GravyThief

Ironically, Americans refused to work with Naka on Balan Wonderworld.

A great article, thanks!

Xmas 1995. I got this and Doom. Most of my time went on playing Doom, I was obsessed with it, but I have fond memories of this too. I think I remember the CD and the black cartridge more though. I’ve never been the best at fighting games and could never get many high combos. I still loved it though.

Well, that was a fantastic article, thank you! I’ve read lots about Rare over the years, but there were still loads of new insights in here.

Reading the section from Violet certainly brought back memories. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such a buzz for a video game as I did for DKC in the run up to its release. I remember that segment on Bad Influence very well. Xmas 1994 holds such great memories. Not only did I get DKC but I took a punt on another game I didn’t know anything about. That game was Secret of Mana.

Really interesting read, thanks. I’ve still never played an AC game, but I do own 1 & 2 on PS3 so may one day get around to playing them.

Lego’s Danish not Swedish 😀

I loved playing this game on the SNES back in the day. I never completed it (probably not even close), but I enjoyed trying. I found it so atmospheric. I liked the music that played in the hall where you chose your characters, then silence as you entered the dungeon proper, just hearing distant drops of water.

It was also the source of endless amusement for me and my friends as you could kill yourself (slowly) by walking into walls!

It was also really easy to get lost, with the movement jumping square to square and not a smooth transition. An accidental press of the D-pad and you had to figure out where you were and which direction you were facing as you couldn’t tell from watching the screen. I always found it surprising how jerky the movement was in this on the SNES when Shining in the Darkness on the MD was smooth by comparison, and even more surprising Phantasy Star on the humble SMS had smoother movement than this did!

Still, a great game for the time.

I have great memories of the original Wipeout, most of it centred around the music. I was big into dance music at that time (as were lots of kids and young adults) and me and my mates listened to the music from the CD probably more than we played the game (although I did love the game).

The best tracks on the soundtrack are the Cold Storage ones, and I didn’t realise until recently that these were done by a member of Psygnosis, I assumed they were a famed artist like the Chemical Brothers and Orbital.

I also much preferred the soundtrack on the first game compared with the second, despite the second having lots more tracks from ‘famous’ artists.

A great read, thank you.

I’ve just watched that video from Martin McNeil, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised at how composed, well articulated and researched it was. Not something you see that often on YouTube.

I wasn’t aware of any of this situation until now, and haven’t seen the original video from THGM or the response video from LD, but I must say it’s the final nudge I needed to unsubscribe from their channels. It’s not the greatest content on YouTube but their response was uncalled for.

Internet people need to understand that you can’t just use people’s or company’s copyrighted material as you please, regardless of your opinion. You need to follow the law just like everybody else.

I don’t have much nostalgia for arcade games (although I did play quite a few back in the early 90s), and I have no desire to ever own an arcade cabinet. Regardless, I found this to be a very enjoyable read, so thank you!

I live in Leeds but still haven’t been to the Arcade Club somehow. I should really change that.

And I see from your profile you’re from Saltaire. I now picture you playing your cabinet with a nice Saltaire Blonde 😀

I’m most of the way through Resident Evil Code Veronica X on the GameCube. I much prefer the old style of Resident Evil. Not into the over the shoulder view where your character blocks most of the screen so it’s annoying looking around finding stuff.

I also have Mystical Ninja 2 on N64 in my ‘soon to play’ list. I played the first one last year for the first time and really enjoyed it, so might do this one next.

Golden Axe II is my favourite (not played the Death Adder game). It might be similar to the first game, but it’s better in every way in my opinion. Especially the music.

Great read, thank you. The re-release of the latest edition of this rekindled my nostalgia for the original, so I’ve now bought copies of the original game and the 4 main expansions that released in Europe over the past few weeks!

I did think about buying the new version, but I don’t like the models anywhere near as much. It’s probably nostalgia, but I much prefer the simple, almost cartoony look of the original models. Plus Firmirs are way better than those giant fish things in the new version!

I’m hoping my 2 daughters will play the game with me when they’re a bit older. Otherwise it’s just more toys for me!

I’ll probably still buy the new one in the future. I think the US rules are mostly better than the UK rules, especially with monsters’ body points, although searching is more of a faff in the US rules.

I also recently downloaded an Amiga emulator so I can play the Heroquest video game from Gremlin. The music alone is just so nostalgic.

I thought this game had to use the expansion pak to get around a bug they couldn’t fix before its Xmas release? It didn’t actually need the extra RAM the pak provides?

I bloody loved this film back in the day.

A great read, thank you!

Looks good and I’m tempted, but there are just too many good books coming out (and already out) that I don’t have time to read.

There are Chris Scullion’s encyclopaedias - I have the NES and Mega Drive ones, and I want the SNES and N64 ones but haven’t really read the 2 I own yet! Then there are Bitmap Books’, well, books. I have a few of theirs, some which I still haven’t read properly, and they have many more I want to buy but know I won’t get around to reading them anytime soon. Oh and don’t forget the anthologies from Geeks Line. I mean it’s great there are so many books for our hobby these days, but with real life and actually playing these games there just isn’t enough time to enjoy them all unfortunately.

I’m sure I’ll get around to reading them in retirement. Just like I’ll get around to starting my backlog in retirement….

Is a mod being worked on by anybody to add this feature in to Perfect Dark? No idea how feasible it is or whether it’s worth anybody’s time to actually do, but with all the mods and hacks around I always thought this would be one of the first they’d do. Maybe it’s just not possible or it’s too niche given people need a transfer pak AND a GB Camera to make use of it.

Will this work on an AV Famicom? I’m guessing it works with the Everdrive N8 plugged in the top? And will it work with the RAM cart for the Disk System plugged in?

If the answer to all these is yes then this sounds awesome! Of course price dependant. I was disappointed to see when the Mega Everdrive Pro became available a few weeks ago the price had jumped from $200 to $260, so I expect this won’t come cheap.

The Japanese box art for this game is some of the best around. The Japanese version is also fully playable in English, as it’s just the US rom but with Japanese text boxes slapped on the screen with the original English text boxes still present beneath! 🤣

I played through number 1 last year. I need to make my way through number 2. Thankfully I have a copy (although it’s easy enough to play a ‘Verbatim’ version!), so really should get around to it. I never played number 2 back in the day so it will be completely new.

I’m not on Twitter, and I’m a hermit when it comes to the ‘socials’, so I have no idea who this guy is! But it was still a very interesting read, so thank you.

I’m not a huge shmup fan, but always really liked the look of this game, even today. I own Ikaruga on the GameCube but always found the black/white colour mechanic too difficult to get to grips with while also trying to shoot and dodge! The colour mechanic here sounds much better to me.

“ODEs… these devices are essential to those who wish to experience the full library on original hardware”.

Erm I’ve been enjoying the full library of my disc based retro consoles long before ODEs were the hottest things on the retro gaming scene. All for the price of a pack of Verbatims!

Really interesting read, thanks. It’s not something I’d ever really thought about or questioned until you mentioned it here, but now you do it’s quite obvious to question it!

I used to love this show. As a young child I really got into it, I found it a bit scary. I think it was that life force sequence when you get close to death.

I was wanting to pre-order this, but not at £105. So I’ll be passing.

A great read, thank you! It’s been over 20 years since I’ve played it (although I do own it!) but I can still remember how I controlled it, using the C buttons to strafe and analogue stick to move and turn. It’s ingrained in me!

What control set ups did most people use? I’m guessing they couldn’t do the dual controller thing with it being 4 player?

Very interesting read. Never heard of this before, or the RAZZ arcade board even. Thanks!

I like hip hop about as much as I like stepping in dog poo, so reading those artists means nothing to me. Except for MC Hammer. Now I’ll definitely agree he’s a legend!

Great read, thanks Martin. Glad to read a piece from you again, hopefully we see some more updates on your blog soon, although I’ve seen you’ve been competing in a Goldeneye Tournament 😀

As someone who’s played all the obvious classics I remember from my youth, I’ve enjoyed going through more of the library. I thought Castlevania 64 was great, despite the negative reviews. Such good music and atmosphere. Goemon was also cracking, with awesome music too. I need to play the sequels to both of these.

Next on my list are the Bomberman games. I really like the look of the top down puzzle, platform adventure style gameplay. Again games that received negative reviews at the time because they weren’t what people expected, but in hindsight I think they fare better.

Has to be original hardware and CRT for me. I’ve tried hooking them up to HDTVs with various gizmos but no matter what anyone says, they just look rubbish in comparison.

It has to be original hardware and controllers as that’s part of the experience for me. Anything else just doesn’t feel right.

I do use flash carts though (and Verbatims for disc based systems). While I do have original cartridges and discs, I just like the option of being able to play any game that takes my fancy without worrying if it costs hundreds of pounds or not. But I do have most of the games I liked as a child, the boxes and manuals for those games is part of the nostalgia.

Dodgy FMV in Doom would have been just glorious!

Really interesting read, thanks! As someone who’s never owned or played an Xbox, I didn’t really know anything about Fable’s development and always assumed it was a Molyneux game, so I’m glad I know better now! If I were to ever get an Xbox, Fable would be one of the first games I played on it.

I agree that RR type 4 has the best soundtrack in the series. The 20th anniversary soundtrack has some great remixes of some of the already awesome tracks.

I actually haven’t played RRV yet, despite owning it. I have great memories of playing all the PS1 games and spending hours on them, but never owned a PS2 during its time of release so missed out on it. I’ll have to rectify that.

Excellent article. I know very little about the Jaguar and its history so this was very educational and interesting. Thanks!

I’m really not into this MSU business. I just don’t think sticking orchestral music on 8 bit or 16 bit games particularly enhances the experience (from what I’ve seen, the majority of them just whack orchestral arrangements into the games).

I particularly don’t like the Zelda Link to the Past one. If I recall they whacked a cringe worthy cartoon sequence at the start where Link and his Uncle are chin wagging (yep Link talks!) and Link has some horrible whiney voice. It would have sounded better if they just cut his voice from the 80s cartoon and he was going ‘excuuuuuuuuse me’ as he tried to get past his Uncle who was doing the dishes or whatever.

While I think this is technically impressive, and I have access to MSU via my SD2SNES, I’ll be sticking to the originals thanks very much.

I don’t know much about the Amstrad other than it existed and was done by Alan Sugar. I had a C64 growing up, and of course I know about the ZX Spectrum and many of its games, despite never having owned or played one.

But I’m less familiar with the Amstrad, and even less so with its games, so I found this article really interesting, thank you. I must say graphically these look much better than the typical games on the C64 and ZX Spectrum. I clearly missed out!

I am one of the 5 people in the world who still hasn’t played Skyrim (I’m also one of the 3 people who hasn’t played GTA5).

I do own a copy of the PS4 Remaster, but I more got it for my wife than myself. To be honest, open world games with copy/paste chores (sorry quests), crafting, skill trees and inventory management (of thousands of items!) bore the heck out of me. Once you get over the world, it’s a job, not a game.

I found the same with Breath of the Wild. To me that isn’t a Zelda game, it’s a To Do List simulator with some Zelda characters in.

But regardless, this was an interesting read. The Elder Scrolls is certainly a series with a great history and I’d probably prefer the earlier games with their smaller worlds and less complex systems (maybe).

I wish I’d have owned a PS4 back when this released. As I didn’t I never got a chance to experience it.

It’s a shame Kojima and del Toro went from this to Death Stranding, as while I’ve not played it Death Stranding does not look anywhere near as good. Hopefully they revive this, just without the Silent Hill branding. There’s nothing in PT that relies upon Silent Hill from what I can tell.

It was Ridge Racer Revolution I spent the most time with. It had more tracks or layouts of the same track (I think?), but also had the white car to beat and unlock as well as the black car. I remember playing it for hours until I unlocked both, I had a real sense of achievement when I did. I seem to remember the way to beat it was to block it from passing you as once it did pass it was gone.

@Damo that picture of Super Famicom games is a sight to behold

The C64 is a strange beast for me. It was the first games computer/console I ever had and played, but I was very young and found most of the games extremely difficult and glitchy so I don’t really hold much nostalgia for it. I probably didn’t play the best games given I don’t recognise most games on this list!

The games I remember playing most (I’m not saying these are any good!) were:

Freak Factory (scared me as a child!)
The Last V8
Combat School
Turrican games
Game Over
Moon Shadow
Various Dizzy games
Blue Max
Dan Dare

This article has piqued my interest for playing these games again! I’m guessing it’s easy playing C64 games on PC via emulation? I’ll have to take a look.

Interesting read, thanks. I enjoy short games given my busy real life, so will play this at some point soon.

It would have been nice to include a picture of the logo you discussed in the article. I had to Google it to see what you were talking about.

I wouldn’t mind owning a physical copy of this game for the SNES. Oh it’s Limited Run Games. Guess not then.

Really interesting read. And thank you for adding the video at the end 🤣

Really interesting read, thank you. Really enjoying this new site so far.

I notice this phenomenon when I’m exercising and doing planks. When you you’re staring at the carpet really close up, the different shades of fibres and speckles make it really easy to see faces in the pattern!

I’m from Leeds too! I mean, so are a few hundred thousand other people too, but still, it’s the last thing you expect when reading an article about someone who featured in a set of French Sega adverts from the 90s!

I’ve never come across these adverts before. I’ll definitely be checking out that compilation video when I get chance.

An awesome read, thank you! I’m looking forward to more articles from this new site.

Great to hear from Pete from Genki Video Games in this article. I’ve ordered numerous Japanese games and hardware from him over the years. I recall putting an order in for Bomberman 64 (the Japanese exclusive one) with him and having to wait for the palett to arrive from Japan. It took a while and it felt a bit like the whole grey import scene from the 90s again…. Except I didn’t have to pay until it arrived and didn’t have to send a Postal Order 😀 I highly recommend his site for anyone interested in Japanese games.

I also blew a US SNES power brick when I plugged it straight into a UK socket with a shaver adapter (so no step down!). I remember the pop and acrid smell all too well. It was the first ever foreign console I’d imported, but thankfully it just blew the power brick and not the console itself.

@Rambler same here. Never had an Amiga but my friend did, and the few times I played on it I was enthralled by how different it is and the games are to your Nintendo and Sega consoles. It almost has this ‘mythical’ status in my mind!