Obsolete Gamer

Game Reviews

All our gaming categories under one banner.

Donkey Kong 3 - NES - Gameplay Screenshot
NES
Luis Zena

Donkey Kong 3

The game is as simple as any of the arcade games back in the 80s. Your main goal is not to finish the game but to accumulate the highest score. Your skills will be crucial to score big in this one. The usual mechanics of the game work as other arcade classics, which means the further levels you go, the harder the levels get. You will eventually have no room for error as you try to dodge and kill the hundreds of bugs coming after you. That’s not all, you also have to worry about the big ape climbing down and once he does, you are toast! But wait! It’s not over just yet, you also have to prevent the bugs from taking away your plants!

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risk
Table Top Games
Konstantinos Dimopoulos

RISK, Strategies Explained

Risk (BGG entry), according to sources that prefer to call themselves voices and are not to be taken seriously, is one of the most successful, imitated and thus influential board games ever devised. It also is a particularly enjoyable game, that comes in a variety of flavours ranging from Star Wars to Lord Of The Rings to Classic, with the added bonus of being less prone to shatter friendships than Diplomacy. Also, also, Risk has the dubious honour of being the first truly mainstream wargame.

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demonlord
Table Top Games
Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Demonlord

Dwarfstar Games, a former division of Heritage USA, that was recently (as in 2003) saved from ultimate financial doom by Reaper Miniatures, was quite the board game creator back in the early 80s. They released solo-games, micro-games, epic-games, goblin-games, strategy-games, even 2-player games (!), with such lovely 80s names as Barbarian Prince, Dragon Rage, Goblin, Demonlord or Star Smuggler. Good news is you can download all these games for free, print them out and play them. Or just browse through their PDF manuals, tokens and maps and have a glimpse at gaming history…

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Baku Baku Animal - Sega - Gameplay Screenshot
Sega Saturn
Simon Lethbridge

Baku Baku Animal

There are two play modes to choose from in Baku Baku (plus a secret third one) – Arcade and Ranking modes. Arcade mode is the same as the arcade version as you might imagine. Here, you will challenge a series of opponents until you get to challenge the Princess. Beat her and win the game! Arcade mode is also where the two-player action is to be found. The ranking mode is for one player only, and is more or less the same as the arcade mode except your opponents carry on forever.

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Game Reviews
J.A. Laraque

The Secret Of My Success

Helen Slater, previously best known for playing ‘Supergirl’ (chortle) is also great as Foster’s love interest (or rather, the one he’s interested in!) and the two have good chemistry. At first cold and serious, she gradually warms to his affections while Richard Jordan, who also has designs on her, is pretty amusing as the company’s slimy and ruthless yet ineffective leader. John Pankow is likeable enough on best friend duties too but Fox is the star of the show here and he’s… well, the same as usual really!

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Game Reviews
J.A. Laraque

Doraemon

In Japan Doraemon is a phenomenon, being easily as well-known and popular as Mickey Mouse is in the US and Europe. Like most anime characters, he started out life in the pages of a manga series (comic books) which date back as far as 1969, but before long he had his own TV show too which now has over 2000 episodes and counting (they’re mostly pretty short though). He’s also starred in a number of films, and all of this has helped to cement his presence in most walks of life.

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Empires and Dungeons
Computer Games
Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Empires and Dungeons

Empires and Dungeons is basically a quasi turn-based dungeon hack with a simple, albeit purely turn-based, strategy game bolted on top of it. It plays surprisingly well, for it manages to be as simple and intuitive as Diablo, almost as rightly paced as rogue and as one-more-turn-syndrome evoking as HOMM or even Civ. More than that, the graphics are way better than ascii @s and Xs, and the Deutsch-English language used throughout the game, is not as badly translated as one would expect.

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Castlevania_NES_box_art
NES
Luis Zena

Castlevania

The gameplay is your usual hack and slash action with the help of some of the most classic Castlevania items ever like the cross or the holy water. These are the signature items that would help us reach Dracula but in the end it would only be up to our kinky whip to tame the vampire beast. The gameplay does deliver a very satisfying experience but you will find problems while jumping in the air as that’s when you are more vulnerable to damage and a quick death due to the amazing gravitational pull when you fall. Other than that, it’s a very playable game.

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Game Reviews
J.A. Laraque

Torchwood: Miracle Day Trailer II

Torchwood begins with a day when nobody dies. All across the world, nobody dies. And then the next day, and the next, and the next, people keep aging, they get hurt and sick, but they never die. The result: a population boom, overnight. With all the extra people, resources are finite. It’s said that in four month’s time, the human race will cease to be viable. But this can’t be a natural event – someone’s got to be behind it. It’s a race against time as C.I.A. agent Rex Matheson investigates a global conspiracy. The answers lie within an old, secret British institute. As Rex keeps asking “What is Torchwood?,” he’s drawn into a world of adventure, and a threat to change what it means to be human, forever.

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Game Reviews
J.A. Laraque

The Tourist

Whether it’s a good film or not, there’s one thing about The Tourist that’s impossible to deny – it sure looks nice! Jolie and Depp are hardly the most horrifying actors to look at under normal circumstances but here they’re decked out in some very classy attire for the most part, especially Jolie. Pretty much every scene takes place in some gorgeous location or highly ornate set too, from Paris and Venice themselves (the latter of which looks particularly stunning) to swanky hotel suites and restaurants, a posh ball (the dance kind, not the spherical kind). Hell, even the Scotland Yard offices feature a nice fusion of elegant, antique furniture and high-tech computers and devices!

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Shinobi - Sega Master System
Game Reviews
Simon Lethbridge

Shinobi

As previously mentioned, the poor, traumatised children being held hostage in positions of questionable strategic significance are apparently each in possession of a special reward that Joe will receive upon rescuing them. Unlike the arcade version in which Joe starts with shurikens before he obtains a gun, here the transition takes longer. His normal shurikens are first upgraded to a rapid-fire variety before being replaced by fast-firing knives, then small, bouncing bombs, before he finally receives the powerful gun, with each upgrade being provided by a child.

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