CVG #191 – A Cloud with a silver lining

Computer and Video Games magazine went through several revamps during its 23 year reign. We’d wager that every reader has their own most cherished design, be it from the days when the pages were filled with DIY coding instructions, or when the cassette based formats were slowly dying out, paving the way for the likes …

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The Resident Evil that never was

When Capcom announced Resident Evil: Gaiden for the Game Boy Color it came as a surprise to many. Not because the source material was undecidedly unsuitable for the demographic, but because Capcom had cancelled a handheld conversion of Resident Evil just a year before. Developed by London-based HotGen Studios, it pushed Nintendo’s 8-bit handheld hard …

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The Simpsons Arcade Game – how Konami got it right first time

When it launched in 1989, Konami’s side-scrolling Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game went on to become the biggest selling coin-op of that year. Clearly keen to repeat the success, Konami looked for other suitable licenses. In the years that followed Bucky ‘O Hare, The Simpsons, The X-Men, and even quintessentially European hero Asterix went …

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Majesco and the SEGA Game Gear’s second lease of life

Best known nowadays for publishing Cooking Mama in the US and Zumba Fitness globally on Wii, budget game specialist Majesco has been around for far longer than most gamers realise. Back in the mid-’90s, when the 16-bit market was entering its twilight years, the company purchased Acclaim’s Mexico-based cartridge manufacturing facility in order to re-release …

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Eight long forgotten Microsoft IPs

Compared to Sony and Nintendo, Microsoft is still the new boy on the block. Relatively speaking, of course. When the original Xbox launched, Sony had already managed to make the PlayStation a household name and had successfully launched the PlayStation 2. Yet in the fifteen so or years that the Xbox brand has been around, …

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The Excellent Dizzy Collection – a farewell to the fondly remembered egg

Codemasters remained loyal to the 8-bit cassette formats right up until the market was almost diminished entirely. They were so heavily devoted, in fact, that technology had way surpassed humble cassette tapes – they were even able to release a ‘greatest hits’ collection for the Spectrum and Commodore on CD, simply requiring an everyday CD …

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Retro collections – invaluable portals back to misspent youth

Regular readers will know that we’ve always had a soft spot for retro collection, and so we’ve rounded up eight of the best. Inexpensive and often containing one or two games that would cost a small fortune if purchased for their original hardware, all of the below offer decent value for money as well as …

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Eight cancelled 8-bit SEGA games

The Master System and Game Gear both lead a long life in Europe, peacefully co-existing alongside the Mega Drive for several years.  If we include the 32X, Mega CD, and Pico, SEGA did at one point circa 1995 have seven consoles on the market. And yes, that’s as crazy as it sounds. Something had to …

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eBay round-up: Pac-Man special

Following on from last week’s review of Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures and this week’s lookback at Pac-Attack, it seems fit to focus this month’s eBay round-up on Pac-Man. Unsurprisingly, a Pac-Man arcade cabinet is the highest valued Pac-Man item to have sold on eBay recently. It’s not the original Pac-Man arcade game though, but …

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Pac-Attack – the forgotten Pac-Man puzzler

Namco’s iconic yellow fellow has starred in countless games over the years, so it’s no surprise that some have fallen into obscurity. Arguably, none of these are more deserving of a lookback than 1993’s Pac-Attack, a neat little puzzler with more than a whiff of Tetris about it. Although the puzzler appears to have been …

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The games that launched the PlayStation

cash usa online loansBack in the early ‘90s CVG magazine ran a short article taking a look at the copious amount of then upcoming consoles. Whoever wrote it claimed that the “Play Station” (as it was then known) was likely to be pushed to the wayside by the consoles Atari, Nintendo and Sega were working …

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Xbox launch games – the good, the bad and Blood Wake

It’s easy to forget that there were four months between the American and European Xbox launches. US gamers gained their black beast on 15th November 2001, while we Europeans had to wait until 14th March 2002. The wait wasn’t an entirely bad thing – a few more games were added to the line-up, and it …

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The strangely appealing Dreamcast TV – and other built ins

There are many visions of the future of gaming. Your phone seamlessly beaming content to the TV screen, micro consoles, VR headsets, eXistenZ. Or maybe it’ll all be built into the telly box itself – like those horrible TV VCR combis that were popular once. Or, more relevantly, these built in consoles from the olden …

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From Magical Turbo Hat to DecapAttack

Sega desperately wanted to be perceived as being cooler than Nintendo back in the ‘90s. They had 18-rated games with blood and gore, backed with glitzy marketing campaigns. Nonsensical buzz words such as ‘blast processing’ were used in these adverts, as were renowned celebrities of the era. Part of us thinks that it’s because of …

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