Innehållsförteckning för No. 266 från Retro Gamer

I’ve been playing a bit of Sega Saturn recently and first cab off the rank was Daytona USA. It’s a decent driving game, but that’s not why I was keen to dust it off. I wanted to hear the absolutely insane soundtrack. I remembered it as being a combo of a Stock, Aitken and Waterman 12” dance remix and The Krypton Factor theme. I was not disappointed. The main song has been on a loop in my house for the past week, only being taken off to play Rolling Start!. This stuff is wild. By the way, I was digging around on the internet and found an incredible cover of the theme by Diff Rokka. Put this magazine down, go and have a listen and then come back. I’ll wait……

Has Mario Kart done the unthinkable and slipped from the podium positions? Official Nintendo Magazine got the exclusive review last month and gave it 94%, calling it “the best online Nintendo game ever”, and GamesMaster gave it 91%. But what’s this? Edge and games™ both gave it 6/10, with the former complaining that changes to the drift boost “come at the cost of some skill”, while the latter felt that “three blue shells on one lap might seem unlikely, but it happens often enough to be more than a trivial annoyance”. Coming down the middle, nRevolution felt that “it’s hard to see anyone getting particularly upset” by the controversial addition of motorbikes, but found the game “fairly graphically uninspiring” and agreed that “overuse of the cheaper power-ups” spoiled 150cc mode in single-player.…

» COMMODORE 64 » 1983 » BRØDERBUND According to my mum, one of my quirks from a young age was that I’d turn all of my toys upside down, trying to see how they worked. I can certainly believe it, because as an adult I love electronics in transparent casings and I’ll always stop to watch a Rube Goldberg machine in motion. With that in mind, it’s no wonder I love Gumball, which gives you the task of sorting different coloured balls using a needlessly complex contraption. The original game was developed by Robert Cook for the Apple II, but I personally happened across it while looking for interesting games on Lemon 64. The aim of the game is very simple – each day, you need to produce a quota of…

Although Tekken is a series that has always pushed home-console hardware pretty hard, the series has served surprisingly well as a showcase for portable platforms when given the opportunity. This was first demonstrated with the first Tekken to come to a Nintendo console, Tekken Advance on the humble Game Boy Advance. While its pre-rendered sprites went a long way towards helping, it was some Mode 7-style trickery that allowed the system to get surprisingly close to the look of the original PlayStation Tekken. As good as Tekken Advance looked, Tekken: Dark Resurrection on the PSP was a whole world apart, managing an excellent approximation of the PS2-powered arcade game. The models and stages were highly detailed, the framerate was rock solid and you’d have had to be pretty curmudgeonly to…

It can be hard to create a distinctive fighting game cast – just ask Data East, which drew the legal ire of Capcom when Fighters History’s character designs were deemed too close to those of Street Fighter II. However, Namco created a memorable bunch for Tekken, and has been reaping the rewards ever since – most notably Heihachi Mishima and his various angular-haired progeny, but also characters like Yoshimitsu, the armour-clad ninja who takes on increasingly bizarre appearances as the series progresses. That’s not to say that Tekken is above a bit of homage, mind. Marshall Law and Lei Wulong are quite obviously inspired by Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan respectively, and if King and his leopard mask weren’t designed with the Tiger Mask wrestling gimmick in mind, we’ll happily…

GALAGA Just as the PlayStation conversion of Ridge Racer had included Galaxian as a loading screen game, so Tekken’s PlayStation port has its sequel. It’s not just a fun diversion, though – if you can manage to hit every enemy, you’ll unlock Kazuya’s third costume, the purple devil gear. TEKKEN FORCE First introduced in Tekken 3, this mode is a short scrolling beat-’em-up that has you beating up the Mishima Zaibatsu’s goons. Beat it and you’ll unlock Dr Bosconovitch. This concept was later expanded on in Tekken 5’s The Devil Within mode and the Scenario Campaign in Tekken 6. TEKKEN BOWL Tekken Tag Tournament gave us this particular oddity. It’s exactly what you’d expect – adjust your fighter’s position, get the spin right, set the power and hope for a…

ACTION FORCE II  ■ DEVELOPER: GANG OF FIVE ■ YEAR: 1989 Licensed games aren’t typically renowned for their quality, and toy tie-ins are arguably lower in the pecking order than games based on movies or TV shows. However, this one – based on the GI Joe-linked Action Force franchise – actually manages to pull off the trick of being a worthwhile game regardless of your level of interest in the toys. The premise is that evil Cobra terrorists have taken lots of innocent hostages, and Action Force has sent unarmed combat specialist Quick Kick in on a rescue mission. You don’t control Quick Kick, though – instead you control Airtight, a chemical, biological and radiological warfare specialist, and provide covering fire for your comrade. What this means in practice is…

Fairlight is an amazing game. It was hailed as an instant classic when it was released in 1985 and it has remained a fan favourite ever since – users of the old World Of Spectrum website voted it the third best Spectrum game of all time, behind only The Great Escape and R-Type. What is perhaps even more amazing is that, had creator Bo Jangeborg had his wish, players would have been able to create their own arcade adventure epics just like Fairlight. You see, Bo always planned to share his box of tricks, to provide players with the tools to build worlds. This was evidenced with the release of The Artist, his own graphics package which was used to draw the sprites and objects seen in Fairlight, as well…

Respawn no more Enemies will keep on respawning, but it’s possible to permanently kill the two most common enemies, guards and trolls. For guards, take their fallen helmets and feed them to a nearby whirlwind. For trolls, drop a barrel on the exact spot where you defeated them. That Damned Door The most crucial puzzle in the game – finding the Book Of Light – is also the most obscure, as the doorway is invisible! It’s outside the castle, down from the cave entrance, and to help we’ve marked its location on this screenshot. You must also be holding the crown to enter. Death Stairs Several puzzles involve reaching high-up objects or trapdoors in ceilings. You can use any collectable object to build stairs, but the best are the stools…

» MEGA DRIVE » 1993 » ELECTRONIC ARTS In my humble opinion, horror games have been totally wrong for decades. Most of them involve stressing about managing limited resources, running from utterly grotesque creatures and experiencing terrifying jump scares. It’s all just a bit masochistic, isn’t it? I’d much rather take some sadistic delight in supplying the scares, and that’s probably why I enjoy Haunting so much. You’re cast in the role of Polterguy, a teenager who died in a skateboarding accident – an accident that wouldn’t have happened if Vito Sardini hadn’t cut corners in manufacturing to make a few extra bucks. His lawyers got him off the hook, so now you’re out for revenge. Of course, you can’t do anything to Sardini directly, but you can possess household objects…

3D GRAPHICS AT HOME Prior to games like Star Fox and Stunt Race FX, real polygonal 3D graphics were found primarily in arcades. Stunt Race FX was one of the first racing games to feature advanced 3D graphics on a home console, impossible without the Super FX chip. POLYGONY DIGITAL Like Virtua Racing, the Sega arcade game from 1992, polygonal vehicles gave Stunt Race FX a sense that real, mechanical things were happening on the screen. The way cars traversed the real, 3D environment was something most had never seen before. A BLEND OF 2D AND 3D The Super FX chip was adept at making the most of both 3D polygonal graphics, and 2D sprites. In Stunt Race FX, both are used. Look closely at the cars to find the…

You were enjoying your first play of Sega’s new arcade game immensely. The graphics look great and although the combat is a little clunky, it is still satisfying punching and kicking enemies to death. After defeating a white wolf a small orb is left in its wake, which you hastily grab. As you hear the word “power-up” boom out, your on-screen avatar grows in size and your attacks become stronger, leading you to greedily seek out any more white canines that might be heading your way. However, when you snag your third orb, you don’t grow at all, instead you’re taken to a fiery transformation scene where your heroic warrior morphs into a dangerous, fireball-flinging werewolf. It’s a brilliant sequence that you still get a kick out of watching today.…

» PLAYSTATION » 1998 » CAPCOM One of the great things about getting into the PlayStation late is that there’s loads of interesting games to unearth. Some I’ve discovered through reading about them in the magazine, while others have been thanks to friends and family. YouTuber Sean Seanson has also played a pivotal role in my PlayStation discoveries, thanks to his excellent channel. While I was aware of Rival Schools: United By Fate, I’d owned the sequel on Sega’s Dreamcast, I’d never actually played it, either on Sony’s PlayStation or in the arcades. A recent video by Sean changed that and led to me purchasing the Japanese version of the game. While it’s a little more difficult to navigate due to the large amounts of Japanese text, I’m so glad I…

Released in 1987, Double Dragon wasn’t the first belt-scrolling beat-’em-up – that honour goes to irem’s 1984 Kung Fu Master, also known as Spartan X. But it was the first to set standards for the genre that still hold true today – things like two-player co-op, the use of weapons and free movement in 3D space. Find out more about the development of this groundbreaking title in our in-depth Making Of in Retro Gamer 103. After Double Dragon, the brawler genre became massive, with the likes of Final Fight and Streets Of Rage taking over. And even though Double Dragon has faded into the background over the years, the series was never really gone: there are several games in the main series, countless spin-offs and crossovers (with other series such as…

If you had joined us earlier in the year, you would have spotted us celebrating the release of EverQuest 25 years ago, bringing about the MMO revolution and standardising a lot of what would go on to be replicated in countless other entries into the genre ever since. But for as impressive as it was – as genre-forming, industry-bending as it was – you simply can’t talk about MMOs without that globally recognised acronym: WOW. World Of Warcraft is also celebrating a significant birthday this November, and with two decades under its belt it won’t be long until it’s legally able to drink in an American bar. There’s some irony to these milestone birthdays, however, since if not for the impact that EverQuest had on the team at Blizzard, WOW might…

After years of demand, Blizzard released World Of Warcraft Classic five years ago, giving nostalgic players a chance to play out their lives in Azeroth as if nothing had ever changed. It proved to be a smart decision though, since it was instantly popular even to a point of drawing some long since lapsed players back into the fold. But Blizzard didn’t stop there. Over the years since, it’s been updating Classic with a similar fervour to what is now termed as ‘retail WOW’. While the core mechanics were left mostly untouched, Blizzard still brought balance patches and quality-of-life improvements over to the old-school version of the game. And towards the end of last year, Blizzard introduced its Season Of Discovery, a special time-limited event that significantly altered the world…

» System: PS5 (version tested), PS4, Switch, PC » Buy it for: £34.99 » Buy it from: Online, retail This fighter makes a good first impression, with a solid fighting system and attractive 2D visuals, with subtle scaling reminiscent of Neo Geo fighting games and detailed, well-animated fighters. The presence of online play is also a welcome surprise, given that it’s an indie game with a small staff. Unfortunately, Blazing Strike falls short of expectations in several ways. Some issues are small, like the lack of additional single-player modes like Time Attack and Survival. The fact that you can end up with the same colour scheme in mirror matches, making it impossible to tell who’s who at a glance, is a major and surprising problem. It’s a fair effort, but…

<INTRO> CHRISTIAN DINSE ON MAKING HIS ESPIONAGEMAZE GAME, SABOTEUR FOR THE NES </INTRO> <BODY> Clive Townsend’s classic game is being reworked for the NES by Christian Dinse. “Saboteur was the first game I bought for the Schneider CPC 464 in 1990, and I was immediately fascinated by it,” he says. “Recently I came into contact with Clive Townsend, something my 12-year-old self could never have imagined, and Clive gave me the green light to work on the game and also offered his help.” Rather than a conversion, it’s loosely based on the 1985 classic. “What is similar is the structure, consisting of a ninja and 400+ individual screens in the form of a maze,” says Christian. “However, the story is adapted to modern times, and the use of objects within…

Our latest collector loved videogames enough to make them his profession. Chun Wah Kong’s family moved to the UK from Hong Kong when he was a child. “We lived with my dad’s side of the family for a few years. His youngest brother; my cool uncle, opened up a new world of gaming for me. I owe him all my knowledge on the ColecoVision, the Vectrex and the Amstrad CPC 464. “Back in the day in my spare time I would design my own games on paper and send them off to whoever my favourite games company was at the time,” he tells us, not knowing if any of the letters have survived. “The first console that I bought where the decision was totally my own was the PC Engine.…

In the mid-Nineties, the arcade industry was in the middle of two gold-rush moments. The first had started with the introduction of Street Fighter II in 1991, sparking a boom in competitive fighting games that showed no signs of subsiding. The second was a hardware arms race between Sega and Namco, as the old rivals sought to outdo one another in the emerging market for polygonal 3D games. Sega was the first to combine the two trends in 1993 with Virtua Fighter – a smash hit with players in Japanese arcades, and a game that sold Saturn hardware when it came home. Namco returned fire the next year with Tekken, one of very few games that had both the looks and the gameplay to challenge the pioneer. In fact, Tekken…

It’s a tale involving an extensive family in a constant state of feud, with plenty of fighting and occasional miraculous returns from seemingly fatal incidents – and while we could easily be talking about the Mitchell clan in EastEnders, it’s Tekken’s Mishima bloodline that we’re actually referring to. Honestly, the series is such a soap opera that it’s a wonder we haven’t seen the Queen Vic as a special arena. Then again, maybe giving Phil Mitchell the Devil Gene would spice up Walford a bit. Although the Tekken series has a cast of dozens, the central plot has always revolved around the squabbles of the Mishima family. Heihachi Mishima is a ruthless, cunning businessman who controls the Mishima Zaibatsu, an incredibly powerful corporation with its own private army. When his…

Tekken characters have been known to show up all over the place, from cameos in games like Xevious 3D/G and the Soulcalibur series to participation in full-blown crossover efforts like Project X Zone and Street Fighter X Tekken. However, historically it wasn’t exactly a two-way street – after the little dinosaur Gon leapt from the pages of his manga to the PlayStation version of Tekken 3, the bouncers got strict and Tekken was closed to guests. However, Tekken 7 really opened the floodgates. Akuma made the jump from the Street Fighter series, carrying across signature mechanics from that series as he did, and Geese Howard came across from SNK’s Fatal Fury series. As additions from other fighting game series, these were welcome additions, but not nearly as surprising as Final…

» PIPPO ■ DEVELOPER: G ZANETTI/P MALNATI ■ YEAR:1986 Pippo is an enjoyable little maze game in which you have to paint all of the tiles a designated colour by stepping on them, while watching out for marauding baddies who try to kill you or reverse your progress. It’s certainly not the most original concept to ever grace the humble Spectrum, but it does play rather well and the presentation includes some use of some rather neat hardware tricks. We really like it. SPEEDBOAT ASSASSINS ■ DEVELOPER: BINARY DESIGN ■ YEAR:1989 Knight Rider has chased the baddies off the roads – now you’ve got to take them out in the water, thanks KITT. This involves dodging mines in your speedboat, before gunning down enemies and their communication towers. The boat’s…

ZX Spectrum The lead version is a true isometric classic for the Spectrum. It might play at a leaden pace, yet it’s still the fastest version available, highlighting Bo’s technical expertise. The title tune deserves a special mention – it’s hard to believe it’s playing on the old ‘beeper’. Amstrad CPC This port is probably our favourite version. It’s not quite as fast as the Speccy original, but the addition of some extra colour really brings the game to life and imbues everything with some extra… solidity. The only downside is the excellent intro music is not played in-game. Amstrad PCIU A port of the CPC port and it plays just as well, running at a similar speed. Aside from the obvious lack of colour, sound is limited to Isvar’s…

The original game’s manual promised a sequel and it duly arrived in late 1986, for the Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and PCW (a C64 version was on the cards but later canned). Subtitled A Trail Of Darkness, it picked up immediately after the end of the original, with Isvar resuming his search for the Book Of Light across the wider land of Fairlight. The follow-up was much bigger, with a larger map split over two loads, and it introduced multiple new enemies and challenges. But something was awry. You could tell that the original had been meticulously planned, yet the sequel felt much looser. You could complete the first part without visiting maybe 80% of the map, for instance, and the way some of the rooms linked up felt like a…

In the early Nineties, the British game studio Argonaut Software invented something special, the Super FX chip, a Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC chip), which acted as a coprocessor on the Graphics Support Unit of select Super Nintendo game cartridges. The Super FX chip importantly allowed the primarily 2D sprite-based Super Nintendo to effectively render 3D polygons. During development of the Super FX chip, Argonaut was simultaneously working to create the first game that would utilise this new technology. Star Fox (1993) was a technical marvel, and a masterpiece of the 16-bit era. It demonstrated the surprising 3D capability of the SNES and Super FX chip, sold over 4 million copies, re-popularised the rail-shooter genre, and spawned seven sequels over the next 25 years. Development on the second Super FX…

Stunt Race FX was the next game to utilise the Super FX Chip, after Star Fox. How did the experience of creating Star Fox influence Stunt Race FX? During Star Fox, we were ironing out the bugs of the chip while making the game, so by the time we started Stunt Race FX most of the bugs had been fixed. The idea was to make a sort of Super FX chip Mario Kart. I didn’t really have a clue what I was doing, so I was making it up as I went along. What benefits did the Super FX chip offer? Because the FX chip (which we called the MARIO chip then) was a very good general purpose RISC chip, you could do things it wasn’t really designed for, and…

In the Eighties, computer games required replay value to sell and coin-ops had to keep players’ games short to be profitable, so it stands to reason that the earliest attempts at 3D rally games for PCs differed from their arcade equivalents. Take the 1988 PC title Lombard RAC Rally. It was hardly realistic, but it replicated actual courses and entire seasons. The 1989 coin-op Big Run, by comparison, was Out Run with rally cars. By 1996, console games had a foot in both camps. They required longevity, but they were also expected to provide an arcade-like experience. This explains the thinking of a Codemasters team whose project took inspiration from both arcade and PC rally titles, as former Codemasters coder Chris Southall remembers. “A lot of us on the team…

THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK: ESCAPE FROM BUTCHER BAY This prequel to the Riddick film Pitch Black is one of the greatest licensed movie games of all time. Following Riddick as he seeks to escape the grim prison planet, the game ran on Starbreeze Studios’ proprietary engine and saw you sneaking, fighting and chatting your way through the environments. It does a great job of fleshing out Riddick’s backstory too, showing us how he gained his famous eye-shine. TERMINATOR: RESISTANCE Covering the events of the future war depicted in Terminator and Terminator 2, we guess you could call Resistance a prequel to the events of the movie… but set in the future? The first-person shooter casts you as resistance soldier Jacob Rivers, who joins up with John Connor to take on…

In the Nineties, it seemed that every major fighting game series had to find its way to the big or smaller screen – and Double Dragon was not only no exception, but actually went both ways! It all started with the TV series, which ran for two seasons with a total of 26 episodes, and in keeping with the cartoon style of the time, no one was ever seriously injured in them – that would probably have limited action figure sales. Typical for this kind of cartoon series, the art style was quite cheesy, but at least the main theme, “Live the code, the code of the dragon! Fight for right, the might of the dragon!” was great! The film, which was released about a month before the infamous Street…

» GAMECUBE » 2004 » TOSE/SEGA AM2 In a recent issue, I showed off my collection of Virtua Fighter games and accidentally excluded Virtua Quest. It’s not a game I should be forgetting – it was never released in the UK, and my purchase of a Freeloader disc was solely motivated by the desire to play it. Unfortunately, even by the time I got it, I knew it wasn’t the game I wanted it to be. You see, Shenmue was initially conceptualised as a Virtua Fighter RPG, and early news on the game had me hoping that Sega was returning to the idea of fleshing out those characters. Instead, Virtua Quest is an action adventure in which you play as Sei, a boy who spends his days selling data chips in…

» System: PS5 (tested), PC » Buy it for: £59.99 » Buy it from: Online, retail Bloober Team’s remake of Konami’s classic survival horror game is a substantial upgrade in many ways. Graphically it’s phenomenal, with meticulous attention to detail that highlights the squalor of Silent Hill and the depravity of the monsters that haunt it. It sounds terrific too thanks to carefully placed sound effects, a gorgeous score and brand-new voice acting that enhances the new cutscenes. All is not perfect though, as decisions to increase the size of certain areas can make them feel tiresome to trek through, while the heavier focus on combat threatens to overplay the subtlety of the game’s storytelling. It doesn’t quite reach the dizzying heights of the original, but it’s still going to…

<INTRO> IT’S MORE THAN 40 YEARS SINCE MOST OF THE HARDWARE WE ENJOY PLAYING HOMEBREW ON WAS DEVELOPED. AFTER THE SUCCESS OF 2023’S EVENT, MSX2 GOTO 40 IN THE NETHERLANDS WILL CELEBRATE THE UPGRADED MSX FORMAT – WITH KEY SPEAKERS INCLUDING ASCII CORPORATION COFOUNDER KASUHIKO NISHI AND KONAMI ARTIST NAOKI SATOH. VISIT MSXGOTO40.COM FOR MORE DETAILS. MEANWHILE, WE LOOK AT THE NEXT, GAME BOY, NES AND MORE IN THIS ISSUE WITH THESE GREAT NEW GAMES AND PREVIEWS. </INTRO> <BODY> A question from a prominent pixel artist led to Michael ‘Flash’ Ware’s latest project. “Simon Butler messaged me out of the blue to ask if I was developing for the Next,” explains Michael. “I decided a revamp of C64 Warhawk may be a bit of fun. I wasn’t much of a…

<INTRO> AS A CHILD, ANDREAS DREAMED OF MAKING GAME BOY GAMES – NOW HE DOES </INTRO> <INFO COUNTRY: GERMANY WEBSITE/ONLINE LINKS: USER0X7F.ITCH.IO FORMAT: GAME BOY PREVIOUSGAMES: GENESIS, BLACKCASTLE, GENESISII, GUNSHIPDX, G-ZERO WORLD GP CURRENTLY WORKING ON: BLACK CASTLE II/> WHAT IS YOUR DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT LIKE, ANDREAS? I use the Game Boy Development Kit (GBDK), Game Boy Tile Designer and Game Boy Map Builder. To draw backgrounds and sprites, I just use Windows Paint./> WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO MAKE YOUR GENESIS SHMUPS? <Primarily it was Solar Striker. I’m a big fan, because of its simplicity, but I always missed more power-up options. The name was inspired by Nemesis./> HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE IDEA FOR GUNSHIP? <I came across Operation Yabuka. Unfortunately, the game was never finished and only…

COVER STORY Dear Retro Gamer, How come you’ve never featured the Amstrad CPC 464 on the cover of the magazine before? I know Darran is obviously a big fan of the system and there was a great selection of games featured in your last issue, but it feels wrong that such an iconic piece of hardware has never graced the cover. It’s a genuinely fantastic computer with a great range of games and a gorgeous monitor (well the colour monitor at least). It’s a shame we’re unlikely to get an anniversary cover, as we’re already in September. Can an Amstrad CPC 464 cover appear in a later issue please? I’d buy a copy immediately. Yours hopefully, Jason Perkins Hi Jason, as much as we love the Amstrad CPC series, it…

When it comes to quality, Analogue is considered one of the best hardware manufacturers around. Yes, its items can take a long time to ship, and yes they’re typically very expensive, but when it comes to quality Analogue is tough to beat. Over the last few years it has worked on a variety of high-end products, from the Analogue Duo, to the Analogue Pocket, but its latest offering has the potential to be one of its most significant releases yet and it also represents an interesting leap forward for Analogue. Although it was announced some time back, Analogue has finally released images of its incoming Analogue3D, its love letter to the Nintendo 64. Aside from being the first full 3D console that Analogue has worked on, the system is also…

One of our favourite iOS racing games was Jamie Woodhouse’s excellent Retro Racing. The creator of the Team17 Amiga gem Qwak is now back with a brand-new sequel, so we were keen to find out how it happened, and why Jamie still likes working with iOS. So what made you decide to work on a sequel to Retro Racing, Jamie? It’s a decision I made some time ago, not long after I finished the original Retro Racing, which did OK sales-wise. Part of me wanted more of that success, and also, I always felt there was room for improvement. This is the third game you’ve released on iOS, what is it you like about it from a coding perspective? I personally really enjoy working within the Apple ecosystem. I use…

It’s fair to say that, no matter whether the context is mid-Nineties arcades or the latest consoles, Tekken is and always has been at the forefront of presentation in 3D fighting games, not least graphically. “I believe it really set Tekken apart. Back in the day when you bought some kind of new platform, fighting games were a benchmark of what was possible on that console,” says Harada. “Especially when looking at fighting games, where you have one-on-one matches, you’re able to focus really on the portrayal of those humanoid models and how they act, and the level of detail.” What’s fascinating is that the original Tekken was originally intended to run on Namco’s cutting-edge System 22 arcade hardware to compete directly with Sega’s Virtua Fighter 2, but instead became…

It’s no surprise that a series that has cultivated a cast and story like Tekken’s would end up as a prime target for film and TV adaptations, and indeed Tekken has been taken beyond the videogame realm a number of times. The first such adaptation was Tekken: The Motion Picture, a two-part anime that went straight to video in Japan in 1998, before being edited into a single film for international release. It takes the plot of the first game and incorporates a variety of additional characters from the second and third games. The next adaptation was a live-action effort simply titled Tekken, in which Jin (Jon Foo) seeks to confront Kazuya (Ian Anthony Dale) and Heihachi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) over his mother’s death, with Christie (Kelly Overton) and Steve (Luke…

It may seem crazy if you’ve never considered it, but gameplay was a secondary concern in the early days of Tekken. Long-term readers may remember that back in 2014, Harada told us, “Tekken was a project to develop technology for use in 3D character animation, rather than as a 3D fighting game.” It’s true that Tekken certainly feels a little stiffer than its successors these days, but if you were there to experience it in the mid-Nineties, you know that it was a cut above what the majority of other developers were doing in 3D fighting games. Key to Tekken’s success was an intuitive four-button control system, assigning one limb to each button. Speaking to CVG in 1998, Hajime Nakatani explained that, “In other games, sometimes players can win by…

Our interview with Katsuhiro Harada and Michael Murray took place at the Red Bull Gaming Sphere in London, where they were guests for the Red Bull Golden Letters invitational tournament. Twenty players from around the world – sixteen invitees and four winners of qualifying events – came together for an event with an unusual twist. By accumulating three ‘perfect’ or ‘great’ round victories, indicated by golden letters on the screen, a player could automatically win their match. A number of spectators came to watch the event, and following the interview we sat with them to watch a level of play we could only dream of attaining. One particularly exciting match pitted Arslan Ash against SourPiggy, one of the players who had to qualify for the event – and it nearly…

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What was your path into computing and games programming? The first computer I had some experience with was a Swedish machine called the ABC 80. This was a Z80-based computer and it only had about 8KB of memory, so you couldn’t do very much with it. But it had a nice big keyboard and I got acquainted with BASIC on that. This was around 1980. Then in 1983 I got my own first computer, which was a Sinclair Spectrum. Was the Spectrum popular in Sweden? It was quite popular, but still behind the Commodore computers. The Spectrum’s sound and graphics were lacking compared to the Commodore 64, but a faster processor and lower price made up for some of that. It was especially important in being a starting point for…

» BBC MICRO » 1988 » LAWSON B WAKEFIELD Covertapes were an essential part of any child’s gaming collection growing up. They were attached to your favourite magazine, and came with a number of games to help pass away the time while you waited patiently for your birthday to arrive (and hopefully that full-price game you wanted). Sometimes covertapes would be filled with any old shovelware the magazine publisher could get its hands on, but just as many had fantastic gems that could have easily stood alone as proper paid releases. Save Your Bacon is one such game. Originally given away with an early 1988 issue of Disk User, to my knowledge the game never received an official retail release. That’s a shame because it’s a lot of fun to play,…

F-TYPE There are four main vehicles in Stunt Race FX, each with its own personality and distinct driving characteristics. The F-Type is a Formula 1-style racer with tight controls and blistering top speed. His body is weak, however, so skilled driving is key to staying out of the pits. COUPE The all-rounder of the four, Coupe is a classic two-door hot hatch with medium acceleration, medium top speed, and medium steering. Drivers will enjoy her penchant for drifting. Incidentally, the Japanese version’s manual notes that Coupe is the only one of the vehicles that’s female. 4WD With fast acceleration and a durable body, 4WD is a monster truck with a somewhat tame personality. This makes him easy for beginners, and one of the more fun vehicles to drive. His heavy…

BAD BLOOD In a callback to one of the movie’s most iconic scenes, Captain Blake and his squadmates need to do blood tests to gain the trust of Captain Pierce. In an even bigger callback, Blake says, “Now I’m going to show you what I already know,” as he self-administers the blood test, which is exactly what Kurt Russell’s RJ MacReady said in the movie. CHILD’S FATE At the end of the movie, only two survivors remain: Childs and MacReady. The Thing videogame answers questions about both of their fates, and unfortunately for Childs, it ain’t a great one. Early in the game, you stumble upon the body of Childs, who has seemingly succumbed to the freezing cold (with MacReady’s iconic whiskey bottle by his side). MOVIE CAMEO The mysterious…

» MANUFACTURER: Microsoft » YEAR: 2001 » COST: N/A – never sold at retail (launch), £1,000+ (today, boxed), £400+ (today, unboxed) The Xbox Debug Kit may look like a special edition of the original Xbox, but the name gives away its purpose – it was primarily designed for developers to use when testing Xbox games in development. It is able to run Xbox games without the standard digital signature needed by regular consoles, both from DVD and from the console’s internal hard disk, but can’t play officially released game discs. This hardware was also used by other professionals including the media, in order to play preview builds of games. Although never intended for regular gamers, some units have made their way into the wild. Although original Xbox consoles are easily…

DOUBLE DRAGON NEON 2012 Double Dragon Neon delivered a lot of simple fighting fun and plenty of humour – but the brawler developed by 2D specialists WayForward was not that convincing. The controls were too stiff, and it’s rather short with some frustrating level design choices, but it’s still enjoyable fluff. At least the music by Jake Kaufman was awesome! DOUBLE DRAGON IV 2017 Released to coincide with the series’ 30th anniversary, Double Dragon IV was the first Double Dragon title to be developed independently by Arc System Works, and it returned to the series’ roots in every way possible – complete with pixelated 8-bit graphics and simplistic, occasionally frustrating gameplay. DOUBLE DRAGON COLLECTION 2023 There is no better way to get back to the roots of the Double Dragon…

MAKE LOVE, NOT WARCRAFT Arguably the most iconic moment of WOW’s history was when South Park made an entire episode about it, even featuring in-game recreations of Stan, Cartman, Kenny and the others. Working alongside Blizzard, this was as much a love note to WOW as it was a tonguein-cheek jibe at the nerds who play it. ME NOT THAT KIND OF ORC! WOW tends to draw attention when the public learns that a celebrity is also a Warcrack addict. Jamie Lee Curtis is noteworthy in this regard, considering she appeared in orc cosplay at the premiere of the Warcraft movie. She even officiated her daughter’s wedding dressed as famed Alliance mage Jaina Proudmoore. MR CONDESCENDING DIRECTOR Many gamers will remember the WOW commercials featuring a number of well-known celebrities,…

» Buy it for: £34.99 » Buy it from: bitmapbooks.com Although Bitmap Books has dabbled in tomes dedicated to a single genre before, this is arguably its strongest for some time. It works because it’s more than just a sum of its parts and as a result, gives a better indication of not only the evolution of the genre, but also its importance. Handily split into two-year seasons and wisely choosing to focus on series like FIFA and Pro Evo rather than their individual entries, each section has an overview of the two years along with key games and a fun little awards section that is repeated throughout the book. Misnamed surnames from unlicensed games are celebrated, some of the pixel art looks glorious and it’s filled with fascinating trivia.…

CROWLEY’S WORLD TOUR <“It started as Horace World Tour. Rather than go to a legal battle, I decided to rebrand it. So, Crowley was born,” Michael says./> HEAD OVER HEELS NEXT <“I had never done an isometric game before, hopefully, I did the game and Jon Ritman proud.” We’d certainly say so, it earned 90% in issue 264./> RUSTY ARCADE MACHINES (RAMS) <“Jim showed me an early version of Pac-Man being run using the arcade ROMs,” says Michael. “We used shared code to run many more games.”/> TYVARIAN <“I realised there may be something a little more unique we could do with [Solar Fox]. We wanted to keep the player on their toes.”/> WARHAWK <“I would like to do another Warhawk at some stage bringing it closer to the Nintendo DS…

<INFO FORMAT: COMMODORE 64 CREDITS: PAUL KOLLER (CODE, GRAPHICS), (SOUND & MUSIC) PRICE: $2.99 DIGITAL DOWNLOAD WEB: BIT.LY/SPELUNKY64/> <BODY> With the blessing of Derek Yu and Mossmouth, this official conversion is superbly done. Armed with a whip, ropes, and bombs, you must collect treasure from 16 challenging caves while avoiding enemies, spikes, and other hazards. If you can find a shop, there are extra items to buy (including a handy compass that points to the exit, climbing gloves to cling to walls, and a parachute to save you from long falls). Getting hit by an enemy or falling too far costs a precious heart, but rescuing a damsel in distress and taking her to the exit of a level restores one. Spikes and certain enemies can unfortunately cause an instant…

Hi Retro Gamer team, I love the magazine, and look forward to it arriving each month. This is probably a bit dull for a full feature or anything, but I’m always interested to see how collectors store their collections. As someone whose own retro collection is slowly growing (a mix of recently starting to buy older games, and buying as many newer retro collections on Switch or Evercade as I can get my hands on), I’m concerned about how much space my collection is starting to take up. With a one year old, and an incredibly understanding wife sharing the house with me, there’s definitely a limit on how much I can have out, but I also don’t really want to end up just putting a load of games in…