<BODY> When your friend Chris goes missing at Yeti Ski Lodge, you set out to find out why. Exploring the area on foot, you can enter buildings and talk to people. When you acquire some skis, you hit the slopes to enter three styles of competition of increasing difficulty: Downhill, Slalom and Tricks. Winning is vital to persuade people to help as you search for evidence, with strange things happening in the huts and a mysterious stranger who needs to be persuaded to talk. Your quest sees you exploring caves where you discover ancient knowledge that helps you build your character’s skills. You’re soon outrunning a sudden avalanche and frantically powering up an Early Warning System to alert the lodge, but be careful, as you’re not alone on the slopes.…

<BODY> “The characters were intended for a comic strip,” explains pixel-artist Ciberu. “Kirito, a young enthusiast immersed in the world of retro gaming, takes the plunge into YouTube. Five seasoned YouTubers give him a beating as a lesson. How much are you willing to do to retrieve your games collection?” Tulfared has assembled a good team to make Kirito. “Our squad consists of Thulf, a seasoned coder, backed up by Fredoleponge (artificial intelligence), Rek1 Viskeux our resident musician using Deflmask, and Fredial the testing maestro – we’re all secretly envious of his flawless 1CC in Final Fight,” says Ciberu. Development is in C using SGDK, with Ciberu creating his art using the iPad Procreate app. As for goals, Ciberu says Tulfared is keeping things simple. “We have only one goal:…

What’s your favourite Castlevania game? Nick Westwood Rondo Of Blood. When I first played it on the Wii’s Virtual Console I felt like I’d experienced the ultimate expression of what Castlevania was meant to be. An unbelievably good soundtrack, amazing graphics, varied levels, and challenging gameplay! It’s perfect! Years later I finally got it on the PC Engine! Goofball Grappler Circle Of The Moon. I love Nathan Graves, the DSS System, and the whip as a primary weapon while still keeping the open format. Christian For Metroidvania style it’s Symphony Of The Night. For classic style it’s Dracula’s Curse (maybe the best game on the NES). Joel J Games Symphony Of The Night, closely followed by Aria Of Sorrow. Robert August de Meijer Order Of Ecclesia has the best weapons,…

» PSP » 2005 » BIGBIG STUDIOS Pursuit Force was one of the very first games I got for my PSP, and it was exactly the kind of game I wanted from my new console. Essentially, the game is an updated spin on the old Chase HQ formula, in which you pursue criminals and ram them off the road – or maybe leap out of your car, shoot them in the face and carry on with their vehicle. It was made exclusively for the PSP, it took full advantage of the console’s 3D graphics power and had an awesome orchestral soundtrack by Richard Jacques. What’s not to love? Well, there are a couple of things and I’d been warned about both by reviews. Firstly the on-foot sections control rather awkwardly,…

After mounting pressure from customers and the press over Xbox 360 hardware failure rates, Microsoft finally announced that warranty cover for all machines would be extended to three years from the date of purchase, effectively covering every console since the 2005 launch. According to Edge, Microsoft’s estimate of the cost of this scheme was “between $1.05bn and $1.15bn”. Edge also reported that a new chipset codenamed Falcon “should increase airflow and reduce heat within future machines, also halving the cost of the manufacturing process”. Those fortunate enough to have a working Xbox 360 console, or a sufficiently beefy PC, could enjoy a stone-cold classic – the first-person shooter Bioshock. This spiritual successor to the System Shock games saw players explore Rapture, an underwater city gone catastrophically wrong. Official Xbox 360 Magazine…

◼ The three tile-based graphics modes of the Game Boy Advance are rather flexible, giving developers access to up to four background layers of two different types, depending on the kind of game they’re making. Standard backgrounds are up to 512x512 pixels in size and can be independently scrolled in all directions, while affine backgrounds are up to 1024x1024 pixels and can be scaled and rotated as well as scrolled – essentially giving the same effect as the famous SNES Mode 7. MODE 0 ◼ This mode offers four standard background layers, and is commonly used in most regular 2D games. In this example from Astro Boy: Omega Factor, three layers are used to build a complex cityscape – a slow-moving far background, a near background that moves at medium…

◼ Speaking on the official Nintendo website in 2000, hardware designer Ryuji Umeji claimed that the Game Boy Advance’s CPU wasn’t up to the task of 3D, and that 3D games would run down the battery more quickly. Despite this claim, as well as the hardware lacking any dedicated polygon-pushing chips, some developers did pursue 3D games on the Game Boy Advance and many of them saw commercial releases. These games made use of the console’s bitmap graphics modes, and because developers had the freedom to write whatever kind of software renderers they wanted, a variety of approaches emerged. Games like Crazy Taxi: Catch A Ride use the low-resolution Mode 5 in order to try to keep speed up, while others like Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam and Hot Wheels: Stunt…

VOIDRUNNER C64, 1987 ◼ Jeff Minter’s final Commodore 64 game, Voidrunner, is the third in the Yak’s Gridrunner series. While the presentation is top-notch, the graphical style began to look dated by 1987. Nevertheless, the manic and gripping gameplay is as satisfying as ever. POD – PROOF OF DESTRUCTION SHAUN SOUTHERN, 1987 ◼ Mr Chip’s Shaun Southern proved his all-round capabilities once more with this excellent C64 shoot-’em-up. A catchy tune, intense in-the-zone gameplay, and an overall high standard that wouldn’t be out of place in a full-price release completes the package. DEVIL’S CROWN BRIAN O’SHAUGHNESSY, 1985 ◼ Despite middling reviews (Crash magazine awarded it 54%), this is a fun shoot-’em-up/exploration game that evokes the spirit of an earlier budget game, John Cain’s Booty. The player’s deep-sea diver explores a…

◼ DEVELOPER: SHAUN SOUTHERN ◼ YEAR: 1985 ◼ It’s that man Shaun Southern again, this time with a marvellous Mr Do!, Boulder Dash and Pengo homage for the C16 and Plus/4. The first thing you’ll notice is Shaun’s catchy tune on Tutti Frutti’s score and attract screens, and it’s just another example of the supreme presentation the programmer imbues in all of his games. The player is Super Strawberry, king of the orchard and collector of the rival fruits. Throughout the first two colourful stages, the player guides Super Strawberry, picking up cherries, escaping falling apples and avoiding the deadly Acid Apple Gang members. Fortunately, Strawberry is not totally unarmed: he has a bouncing missile to zap the Acid Apples. The scene shifts for the third stage, the Pengo section.…

LET IT SLIDE ◼ The speedy rope slide is perhaps the best new techique added to the sequel. Use it to quickly descend ropes when under attack. Crucially, you’ll need to use it to pass the six-screen high moving spiky wall in Crystal Castle (pictured). BLOCK BUSTER ◼ Hearts provide power for your sub-weapons, so you may be wondering where you find health. It’s actually hidden in the scenery, so try smashing blocks until you uncover a hunk of meat. If you’re lucky you may even score an extra life. HIDDEN HOLLOWS ◼ Each castle is home to concealed areas that are typically found by climbing to the very top of ropes. If you continue through the ‘ceiling’ you’ll find yourself in a secret room that will contain goodies like…

CASTLE OF ILLUSION STARRING MICKEY MOUSE ◼ This was the stunning first result of the Sega/Disney collaboration of the early Nineties. Emiko Yamamoto’s platformer looks wonderful, sounds wonderful and is still wonderful to play. A great (some would argue better) Master System/Game Gear version followed in 1991, as did several more Illusion games over the years, as well as a lovely remake in 2013. WORLD OF ILLUSION STARRING MICKEY MOUSE AND DONALD DUCK ◼ Emiko Yamamoto strikes back. Two years after the original Castle Of Illusion, Sega partnered Mickey Mouse up with Donald Duck and created a gorgeous game worthy of the Illusion name, that changed its level design depending on which character(s) you played it with. MICKEY MANIA: THE TIMELESS ADVENTURES OF MICKEY MOUSE ◼ Before it became known…

In the late-Eighties and early Nineties, Anthony Taglione and Peter James collaborated on successful fantasy RPGs Bloodwych and Legend, but computer hardware and software was moving on at a rapid pace. The release of Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss from Origin Systems and Wolfenstein 3D from id Software in 1992 opened up new gaming environments for players with a suitably powerful PC, and id’s real game-changer Doom was still over a year away from its shareware debut. “I remember when we first saw those games and Anthony said, ‘I can do that.’ His grasp and understanding of the maths needed is genius,” explains Peter. A trip to a spring 1993 trade show in London gave them the perfect opportunity to develop their own pseudo-3D engine, as Peter explains. “Our publisher…

◼ As this article was being finished, Anthony Taglione unexpectedly passed away in December 2023. Our condolences go out to his friends and family. Anthony’s games development adventure began alongside his brother Philip (who passed in June 2019), and their neighbour Tim Walter. After early coding experiments on a programmable calculator in the mid-Seventies, Tim and Philip wrote a version of Moon Cresta for the ZX Spectrum. Anthony introduced them to Incentive Software in Reading, where he was at university. Incentive signed Moon Cresta, and Anthony helped write some of the conversions. Anthony created the PowerLoad and PowerLoad 64 tape loading schemes and worked with Malcolm Hellon as Tag & The Kid, writing the ZX Spectrum conversion of First Star’s Spy Vs Spy and the Commodore 64 conversion of Mike…

AUDI A4 First seen in TOCA Touring Car Championship, Audi’s A4 is the game’s only four-wheel drive car – as it was in the actual tournament. Its road handling was so much better than its two-wheel drive rivals that it was banned from the event in 1998. ALFA ROMEO 156 Available to race in one of TOCA World Touring Car’s two European championships, the Alfa Romeo 156 won several real-world races in the Nineties. It’s known for its superb cornering, which is made possible by passive rear-wheel steering technology. ASTON MARTIN DB7 Introduced in TOCA Race Driver 2, the pricey British-built Aston Martin DB7 was sold for a little less than £100,000, although you got your money’s worth. The DB7 can hit speeds of 165mph, and can go from 0…

» PLAYSTATION » 1999 » RADICAL ENTERTAINMENT I like to think my memory is still pretty sharp, but after a few decades of gaming I think it’s inevitable that I’d forget a couple of things that I’ve played. Nothing I really connected with of course, but I’m sure there are some games that I’ve encountered once and then just never thought about again. Blood Lines definitely would have been one of those games, had it not been for a friend who loves videogame music, who sent me a link to the music for the first stage of the game last year. The name and the box art didn’t ring a bell, but he was certainly right when he said it goes hard – I certainly can’t think of any other…

Boss encounters are a huge part of Contra’s appeal and WayForward certainly knows this. “This was an important area of focus for me, personally,” admits Tomm. “Contra has many legendary bosses, of course. Even with Contra 4, we said for example, ‘Let’s make the ultimate version of Gromaides’ (the alien atop the waterfall). But now, with Operation Galuga, we had to plan the ULTIMATE ultimate version.” It’s certainly an interesting challenge and Wayforward is no doubt hoping that the mayors it does create are every bit as memorable as those found in earlier games. “Our first step is to find interesting things for each boss to do so each one provides a unique idea or mechanic,” continues Tomm. “This helps define their personality from a gameplay standpoint. Then we find…

The developers of Slave Zero mentioned MechWarrior several times as the big influence and the one game they were competing against on release. Debuting in 1995, MechWarrior 2 (below left) was a game-changer for the genre of big robot action. With the possibility of choosing different clans and full mech customisations, the Activision title was definitely the one to beat. It also featured full 3D environments, online multiplayer and also (later) added support for accelerated graphic cards. Much less known, but still quite fondly remembered by fans of the genre, is Iron Soldier. Released in 1994 exclusively for the Atari Jaguar, it was a mech sim played from an in-cockpit view with a full 3D engine and single-player missions with various objectives to complete. Also, let’s not forget Monolith’s Shogo:…

Jeff Minter is a legend among game creators, and for good reason. From the Eighties heyday of the bedroom coder to the present day, he has developed highly distinctive games that combine his AAA passions – and by that we mean arcade games, animals and abstract visuals. Put simply, you know a Llamasoft game when you see one, and the fact that he’s done all this while remaining independent for almost his entire career makes it all the more worthy of celebration. Enter Digital Eclipse, which has chosen to present Jeff Minter’s story in the interactive documentary format that it pioneered with Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration a couple of years ago. That means a timeline format, peppered with video clips, photos, quotes, detailed 3D recreations of old cassette cases…

» System: Evercade series » Buy it for: £17.99 » Buy it from: Online, retail Released alongside Sunsoft Collection 2, this is a delightful collection of quirky oddities. Glover is the first N64 game to appear on the Evercade and its new digital controls work quite well. Other highlights include Street Racer and Zero Tolerance: Underground, a lost Mega Drive game that was released in 2022. Star X is a decent shooter, Risky Woods is a take on Ghosts ’N Goblins, while Mermaids Of Atlantis is a fun puzzle game. We also enjoyed the action platformer Sküljagger. Target: Renegade and Bad Street Brawler are showing their age, while The Fidgets is a character-swapping puzzle game that we didn’t really like. There’s more hits than misses here though, meaning it’s an easy…

<INTRO> SOCIAL MEDIA CAN BE A GREAT WAY TO PROMOTE YOUR HOMEBREW. MEGACOPTER’S CREATORS SHARED PLENTY OF SCREENSHOTS AND VIDEOS ON X/TWITTER, AND KIRITO’S COMIC-BOOK VISUALS STOOD OUT FOR THE MEGA DRIVE. THERE IS A DEDICATED FACEBOOK PAGE FOR THE MULTI-PLATFORM ARCADE GAME DESIGNER AND OTHER ONLINE RESOURCES. DISCORD CAN CONNECT YOU WITH FANS DURING DEVELOPMENT, AND HELP REVIEWERS FIND YOUR TITLES. ENJOY THIS ISSUE’S SELECTION OF GAMES AND SEE YOU NEXT TIME! </INTRO>…

<Amstrad CPC: Foggy’s Quest has jumped from the ZX Spectrum to the Amstrad, thanks to Cyrille Ayor61. Cartridge and tape images can be found at bit.ly/foggy-cpc /> <Atari ST: Haplo brings dungeon puzzler Tenebra to Atari’s machine, with classic and remastered graphics. Choose your price and get it from bit.ly/tenebra /> <Commander X-16: Jimbo’s latest for the machine is Tower Defender, inspired by his earlier PET desktop tower defence game. Try it out at bit.ly/tower-x16 /> <Dreamcast: The Dreamcast Junkyard has put together a massive guide to the last 20 years of indie games on the Sega machine. You can read it at bit.ly/indie-dreamcast /> <Game Boy: Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge 2 is a clever point-and-click inspired by an episode of The Simpsons. Play it at bit.ly/putting2 /> <MSX2: Phenix Corrupta by Casper…

<BODY> When the king taxed the people, they rebelled – but the magician turned them into monsters and mushrooms! Now a new champion must reach the castle to topple the greedy ruler. Sergio can pick up 100 coins to earn a new life, while hearts will replenish his lost energy. Moving across the overhead map reveals new platform-focussed levels to conquer and it’s possible to save the game by visiting caves – providing Sergio has the required key. While we have niggles with Sergio Kidd’s control method and collision detection they do not take away from the cute graphic style and the quest facing you. This is a solid and fun take, although it does lack originality. </BODY> SCORE: 73% NEW GAMES NEEDED Our new email address is waiting for…

THE COVER STAR GAME BOY ADVANCE Nintendo’s handheld is still relatively cheap, with original boxed copies rarely costing more than £70. Things become more expensive if you try tracking down variant models, particularly for the GBA SP. The Zelda variant can go for over £1,500 if it’s in mint condition. CASTLEVANIA II: BELMONT’S REVENGE Konami’s second Game Boy adventure is expensive. Loose carts can hit £70, while boxed copies can reach £500. At £45, Limited Run Games’ physical Castlevania Anniversary Collection is a far cheaper alternative. FANTASIA Knowledge of Fantasia’s mediocrity means prices aren’t too high. You shouldn’t have to pay more than £15 for a complete PAL copy. SHADOW OF ROME Capcom’s retelling of Julius Caesar’s death won’t slay your wallet. Complete copies are available for less than £10.…

PENGUIN PONDERING Dear Retro Gamer, I’ve always wondered how the McVitie’s Penguin sponsorship of James Pond II: Codename RoboCod came about. Did McVitie’s approach Electronic Arts or Millennium Interactive about interest in sponsoring a game? Or did the publisher see an opportunity and approach McVitie’s? Tim Lince We’ve actually got the answer, Tim. According to our Chris Sorrell interview in RG 44 McVitie’s approached the team to have its popular wrapped biscuit featured in the game. So now you know. SUPER CHALLENGE Hi Retro Gamer, When I was nine, I began religiously purchasing N64 Magazine. My friends and I would discuss our feelings on the scores in the playground every month – the general feeling in Year 6 was that WCW/nWo Revenge was underrated, for what it’s worth. One thing…

CAPTAIN QUAZAR » What do you need when the galaxy is in trouble? You need a strong and heroic man dressed in red and blue spandex – and since Superman is booked with the Justice League this week, his police-approved substitute Captain Quazar will have to do. He doesn’t have super powers but he does have a big gun, and sometimes that’s all you really need. » You know how it goes with police chiefs – they’re always stressed because the mayor won’t leave their donkey alone. That’s true even for intergalactic police, like the force Captain Quazar works with. » Today, however, the chief is in a good mood after a success. “Congratulations Quazar, you’ve saved the galaxy,” he says. “Now you can take some time off to address the situation…

My wife Sanja isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, a gamer. At most she’s one of those dirty casuals – she’ll play Animal Crossing, and once had a brief obsession with Pokémon (which she had to go cold turkey on, because it became all-consuming). Growing up in Australia, there was a NES in their house – and she remembers playing Duck Tales – but for the most part she has no familiarity with any of the games I was raised on. As a sort of experiment, I’ve recently been introducing her to some of those games I grew up with. We’re not playing two-player as such, but playing single-player games together – The Hobbit, Rock Star Ate My Hamster and others. It’s fascinating for me to watch her discovering…

» ATARI 2600 » 1983 » ACTIVISION I’ve never really been interested in collecting a full set of specific videogames, but I’ve often been tempted to track down every single game Activision released for the Atari 2600. The industry’s first third-party publisher released some absolute belters on Atari’s console and I feel many of them still hold up very well today. Sadly, I don’t have the space, or the spare cash for such an epic endeavour, so I recently did the next best thing – I purchased a US PS2 copy of Activision Anthology instead. While it’s certainly not a definitive collection – the PS2 version features 48 of the 76 games that are spread across several systems – it still includes many of the classics. Once I had my…

CONTRA III: THE ALIEN WARS SNES ◼ This one’s a bit of a mess – the Game Boy Advance version loses the Mode 7 levels and adds some recycled ones from Contra: Hard Corps instead. It also loses the dual weapon system, and the colour saturation has been increased to compensate for the dodgy original GBA screen. GBA DONKEY KONG COUNTRY ◼ The graphics here have been brightened up for the GBA, and some of the boss difficulties have been adjusted. You can save whenever you like on the GBA though, and there are new features – the Hero Mode, plus the Funky’s Fishing and Candy’s Dance Studio minigames. SUPER GHOULS 'N GHOSTS ◼ Once again, the graphics are brightened a little and the sound’s a little worse. The intro…

How soon after the original Shantae did the GBA game go into production? Matt: Some of the earliest design work began as early as November 2000, when we had our earliest dev kits and prototype hardware. Shantae for GBC was still in production at that time. So while me, Erin and Jimmy were busy wrapping up Shantae 1, Mike Stragey started to lay the groundwork for the new GBA tech. What were the things you were hoping to achieve with the more powerful hardware? Matt: I had a laundry list of features for the next generation of our handheld department, and those were all based on things you’d expect to see in 16-bit-era side-scrollers. Shantae Advance was the game intended to prototype all of these features. The way we took…

A RARE CELEBRATION ISSUE 250 ◼ Want the definitive article on Rare? This is where you’ll find it. A Rare Celebration breaks down every era of the studio, from its early days as Ultimate Play The Game to its exciting N64 years. It concludes with a look at Rare’s last two decades at Microsoft and classics like Rare Replay and Sea Of Thieves. Don’t miss it. 40 YEARS OF THE ZX SPECTRUM ISSUE 232 ◼ This in-depth article features a number of prominent game developers and breaks down the lifespan of the humble Speccy on a year-by-year basis, from its early innovative games to its exciting homebrew era which is still going strong today. If you’re a Commodore 64 fan you’ll find a similar feature on that system in RG…

◼ DEVELOPER: RUBBERCHIP ◼ YEAR: 1986 ◼ Despite the efforts of certain publishers such as CRL and Incentive, the text adventure was dying a slow commercial death by the mid-Eighties. However, when the latter software house released The Graphic Adventure Creator, it inspired a legion of would-be game writers to assemble their own adventures, complete with rudimentary graphics. One Spectrum fan, the mysterious ‘Rubberchip’, adapted The Graphic Adventure Creator to display digitised graphics and a bespoke font. As the name suggests, Play It Again, Sam is a noir-style detective adventure set in the mid-Thirties, starring a private investigator named Sam Spoon. “Life is funny, ain’t it,” muses Sam early in the story. “Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down, and nobody gives a damn.” Sam is idly ignoring his final demands…

» NES » 1991 » TECMO One of our readers recently expressed their dismay that in Retro Gamer’s 20 years on the shelves, we hadn’t covered Tecmo Super Bowl, saying, “British people simply don’t know what they missed out on.” Fair cop – Tecmo’s game never made it to PAL regions, so the first time I became aware of the enduring fondness for Tecmo Super Bowl was when I saw it on Family Guy. Since I have an appreciation for the NFL thanks to Madden NFL 94, NFL 2K and a year spent living with a couple of Essex Blades players, I decided that it was high time I give it a go. My first impression was unsurprisingly coloured by my introduction to the game, and it turns out that…

CASTLEVANIA: THE ADVENTURE ◼ Time has not been kind to the series’ Game Boy debut, especially in light of the far superior sequel. Everything about it is bland – the visuals, the levels, the bosses. It’s also infuriatingly hard, as every hit downgrades your whip, and don’t get us started on the nightmarish third stage which was clearly designed by masochists. Compounding everything is the game’s dawdling pace – seemingly a design decision as there’s a modded version floating around online that speeds everything up with no ill-effects. CASTLEVANIA LEGENDS ◼ Released six years after Belmont’s Revenge, and just before the launch of the Game Boy Color, this should have been a fine swan song for the series on the original Game Boy. Sadly Legends is content to repeat the…

◼ Fantasia was pulled from the market just a few weeks after its launch. The reason? The ghost of Walt Disney! During his lifetime, he had given the order that Fantasia must never be transferred to any medium other than film – but neither Infogrames nor Sega knew about this. It was only when Walt’s nephew Roy Disney, who had taken over the company in the late-Sixties, was told that there was a game based on the film, and went ballistic, that this was changed. Fantasia’s entire advertising campaign was withdrawn, all unsold copies of the game were removed from stores and physically destroyed. The real reason for that recall was never made public in an official capacity. There were even instructions to give a faulty game module or a…

◼ Thanks to its Sony connections, Psygnosis got a Colombia Pictures film licence deal for the Francis Ford Coppola blockbuster Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but time was against it. For consoles and other platforms, a horizontally scrolling fighting game was developed, but that wasn’t suitable for the PC market. Anthony and Peter were temporarily diverted away from their pre-Alpha Storm game Wizard! toward a dark gothic pseudo-3D game set in the world of Dracula and his menagerie of terrifying creatures. “Bram Stoker’s Dracula may well be the fastest-developed commercial game ever, with just three weeks and a day passing between my call and his delivery of the master version,” explains producer Mike Simpson. “Anthony ingeniously utilised code from one game and maps from another to assemble an affordable, cheerful FPS that,…

» MEGA DRIVE » 1992 » HOT • B There are a number of things that I always look for in a good shmup – it needs to have great music, good scoring mechanics, interesting play mechanics and a distinctive theme. While Empire Of Steel doesn’t tick all those boxes, it remains an excellent addition to any Mega Drive collection, particularly if you like more unusual games. By far one of Empire Of Steel’s greatest assets is its wonderful score. Composed by Noriyuki Iwadare, Yoshiaki Kubotera and Isao Mizoguchi it’s a wonderful blend of rousing beats and anthem-like medleys that really gets the pulse going as you gun down enemy fighters. Equally stylised is the game’s look which is heavily influenced by the steampunk genre. Many of the ships have…

» MANUFACTURER: VTech » YEAR: 1988 » COST: $129.99 (launch), £25+ (today, boxed), £15+ (today, unboxed) VTech’s first home videogame console, the CreatiVision, had not been a major success, so the company tried something a little different for its second attempt. The Socrates was an educational console, designed to act as a child’s first computer – something evident not only in its infra-red wireless keyboard controller, but also the cartridges that are designed to resemble floppy disks. Two wired joypads are built into the keyboard. The design of the Socrates is vaguely reminiscent of the Atari XEGS, largely owing to the diagonal positioning of the keyboard storage bay. Unusually, the Socrates didn’t include an AC adapter as standard despite supporting a standard 12V power supply, but it was capable of…

CHAMPIONSHIP MODE The original TOCA game’s Championship Mode has 12 meetings with two qualifying rounds and two races each. You need 20 points per event to progress, which requires a minimum of two top-three finishes and no points deducted for reckless driving. FREE RACE MODE Based on real-world exhibition races, the Free Race Mode in TOCA World Touring Cars lets you set up your own series of events. Up to four players can join in, racing on up to eight tracks over one to 30 laps in their chosen weather conditions. PRO CAREER MODE In TOCA Race Driver 3’s Pro Career Mode you pick a racing Discipline, and then take part in a series of championships within that Discipline. For example, in the Oval category you compete on dirt circuits…

FIRE ◼ Prevention is better than the cure here, and suitable fire station coverage, an appropriate budget and even ordinances to help (free smoke detectors) will reduce the occurrences of fire. If one should break out, however, grab that bulldozer tool and destroy the buildings surrounding the fire – if there’s nothing near to burn, it cannot spread. EARTHQUAKES ◼ There are ordinances that will help to reduce the destruction of an earthquake, but there’s not much you can do to counteract them. To avoid significant damage, ensure you’re not relying on a single power or water connection across bodies of water in case it gets destroyed. And be prepared for fires, too. TORNADO ◼ Quite honestly there’s very little you can do about a tornado once it starts rampaging…

In the future, man and machine will have to unite if they want to bring back peace and justice to our world. That was the main premise behind the story of Slave Zero, the shooting mecha action title developed by Accolade at the end of the Nineties. It took place in a dystopian world, 500 years in the future, a megacity dominated by the tyrannical Sovereign Khan. The rebellion against him will be brought by our protagonist by stealing the most sophisticated robot machine ever created. The title would go on to be released on PC first and was followed by a version for Sega’s Dreamcast. A small, dedicated fanbase has kept interest in the cult game alive, which might explain why – 25 years later – the game is…

A BRUTAL FIGHTING SYSTEM ◼ X ditches its prequel shooter mechanics for gameplay that feels somewhere in-between Strider and Devil May Cry. It features brutal 2D melee fighting with little room for mistakes, requiring the player to master its controls. NINETIES-STYLED 2.5D PIXELATED GRAPHICS ◼ While Slave Zero featured an impressive (for the time) 3D engine, X goes for a retro 2.5D look. It features 2D sprites for all the characters, imposed on a 3D background, since the team wanted to go for the look of a Nineties game. NARRATIVE CUTSCENES ◼ As opposed to the in-game cutscenes of Slave Zero, X goes in quite the different direction. Along with a more extreme tone and look, dialogue happens both during gameplay and also in specific narrative cutscenes with character portraits…

» System: Switch » Buy it for: £49.99 » Buy it from: Retail, eShop Princess Peach ditches her usual role of damsel in distress here to take centre stage for only the second time in her career, and she’s more than suited to the role. Fending off Madame Grape and the Sour Bunch requires her to don the costumes of ten different theatre stars, each with their own associated mechanics – Ninja Peach has stealth gameplay, Detective Peach solves puzzles, and so on. The level of challenge here is decidedly gentle, but if you’re happy with that you should find that the game’s wealth of ideas, charming presentation and high level of polish are enough to keep you seated until the final act. >> Score 80%…

<BODY> Megacopter’s concept started as a joke. “We were working on educational games at the University Of Oklahoma and started joking about an evil helicopter with ancient origins,” explains Gabe Miller. “As children of the Eighties, attack helicopters held a place in our hearts and the sentient vehicle genre is one of my favourites. Megacopter was originally drafted where half of the time you were infiltrating buildings as a 2D side-scroller. We decided to cut that in favour of focussing on helicopter combat – the art evolved into an isometric style very reminiscent of the Strike series.” What can’t be found in the Strike series is Megacopter’s unusual mix of Aztec legend and alien enemies. “I have always been fascinated by the history of warfare and indigenous cultures,” continues Gabe.…

<INFO FROM: ENGLAND WEBSITES: SPANGLEFISH.COM/EGGHEAD BIT.LY/MPAGD FORMAT: ZX SPECTRUM, ZX81, VARIOUS PREVIOUS GAME: ARCADE GAME DESIGNER (ZX SPECTRUM) WORKING ON: MULTI-PLATFORM ARCADE GAME DESIGNER (PC) /> WHERE DID THE ORIGINAL IDEA COME FROM? <In 1984, I knew BASIC was no good for writing games but learning machine code was hard. I remember wanting a tool that would allow the user to create commercial-quality standalone games in a simple language. Years later I set out to create one first on the ZX Spectrum (AGD), then as a Windows tool that could be used to convert games to different formats. AGD has had a total rewrite for version 5 and is currently in the testing and bug-fixing stage. When that’s done, I’ll get around to updating MPAGD. Hopefully, we’ll get volunteers to…

<BODY> We’re big fans of Johan’s games, including the recent Cosmic Combo (iOS), so we enjoyed this relaxing overhead golf game that’s filled with neat touches. You can customise your golfer’s appearance and choose between better power or aim (longer shots are inherently less accurate). Once on the course you can follow etiquette and let other players take their turn – or succumb to mischief, driving your golf buggy across the greens and hitting other balls into the water! Play a round of 9 or 18 holes and see where you end up on the leaderboard. </BODY> SCORE: 80%…

Dear Retro Gamer, Have you ever done a feature that looks at the many different types of collectors? I feel it would make for a fascinating article. I used to collect retro games for many years and it’s clear that there are many different ways of collecting them. Some gamers go for full collections, while others look at specific genres or a particular game series (Castlevania and Mega Man always seem popular). Some go to great lengths to track down a certain developer, while others focus on merchandise. Personally, I stopped collecting retro games as I realised it was a symptom of me being unhappy with other aspects of my life and buying games helped that, but I still collect for the Switch and I’m always fascinated to learn what…