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Forgotten Games.
Retro games are games that time forgot. The word itself means backward or back, so technically, it is correct when referring to old games. They’re games that stood the test of time, games that were as good then as they are now. These games are retro games, the benchmark for new gaming ideas nowadays, as developers look back in search of inspiration, to bring back past ideas into the present.
So why am I talking about retro games in the first place, eh? Well, it seems there’s a debate going around our happy forums ‘ere. It’s a debate over what’s more enjoyable - when we were playing our old side-scrolling platformers on the SNES, or roaming about 3D worlds on our now dead N64s. It’s because of this debate that I have come up with the idea to take you back through time, and remind you of some ‘forgotten’ games. Although, no doubt some of you will remember them, especially if you’re Ninty...
But before I go on, you will notice that they all had something to do with Nintendo. That’ll be because they are the only games I can remember, the ones that stood out the in my mind the most, and the games I distinctly remember enjoying.
So here we go, as I take you all for a stroll down memory lane, where you’ll find old games from an era with only TWO dimensions. Enjoy...
DONKEY KONG JR
Arcade, 1982
This game is famous for being the only game in history where Mario is the bad guy, DK Jr was what Shigsy did next after the staggering success of the ladder-climbing original. Thankfully, Shigsy didn’t choose to make a slight variation on Donkey Kong and hope that the money would simply roll in again, instead, he totally recreated the game. You’d find big ol’ Donkey Kong locked up in a cage by the EVIL Mario, and you played the big ape’s baby son. Basically, your mission was to collect the keys that would free your daddy. Unlike its predecessor, there were no ladders or girdles for you to climb – only jungle vines to shimmy up. Although the four separate screen clearly demonstrated Nintendo’s level designing skills, the character expressions (namely DK Jr’s) was something not to be missed, because it looked as if sweet little DK was on the verge of tears every time evil Mario whisked away his dad to the next level. But of course, this game had its flaws, it did indeed. It was extremely frustrating most of the time, what with the irritating multicoloured killer birds and the equally annoying clockwork teeth that were always making repeated appearances, scattering across the screen in an attempt to, well...kill you. Either you have the toughest patience ever seen, and can control your temper to the most extreme points, you’ll find yourself picking up the nearest object and throwing it across the room in anger and frustration. However, you won’t find many people on this old thing anymore, instead you’re likely to find people playing DK 64, or the next game that will feature the Kong family – Donkey Kong Racing for the Gamecube.
BUBBLE BOBBLE
Arcade, 1985
To be honest, I still play this little beauty now :-S. It’s a fantastically simple platform game combined with colourful, platform-jumping designed levels and annoying little enemies once again born with the natural instinct to make your gaming life a living hell. To my knowledge, backed up with a spot of research, there are over 20 different versions of Bubble Bobble! All featuring your two favourite little dinosaur characters, Bub and Bob. Simple little creatures thought they were, firing bubbles from their cute mouths , trapping and killing the clockwork meanies that scuttled about the level – they had a lot more to do than that. The developers, Taito, crammed in tons of great little touches that made the game that little bit more hectic. Such as the co-operative battles for high-scoring fruit, scrambling to a part of the level that had recently spawned a rare level-skipping umbrella, and the manic dashes for wanted extra life letters. All were superb touches added by Taito that made the game that little bit better, and also one of the reasons as to why I still have a mad urge to play it once in a while. It’s simply a fine game, all the way down to the music – an addictive tune that will leave you humming it for the rest of your life; I still remember it now, in fact :D. Its flaw? It was nigh on impossible to complete; the nearest I got to completion was something like level 85.
GRADIUS
NES, 1987
Every side-scrolling shooter you have come across, whether it’d be on the Gameboy Colour or your old SNES, it’s likely enough that they all owed their existence to an old classic Konami blaster, more commonly known over ‘ere as Nemesis, me thinks. Anyway, Konami set the standards for such games with their innovative gamepley that rocked the world with their next even more innovative title: Gradius. It was this game that advanced from the old Nemesis game, where when playing it you either had the option to pick up the power ups or not. Konami then took this idea and instead listed the various power-ups at the bottom of the screen, such as: 2x fire, shield, floating orb and the curious ‘?’. And so destroyed enemies dropped cash which then allowed you to buy power-ups at any time. This is then when some decision making comes in. You either saved your money for the more meatier, destructive weapons, or spend away on the less able weapons. Gradius featured a rather spiffing ‘option’ system, too – where you had the tactical choice of having kind of wing-men along side you while flying and blasting. The decision to have or not have these buddies was not to be taken lightly, as it usually makes the difference between success and failure. The real strong point about Gradius is its one of the most addictive games I have ever played. It’s so enjoyable dodging the swarms of flittering alien ships and bashing the trigger repeatedly. The one really memorable moment of this game is awesome screen-filling appearance of the end-of-level baddies; it’s where tight control of your ship was as important as a fast trigger finger.
I really, really wouldn’t mind playing this game RIGHT NOW! Aargh, dammit – if I had to get a game with a NES: this would be it.
So, after reminding you of these three classic retro games, does it also help you remember what the good old days were like? After being reminded of these 2D classics, do you think you have more fun now than you did back then? I remember being truly addicted to a game on the Commodor 64. It was called Flimbo’s Quest. I could of reviewed that, too – but I can barely remember it! :D
I was going to write about Super Castlevania and Super Turrican, but again, I could barely remember what they were like, so I kept it at three
Of course, if anyone can remember these two, please go ahead and write about them – if you can be bothered ;)
So, just to interest you, one argument could be that the retro games were new at the time, and so we enjoyed them more, and that nowadays, we take the more realistic games a little more seriously?
Bah – anything, anything at all- what do you lot think, eh?
SHOCKY
Retro games are games that time forgot. The word itself means backward or back, so technically, it is correct when referring to old games. They’re games that stood the test of time, games that were as good then as they are now. These games are retro games, the benchmark for new gaming ideas nowadays, as developers look back in search of inspiration, to bring back past ideas into the present.
So why am I talking about retro games in the first place, eh? Well, it seems there’s a debate going around our happy forums ‘ere. It’s a debate over what’s more enjoyable - when we were playing our old side-scrolling platformers on the SNES, or roaming about 3D worlds on our now dead N64s. It’s because of this debate that I have come up with the idea to take you back through time, and remind you of some ‘forgotten’ games. Although, no doubt some of you will remember them, especially if you’re Ninty...
But before I go on, you will notice that they all had something to do with Nintendo. That’ll be because they are the only games I can remember, the ones that stood out the in my mind the most, and the games I distinctly remember enjoying.
So here we go, as I take you all for a stroll down memory lane, where you’ll find old games from an era with only TWO dimensions. Enjoy...
DONKEY KONG JR
Arcade, 1982
This game is famous for being the only game in history where Mario is the bad guy, DK Jr was what Shigsy did next after the staggering success of the ladder-climbing original. Thankfully, Shigsy didn’t choose to make a slight variation on Donkey Kong and hope that the money would simply roll in again, instead, he totally recreated the game. You’d find big ol’ Donkey Kong locked up in a cage by the EVIL Mario, and you played the big ape’s baby son. Basically, your mission was to collect the keys that would free your daddy. Unlike its predecessor, there were no ladders or girdles for you to climb – only jungle vines to shimmy up. Although the four separate screen clearly demonstrated Nintendo’s level designing skills, the character expressions (namely DK Jr’s) was something not to be missed, because it looked as if sweet little DK was on the verge of tears every time evil Mario whisked away his dad to the next level. But of course, this game had its flaws, it did indeed. It was extremely frustrating most of the time, what with the irritating multicoloured killer birds and the equally annoying clockwork teeth that were always making repeated appearances, scattering across the screen in an attempt to, well...kill you. Either you have the toughest patience ever seen, and can control your temper to the most extreme points, you’ll find yourself picking up the nearest object and throwing it across the room in anger and frustration. However, you won’t find many people on this old thing anymore, instead you’re likely to find people playing DK 64, or the next game that will feature the Kong family – Donkey Kong Racing for the Gamecube.
BUBBLE BOBBLE
Arcade, 1985
To be honest, I still play this little beauty now :-S. It’s a fantastically simple platform game combined with colourful, platform-jumping designed levels and annoying little enemies once again born with the natural instinct to make your gaming life a living hell. To my knowledge, backed up with a spot of research, there are over 20 different versions of Bubble Bobble! All featuring your two favourite little dinosaur characters, Bub and Bob. Simple little creatures thought they were, firing bubbles from their cute mouths , trapping and killing the clockwork meanies that scuttled about the level – they had a lot more to do than that. The developers, Taito, crammed in tons of great little touches that made the game that little bit more hectic. Such as the co-operative battles for high-scoring fruit, scrambling to a part of the level that had recently spawned a rare level-skipping umbrella, and the manic dashes for wanted extra life letters. All were superb touches added by Taito that made the game that little bit better, and also one of the reasons as to why I still have a mad urge to play it once in a while. It’s simply a fine game, all the way down to the music – an addictive tune that will leave you humming it for the rest of your life; I still remember it now, in fact :D. Its flaw? It was nigh on impossible to complete; the nearest I got to completion was something like level 85.
GRADIUS
NES, 1987
Every side-scrolling shooter you have come across, whether it’d be on the Gameboy Colour or your old SNES, it’s likely enough that they all owed their existence to an old classic Konami blaster, more commonly known over ‘ere as Nemesis, me thinks. Anyway, Konami set the standards for such games with their innovative gamepley that rocked the world with their next even more innovative title: Gradius. It was this game that advanced from the old Nemesis game, where when playing it you either had the option to pick up the power ups or not. Konami then took this idea and instead listed the various power-ups at the bottom of the screen, such as: 2x fire, shield, floating orb and the curious ‘?’. And so destroyed enemies dropped cash which then allowed you to buy power-ups at any time. This is then when some decision making comes in. You either saved your money for the more meatier, destructive weapons, or spend away on the less able weapons. Gradius featured a rather spiffing ‘option’ system, too – where you had the tactical choice of having kind of wing-men along side you while flying and blasting. The decision to have or not have these buddies was not to be taken lightly, as it usually makes the difference between success and failure. The real strong point about Gradius is its one of the most addictive games I have ever played. It’s so enjoyable dodging the swarms of flittering alien ships and bashing the trigger repeatedly. The one really memorable moment of this game is awesome screen-filling appearance of the end-of-level baddies; it’s where tight control of your ship was as important as a fast trigger finger.
I really, really wouldn’t mind playing this game RIGHT NOW! Aargh, dammit – if I had to get a game with a NES: this would be it.
So, after reminding you of these three classic retro games, does it also help you remember what the good old days were like? After being reminded of these 2D classics, do you think you have more fun now than you did back then? I remember being truly addicted to a game on the Commodor 64. It was called Flimbo’s Quest. I could of reviewed that, too – but I can barely remember it! :D
I was going to write about Super Castlevania and Super Turrican, but again, I could barely remember what they were like, so I kept it at three
Of course, if anyone can remember these two, please go ahead and write about them – if you can be bothered ;)
So, just to interest you, one argument could be that the retro games were new at the time, and so we enjoyed them more, and that nowadays, we take the more realistic games a little more seriously?
Bah – anything, anything at all- what do you lot think, eh?
SHOCKY
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nice post, well done.
slik ~_~
slik ~_~
Cheers lads, this 'as helped me parents loads, this free game! :)
THANKS SR!
THANKS SR!
Well done shocky...
Don't normally congratulate people, but I'm feeling generous, I won the FAD for my CD review!!!
;-)
Don't normally congratulate people, but I'm feeling generous, I won the FAD for my CD review!!!
;-)
Well done shocky, a well deserved GAD win ;)
I didn't play much of Bubble Bobble as it only worked on Amiga 500's and not Amiga 500+'s (yes, it only worked on the inferior machine!!!)
Rainbow Island was great though (the sequel).
Also, I never played Gradius but R-Type is meant to be the same sort of thing. I've no idea which came first though.
I'm planning on getting R-Type DX on the Gameboy colour.
Rainbow Island was great though (the sequel).
Also, I never played Gradius but R-Type is meant to be the same sort of thing. I've no idea which came first though.
I'm planning on getting R-Type DX on the Gameboy colour.
I am a mere 16 years of age but I have enjoyed gaming for most of my life. I started off playing on a black and white pong machine that let you play a variety of "sports" including tennis - original pong, football - original pong with walls that stretched slightly down to create goalmouths and each team had 2 players (the white lines). My friend then bought a Commodore 64 and I played on that a fair bit. Next I had my own Spectrum with an array of around 100 games, I bought a few LCD games and then I finally entered into the world of consoles.
My brother and I clubbed our money together to get a Master System, then after a while we sold that in order to get a SNES. We kept the SNES and bought an N64 and a PC came soon after. Game Boy, and then Game Boy Colour can come in somewhere too.
However, after all this time I noticed there was a CD available for the PC that let me play old Speccy games (an emulator)and it came with an impressive 3000 games. (I later found out I could have just downloaded this off the internet for free but never mind, that would have been more hassle). After many hours of trying to get the emulator to work myself, I gave in and got my friend to sort it for me. I started by playing some games that I remember playing on my Spectrum then I moved on to playing games that had interesting names (Geoffrey Has Lost His Alarm Clock is not worth bothering with if anyone is interested).
Here are a few Spectrum retro games that I think are fantastic:
Jet Pac
This ran on even the earlier 16k Spectrum and was a minigame in Donkey Kong 64. The idea was that you were a space man who with his jet pac on, flew around first picking up bits to make his rocket from then picking up fuel. You had to either avoid or shoot aliens that flew around you trying to kill you by bashing into you. When you had collected enough fuel you got into your rocket and with some fantastic Speccy sounds happening (random beeps) you rose up and off the top of the screen, to the next level. All the levels were similar but had aliens flying in more difficult patterns to avoid. And after a few levels you had to make a new spaceship. I was never particularly good at this game and only ever got to the level where you make your 3rd spaceship. A sequel named Jet Man was brought out, but it had about 15 keys you needed to be able to press to control the game. We tried playing with 3 people on the keyboard - it was then almost possible.
Headcoach
I would be guessing that not many people would consider an American Football Mangagement game to be fun. I did. It was simple so that you could get into the game but had a decent array of stats to keep you interested. The game didn't have any sort of official license, so all the names of the players were comprised of a 3 letter Christian name and a 4 letter surname. eg. Bob Rose. During the matches you had 4 choices in attack - rush, pass, line plunge, and kick. In defence you just had counter movements - guessing what the other team would do, if you were right you had a better chance of stopping then. The game was all drawn out on the screen in lovely green, black, blue, red and yellow. I think at some times in the game you even got treated to white, purple and turquoise too. The aim, as with any management game, was to win the league, or in this case the Superbowl. Headcoach may not quite be Championship Manager but it was an impressive 80's alternative.
Matchday
I am a definite sports games fan, and matchday was a football game on the Speccy boasting the Match Of The Day theme. The game itself was fairly mediocre but it had a few great touches such as goal celebrations. The goal celebration (singular) was all of your players walking back to their starting places for the kick off whilst raising and lowering their arms. Once, after scoring a goal they got stuck in the celebration movements and kept playing whilst raising and lowering their arms. The manual goalkeeping was also quite odd. When you moved a man in the game, all your team moved in the same way, this unfortunately included the goalkeeper. So when you were trying to tell your defender to clear the ball, your keeper also dives, which could cause a lot of problems if your clearance was intercepted as the keepers took far too long to stand up again.
I loved my Spectrum, and then my PC when it could play Spectrum games, but I am afraid the long loading times annoyed me and I can't now get the emulator working on my new PC - it gave an error message, "Your computer is too fast" and its only a 566. Never mind.
My brother and I clubbed our money together to get a Master System, then after a while we sold that in order to get a SNES. We kept the SNES and bought an N64 and a PC came soon after. Game Boy, and then Game Boy Colour can come in somewhere too.
However, after all this time I noticed there was a CD available for the PC that let me play old Speccy games (an emulator)and it came with an impressive 3000 games. (I later found out I could have just downloaded this off the internet for free but never mind, that would have been more hassle). After many hours of trying to get the emulator to work myself, I gave in and got my friend to sort it for me. I started by playing some games that I remember playing on my Spectrum then I moved on to playing games that had interesting names (Geoffrey Has Lost His Alarm Clock is not worth bothering with if anyone is interested).
Here are a few Spectrum retro games that I think are fantastic:
Jet Pac
This ran on even the earlier 16k Spectrum and was a minigame in Donkey Kong 64. The idea was that you were a space man who with his jet pac on, flew around first picking up bits to make his rocket from then picking up fuel. You had to either avoid or shoot aliens that flew around you trying to kill you by bashing into you. When you had collected enough fuel you got into your rocket and with some fantastic Speccy sounds happening (random beeps) you rose up and off the top of the screen, to the next level. All the levels were similar but had aliens flying in more difficult patterns to avoid. And after a few levels you had to make a new spaceship. I was never particularly good at this game and only ever got to the level where you make your 3rd spaceship. A sequel named Jet Man was brought out, but it had about 15 keys you needed to be able to press to control the game. We tried playing with 3 people on the keyboard - it was then almost possible.
Headcoach
I would be guessing that not many people would consider an American Football Mangagement game to be fun. I did. It was simple so that you could get into the game but had a decent array of stats to keep you interested. The game didn't have any sort of official license, so all the names of the players were comprised of a 3 letter Christian name and a 4 letter surname. eg. Bob Rose. During the matches you had 4 choices in attack - rush, pass, line plunge, and kick. In defence you just had counter movements - guessing what the other team would do, if you were right you had a better chance of stopping then. The game was all drawn out on the screen in lovely green, black, blue, red and yellow. I think at some times in the game you even got treated to white, purple and turquoise too. The aim, as with any management game, was to win the league, or in this case the Superbowl. Headcoach may not quite be Championship Manager but it was an impressive 80's alternative.
Matchday
I am a definite sports games fan, and matchday was a football game on the Speccy boasting the Match Of The Day theme. The game itself was fairly mediocre but it had a few great touches such as goal celebrations. The goal celebration (singular) was all of your players walking back to their starting places for the kick off whilst raising and lowering their arms. Once, after scoring a goal they got stuck in the celebration movements and kept playing whilst raising and lowering their arms. The manual goalkeeping was also quite odd. When you moved a man in the game, all your team moved in the same way, this unfortunately included the goalkeeper. So when you were trying to tell your defender to clear the ball, your keeper also dives, which could cause a lot of problems if your clearance was intercepted as the keepers took far too long to stand up again.
I loved my Spectrum, and then my PC when it could play Spectrum games, but I am afraid the long loading times annoyed me and I can't now get the emulator working on my new PC - it gave an error message, "Your computer is too fast" and its only a 566. Never mind.
I think I said somewhere in the topic that I didn't know much about non-Nintendo Retro Games :)
Feel free to review a couple of Sega classics, too :)
SHOCKY
Feel free to review a couple of Sega classics, too :)
SHOCKY
can't actually remember how long it took me to win... but I just remember it being so much fun!
So does no-one remember Golden Axe series...?
What about Streets of Rage? (c'mon, you must know that!)
So does no-one remember Golden Axe series...?
What about Streets of Rage? (c'mon, you must know that!)
Yoshi's Story wasnt that great, it took a day to complete it about 4 or 5 times! But Donkey Kong is a differnt matter!
Dizzy is still a classic though!
Dizzy is still a classic though!
Anyone remember the Golden Axe (I think that's right) series on the MegaDrive (or Genesis)...
Well I do...
Oh and Yoshis Story DID rock!!! It's easily one of the greatest 2D platformers, along with DKC3 (Donkey Kong Country 3) and some other Nintendo classics...
Well I do...
Oh and Yoshis Story DID rock!!! It's easily one of the greatest 2D platformers, along with DKC3 (Donkey Kong Country 3) and some other Nintendo classics...
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