February 2012 – Page 2 – Obsolete Gamer

Atlantica Online Review

The Bad:
– Addictive.
– Some game functions do require having almost like a subscription because they expire in X amount of days.
– You don’t get to directly do stuff with your high level friends until much later in the game when you are all top levels. The game feels like a single player RPG until then.
– The servers can’t sometimes handle the load of having many players on it, like on the weekends during special event days (when most people play).
– Some common known bugs in the game are not addressed by the developers.

Classic Windows Games Computer Games

Dan Epp

Pirates

Sid Meier’s Pirates! was not only popular amongst gamers, it also performed well in the eyes of the gaming press. It was awarded “Action Game of the Year” by Computer Gaming World, and also the Origin Award for “Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1987”. The game also ranked at #18 in the Computer Gaming World’s 150 Best Games of All Time. Clearly, this game has remained in the gaming public’s eye for a reason, making Sid Meier’s Pirates! a worthy addition to anyone’s game collection.

DOS Games PC

Simon Lethbridge

Thunder Force

During the course of my long struggle to finally see and play the original Thunder Force game for the PC-88, I saw some screenshots of the PC-98 version, which appeared to have fancier graphics, so I decided it might be a good idea to include that version in this feature too. I soon regretted it, of course. This turned out to be even harder to get to play than the the PC-88 version! However, after a long and arduous struggle, fraught with many problems, and once again with the help of some splendid fellows from the Retro Gamer forum, I managed to get it running.

Pictures

J.A. Laraque

Pic-O-Funny: Your cat is trying to Kill you

As long as you do not have one of those cats that suck your breath away while you sleep then you should be ok. Also, don’t date women with crazy eyes who own cats with a real persons name or you will end up very sorry.

Arcade Games

J.A. Laraque

Sinistar

So, when you mine these crystals other fighters try to take you out while workers also try to mine the crystals to build the Sinistar. Once the Sinistar is built, it trolls you by calling you a coward and telling you to run. How am I the coward if he can one-shot me, but it takes 13 Cinnabon’s, er, I mean Sinibombs to kill him?

Arcade Games

Patrick Scott Patterson

The Simpsons Arcade Game

Fans who remember pouring every quarter you had into the arcade game will be thrilled. The game is exactly as you remember it from start to finish with straightforward controls and even the full demonstration mode, complete with the annoying-yet-classic “waaa waaa waawaaa waaaa!” scene with Bart and Lisa. Several fun unlockables are also available for those who finish the game with specific characters. The Japanese ROMset is available for play along with character bios, a neat but brief look at the development timeline and original advertising materials for the arcade game, a sound test and more.

Obsolete meets Obscure

J.A. Laraque

Unforgivable

Here is the collection of all the Unforgivable videos. These videos are funny enough that my friends and I quote

Arcade Games

J.A. Laraque

Cadillac’s and Dinosaurs

I found the game easier than Final Fight at least in the first stages because there is plenty of food that falls out of oil drums and garbage cans. Also, most of the normal enemies are pretty stupid and if you played FF you know how to beat them easily. The bosses as usual have way too much health, but again, they are not too hard especially if you have a weapon.

Arcade Games

J.A. Laraque

Star Castle

Now, something to keep in mind, which I did not know, your goal is not to destroy the entire outer shield because if you do it will regenerate. This makes the game harder because you want to hit the same spots and make a small window in the shield to take out the cannon. As you can see in the video, I was not very good at this.

Atari 2600

Matt McKee

Haunted House

Old guy died and his ghost is still “haunting” the house. There are other creepy-crawlies in there as well. Four floors to the house with six rooms on each floor, stairs seperating the floors. Some doors are locked, so finding the master key is “key”. There’s a magic scepter which will keep away the creepies, but not the ghost. OBJECTIVE: Find the three pieces of an urn and return to the front door. Seems simple, but there is a catch. You can only carry one item at a time. So, if you are keeping the monsters away with a scepter, you can’t use the key to open doors. If you’re carrying the urn, you can’t…you get the idea.

Arcade Games

J.A. Laraque

Satan’s Hollow

At first, I thought this was some hack game or Halloween mod, but Satan’s Hollow is a real shoot em up game made by Bally Midway in 1982. As you can obviously tell, this game is pretty much like Galaga, but you fight weird demonic creatures instead and you have a shield to protect you for a very limited time when things get crazy.

Editorials

Luis Zena

Passwords of the Past

There were other games with the same situation like Kid Icarus which also got a Disk System only released in Japan and even Super Mario Bro 2J which was never released in the United States until years later. Super Mario Bros 2J would keep a track of how many times you beat the games by adding a small mushroom at the top of the screen, it was quite interesting because I bought a couple of those games for my disk system and found myself with a screen filled with mushrooms! Someone sure loves his Mario!

Game Reviews

J.A. Laraque

Go Watch Iron Sky!

Finally, it is here… From the creators of Star Wreck, the best parody of Star Trek and Babylon 5, Iron

Arcade Games

J.A. Laraque

Dungeons & Dragons Shadow over Mystara

Personally, I liked this game because it did not eat your quarters as fast as it could have. You could easily beat a level without dying and if you used your items and specials correctly get even further. When you had a complete group, it was the most fun because of the increased enemy count and spells flying everywhere.

Editorials

Simon Lethbridge

Red Parsley’s Favorite Games: Part 7

Christmas morning, 1990… finally I got my hands on Sega’s 16-bit powerhouse. I played each game as I unwrapped them and the first one was… Golden Axe! Famously billed by Mean Machines magazine as ‘arcade perfect’ (it’s not), this was one of the best of a decent selection of launch titles for the MD and, after Revenge of Shinobi, my favourite. Not only was it a top conversion of their hit arcade game but Sega also kindly included an extra level and a new play mode called ‘Duel Mode’, which saw the player take on a succession of ever-tougher enemies, to prolong the admittedly short hacking action. A superbly playable game with a great soundtrack, and immense fun for one or two players.

Editorials

James Booth

Distorted Poetry: The creation of an Indie Gaming Company

The interesting thing was about two or three months after we put our musical project “Impulses” on hold. We read about a game from Cipher Prime called Pulse. Not only did it have a very similar name, its gameplay and visual style was somewhat identical to our prototype. I guess some people would call it a coincidence, but for me I didn’t look at it like that. For all the ideas and creative people out there it’s inevitable that multiple people can think of the same idea. All you can really do is try and develop the idea and get it out as fast as you can!

Blog

Honorabili

Free Stuff – Pure Pwnage

Pure Pwnage is the show about the “uber gamer”. If you don’t know Jeremy and his friends, you’ve been missing out.