Game Reviews

All our gaming categories under one banner.

Atari Jaguar

Tempest 2000

Don’t think that Tempest 2000 is just an audio visual enhancement to the original – Yak also added 100 varying webs (levels), new opponents, collectable power-ups like the particle-blaster/laser, jumps, and A.I. Droids who destroy anything that gets too close. Thrown in this awesome gaming mix was the new ”Melt-O-Vision” transition effect – very psychedelic (very Jeff Minter) indeed. Add the different types of play options – two-player cooperative and competitive play modes and you got yourself one awesomely gorgeous masterpiece.

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Table Top Games

Stop Thief

It’s a game of deductive reasoning, meaning random guesses won’t help you. The Electronic Crime Scanner can replay the clues to aid you in your quest to locate the thief. Once you think you know where he is, you call the police, and hope to hear the sounds of the thief being taken away to jail. But if you’re mistaken, you’ll hear the sound of the thief escaping, and a big raspberry for your trouble. That sound still makes me cringe as it represents the same thing today as it did over 20 years ago: the utter failure of my detective skills.

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Atari ST

Test Drive

he stages are all segments of the same road which winds along a clifftop, movie-stylee – one side is sheer rock with the other side presumably consisting of a drop of equal sheerness! Normal traffic passes along the road in both directions now and then, although it’s not too busy, and there are also police radars which will summon a police car if you go too fast. There’s no time limit or other vehicles to race so you can approach the presence of the rozzers one of two ways: either go too slowly to bother them, or the way I’m sure most gamers will choose – go as fast as possible to outrun them!

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NES

Mike Tyson’s Punch Out

The musical score of this game is quite astounding. Did I mentioned there are only a couple of songs in the entire game? Well, they do the right job that’s for sure. The music will get you pumped up while the sound effects will reflect on how well you are doing in the fight. Be sure to tap the buttons real fast if you want to get up and fight again! You have been warned…

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Xbox

Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath

I think the game’s only big fault is that the difficulty is a bit bi-polar. It doesn’t gradually goes up, one moment its okay, and then bam you get hit with an almost impossible challenge. I would probably rank OSW higher, but I got stuck on a boss that you couldn’t hurt unless you knocked him off a platform, and you had a whole bunch of shit thrown at you before you could capture him or kill him. A bit of a fuck up I think on their part. Heard it’s coming to PSN though, which gives PS3 owners a chance to play one of the best Xbox games ever crafted.

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Sega Master System

The Ninja

The gameplay consists of working your way upwards and dealing with onrushing enemies with a swift shruiken to their faces. One hit and you’re finished, so the game can be frustrating, especially if you are approaching a yet unexplored area. Foes seem to come from nowhere and can finish you off in a second. Trial and error is therefore a part of the game, and you either love that or hate it. I’m usually against such underhanded tactics, but in this game is seems an acceptable evil.

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NES

Beetlejuice

This game looks okay. There are some still frames that look like characters from the movie, and one particularly creepy face shot of Beetlejuice that is reused every time something happens. But the actual gameplay graphics are not indicative of a producer that cared about its product, as the insect enemies look a little worse than generic and even the bosses are uninspired and bare-minimum. The highlight may be the infamous “snake” villain, which is truly frightening; though, this could just be because it is impossible to kill.

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Atari Lynx

California Games

Surfing – my personal favorite of all the events. Surfing was changed on this version to riding the wave from ‘right to left’ – this actually breathed a new life to this event, as I was never crazy about surfing on the console versions. You earn points by staying ahead of the wave and getting airborne to perform (multiple) spins. Yes, I can do quadruple spins – that is a 1440! Oh yeah you must land the board on the wave at an angle that won’t see you diving into the surf.

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Indie Games

A Valley Without Wind

That’s why I’ve wisely come up with an alternate description too: it is a procedurally generated, side-scrolling, 2D arcade adventure, with strong exploration, RPG and strategic elements, that is sort of infinite. Is this better? Does it make sense? Well, I sure hope so, for I have only entered the still-in-BETA world of AVWW for a couple of hours and am incredibly impressed. I’m also pretty certain that it’s only by playing AVWW that one can properly understand and fully appreciate the thing, but here’s another try

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Indie Games

Rad Raygun

“I spent most of my childhood trying to learn anything that could get me in the video game industry, such as programming and 3D animation,” he said. “I can remember being 13 or 14 and wanting absolutely nothing for Christmas. All I wanted was knowledge. I wanted to know how to make games. I would make little text games in QBasic. I would also download other people’s source code and dissect it, trying to figure out how it worked. In 10th grade Computer Science class, I built my first two actual games, a clone of Pong and a clone of Frogger.

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Arcade Games

Ghosts’n Goblins

Killing the lesser enemies on each stage is not mandatory – some of them are actually infinite so it’s not even possible. With this and the time-limit in mind, it’s advisable to proceed to the end of each stage as quickly as possible. Sir Arthur is initially armed with throwable lances which are in unlimited supply and defeat most enemies, certainly on earlier stages, with one hit. A few of the enemies, however, carry urns. Killing them allows you to then collect the contents which is most often one of numerous sparkly items for bonus points (including some of the Princesses’ possessions!), but occasionally you’ll find a new weapon.

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Table Top Games

Why I agree that we are in the golden age of boardgaming

When playing a euro game you will sit there and look at the game and say wow this game really has no story or theme to it but wow what a great game. Now when it comes to what they call ameritrash games these are games that have an amazing theme but can definitely use some mechanics to help it along. When you play one of these games you will love the story or the theme but will with the game played a little bit better. Now to give you guys some examples of eurogames would b e games like the castles of burgundy. Castles puts you in the role of a duke that has a bit of land and has to build his land through tiles that you pick up dependant on two dice that you roll. It is an amazing game based on the mechanics but when you see the actual game and theme you think this can’t possibly be fun.

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Xbox

Star Wars: Battlefront II

The multi-player had it’s problems, but it was a blast. Being a Jedi, or Sith made you feel over-powered, but you had to earn it, and it was a real challenge to beat one of the juggernauts. The connection speeds could’ve been a bit faster, and even after the game was super-old you still had to pay for a map pack that would kick you out of certain matchmaking’s. I’m sad to see that they haven’t made a real sequel yet I don’t believe, it could defiantly use some HD returning, tweaks, and improvements.

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Game BoyHandheld Games

Xevious

The graphics have no retro wow factor either – patches of grass look like they were sketched by a five-year old in a more restrictive version of Mario Paint – it makes you wish for a simple but effective black space background. I’ve not managed to get very far in the game (the screenshot above is of a level that I will probably never get the chance to play through) but I still think most of these criticisms still stand. So don’t bother with Xevious. Just let it quietly pass away, and hopefully the game’s developers will do the same.

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Xbox 360

Runner 2: Legend of Rhythm Alien

Runner 2 might as well be a checklist of how to do everything correctly in a video game. The gameplay is extremely accessible and enjoyable, coupled with eye pleasing, unique graphics and an amazing soundtrack. Difficulty in the game gradually scales but is unbelievably fair; you start off with a simple selection of moves and then slowly learn all of the combinations required to be successful. There’s also some great humor (the hardest thing to pull off in gaming) and some phenomenal references mixed in to the package that I wouldn’t dare spoil here.

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TurboGrafx-16

Keith Courage in Alpha Zone

With games like Final Fantasy 2(4 in Japan) hitting the USA and other RPGs as well, there was no doubt that this title wouldn’t stand against others. In my opinion, I think this game was released just to show off what the Turbo Grafx console was capable of. The game is very simple, although based by an anime, it’s not bad at all. It contains some RPG elements that help it stand out a little bit. There is also a transformation sequence where you turn into a robot and fly around…

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