Bringing Past To Present
Posts tagged Movie Games
Commodorathon : Games 37-42
Feb 8th
Dateline 7th February 2012
Game 42 marks the 10%-ish mark of the Commodorathon. To say it’s been an arduous trek so far is to say that elephants are made of sheet metal. Still it doesn’t help that the six games chosen at random tend to be just that – random. Cacky old arcade conversions, lame film-tie ins and the great, great grandson of Championship Manager lay in wait in this next batch……..
The first landmark of the Commodorathon
RetroReview : February Free-For-All – 3rd February 2012
Feb 5th
While the weather outside is certainly frightening, inside there is plenty of delighting going on. That’s the joy of having a hobby like retro gaming – you don’t have to go very far, it never gets rained off and it’s always warm when you do it. I know that’s not such a good advertisement for healthy living and all that kind of stuff, but when have I ever lived by the rules ?
OK it could have been a lot worse weather-wise..........
RetroReview : The February Free-For-All – 2nd February 2012
Feb 3rd
Dateline 2nd February 2012
Couldn't have put it better myself............
There is very much a handheld theme to the start of the February Free-For-All, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Portable gaming is available so freely now because of the advent of Smart Phones, but back in the 80’s and 90’s such a thing was a very rare beast indeed. So much so that a lot of great games have either been forgotten about or are not appreciated by today’s audience. One would hope the more visible these games are made, the more people will take an interest in them.
30 Days of Gaming – Game 19 – Goldeneye (Nintendo 64)
Nov 22nd
Dateline : 19th November 2011
The old foe stands opposite Retrobear – the move tie in. However on this occasion he is more than pleasantly surprised as this one is really rather good. In fact not just rather good but stupendously good. So grab your silencer and your tuxedo as RetroBear goes all Bond on us….
You can tell the quality that went into this game and that is why its a gaming classic
RetroComment : Why 3D ain’t all it’s cracked to be
Aug 14th
The recent rumblings at Nintendo show the 3D market for games is still very shaky. By the time you have read this article the price of the 3DS may have dropped even further. Have Nintendo once again missed the mark ? Is 3D ever going to be anything other than a fad ? Retrobear casts his critical eye below….
When it comes to 3D, frankly my dears gamers don't give a damn
It really comes as no surprise that Nintendo’s launch of the 3DS console has been nothing short of a minor disaster for the company. It wouldn’t be the first time that they have totally overestimated the appeal of a new launch product, or mishandled a new release. I know because I was one of the few who ran out and purchased a Gamecube on launch day (there is another article covering this on this website and it still marks the last time I did such a thing)
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….
Rumble In The Jungle
Ridding the streets of scum
Jungle Fever
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
C64 Goodness
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.
Top Movie Games Part 3: The 2000′s
Feb 25th
Encroaching on this generation, did modern technology make games based on movies any better? The RetroBear played a few of the more notable ones and shares his wisdom, although you probably don’t need to be an expert to be wary of Star Wars games.
Originally Posted to GameFancier.com on July 30th 2010
Lego Star Wars The Complete Saga
The decade known as the Noughties (or to any sane member of the general population, the years 2000 onwards) saw as many games released tied into films as there were the previous decade. The quality should have improved, given the capabilities of consoles and handhelds. The last generation of consoles were about to be put aside and we embarked on a new digital age, at the end of which PlayStation would be on mark 3, Nintendo would have introduced us to motion-sensing gaming and Xbox…..well would still be Xbox, just a more powerful version. More >
Top Movie Games Part 2: The 90’s
Feb 25th
Were the 1990s responsible for the truism that there’s never been a decent game based on a movie (or film as us Brits prefer to say). There certainly wasn’t that many great examples, but the Retrobear has dug through them to pull out the best and the worst. Enjoy.
Originally Posted to GameFancier.com on July 23rd 2010
Hudson Hawk (Amiga Screen)
By the 1990′s film companies had begun to see the appeal in licensing their titles and making computer games based on them. They also saw the bottom line readies that could be made from it and thus we entered a period where most of the major film titles of that decade were turned into game equivalents. Matter not that most of them were total shit, think of the money! The computer industry had been whoring itself before, prior to the 1983 crash, now it was the film industry that was turning tricks to maximise profits. More >
Top Movie Games From The 80’s
Feb 25th
Do you remember a time before films had awful tie-in games? Those days didn’t exist for long and even in the 1980′s Sylvester Stallone was seen as a way to sell more copies. Were they all bad games though? Retrobear gives us the answer with his look at those titles.
Originally Posted to GameFancier.com on July 16th 2010
Rambo C64 Cover Art
This week sees the release of Inception here in the UK. The next big budget blockbuster starring Leonardo what’s-his-face (you know the one who was more wooden than the plank he was holding onto before he drowned in Titanic) is meant to be sort of like The Matrix but not. So this got me thinking – can we expect yet another game of the film that’s total rubbish? I mean let’s face it if we all had pound coins for every time we played a bad computer game adaptation of a great film there would be no economic crisis. Just a shortage of pound coins.
My thoughts progressed to previous games of films, good or bad, that have cluttered up our cupboards and game shelves over the years. For every Batman The Movie there is a Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I’ve played countless of these in my time but there are such a lot of them, including ones for films you’d never even think warranted a video game release. It’s no mean feat to whizz through this quickly, so this week I shall deal with the 1980′s, next week the 90′s and finally the 00′s. More >