The best way to deal with writer’s block – which, as some of you may have noticed, is why there hasn’t been an update for a week – is to get some sort of list going that will stimulate the writing juices. It’s either that or finally give in and play some well known games for a change as opposed to the obscure ones. Argh No! So join me now as we go through the Retro Alphabet with as many glaring omissions as there are inclusions, I am sure :

Says it all really....

A IS FOR:

ARKANOID : Breakout update from the 1980’s. Not simply bat and ball, as collecting power ups will allow you to have an extra ball on screen or develop lasers. Set in space this is a worthy update to an arcade classic, and also spawned a sequel

ANGRY VIDEO GAME NERD : The player of some of the worst games known to man is a worthy entry in the Retro Alphabet. If you can get beyond some of the more tasteless gags, swearing and use of bodily functions, James Rolfe has done a lot for bringing video games reviewing, albeit angrily, into the new millennium. He’s even making a film about the Nerd.

ATARI : Once great, video games giant that introduced the world to the wooden wonder of the 2600. Did Atari single handedly bring about the Games Crash of 1983, or were they merely one of the casualties ? How time treats them is another matter but they were never quite the same again, as neither the colour handheld Lynx or the hard to program for Jaguar made any impression on gamers in the 1990’s. More likely now remembered for arcade classics like Star Wars and STUN Runner.

B IS FOR :

BANJO : The musical bear from the Banjo games from Rare for the N64 in the late 1990’s. Always accompanied by a bird in a rucksack and attempting to defeat the evil witch, Gruntilda Winkybunion (Grunty to her friends), the Banjo games were raved over back in the day. They still provide an excellent challenge and with Rare’s usual high quality graphics, sounds and gameplay these games have turned into classics. However Banjo’s comeback on the Xbox 360 last year was not quite as well received.

BABIES : You might be surprised to see this entry but there are at least 4 Babies that spring to mind : Baby Mario and Baby Luigi (perhaps Nintendo were running out of ideas of how to milk more money from gamers – and this was before WaLuigi), the giant baby in Zombies Ate My Neighbours (if there is one thing that is scary it’s a giant baby) and Jack The Nipper (who terrorised 8 bit owners back in the 1980’s).

BACK TO THE FUTURE : You’d have thought a great film franchise would spawn great games, but that’s where you would be wrong. The first film saw an atrocious NES version that had nothing to do with the film and whilst the C64/Spectrum/Amstrad game went for a different approach, getting George McFly to spend as much time as possible with Lorraine, they couldn’t pull it off. The second film saw yet another hopeless attempt on the 8 bit and 16 bit computers, splitting the game into sub games that, although relevant to the film, suffered from poor controls. For NES owners both the second and third films were lumped into the same game which again bore little resemblance to the original films. The final part of the trilogy was another sub game bonanza for home micros and the Mega Drive – some good, the shooting range, and some bad, the opening level which is about as hard and unfair as first levels get. Definitely a missed opportunity all round.

C IS FOR :

CAPCOM – Legendary Japanese game developer and publisher responsible for the following retro gaming greats : Devil May Cry, Ghosts N Goblins, Ghouls N Ghosts, Street Fighter, Mega Man, Bionic Commando, Final Fight and Resident Evil amongst others. You don’t need to say any more about them than that.

CENTIPEDE : 1980 arcade game that did for small insects what Space Invaders did for green men from outer space. Gun down the centipede as it moves it’s way through the garden. It moves incredibly quickly and you’ll have to be quick to keep up. Shooting it in the wrong place means it will split into two, making this one fast and furious shooter. One of the best vertical shooters of it’s kind and an undisputed classic to this day.

D IS FOR :

DOOM : It’s probably fair to say that the rise of games like Doom and Castle Wolfenstein led us to the current blitz of first person shooters that dominate the market to this day. Looking back now, these original games look incredibly dated, what with their blocky graphics, duff sound and a lack of impact they had back in the day. That doesn’t mean that Doom is any less playable – because it still is. This is probably the best of the 3 games that was released in the series and quite a challenge, but just don’t expect to be blown away like we were in the 1990’s.

E IS FOR :

EDDIE EDWARDS SUPER SKI : A British sporting hero of the 1980’s, if only for his lack of ability. Clearly a case of licensing gone to someone’s head. It’s debatable whether the developers had a skiing game ready to go and just need someone to front it. As skiing games go, it’s not bad but then there isn’t really that much to compare it with. Certainly one of the more curious games one has come across.

ELITE SYSTEMS : Games developer of the 1980’s where they had most of their success. They were responsible for converting a lot of arcade greats back in the day, some of which were better than others ; Buggy Boy, Bomb Jack, Commando, Ghosts N Goblins, Ikari Warriors, Paperboy and Space Harrier. They have also dabbled in the ever growing mobile games market in recent years. It is always good to see a name from the past taking on the technology of today.

END : After battling through many levels, suffering many heartaches and needless deaths along the way, my mate Jim finally completed Shinobi on the Master System which to this day he states is the hardest game he has ever played. After finally finishing the game he was greeted with the following message on screen – GAME OVER. Then the game reset itself. Needless to say he wasn’t a happy chappy, thus this must be a candidate for the world’s worst game ending ????

Coming next – F to I…….

Well the good stuff didn’t last as RetroBear plays one of the biggest steaming piles of cow dung ever released on the Super Nintendo. The question is why did anyone really both trying to convert a game so shallow as this ?

Well the box looks nice I suppose, but its all downhill when you open it

Do you remember laser discs ? Now that is a fair slice of retro history right there. This was meant to be the technology that revolutionised how we watched movies in our own home, with the chance to have almost cinema quality picture and full channel stereo sound blasting us out of our armchairs. Those in the know say that this was a technology that should have succeeded if only for one small, tiny problem : the laser disc players were the most unreliable piece of machinery that was ever produced.

No bother that you could have the most incredible version of Star Wars or Jurassic Park thundering out of your TV. If your player was throwing a wobbler there was no chance of getting anything out of it. All too soon laser discs lost out to the already established VHS market and, before they had a chance to improve, the DVD came along and did what laser discs should have done in the first place. Gamers though also had their own slice of good fortune when Don Bluth, and ex-Disney studio animator, and his Bluth Studios decided to not only make an arcade game with high quality cartoon graphics but also stick it on laser disc.

Sadly these machines were as unreliable as their home counterparts. Too often machines broke down awaiting repair and at the time charging you £1.00 a go when the average game would give you 3 credits for 50p was extortionate. The games produced, Dragons Lair : Escape From Singe’s Castle, Dragons Lair 2 : Timewarp and Space Ace, were some of the most simple ever made. All you had to do was move the joystick or press the fire button at the right time to move to the next screen. Basically you were playing a cartoon with interaction, and limited interaction at that. You couldn’t fault how the games looked and sounded, but as playing experience it was like being hit with a wet lettuce over again and having someone nick a quid from your pocket for the privilege.

Whilst it all looks very nice it cannot compare to the arcade original in any way shape or form

Some bright spark thought it would be fun to secure the rights to the home conversions and try and make some money. When the third game in the series, Space Ace, was released it had a whopping 9 discs for the 16 bit versions. How on earth could you fit all the tech into one small tape ? Well you couldn’t and anyone expecting a similar experience to the arcade game was living in cloud cuckoo land. Finally, Escape From Singes Castle arrived on the SNES and what a disaster it was.

Rather than make any attempt to recreate the arcade game, the SNES version like the NES one was turned into a side scrolling platform game (The Angry Video Game Nerd has done a pretty scathing review of the NES version). Whilst there is no doubt the game has some nice colourful graphics the fun ends there, when you realise the whole game moves like a slug in treacle with a brick tied to its back. The controls are amongst some of the most unresponsive I have ever experienced, switching from incredibly twitchy to sluggish to just damned unresponsive with each flick of the joypad.

You don’t get any joy from this game at all. It might have been prudent to try and do a straight conversion with the obvious graphical limitations, but when the original has little or no game play in the first place, it makes you wonder why this wasn’t left in the dust covered memories of the past. You might give some small applause for the effort but when platform games are ten-a-penny and as bad as this it really doesn’t bear thinking about. You can now play both Escape From Singes Castle and Dragons Lair 2 via your PS3 should you wish to download them. It must be added that after all these years it’s a straight conversion and as such all you have to do is move the pad or press the button at the right time. Yawn. That’s now like being hit in the face with a case of wet lettuces whilst someone takes £8.00 from your pocket. No thank you.

It is hard to tell whether the game is moving or whether it is a trick of the eye

Dragons Lair at least holds a place in games history for trying to do something technologically advanced. Unfortunately either someone was very greedy or someone simply didn’t think it through properly. Make up your own minds, I’m off to play Asteroids instead.

VERDICT : Hopeless controls and a game speed to rival the 100m final of the snail olympics, this is not recommended at all unless you are a fan of masochism.

NOTES : For those of you who don’t wish to heed my advice you can buy a copy for £2.39 on Amazon whilst you’ll have to pay an insane £4.00 for a loose cart version on eBay.

UP NEXT : Horror of horrors – Footballer Of The Year on the Commodore C16+4

This week in the first of a two part column, the Retrobear bemoans “Top” lists and why such things are individual and unique. The second part, to be posted over the next couple of days, will definitely feature more on retro games. Honest…..

Originally Posted to GameFancier.com on August 19th 2010

How we cried at both the film and game versions of ET.

One thing I always like to scan through when getting ideas for writing a column is what other columns have  done already. There is, for example, absolutely no point in me doing “My Top 50 Games” list because it’s relevant only to me. There can be no way a list I can put together will find universal approval, and is more likely have me tarred with the dribbling imbecile brush. I scan through other people’s lists with interest and have no desire to pull them apart because they believe Sonic 2 is better than Mario 64. If that’s your opinion, then that’s great and good for you. You’ll still be welcome here at Bear Towers for a cup of tea and a slice of cake. 

Now truth be told, I did do a Top 10 N64 list a few weeks back, but if you recall (and you can go back a few pages and read it here if you wish) it wasn’t my list, it was someone else’s. I purely did it because I had played some of the games and it allowed me to do a couple of elf jokes at the expense of Link. I therefore considered myself able to put some sort of comment on it. The thing is with retro games and playing them in the correct way, it takes a lot of time and that’s something I don’t usually have. So if you want my top 10 C64 games I have played, you’ll have to wait as playing 423 of them will take me years.

Of course, the lists we do like to read are the Bad Games ones, as they always raise a few chuckles. However how many people have actually played the bad ones which always occur, and simply include them because they have a reputation for being bad ? As a 7 year old kid I thought E.T. And Pac Man on the Atari 2600 were great (well not truthfully – E.T. used to really piss me off). Now history tells me they were bad and should be condemned and as such these now always appear at the top of Bad Games lists. It’s much better to find a really bad game no one seems to remember, for example last week’s Retro Bullet The Running Man. It was crap at the time and it’s crap now.

He likes to play the shitty games that suck ass.

I admire people like James Rolfe of Angry Video Game Nerd fame. He has never been scared to put his opinions forward and has unearthed some really quite awful old NES titles that most of us had forgotten about, or even knew existed. He has his own way of putting his thoughts and comments across, though not to everyone’s taste. Personally, going beyond the bad language and toilet humour, he does know what he is on about, and has a collection to die for. Good games, bad games, good systems, bad systems ; he has them all and deserves his successes.

It’s made it all the more difficult for people to put their gaming opinions across though. If you come across all angry and sweary, as I sometimes do, you get labelled with the AVGN imposter tag. The world already has one of those, so you have to forge your own opinions and get your points across. It seems that there is nothing better than waxing lyrical about how bad a game is, but the art of praising one seems to have disappeared. When you do put together a Great Games List, someone comes along and craps all over it. So what if you haven’t included Halo ? You might not have played it, and therefore one comment takes away any credibility from your list and then the nit picking begins. Before long, it’s been pulled apart and you’ll wonder why you bothered in the first place.

Bend it, shake it, move it, make it, who do you think you are ?

So next time someone goes to the trouble of posting their favourite games list, remember it’s one person’s opinion which they are sharing with you. You won’t agree with all of them, but you might agree with some. Doesn’t make them a bad person or a bad expert on games, they just want to let you know why they love gaming so much. Unless they put Spiceworld at the top of the list : then you have grounds to blast the buffoon to kingdom come.

Till the next time – It was like that when I got here.