Rise from my what??!!??

Rise from my what???.

Back at the dawn of time (well the early 90's but still, a bloody long time ago) Sega released its follow up to the Master system, the Mega drive (or genesis if your from a bit further west than me).

 

This amazing machine was SEGA's answer to  Nintendo's NES console and later that decade went on to compete with the SNES  as well.

The mega drive was a fantastic console and it was the first games machine I owned all to myself (the nes being shared with my two younger brothers), When it first arrived in my  house one Christmas morning it came with a side scrolling beat em up called altered beast- now this would have been a fairly forgettable vanilla action title if it was not for 3 things, firstly its 2 player and let you a friend fight through ancient Greek grave yards and the darkened underworld of hades.

Secondly was the fact that after you kicked the crap out of enough hell hounds (Cerberuses?...cerberie?....what's the plural of Cerberus??) you got to morph into werewolves, bears and even electric flying dragons !

But the best bit of the game was the actual digitised speech! Your adversary got some great lines to spout at you as he prepared to carve you a new one "welcome to your doom!" and  "Ha Ha Ha!" as he laughed at your pathetic efforts.

But the best line was reserved for Zeus himself- as he resurrected you and your brother from the dead the king of the Greek gods seems to have developed a speech impediment as he commands you to "wise fwom your gwaves!" unintentionally giving rise to a thousand internet memes .

 Aside from this, altered beast was a really good game with some hefty action, truly unique bosses (how many eyes can one demon have??!!?) and a clever morphing game mechanic that turns the tables on the monsters about halfway though each level.

 

I have many happy memories of playing this and was over the moon to find it included on the 80 game emulator I just bought myself (seem my entry from last week). 

 

Third times the charm.

Third times the charm.

 

Three is an odd number (well yes, it is an odd number, but its also an "odd" number) the third movie in a series usually lets the first two down, batman forever, alien resurrection and of course god father 3 are third instalments that have me waking up at 2 am in a cold sweat just thinking of them.

 

Games don't usually have a third instalment, you will sometimes get yearly update to a fps or the annual FIFA con, but any game that gets to is third iteration has usually lost it's way.

 

One game that just got better with each update and hit its zenith on the third go was splatter house.

 

One and two were good your usual 2D side scrolling beat em ups with a gory horror twist, however when number three hit you got a third dimension as well.

 

 

You didn't just scroll left and right cutting the limbs off rotting zombies and skinless babies, you got to move around rooms golden axe and streets of rage style.

 

Another add on for the third outing was when the protagonist Rick had caused enough claret to be sprayed up the walls he could mutate into a hulking mussel bound monster and tear bad guys to bits with his bare hands.

 

The story telling was also greatly enhanced as well, with branching story lines and events that were dependant on how quickly you could clear areas and slay boss monsters- fail to complete the first floor in time and your girlfriend Jennifer gets eaten by bore worms, nice.

 

With the inclusion of these new features, better sound and graphics and a new map system, Splatter house was an amazing third part to the splatter house game series . It's just a shame the 2010 Xbox 360 3D remake was so god awful.

 

   

 Sigh.....

Axe to grind

Axe to grind

 

Konami was responsible for some of the best games of the early 90's, everything from castlevania to super probotector, Konami made some stone cold classic gaming.

 

However as good as all these games were, one stands out in my mind above all the rest, Axelay.

This gem pushed the SNES to breaking point, with both top down and side scrolling levels, amazing mode 7 effects and end of level bosses that take up half the screen.

 

The first level has you viewing your ship, Axelay, from the top down as it soars over the clouds and navigates rock formations and squadrons of enemy fighters. After you get through you are faced with a giant robotic space spider- this huge cyber arachnid needs to be blasted into pieces before you can proceed to the second stage.

 

For me the second stage is the least interesting level but with the best final boss of the game.

After you have traversed the side scrolling second stage you get to face off against a giant ED209 style walker that has a massive laser that burns half the screen while you desperately try to avoid a fiery death.

 

 

The second to last boss of axelay is just spectacular, its the size of an aircraft carrier and is made of larva, because if your going to follow a giant spider or ED209 you have to step it up a notch.

It attacks you with two arms made of magma and the worst case of halitosis ever recorded.

 

 

This boss is so awesome that he makes the front box art over the other awesome boss battles that you face in the game.

 

Axelay stands the test of time and I really hope it gets an update or a retro release on the Wii U or Xbox live some time in the future- however if you can't wait till them there are several good snes roms available online- not that I in anyway encourage you to download the ZSnes emulator  and play game roms on that great bit of software....

 

 

   

A mega alternative to the original.

A mega alternative to the original.

Having dug out my megadrive to play Sonic 2 with the Mrs, I was appalled to find that the leak in the roof last month had caused water to run along the rafters and onto it's box- the box and system were ruined, I'm not really comfortable plugging in a 20 year old games console that's been soaked in rain water for two weeks as I have an allergy to fire and high voltage.

 

Looking over the listings on eBay for a new console I happened upon this modern little beauty.

It called the plug into TV Megadrive. Basically its a very scaled down Megadrive with 80 roms encoded to it that are played without the need for the cartridges, and also the ability to play original carts as well, add to this the ability to actually plug in the real mega drive controller and you have what could be a viable replacement for a certain waterlogged retro console.

 

 

Well, the first strike against it is the roms included in it. Don't get me wrong there are some great games included, its just that with 80 games included I would expect at least 50% of them to be good- or at least actually be games anyone had ever heard of!!

For every Sonic or Comix Zone there is a Bulls and cow or bottle cap race., basically 40 out of the 80 games included are just crap ports of master system titles and 8 bit rip offs.

 

The second issue is the fact that the included game pads (there are 2) work via infrared so need to be in line of sight of the main unit to work.

However both pads work well and I found no lag in the button inputs.

 

The games run quickly and with negligible lag, but the soundtrack is slightly off, the tone is just slightly flat and a little slow.

This dose not affect the carts you plug into it, they run fast as with no sound issues.

 

All in all the system runs roms fast with few issues and plays original carts with proper control pads as well.

 

It's a little cheap and plasticy and you have to point the pads at the box unless you pick up a real pad off eBay for about a tenner.

 

At some point all the mega drives in the world will die of old age and go to silicon hell, so its good to have new hardware that's not just a poorly coded emulator on my PC.         

 

 

 

 

Incomplete nightmare.

Incomplete nightmare.

 

Looking back over the PS1 games I have picked up over the last few days for my new PlayStation (see my last blog post) I found several titles that really deserved next gen remakes.

 

Now I know that some of them got same gen sequels and "spiritual successors" but these are just a few that I think should get next gen remakes for PS4 or Xbox one.

 

 

 

Nightmare Creatures

A fantastic hack and slash game from Kalisto entertainment and Activision for the PlayStation.

You played as  Ignatius, a monk who works for a secret organisation who protect the world from hidden supernatural threats  or Nadia, the daughter of an American academic who is drawn into the fight when her father is killed.

 

The story is the usual mish mash of horror tropes with a mad scientist getting hold of a forbidden text (Samuel peep's secret diary....really??) and using it to raise an unholy army of zombies, demons and home made monsters stitched together from the bodies of the dead.

 

The gothic horror and 3D beat em up mechanic would work really well on a modern game engine. The original game had allot of pop up issues and a very short draw distance- a new engine on the new consoles would mean theses issues would be a thing of a past.

 

With so many older games getting remakes I cant see this one being top of the list for updates though.

 

Clock Tower 

 

 

 

Clock tower was a game for the super famicom that never made it out of Japan and didn't get a European release.

Unlike allot of other horror games, clock tower was about running, hiding and cowering in boxes while a monster (well a deformed kid with giant scissors) stalks and tries to slice you up.

With the likes of outlast and Alien: Isolation  making waves on consoles then this blend of scares and gore would go down really well.

 

 

 

One gen further back

One gen further back

 

 

 

 

 

After my purchase of the PS2 last week I decided to look back a little further into the past.

 

A few hours of digging through crap cardies and scratched Mungo Jerry LPs I found what I was looking for, a slim PS1 (there were no original large ones available) with a memory card and 2 controllers, and mine for less than a fiver!

 

Games were not a problem either, I got tomb raider one and two for £2 each, resident evil 2 for £4 and Tekken 2.

 

After hooking it up to my TV I found that there was a disc inside the console already, it turned out that the disc was Ridge Racer- I have great memories of this game, it took up so little system memory that you could take the disk out after it loaded and you could put in an audio CD and play it as you raced- an amazing feat.

 

I'm looking forward to playing castlevania and res evil 2 on their original system again, I just need to keep an eye on ebay.  

Charity shop bargains

 

After seeing it in my local Oxfam for the last week on the way home from work, I finally gave in and went in to buy the PS2 they had in the window.

 

The old man running the shop would not allow me to look at the system until he told me all about how his grandson knew all about the modern plague that is computer games- apparently its all beeps and flashing lights, I think he may have gaming confused with traffic lights but I let this slide.  

 

After waiting for the old guy behind the counter to find the keys to the window display I got to have a look at it.

 

The system was in full working order if a bit sticky with old cigarette tar and dust, it came with a controller, memory card and all the cables. after a bit of research online I took the dust cover off and cleaned up the vents and fan which where liberally with greasy fudge.

 

 

After half a packet of flash wipes and a couple of rolls of kitchen roll the fans were clear and the whole system was lemon fresh.

 

The whole lot cost me just under a tenner, not bad for a system that sells on ebay for about £30 .

 

After plugging it in and several attempts to hook it up to the digital in on my amp, the system booted and displayed the minimalist menu and played the windy sound scape background noise I had forgotten all about. 

 

A quick trip to CEX (after I had my back up tetanus and hepatitis shots) and I had a slightly grimy selection of PS2 games including  silent hill 2, extreme G 3, GT3 and the over looked classic R-type final.

 

The copy of need for speed most wanted booted but for some reason loaded with out  road or street displayed under the cars leaving what I can only describe as the oddest flight sim I have every played! 

 

I just need the first two guitar hero games and lips and I can relive the early part of 21st century gaming all over again.

This is a triumph!

 

After years of wanting my very own Aperture labs portable sentry turret I have the next best thing.... a small Aperture labs sentry turret LED flashlight.....well it's the best I could get without endangering the lives of my family and friends.

 

 

 

 

The turret stands at about 3" tall and has an LED that lights up at the front. The best thing about it however is the random sound effects it plays, nothing freaks out a gamer like entering a room to see what the red glow is and hearing "target acquired" and "are you still there...? coming out of the dark, where is your weighted companion cube when you need it?


The other awesome thing about it is the box art- It's taken straight from the Aperture science production line.

The Box also has more warning tiles than a GLaDOS designed test chamber!

 

 

 

 

 

 



There are stills taken directly from the spoof turret
sales adds featuring Cave Johnson that Valve software ran as
part of the promotion for Portal 2.

Even though this is not the fully functioning home defence turret I dreamed of it is still a really nice desk Knick Knack. LED flashlight turret "I don't hate you" :)

Enter stranger....

“I don’t have a photograph, but you can have my footprints. They’re upstairs in my socks.”
― Groucho Marx

Nostalgia is an odd thing, we all long to return to the past, the films, music, people and places we loved in our youth.
It's great to think of these things fondly and reminisce with others about them, however you can't go back, you can't do it all again and get the same feelings back, you can never go home.

Someone really should have told the jerks who just remade Knightmare!

Knightmare, if you didn't watch it when you were a kid (which, if you didn't is a form of child abuse, you should report this to the Daily Mail at once so your parental units can be strung up in the town square)  is a kids TV show from the late 80's.
The show premise is a dungeon master called Treguard must defeat an evil overlord who is plotting to take over the realm. To do this Treguard takes the logical step of summoning a group of posh school kids, 3 of which will sit next to a magic viewing port (a 14" colour telly with a rug over it) and guide the 4th member of their team while he stumbles around a blue room full of Z list actors and bumps into the furniture.
The blue screen was there, so early CGI could be super imposed over it and give the illusion of the dark creepy dungeons and crypts the dungeoneer (the blind 4th members of the party I mentioned earlier) was supposedly exploring.

The team would work together to avoid pit traps, giant spiders and all kinds of fantasy creatures to gain clues in the form of objects such as food to replenish health, scrolls that contain spells and other items like keys and the like.

Spells are cast in a kind of mini game where the pre pubescent pricks have to spell (clever) the words of the spell in order for it to work- this was kids TV at it's zenith!

As the show was 30 mins long and there were only a certain number of episodes per season the chances of anyone actually getting to the end was almost nonexistent especially since the teams would get killed every other show, " go right...no your right...there's a pit! run.. no walk no go....oh shit you're dead! 

We now jump forward to present day and the abomination that is "Knighmare returns".

The first thing to note is that they have ditched the school kids and have gone for the mass market appeal of the emo teen.

Look at them!!! With their hair and their clothes. good god in heaven he's wearing a retro gaming T-shirt!! You're in a remake of an 80's kids game show, did your really think that was needed??

These cocky style monkeys actually think they are funny. They have lines prepared for the situation, I can only imagine that these were force fed to them before the cameras started rolling by the guys who used to write for the contestants on blind date.



The format seems to remain the same with no added extras and no improvements made. I know that this is a remake but there have been so many advances in CGI and virtual reality, surly some of these could have been implemented with great effect.

The CGI itself has had the res upped a bit for the HD era but remains flat and cartoony. Once again I know this is a shameless nostalgia fest but still, it could have looked so much better.

All in all this is knightmare with all the 80's charm and fun sucked out of it. What's next?  Funhouse with an ageing Pat Sharpe shouting at my chemical romance lookalikes as they get hit in the face by foam pillars and dropped into gunge tanks........hang on...I'm just off to call ITV.....imagine what Melanie and Martina look like now!!!! 



 

Shield your eyes!! Its another new handheld.

So I was on my nexus 7 tab the other night and I booted up the Nvidia app. After some surfing I found a feature on a new bit of of hardware called project shield.

Said gaming gadget is a cross between a streaming service for PC content and a hand held games console with full tegra 4 support.

Having watched several videos of it playing harken (a mech run and gun for the PC ) and several top PC titles I am now of the opinion that this is the greatest thing since sliced horse (like sliced bread but from tesco) and I must have one !!!.

Once I have more details I will post again, or I might just buy a PC engine and post about retro stuff like usual, I'm in two minds.

Go away now.