Picture the scene. It’s the early ‘90s and the beginning of the summer holidays – six sweltering weeks at your disposal to do whatever you please. You’ve read the summer specials from both The Dandy and The Beano, and with no days out on the horizon, the only thing to fill the void until CITV …
Remember the Xbox 360’s peculiar assortment of RPGs? I’m not talking about the likes of Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, financed by Microsoft to help change the console’s destiny in Japan, but rather European-developed RPGs such as Two Worlds, Risen, Divinity II, Venetica, and Arcania: Gothic 4. They’re connected not just by genre, more often …
The SEGA Saturn had one of the more peculiar game catalogues. More diverse than the N64’s library and with far less slop that the PS1, it largely consists of scrappy but reasonably faithful arcade conversions, a small selection of system showcases from SEGA themselves, a seemingly random bunch of third-party titles, and a wealth of …
To say publishers were choosey when it came to releasing titles on the GameCube is an understatement. True enough, the system was a much more appealing proposition than the N64, yet sluggish sales post launch, the use of smaller capacity discs than the competition, and the belief that Nintendo fans only buy first-party games all …
When a console enters its twilight years it isn’t uncommon to see late releases vanish and re-emerge on the system that supersedes it. It’s generally known a few N64 games made the jump to the GameCube, such as Resident Evil 0, Eternal Darkness and Star Fox Adventures. Technically we could include the third-person shooter Riqa …
Nintendo treated the European market as an afterthought throughout much of the ‘90s, with many releases in major franchises arriving months, if not years, later than the rest of the world. A handful of key SNES titles such as Earthbound, Kirby’s Dream Land 3 and Super Mario RPG even skipped this region entirely. It was …
By 1993, UK-based Flair Software was no stranger to the Commodore Amiga, even tasked with creating the movie-themed platformer Oscar as an Amiga CD32 pack-in. It was initially hoped that Zool 2 would become the flagship CD32 platformer, but Gremlin chose to add extra polish and release it on multiple formats at a later date, …
I remember the day well. It was a quiet Saturday morning during June 2021 when a handful of games were free to play on Xbox over the course of that weekend. Nothing unusual there, but this weekend happened to include the Netflix show tie-in Cobra Kai – published by prolific licensed software purveyors GameMill. I’ve …
No sooner than purchasing TMNT Mutants Unleashed from everyone’s favourite high-street second hand retailer, said pseudo-movie follow-up was available to play for free on Xbox throughout a weekend. Turns out this wasn’t a blow to my wallet, as it was merely a two-hour trial. At around 12-14 hours, this isn’t something that could have been …
When the UK based Fleetway launched Sonic the Comic in 1993 it’s doubtful they realised how popular it would become, finally trailing off into the sunset in 2002 – roughly a year after SEGA revealed plans to go multi-format, and even outliving the Dreamcast. The runaway success of StC inspired another UK publishing house to …
When Aspyr began re-releasing Star Wars games almost five years ago, it was assumed they were going to choose from the best of the bunch. While this was the case for a while, with early remasters including Episode 1 Racer and the former Xbox exclusive Republic Commando, the conversion specialists presently appears to be simply …
Historia’s free-to-play party racer Faaast Penguin finally arrived on the Xbox Store over the festive period, having successfully launched on other platforms a few months prior. While a full review would be of questionable use (free games are regularly updated with new modes and content) it is worth discussing what it gets right and wrong. …
It’s tricky to talk about 2022’s Atari Mania without mentioning the Wario Ware series, so I may as well get it out of the way: Atari Mania is brazenly influenced by Nintendo’s celebrated microgame compendiums. In some ways it’s more diverse, but never any better for it. And it certainly isn’t any better than even …
In this digital age, gaming is almost synonymous with Christmas. There’s no better time of year for the younger generation to ask their parents for a new game console, gaming credit vouchers, or an assortment of new releases. For the older generation, Christmas also represents a time to catch up on games they may have …
It’s easy to forget that the SEGA Dreamcast was the most technically advanced console available when it launched, making the PSone and N64 look considerably dated in comparison. Sonic Adventure initially wowed gamers and critics alike, featuring heavily in marketing campaigns. Later during the console’s short life titles such as Metropolis Street Racer and Shenmue …