Bringing Past To Present
Archive for April, 2011
Everyone loves a Royal Wedding…..well not everyone
Apr 28th
Given the sheer amount of holidays and days off we are all experiencing at the moment it’s probably a good time to pack up the old Game Boy collection and head off for a few days myself. So posting and updates will be back to normal next week with the following :
- Games 19-30 in the Commodorathon
- Retro reviews including the games I have been picking up at car boots and charity shops in the last month
- Reviews of some of the arcade originals via MAME that I have been playing on the C64 to see how they compare
Until then put your feet up, settle down with some retro goodies and normal service will be resumed shortly……
Commodorathon – Games 13-18
Apr 18th
For the next six games RetroBear takes on the role of a soldier wanting revenge, a large ape, some kind of space warrior, a large headed boy in a nappy and the Last Slapfighter. Sounds like a cheese induced nightmare but it isn’t….
Saturday 16th April 2011
Six more games, six more ranges of emotion. The task is proving very tough indeed if only for the failure of games to load. There are still hundreds of games to get through so let us waste no time and crack on with the next batch of games to see what joy/despair they bring.
Commodorathon – Games 7-12
Apr 15th
Up next for RetroBear are more technical problems, an ancient arcade conversion, one of the most popular board games in the world turned into a computer game and two of the most notoriously bad C64 arcade conversions. Cover your eyes and ears as this will not be pretty…..
Thursday 14th April 2011
I am not looking forward to the next batch of games considering that it contains two absolute all time C64 nightmares. At least that is what legend says, after all my opinion may differ from those who have gone before me. We shall see as Day 2 of the Commodorathon commences….
The Commodorathon – First Games Reviewed…..
Apr 13th
So the moment finally arrives. RetroBear reviews the first games in the C64 collection and encounters a dodgy coin-op conversion, two crappy film tie ins (and we all know how much he loves those) and a few technical problems….
Tuesday April 12th 2011
The Commodorathon begins. Armed with little more than a pint of orange squash and having surveyed the task ahead this show is officially on the road. This does mean starting with a lot of film tie ins which from previous columns you will notice are not my favourite genre. However they were first out of the drawer…..
GAME 1 : RAMBO FIRST BLOOD PART II (1986, OCEAN SOFTWARE)
You are Rambo armed to the teeth with weapons and your tasks are simple – rescue the POW’s without engaging the enemy. That is easier said than done as the enemy are quite happy to engage you. Escaping the first task in a helicopter, you then return to the camp you just visited to rescue some more POW’s before then taking on an enemy helicopter. Beyond that, well it’s difficult to say because that is as far as I got.
At the time of release it went head to head with Elite’s conversion of the arcade smash Commando. The two games are very similar except with Rambo you go up the screen, then back down it and then back up it. I’ll get to Commando at some point in the future but having played it a few months ago I do prefer it, though it is far from a good game.
Call Me Ishmael – RetroBear tackles his Moby Dick
Apr 6th
One man. One machine. Over 400 games. Retrobear is on a quest to play every single Commodore 64 game in his collection, without prejudice. That is not going to be an easy task.
The only rules are as follows :
- All games in the collection must be played – no exceptions no matter how bad a game’s reputation
- A minimum of 3 games per post will be reviewed
- Where possible the games will be compared to the coin-op original
- I must keep the faith
This week got me thinking as to what to do next with the site. Whilst posting comments on various systems and bits of gaming history is all well and good, what I feel is lacking most is actually playing the damn games and reviewing them. The problem with that is where to start ? I mean it’s not as if I have a small amount of games to be going along with that would take a short period of time to cover.