Home//Retro Gamer/No. 229/In This Issue
Retro Gamer|No. 229SPEEDY 64Sonic has occasionally been known to travel through time on his adventures, and homebrew coder Mr SID has brought Sega’s mascot back to the Eighties with a Commodore 64 port of the first Master System game. Stages, bosses and secrets all come across intact, and the tunes by Yuzo Koshiro have been faithfully translated to the SID chip. You’ll need a 256KB RAM expansion unit to play it on original hardware, but it will also work on the C64 Mini and its full-sized brother as well as various emulators. Download the disk image at https://csdb.dk…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229THE ASTRO CITY MINI GETS UPDATEDIt would appear that the arcade rivalries of the Eighties and Nineties are still going strong today. Last year, Taito announced a new mini arcade cabinet that would include a rotatable screen for tate games. Sega has now shot back with a similar cabinet called the Astro City Mini V. Although it lacks a rotatable screen, it is designed for vertical games and the library of 22 titles includes some exceptional shmups, including Batsugan, Raiden, Truxton 2 and Armed Police Batrider. It’s currently planned as a Japan exclusive, but hopefully it will make its way to the UK like the original Astro City Mini did.…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229THE LATEST NEWS FROM APRIL 2005Stealthy Sam Fisher made his highly anticipated return in the multiformat release Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory this month, and he was welcomed back warmly. Review scores were great across the board, including 9.4/10 from the Official Xbox Magazine, 9/10 in the Official PlayStation 2 Magazine, 9/10 in XBM, 89% in PC Gamer, 8/10 in games™ and the same from Edge. The new co-operative mode was the star of the show, with XBM claiming that the single-player action “isn’t a big step in the evolution of the Splinter Cell franchise”, but that the co-op is “teamwork at its best”. Likewise, games™ felt that, “The ingenious co-op level layouts remind you why we all fell for the series in the first place.” Also impressing across platforms was Brothers In Arms: Road To…4 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229THIS MONTH IN…NGC “It just goes to show that a good mechanical engine of a game is wasted on a game with no creative thought put into level design.” What does? Metroid Prime 2: Echoes does, according to reader Aaron Robinson. “Well, it isn’t for everyone,” starts the reply. “It isn’t for me either, since I got lost and had to give up halfway through the first one.” Edge This month, Edge has been to the AOU arcade show in Japan and the presence of smaller developers has made it less gloomy about the future of the market. “If the Japanese arcade market can continue to court popular interest while also providing a haven for independent development, then this will have been, at last, an AOU with a sense of purpose.” Cube…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229The SequelsPILOTWINGS 64 ■ Controversial alternate opinion: Pilotwings 64 was the better launch game. Super Mario 64 is amazing, but there’s not much to do after you grab all 120 stars. With Pilotwings 64 you could invent your own goals. Gyrocopter barnstorming, landing the glider on smokestacks, racing the rocket in a jetpack – your imagination is the limit! PILOTWINGS RESORT ■ Roughly 15 years after the N64 sequel there was this 3DS release. The presentation, physics and controls are all very nice, but this feels like a missed opportunity. It recycles Wuhu Island from Wii Sports Resort, meaning there’s only one stage instead of four, which severely reduces the variety from the two previous games.…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229STAGES OF EVOLUTION: CRAZY COMBATBATTLETOADS (GAME BOY) Zitz dispatches foes with the Big Bad Boot in his solo Game Boy mission, where his DM expands and kicks them off the screen. He also has the Anvil Slam, where his hand morphs into a giant anvil to squash leeches with, and the Jet Ski Swing, where he uses a Jet Ski as a baseball bat! BATTLETOADS IN BATTLEMANIACS Pimple’s Battletoad Butt move in Battlemaniacs sees him sprout huge ram horns that send enemies flying. His other special attacks in the game include the BT Big Hammer, where his fist becomes a mighty mallet, and the Wun-Tun Stomp, where his stamping foot turns into a heavy weight. BATTLETOADS (ARCADE) Rash’s goriest Battletoads coin-op attack is the Steel Claw Strike, where he rips fallen foes apart. His…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229Hardware Heavan SG-1000» MANUFACTURER: Sega » YEAR: 1983 » COST: ¥15,000 (launch), £390+ (today, boxed), £350+ (today, unboxed) Having achieved success in the arcade business, Sega was looking for ways to expand its business using its gaming expertise. It initially settled on the idea of creating an 8-bit home computer for entry-level users, eventually released as the SC-3000, but soon learned that Nintendo was planning to launch a home console. Inspired to enter the market itself, Sega created a console version of the SC-3000 with no keyboard and a single built-in joystick controller. However, the company did allow an upgrade path, with an expansion port for a keyboard peripheral, as well as a port for a second joystick. The SG-1000 launched in the same month as Nintendo’s Famicom and initially fared well.…2 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229Road Avenger» MEGA-CD » 1992 » WOLF TEAM I doubt many of you will be too surprised to find out that as well as enjoying retro games, I’m interested in other things regardless of whether they’re new. Anime is definitely one example of that – say what you will about how Manga Video used to do things, but there’s a certain nostalgic element to its profanity-laden English dubs and new soundtracks. That aside, changing trends mean that modern favourites like Kaguya-sama: Love Is War and Odd Taxi scratch a very different itch from classics like Akira and Bubblegum Crisis. That’s probably why I like Road Avenger so much. Though it arrived in the home in the early Nineties, it originated as a laserdisc game by Data East in the Eighties, much…2 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229NAME-DROPPING SEQUELSHARED UNIVERSE ■ Drop Soldier was set in the same universe as Gravity, continuing the war against the invading Outies. This time, it was viewed from an in-helmet perspective. The player was to command a troop of soldiers hand-picked on a mission-by-mission basis, with each having a different set of skills, and equipment. FRACTAL LANDSCAPES ■ Early versions on the Atari ST ran a preemptive, prioritised threading system which generated a fractal landscape that would never repeat. It included palm-like trees and buildings to enter and walk around. A graduated sky completed the illusion, using a timer interrupt that changed the background colour that formed it. MULTIPLE SCREENS ■ The main display would have been several screens wide, with the central screen being the visor view. Scrolling left or right…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229THE LOTUS CONNECTIONIt is inevitable that comparisons will be drawn between Gremlin’s Lotus and Top Gear series. After all, the graphics are strikingly similar: there are chunky cars viewed from behind which drive down a horizontally-striped track that is flanked either side by red and white stripes. There is also the same split-screen two-player view. Yet Ritchie Brannan and Ashley Bennett say they didn’t necessarily take their main cues from the Lotus franchise. “There may have been some influence but Out Run was really the main inspiration,” Ritchie affirms, with Ashley adding, “We didn’t actively copy anything other than the things we probably thought were obvious. A lot of how it looked was because that was the only way you could do it.” Even so, Ritchie says the artists had worked with…2 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229CLOCK WORK AQUARIOTypically, Retro Inspired covers new games that wish they were old, but Clockwork Aquario isn’t really a new game. In fact, it has existed since the early Nineties, intended as a comical action game for Japanese arcades. Developed by Westone, which already had a pedigree in action platformers, including Wonder Boy, Monster Land and Monster Lair, designer Ryuichi Nishizawa tells us, “Clockwork Aquario was planned as a continuation of that lineage. We thought we could expect a certain level of demand for an action game with comical characters running around the screen.” Unfortunately, this was also around the same time that Japanese arcades were being taken over by the popularity of fighting games, in particular with Street Fighter II’s release in 1991. This new competitive battleground made it difficult for…5 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229MIGHTY THOM“I was developing visual designs for Viking lore,” Thom tells us. “At the time, most of my Viking knowledge came from Marvel Comics’ The Mighty Thor, particularly, the great Walt Simonson’s run as writer and artist.” A chance meeting soon provided Thom with the inspiration he needed, and it came directly from the source. “I had a chance to meet with Walt unrelated to the Gargoyles production,” Thom continues. “I told him what I was working on and asked him what inspired his Thor stories, and what [Viking] research he did. He walks into his studio and pulls a book from his library. He says everything he knew about Vikings came from this one book. Then he gives me the book. I was really touched by this.” Unfortunately, Thom’s anecdote…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229GAME BOY ADVANCE GAMESSO YOU WANT TO COLLECT… GAME BOY ADVANCE GAMES GOTTA SNAG’EM ALL POKÉMON FIRERED/LEAFGREEN DEVELOPER: GAME FREAK RELEASE: 2004 Remakes are now a regular feature in the Pokémon series, but back in 2004 the idea was completely fresh, and, some might say, necessary. Although the backwards compatibility of Game Boy Advance allowed owners to plug in and enjoy the original Pokémon Game Boy cartridges, it was impossible to trade monsters from your old cart to the new generation introduced with Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire. So FireRed and LeafGreen didn’t just offer fans an opportunity to replay a favourite adventure with a fresh coat of paint, it also reintroduced the iconic original 151 monsters back into play. Trading and battling had become such an important part of Pokémon fandom by 2004…12 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229FURTHER ADVENTURES IN MIDDLE-EARTHTHE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS YEAR: 2002 SYSTEM: PS2, XBOX, GAMECUBE The first game based on The Lord Of The Rings from EA heavily focused on the events of the second film. Players fight through locales like Helm’s Deep, Weathertop and Moria as either Aragorn, Legolas or Gimli. The Two Towers very much walked so that The Return Of The King could run. THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE THIRD AGE YEAR: 2004 SYSTEM: PS2, XBOX, GAMECUBE With no specific movie release date to hit this time, EA Redwood Shores was freed up to create an original, parallel story with new characters for its second tie-in to the hit trilogy. The Third Age forgoes hack-and-slash gameplay for traditional turn-based combat and heavy RPG elements. THE LORD OF…2 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229Analogue PocketThis month we put Analogue’s latest system through its paces, try out a selection of new Evercade cartridges and give you the lowdown on a brand-new Lemmings documentary PICKS OF THE MONTH DARRAN Evercade: Intellivision Collection 1 I never owned this system as a youngster, so it has been interesting discovering new games. NICK Evercade: Gaelco Arcade 1 There’s some delightfully odd games on this collection and I’ve really enjoyed playing them. INFORMATION » RELEASED: OUT NOW » PRICE: $219.99 » PUBLISHER: ANALOGUE » WEBSITE: ANALOGUE.CO We’ve been waiting for the Analogue Pocket for what feels like forever – it was over two years ago that it was first revealed, after all. Analogue’s consoles have historically been worth the wait though, and our patience has been rewarded once again. At…6 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229Clockwork Aquario» System: Switch (tested), PS4 » Buy it from: Online » Buy it for: £16.99 It’s remarkable that this platform game even exists.Wonder Boy developer Westone cancelled it after some unsuccessful location tests at arcades in 1993, and the game has had to be restored from incomplete source material. You can feel that this has been a real labour of love – there’s a nice art gallery, good CRT filter options, a remixed soundtrack and even unlockable dip switch options. The game itself is competent with satisfying grab and throw combat, and it features some truly beautiful pixel art. However, it really lacks the kind of memorable set pieces that set the best games apart from the competition. Unlocking infinite credits requires you to complete the game – you get…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229BOXING CLEVERGot an impressive collection of your own? Contact us at: RetroGamerUK @RetroGamer_Mag retrogamer@futurenet.com SAMURAI SHODOWN I ordered this as soon as they were announced from Pix N Love, a fantastic low-print publisher from France. Who could pass up these collector’s editions in original Neo Geo Shock Boxes? PAID: £85 (EACH) NES SIGNED BY MASAYUKI UEMURA I bought my NES from a friend in the Nineties. A few years ago, I had the pleasure of photographing Masayuki Uemura, the designer of the NES hardware, for Retro Gamer 155 and he signed the box for me. PAID: £10 BIO NAME: Matt Taylor LOCATION: Nottingham FAVOURITE GAME: Shinobi (arcade) FAVOURITE SYSTEM: SNES COLLECTION WORTH: £12,000-£15,000 CONTRA SPIRITS When it was localised in Europe as another Probotector game, that just wouldn’t do, so I…4 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229MAIL BAGWIN! Every month, one lucky writer-in will receive a spanking copy of either our NES/Master System or SNES/Mega Drive books Don’t forget to follow us online for all the latest retro updates RetroGamerUK @RetroGamer_Mag Retro Gamer Magazine @RetroGamerMag CONTACT US Snail Mail: Retro Gamer, Future Publishing, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, Somerset, BA1 1UA Email: retrogamer@futurenet.com DREAMCAST FOREVER Hi Retro Gamer, A few years back you used to run regular articles on the Top 25 Games for different systems. I was holding out for a list for my favourite system, Sega’s Dreamcast, but unless I somehow missed it, I don’t think it ever appeared? The Dreamcast burned quick, but it burned oh so bright, with so many vivid, memorable games. Is there any chance you’d be able to run such…5 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229Your sayWhat’s the most technically impressive SNES game you’ve played? Lightfoot Bros I think Contra III for me was mindblowing at the time. It had all the elements to really show off the SNES’ capabilities. Amazing set pieces, Mode 7, action, fantastic music and SFX – it put the ‘Super’ into Super Nintendo. TJ Killer Instinct. It had fluid smooth gameplay, really nice visuals and crammed pretty much all the arcade game stuff in there. SolasSlyM3 For ‘technical’ achievement… probably Stunt Race FX. You have to keep in mind they didn’t think the SNES could push polygons at all when they made Star Fox, and Stunt Race FX pushed more of them and faster. Martin Super Aleste. Incredible speed, so many sprites and no slowdown. Unreal. Aries Star Fox and Donkey…2 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229LOADING…I can still remember my first encounter with our cover game Pilotwings. I was visiting my best mate Paul Staddon because he had a Super Famicom and a number of games for it, including Super Mario World and F-Zero. Both were superb, but Pilotwings really stood out for me because it looked like nothing I had ever seen on a home system before. Seeing Pilotwings’ levels scale and rotate as you completed tasks felt like witchcraft and I knew right then that I had to own Nintendo’s console. It proved to be a solid purchase and even though it wasn’t always the best system for shmups, I nevertheless built up an impressive library of games, many of which pushed the technological limits of the console. Thirty years ago in 1992,…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229ANTSTREAM POWERS UPAntstream has come a long way since it made its debut and it has quickly become the go-to place for playing classic retro games online. While we had issues with certain aspects of the service when it first launched, there’s no denying how responsive it feels to play games online now and improvements are continually being made to the service. Numerous competitions are in place too, ensuring there’s plenty of entertainment to be had for those that have subscribed. Games are continually getting added as well, and one of the more unusual additions is the planned MSX games that are being added. However, as Antstream’s CEO Steve Cottam tells us, the inclusion of MSX games makes perfect sense when you look at the larger picture. “Antstream is a global gaming…3 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229Right said FredWho is Iain Lee? Iain Lee is a freelance broadcaster who loves gaming, particularly retro gaming. Join him as he hosts a phone-in show and plays games at www.twitch.tv/iainlee and also check out www.patreon.com/iainandKatherine I host an online show. I stream on a mixture of Twitch and YouTube, the latter being exclusive to my Patreons. Quite often on the show a forgotten TV programme or song or presenter will pop into my head and I’ll start digging around on YouTube trying to find clips. My recently diagnosed ADHD often means I’ll stick with a video for only a few minutes before jumping off onto something else. Last week I was watching old game shows with my audience. We started with Take Your Pick, moved to Sale Of The Century, had…3 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229NEWS APRIL 2005On 2 April, Pope John Paul II passed away at the age of 84. Born as Karol Józef Wojtyla in Wadowice, Poland, he became the first non-Italian head of the Catholic Church in centuries when he was elected on 16 October 1978. The German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected as his successor on 19 April and took the name Pope Benedict XVI. MG Rover, the last remaining British-owned mass-production car manufacturer, entered administration on 8 April with £1.4 billion in debt. Despite an attempted rescue deal with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, the company collapsed with over 6,000 workers made redundant. The company’s suppliers also experienced around 25,000 job losses as a consequence. The remaining assets of the company were purchased by Nanjing Automobile Group in July 2005, for £53 million.…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229BB4CPC VIN-DI-CA-TION!» AMSTRAD CPC » 2011 » CNGSOFT It could be tough being a CPC owner growing up. Most of your mates owned Spectrums and Commodore 64s and when they weren’t telling you that their systems were superior to yours, you were very often thinking it yourself. And how could you not? After all, I loved visiting the arcades and then playing my favourite games on my Amstrad when I got home, but the Amstrad’s arcade ports were rarely better than those on the C64 (at least, that’s how I bitterly remember it). I recall one particular trip to Luke Palmer’s house and I experienced Bubble Bobble on his Commodore 64 and it was absolutely magnificent. MAGNIFICENT! The graphics and audio were obviously nowhere near as good as the original arcade…2 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229ULTIMATE GUIDE PilotwingsThe history of Pilotwings is inextricably entwined with the conception of the Super Famicom itself, and to fully appreciate it, one needs to visualise the global zeitgeist of November 1988. This was the same month the films They Live and Scrooged both premiered; Last Ninja 2 topped UK software charts, while Super Mario Bros 2 on NES enthralled the US. In Japan though, on the 21st of that month, Nintendo was demonstrating the Super Famicom for the first time. This new hardware had been hinted at as early as September 1987, but this was its grand unveiling. Famitsu magazine naturally ran a feature in its 64th issue. Nintendo’s timing was shrewd: Sega had launched its Mega Drive less than a month earlier, now suddenly here was the successor to Nintendo’s…7 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229Marvellous MinigamesBIRDMAN BOUNCE ■ The easiest minigame to access, you just need to land the jetpack on the moving platform. There are a few different variations of course layout but they all involve bouncing on ‘P squares’ for extra points, bouncing over long distances via yellow trampolines, then landing in the watery target zone. PENGUIN DIVE ■ Difficult to access, since it requires parachuting onto a small green moving platform, but not impossible. Afterwards, you manoeuvre a diving penguin into a target pool. There’s several different pool layouts, randomly chosen. Do not get greedy and aim for the 70 point pool, 50 points is easier and still plenty. BIRDMAN FLAP ■ We don’t even want to think about how many times we tried to access this – it’s almost impossible. You…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229STAGES OF EVOLUTION: ECLECTIC CHALLENGESBATTLETOADS The joy of Battletoads is that isn’t just a beat-’emup; it’s a multi-genre title. It tasks you with winching your way down a deep enemy-filled shaft, and ascending a hazardous rotating tower, but its most memorable challenge involves negotiating an obstacle course on a speeder bike. BATTLETOADS/DOUBLE DRAGON The Battletoads crossover retains the original’s shafts and speeder bikes, but it also introduces tests of agility like hanging onto ledges and inching through enemy territory. It has a shoot-’em-up stage too, like the Game Boy Battletoads, where you take on a dreadnought in space. BATTLETOADS (2020) Besides its 3D speeder bike stage, the reboot has logistical puzzles, old-school platforming and a menial jobs challenge, where the toads become a masseuse and an office drone. It also challenges you to ride…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229THE RETRO GAMER GUIDE TO commodore 64Commodore’s 8-bit home computer made a huge impact when it landed 40 years ago in 1982. The company was no stranger to the 8-bit market, having already released systems like the Commodore Pet and VIC-20, but Commodore’s owner, Jack Tramiel, wanted to dominate the market, and he aggressively marketed the C64, cutting its price by $200 a few months after its release, as well as using a casing that was extremely similar to the C64’s predecessor, the Commodore VIC-20. The C64 may have looked extremely similar to the humble VIC-20, but there were huge differences beneath the bread bin-like exterior. For starters, it featured a whopping 64KB of RAM with an additional 20KB of ROM, better resolution and incredible sound thanks to the SID (Sound Interface Device) chip, which allowed…15 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229SPECTRUM NEXTIt has been two years since Retro Gamer lifted the lid on the Spectrum Next, revealing the machine that the Sinclair faithful had been waiting decades for. Back then, backers of the first Kickstarter campaign had yet to receive their Nexts, but they soon would. Now we find ourselves in a similar situation, where backers of the second Kickstarter campaign have yet to receive their Nexts. But they soon will. The key difference now is software. Over the past two years, lots of games and applications have been released, so those people soon to receive their machines have a decent-sized library of great games to delve into. We’ve selected ten of what we feel are the best games, but if you visit specnext.com you’ll find many more, either available right…2 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229THE THEORY OF GRAVITYThe single most important inspiration for Gravity was the concept of Minkowski Spacetime. Hermann Minkowski was a German mathematician who contributed to mathematical theories, mathematical physics and the theory of relativity. He was a prominent European university lecturer and was one of Albert Einstein’s teachers. Minkowski Spacetime is a mathematical concept involving the three dimensions we are familiar with, plus the addition of time as the fourth. The infamous rubber sheet model is commonly used to explain the concept in layman’s terms. Imagine holding out a flat rubber sheet, then placing a heavy ball in the centre. The sheet is affected by the mass of the ball and the rubber stretches and curves as a result. If a smaller mass comes close to the curvature, then the path of that…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229TOP GEAR EVOLVES■ Although this was the first non-Gremlin Top Gear game, publisher KEMCO nevertheless wanted the game to continue on its Nintendo journey. Rally was released on the N64 in 1997, taking the series into off-road territory with a gorgeous graphically-detailed arcade game that boasted realistic physics and a great track design. TOP GEAR HYPER-BIKE ■ KEMCO commissioned Top Gear Overdrive as a sequel to Top Gear Rally before asking Snowblind Studios to mix things up a bit by introducing motorbikes to the franchise. Earmarked for the Nintendo 64 in 1999, it was developed at a time when motorbike racers were proving popular. Sadly, it lacked depth and the courses were too short. TOP GEAR POCKET ■ Ensuring handheld console gamers wouldn’t miss out on the action, Top Gear Pocket pulled…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229STRICTLY RETROAs well as Nishizawa and members of the original team, Aquario’s restoration involved a number of key partners, not least emulation wizard M2 that was first given the recovered source files back in 2015. Another important partner is Strictly Limited Games, which isn’t just publishing and packaging the game for a proper physical release on both Switch and PS4, but also had a hand in development. According to a Nintendo Life interview, co-founder Dennis Mendel said that they were entrusted with the code and got a working demo to present to original programmer Kurihara during Tokyo Game Show in 2019. The German company had also been responsible for salvaging and resurrecting the cancelled game Ultracore, a Mega Drive title originally developed by Digital Illusions (now DICE) back in 2020. Strictly…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229VECTOR PRIMEHidden deep in the code of Gargoyles is a mesmerising dance of balls, which you would likely expect to find in Vectorman. On top of the words of gratitude from the programmer, the player can change the shape of the figures, the distance between the balls and also rotate the figures. And all this is accompanied by techno music! “There were some things I wanted to do in code, like vector balls,” says Chris Shrigley, “which I actually coded up and got working but never made it into the game. The code is still in there, though.” “Chris and I were both fans of techno music, and he asked if I would compose something in a techno style for him, so I did,” recalls Patrick Collins. “You will hear my…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229Peripheral VisionESSENTIAL GAME Ridge Racer Type 4 Remember when Xzibit used to present Pimp My Ride? We do, and we get the feeling that he’d put a PSone with an LCD screen in your car. He would have heard that you like cars, you see, and would have put a console in your car so you can drive while you drive. If you’re going to do that, why not play Ridge Racer Type 4? The scenery is almost certainly more beautiful than whichever motorway gridlock you happen to actually be stuck in, and the music will soothe your road rage. Plus the racing is rather excellent. LCD Screen » PLATFORM: PSone » RELEASED: 2001 » COST: £99.99 (launch), £100+ (today, boxed) £60+ (today, unboxed) When Sony announced that it would be…2 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229PRECIOUS BONUS CONTENTMore so than other movie tie-in games at the time, Redwood Shores gave The Lord Of The Rings fans unprecedented access to bonus materials that revealed more about the making of both the game and film. Behind-the-scenes interviews, concept art and other extra bits aren’t hiding deep in sub-menus, either, but are instead built into the body of the level path. You unlock more ‘Making Of’ content the further into the three campaigns you progress, gaining further insight into how EA attempted to create a playable blockbuster experience worthy of Tolkien’s text and Jackson’s cinematic vision. Hearing legendary thespians like Ian McKellen and Christopher Lee speak of their enthusiasm about giving players a way to take part in the movie is a surreal yet special treat. Unsurprisingly, it’s a part…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229Evercade Multi Game Cartridges» System: Evercade » Buy it from: Online, retail » Buy it for: £17.99 Blaze’s addition of arcade cartridges to the Evercade range has been a really positive step, and we’ve been eagerly awaiting getting our hands on the Gaelco and Atari collections after great experiences with the Technos and Data East cartridges. Despite not being the best-known developer, Spanish arcade manufacturer Gaelco put out some great games in the Nineties and its collection is an absolute delight. World Rally is an excellent racing game that will delight fans of the Drift Out series, and Alligator Hunt is a great action game in the tradition of Cabal and Wild Guns. Biomechanical Toy and Thunder Hoop are both run-and-gun platformers, with the former being the more fast-paced and visually impressive of…2 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229Lemmings: Can You Dig it?» Buy it from: bit.ly/doclemmings » Buy it for: Free It’s easy to forget the impact that Lemmings made when it first appeared on computer screens in 1991. Fortunately, Richard Wilcox, the director and editor of Can You Dig it? remembers all too well and, along with producers Jamie Wotton and Stuart O’Brien, has assembled virtually all the original Lemmings team to discuss the creation of this seminal game. Can You Dig It? not only examines the origins of Lemmings, but also the birth of DMA Design and Lemmings’ own legacy, including its links to the GTA series. Filmed during the pandemic, its production does suffer at times, but it still offers a truly fascinating look behind the scenes, even without the involvement of David Jones. It’s also notable for…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229BARGAIN HUNTTHE COVER STAR PILOTWINGS The original remains amongst the very best of SNES titles and a boxed PAL release shouldn’t set you back more than £20, with loose copies going for as little as £5. The US NTSC version goes for a little more, so why not treat yourself to a boxed Japanese release, with its lovely cover art, for around £10? GARGOYLES A loose cartridge of Gargoyles should set you back around £30, ignoring the ones for under a tenner from China which look in suspiciously good condition. Boxed copies do not surface often and can fetch up to £130. TOP GEAR Boxed copies with instructions shouldn’t set you back more than £20 and loose copies go for just a few quid. A bundle of the original and its…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229Excite Truck» WII » 2006 » MONSTER GAMES One of my younger sisters is now at university, and given that she was just a toddler when I left town for my own studies 15 years prior, this is a terrifying mark of the passage of time. While it does involve glossing over the essay stress and arguments about stolen food, I do look back fondly at my time at uni, and the Wii was a big part of that. I was given mine for Christmas shortly after starting, and the focus on social games and silly waving was perfect for boozy nights in. The likes of Wii Sports, Rayman: Raving Rabbids and Mario Kart Wii were all popular with my housemates for obvious reasons, but I was surprised when another racing…2 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229EGRET II MINI HEADS WESTWe’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of Taito’s Egret II Mini, but we were worried that it might remain an import exclusive. Thankfully, it has now been announced that it’ll be coming to North America and Europe this year via Inin Games and Strictly Limited Games. The miniature arcade cabinet features 40 builtin games including Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble, The New Zealand Story and Elevator Action Returns, a rotating 4:3 display and HDMI output. The unit also has the ability to add extra games, with the likes of Arkanoid and Puchi Carat included with the paddle and trackball controller kit. We can’t wait.…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229BLAZE ANNOUNCES A NEW EVERCADE COLLECTIONMany of you will have no doubt received your Evercade VS by now, but Blaze Entertainment certainly isn’t resting on its laurels. We already knew that a collection of games owned by Renovation was on the way, but Blaze has also revealed that a Gremlin Graphics collection is currently in the works with a planned release for March. The six-game collection includes Zool, Premier Manager 97, Actua Soccer, Utopia, Brain Bender and Hardcore 4X4. It’s not the most exciting selection of games, but the pricing seems reasonable, even at the new higher price of £17.99, which is the new price for all existing carts as well.…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229A new strategyWho is Paul Rose? Paul is probably better known as Mr Biffo – the creator of legendary teletext games magazine Digitiser. These days, he mostly writes his videogame ramblings over at Digitiser2000.com. If you want more Biffo in your eyes, you can catch him as the host of Digitizer The Show at www.bit.ly/biffo2000. Do you remember a game called Shadowfire? It was a Spectrum game initially, point-and-click strategy, albeit without a mouse. It was incredibly tough, I never really felt I had a handle on it, and yet… it was released the year after teenage me lost two close family members. Oddly, it really helped me through that time. Without wishing to go into masses of detail, the past six months have been among the toughest of my life, and…3 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229CHARTSAPRIL 2005 PLAYSTATION 2 1 – Sonic Mega Collection Plus (Sega)2 – Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rockstar)3 – Need For Speed Underground 2 (EA)4 – UEFA Champions League 2004?2005 (EA)5 – Shadow Of Rome (Capcom) XBOX 1 – Mercenaries: Playground Of Destruction (LucasArts)2 – Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II (Activision)3 – Sonic Mega Collection Plus (Sega)4 – Dead Or Alive Ultimate (Microsoft)5 – Halo 2 (Microsoft) PC 1 – World Of Warcraft (Vivendi)2 – Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II (Activision)3 – The Sims 2 (EA)4 – Football Manager 2005 (Sega)5 – The Lord Of The Rings: Battle For Middle-earth (EA) MUSIC 1 – [Is This The Way To] Amarillo (Tony Christie ft Peter Kay)2 – Somewhere Else (Razorlight)3 – 1 2 Step (Ciara…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229SUPER-POWEREDTHE SNES IS UNDENIABLY A SUPERB CONSOLE, AND WITH HUNDREDS OF GAMES AVAILABLE THERE ARE PLENTY OF CLASSICS TO CHOOSE FROM. BUT WHICH GAMES REALLY MADE THE MOST OF THE HARDWARE AVAILABLE, AND HOW DID THEY DO IT? WE TAKE A LOOK AND FIND OUT They say that all good things are worth waiting for, and Nintendo fans of the early Nineties knew that all too well – after all, Super Mario Bros 3 was nearly three years old by the time it arrived on our shores. The SNES is undeniably a good thing, being the console that Retro Gamer readers voted as the greatest games system of all time back in 2018, and a long wait was inevitable – nearly a year and a half passed between the Japanese…26 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229The Sky’s The LimitMINIGAMES BOOST POINTS ■ If you find yourself struggling to reach your point quota for a stage, try accessing the hidden minigames by landing on special targets. Although difficult, it will net that vehicle a full 100-score-plus extra! The jetpack is easiest, the parachute challenging – don’t even bother with the glider. GET TO DA HOPPER! ■ You are not Robert Duval and this is not Apocalypse Now. You will get killed if you rush the combat missions. Complete these super slowly; you have ample fuel so there’s no real time limit. Enemies only attack when visible on-screen, so destroy them one at a time, including the invisible ones. THE BIG STUFF ■ No one likes to miss a ring when skydiving, but the points are small compared to your…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229ContraARCADE » 1987 » KONAMI I’ve often mentioned Quay Amusem*nts in the mag, as it’s an arcade where I spent many of my formative years, so it left a big impression on me. There was another place I used to hang out to play arcade games and it was a chip shop of all places. While the takeaway in question is still there, it has now become a more generic chicken fast food place – it also lacks the arcade machines it used to have, which makes me rather sad. I’m not sure if the original owner liked arcade games, or just saw them as good business sense, but my local chippy at the top of Herbert Avenue was unusual because it had two arcade cabinets and there were always…2 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229STAGES OF EVOLUTION: WHO’S THE BOSS?BATTLETOADS The boss encounters in Battletoads vary. There’s one-on-one combat with the anthropomorphic bull General Slaughter and the head of the Dark Queen’s rat army Big Blag, but the walker in the first boss fight has a ranged weapon, and in the final showdown the queen turns into a tornado. BATTLETOADS IN BATTLEMANIACS Bosses are thin on the ground in Battlemaniacs, but its two mayors are memorable. Rocky sounds cute, but he’s actually a gigantic pig made of rock who’s intent on crushing the toads. Then there’s the Dark Queen, who fires deadly projectiles while teleporting around her stone tower. BATTLETOADS (ARCADE) The coin-op sees recurring villains Big Blag and General Slaughter return, but its arcade hardware allows the toads to throw them straight into the screen! One notable new…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229PARADROID POWERParadroid successfully combines two distinct genres. Did you purposely try to create something different? I always followed my nose, trying to design a game that I would enjoy playing. I was more interested in using the technology to do something new. I would start with building the scrolling system and see what dropped out. This game was designed almost overnight as I walked home. I wrote down all the ideas I wanted to incorporate on one sheet of paper and all of those ideas went in. Where did Paradroid’s droidswapping originate? I think the idea germinated from an arcade game we used to play where you played a commando who could leap into a tank and use it. When it got hit you had a couple of seconds to leap…2 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229HOW TO WIN THE BATTLE AGAINST GRAVITYFIRST ORDERS ■ Beginners should set a 99% activity level for StarCom, then fly their UNSS Hawking spacecraft and look for the local gravity well on their long-range radar to find the local black hole. Steer and thrust the craft straight into the black hole to emerge at the pre-programmed mission destination. SIGNIFICANT COLOURS ■ The long-range radar displays paths to gravity sources. Green indicates planets, blue leads to the singularity, while grey leads to a star. The 3D grid turns brown when close to a rocky world, cyan for a Terran planet, magenta for a gas giant and other colours for the different star types. COLONISING MISSIONS ■ Start looking for a planet to colonise. Bring up the ship’s Tools module and have a Colony module ready for when…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229Head Over Heels» PLATFORM: AMSTRAD CPC » RELEASED: 1987 » DEVELOPER: JON RITMAN, BERNIE DRUMMOND AND GUY STEVENS 1987 was a pivotal year for the 8-bit computers. Throughout these 12 months, originality still flourished on the Spectrum, Amstrad and Commodore 64 despite the inevitable creep of releases licensed from arcade machines and movies. Head Over Heels is steeped in inventiveness, not least the innovative way in which each character has certain qualities that are manipulated in order to progress. However, operating Head and Heels separately will only get you so far; eventually the puzzles take on such a devious design that only the two creatures combined can solve them. Frustratingly separated by a just-too-high wall early on in the game, the pair escape and descend independently to the marketplace below the grim…3 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229CHASING THE HORIZONAs coder Ashley Bennett says, “Top Gear is still very, very big in Brazil.” No surprise, then, that Brazilian developer/publisher Aquiris Game Studio looked to pay tribute to the game when it released its own racer, Horizon Chase – a spiritual successor. With a similar look and feel, albeit with modern presentation, the game made its debut as Horizon Chase: World Tour in 2015 for Android and iOS. It was then released on Nintendo Switch, PS4, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Mac and Linux as Horizon Chase Turbo in 2018. Three DLC packs have been created since including the October 2021 update, Senna Forever. As if to underline the past connection, Barry Leitch, who composed the music for the Lotus series and original Top Gear game, has also been strongly…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229DARKNESS AND LIGHTBATMAN BATMAN RETURNS (MEGA DRIVE) ■ The most popular comic-book hero of the Nineties revived interest in the Gothic style and served as a reference for the Gargoyles game. Batman also uses his wing-like cloak to extend his jump trajectory. FIREBRAND DEMON’S CREST (SNES) ■ The final part of the Gargoyle’s Quest trilogy starred a demon named Firebrand. Along with Goliath, he also cannot fly freely; his wings only give him limited freedom of movement and the ability to hover in the air. NIGHTCRAWLER X-MEN 2: CLONE WARS (MEGA DRIVE) ■ Kurt Wagner, better known as Nightcrawler, is devoid of wings but endowed with a pointed tail. In addition to the ability to teleport, he can climbs walls and ceilings with the dexterity of Gargoyles’ Goliath.…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229No One Can Stop Mr Domino» PLAYSTATION » 1998 » ARTDINK I’ve recently been digging through my stack of PlayStation demo CDs, and I’ve come to realise just how much I miss them. While the early discs could be pretty light on content, the later ones provided plenty of entertainment value with lots of demos as well as Net Yaroze games, cheat save files and even video compilations of readers’ best goals. Of course, what I prized was the chance to try a wider range of games than we could ever afford, including some I never would have normally considered. No One Can Stop Mr Domino is definitely a game that I’d have skipped over without the demo. It isn’t the most exciting game to look at in still screenshots, and with all due respect…2 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229SHRINKING THE KINGWhile the official The Return Of The King game on home consoles may have switched developers, EA once again tapped portable specialist Griptonite Games to handle the Game Boy Advance version. It plays and looks extremely similar to its predecessor The Two Towers, letting you play through the movie’s events from an isometric view as a collection of heroes ranging from Gandalf to Éowyn. It stays true to the hack-and-slash roots of its bigger brother, sprinkling in more mechanics and locations to build off the previous game’s simple but fun foundation. Looting, in particular, is much improved, as now not every item you find is useless seeing as they can be shared between characters. Much like before, upgrading characters is a far deeper and thoughtful process than in the main…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229Super Mario 64 DS» DS » 2004 » NINTENDO EAD I’ve mentioned before that I was an early adopter of the DS, picking up a US model on launch day. When I ordered my system along with Feel The Magic XY/XX, Super Mario 64 DS, Spider - Man 2 and Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt (which was included as a pack-in game) I predicted I would spend most of my time playing Super Mario 64 DS. While I was correct, it wasn’t Mario’s main adventure that actually kept my attention. Granted, Super Mario 64 is a fantastic game and the ability to play as Mario’s mates and run around the castle using your thumb to control the on-screen action certainly felt novel, but it was the included Rec Room where I spent the…2 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229The Little Book Of Sound Chips: Volume 1: 1977-1981» Buy it from: Fusionretrobooks.com » Buy it for: £14.99 (£9.99 Kindle) The latest project from Chris Abbott and Andrew Laggan is ideal for anyone with a passing interest in the sound capabilities of 8-bit consoles and home computers as well as the arcade games that were so prominent during the era. It features a number of interesting and often tech-focused interviews and effortlessly highlights just how difficult it was to create memorable tunes on these systems. A large number of games are featured and you can listen to their best tracks by scanning the included QR code. It’s a neat idea, allowing you to enjoy the book in a new way. It’s not the deepest of reads, but it’s packed with plenty of interesting facts and is very fairly…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229READERS REACTSamantha Ferreira Zelda: The Wind Waker. I was all hyped to explore the world; visually, it looked great, and every feature sounded stellar. Then I played it, and the sailing was tedious, and the latter game was basically a giant series of fetch quests and currency sinks. I tuned out and gave up. Graham Plowman Beyond Divinity on the PC. I loved Divine Divinity before it, a real sleeper hit, but the sequel failed to live up to expectations for me, and I never finished it. Still, Larian Studios then went on to greater things… John ‘Snagultoof’ Davies I enjoyed Arcadia on the Spectrum so I was really looking forward to Schizoids by Imagine when it came out, based entirely on the advert and inlay cover. It wasn’t a very…2 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229LOST LEGENDSHi Retro Gamer, I’m getting old and I don’t like it. Aside from gaining increased girth around my stomach and a loss of hair, I’m also losing the gaming legends I grew up with and it’s becoming hard to deal with. I’m in my early 50s and have been enjoying games since the likes of Space Invaders and Pac-Man hit arcades, so I’ve certainly seen a lot from a gaming perspective. As much as I love reading your magazine, the news section has made for some sobering reading lately because so many classic developers are dying. It’s obviously inevitable, of course, but it doesn’t make the news any less easier to deal with, particularly when the games by those talented people have given me so many years of pleasure. Paul…1 min
Retro Gamer|No. 229END GAMETHUNDER FORCE III The human race has survived a great many things over the years, from famine, plague and the threat of nuclear war to everything in between. But despite overcoming these many challenging situations, one thing we have never learnt is that if you’re going to be attacked by an entire fleet of deadly aliens your best defence is to send just one or two ships against them. That ridiculous scenario is just what happens in Thunder Force III, so let’s see how the pilots Jean and Shely fare. After defeating the evil bio-computer Chas Os, Jean and Shely battle to the planet’s surface and head off into space, leaving the weird mechanical-looking planet in their wake. Jean is ecstatic, but Shely feels a deep sense of unease. There’s…1 min
