Category: Retro Gaming

Gaming, Retro Gaming, Review

Metal Gear (NES): I Feel Asleep

This is Mission Commander Big Boss. The following article contains spoilers for the original Metal Gear. The game is thirty years old, do I still need to warn you? You have been warned! 

In my recent 20 year retrospective about Metal Gear Solid for PS1 I mentioned that the original Metal Gear for NES was one of the few games that I own for that system and yet I’ve never completed it (to clarify, my NES is not a childhood console, I picked it up about ten years ago on eBay). With that thought gently turning the cogs of my mind I decided to finally play it and see where the series began and how it shaped the follow up monster of the PlayStation 1 era. Blowing the dust off both the console and the game I fired it up and…

Continue reading “Metal Gear (NES): I Feel Asleep”

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Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Retro Gaming

Metal Gear Solid Twenty Years On – Here Are Ten Things

“Snake… Snake! … Snnnaaaaakkkkeeee!!!” – Literally everyone in the game

A few weeks ago there was a flurry of twitter activity announcing the 20th anniversary of Metal Gear Solid. Undoubtedly one of the defining games of the PS1, I remember clearly the buzz of excitement around its release – which kind of strikes me as odd now. The original Metal Gear games were born in the 8-bit era with the Kojima approved version being the initial release on the MSX (not a system I’m familiar with) rather than the “butchered” (his sentiment, not mine), but more well known, NES release. The NES release of Metal Gear is actually a game that I own (it’s gathering dust somewhere along with a NES I bought some years ago) although I’ve never made it past the first few screens. I should revisit that at some point.

I guess my point is that is seemed to be oddly anticipated for a series that I’d certainly never heard; this might once again come down to the differences between the UK and US gaming scenes during the late 80’s/early 90’s.  Continue reading “Metal Gear Solid Twenty Years On – Here Are Ten Things”

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Gaming, Jurassic Park, Meaningless Ramble, Retro Gaming, Review

Jurassic Park (DOS 1993) – Split Personality

“Who better to get the children through Jurassic Park than a dinosaur expert” – John Hammond … to be said in a warm Scottish accent… 

Who better indeed than Alan Grant? The embodiment of Good-Sam-Neil; as oppose to Bad-Sam-Neil that we all know and were terrified by in Event Horizon.

The latest in my very leisurely quest to explore the many Jurassic Park games goes right back to 1993 where it all started with the PC game released by Ocean software. Ocean were also responsible for the Nintendo (NES, GB, SNES) Jurassic Park games which all took a more top-down action approach when compared to the side-scrolling action of the SEGA games; but those are DNA strands to break down another day. The PC version is most similar to the SNES version with both isometric and first person segments, but they are two quite different games as I managed to complete the PC version whereas any time I’ve attempted the SNES version I’ve failed to make it more than one-hundred in-game meters from the opening screen. Continue reading “Jurassic Park (DOS 1993) – Split Personality”

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Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Retro Gaming

Postman Pat on Atari ST: Hell on Earth

The phrase “Retro-Gaming” conjures up images of PacMan, Mario, Space Invaders, but for many of us it’s also associated with one of the vast array of home computers that we grew up with before PC’s became the default computing platform. Regular travellers to my corner of the internet will know that some of my earliest gaming was on the Atari STe; a titan of the late 80’s home computing market with its desktop graphical interface a resplendent green whilst many PC users of the time were still command-lining it up in DOS.

Of course I was way too young to use it for anything practical, but this bulky grey box set up in the study was undeniably a source of intrigue for my young mind and my parents had furnished us with a modest selection of games…. including Postman Pat…. Continue reading “Postman Pat on Atari ST: Hell on Earth”

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Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Retro Gaming, Review

Theme Hospital: This Hospital is no Walk in the Park

Despite “Theme Park” being one of the first PC games that I owned, I somehow managed to avoid most of the other big Bullfrog titles. My first PC gaming incarnation was during the mid-90′ which coincided with the golden age of the great amphibian developer so how I managed to steer clear of their work is a mystery …. sure, it’s not one that’s going to sell many novels, but it’s a mystery nonetheless. For anyone who doesn’t remember the gaming world of 20+ years ago, Bullfrog were responsible for a string of PC gaming success stories, many of which were ported to the consoles of the time, but given that most of their catalogue involved a mouse interface to some extent it was pretty obvious which market they were aiming for. They were responsible for the aforementioned “Theme Park”, the mesmerising 3D landscapes of the “Magic Carpet” games, “Dungeon Keeper”, and of course “Theme Hospital”. That final title is one that I only really knew from the odd “go” at a friend’s house, but it came across as a quirky cartoonish, slightly bizarrely toned, hospital management game that at the time I wasn’t remotely interested in because it didn’t involve a fast hedgehog or blasting some kind of demonic aliens; looking back I had pretty terrible taste in games at that age. Continue reading “Theme Hospital: This Hospital is no Walk in the Park”

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Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Retro Gaming, Review

Men in Black Retrospective: I Put My Hands… On My Head…

The second half of the 90’s was alien territory; it came after dinosaurs ruled the cinema, but before pirates and zombies made a well deserved and ultimately overstayed return. It was a revival for extra terrestrials, who had last been big in the late 60’s and 70’s following the space race, thanks in no small part to the dramatically lit FBI duo Mulder & Scully and their stories of a confusing filing system. Right in the middle of this resurgence of interest fell Barry Sonnenfeld’s movie, Men in Black, which showed moviegoers a lighter side to the alien invasion with this witty and clever insight in to the fictitious agency charged with keeping their presence a secret. It’s quirky, funny, and about as 90’s as things get with Will Smith taking the leading role backed up by Tommy Lee Jones, and has some neat ideas along with special effects which were impressive at the time. If this were a movie blog, I could easily ramble about the film for pages, but I want to focus on that always tricky game tie-in. Continue reading “Men in Black Retrospective: I Put My Hands… On My Head…”

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Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Resident Evil, Retro Gaming, Review

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis – STAAARRRSSSSS

Two things happened recently: I revealed how appealing I find rain in games, and the Later Levels Gameblast stream featured the HD Resident Evil Remake. The former reminded me how much I enjoyed the rainy section of Capcom’s Resident Evil 3 and the latter, whilst maybe not the best choice for sleep deprived brains, made me long for that classic brand of obtuse puzzle solving survival horror. With the gentle swirling of these two ideas in my mind I decided to revisit Resident Evil 3; it had been some years since I guided Jill Valentine’s “Last Escape” and I remember it being a good rounding out of the original trilogy before things went all “Resident Evil 4“.

… veteran readers of the blog will see this next bit coming, but it’s impossible for me to talk about Resident Evil without mentioning the second game, my personal undisputed favourite of the series. For those curiously looking at their calendars trying to work out how it took me so long to get to this point, I can reveal that before I replayed number three I decided to once again complete the second game… you know… for context… Continue reading “Resident Evil 3: Nemesis – STAAARRRSSSSS”

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