AtariAge Forums: AtariAge Forums -> Planet Bob

Hi there!

Ohhh, could this eventually be a nice Ghosts'n'Goblins clone?



It's been a while since I've bothered playing a low budget production, but this one I just had to try. For a change it's not from Mastertronic, but from their biggest rivals Codemasters. Yes, before the days of Colin McRae and Overlord they actually started their business with cheap C64 tape games

Unfortunately Super Dragon Slayer isn't a game worth checking out today. It's a substandard sidescroller, with strange controls. Believe it or not, but the player sprite can only jump straight up, but not left or right

Enemy attacks are also weird. They're coming wave after wave, regardless of where you are in a level. Once you finished a wave, 2-3 seconds later the next one arrives. So it may just happen that you're helplessly trapped somewhere, standing no chance against the current wave, e.g. when you're climbing a ladder.

Graphics and music are not worth mentioning and with just 3 (4 in expert mode) short levels, there's not much terrain to conquer either. Not that one would want to

Expectably the game has no ending either, it just goes back to the title screen. I really wonder what's supposed to be so "Super" about this Dragon Slayer...

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another Codemasters game in the form of "Rockstar Ate My Hamster", but first it'll continue with something else.

Greetings,
Manuel

Hi there!

Another quality production within one of my favorite genres:



Well, at first glance this one looks like any other Commando clone ever. In fact at first I mistakenly thought that this was just part II or III of the (on the NES!) rather lame Ikari Warriors series.

I was in for a big surprise though. It actually rivals even the mighty Jackal! The sonix are good, the art is looking fantastic (at least where it's not flickering ) and showcases some nice FX like rotating the whole screen during the mine level

For a war game this also offers some great humor in a lot of spots were you'd least expect it. E.g. some of the enemies are pretending to surrender, hands up and all, but when you come closer it's always a trap. I'd go so far and claim that this one is the root of the Metal Slug series - just take a look at the prisoners to rescue on the screenshot above!

The game offers unlimited continues, so in theory I could've just marched through in a single session tonight. Since I love these kind of games though, I decided to enhance the experience some, by advancing from level to level only when I made it through a stage with at least 4 lifes remaining. Beating only half the stages that way so far, I'm looking forward to enjoy it some more tomorrow

Greetings,
Manuel

Hi there!

A next to impossible C64 conversion from one of Segas biggest Arcade games:



This was of course a job for Chris Butler, the programming genius behind the C64 version of Ghosts'n'Goblins. Being also responsible for the ultra fast C64 Space Harrier conversion, he sure was the #1 choice for converting Thunder Blade.

And really, the game is playable on the C64! No beauty to look at but resonably fast, it manages to replicate much more of the Arcade than what one would expect

The game is divided into 4 loads, each devided into three parts. The first always is a top down scene, albeit presented in full scaling 3D, just like the Arcade. This is folllowd by a more Space Harrier like flight scene and ends with a giant boss battle in plain 2D.

The middle sections are by far the hardest bits of the game, although the game overall is rather easy. Just as in Space Harrier constant circling around the screen usually does the trick

Without the stunning audio visual impact and the hydraulic gimmicks of the Arcade machine, the home experience was more or less reduced to an average shooting gallery. It's also considerably short, getting there took only an hour:



BTW: This is one of the oldest video games I know with real product placement: The launch pad for the helicopter carries a huge Pepsi logo

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another Sega Arcade conversion in the form of Afterburner, but first it'll continue with something else.

Greetings,
Manuel

Hi there!

Discovered that fantastic popsong, "That's not my Name", from The Ting Tings. It's supposed to be listened very loud



Greetings,
Manuel

Hi there!

Interplaying Warcraft - Orcs & Humans (1994):



Okay, featuring this one within Interplaying is debatable, but Interplay did publish this one in Germany

After a series of SNES games (Lost Vikings, Rock'n'Roll Racing, ...), Blizzards first totally PC centric development helped establishing the RTS genre which was kickstarted by Herzog 2 and further advanced by Dune 2 before.

Laying foundation to the fantasy universe that should evolve into "World of Warcraft" a decade down the road, this was the first game playing in the world Azeroth, with players taking part in an epic battle between humans and orcs.

It already shares a lot of features with later installments of the series: The game is divided into a human and an orc campaign, you're building settlements in order to feed & train troops and to forge & upgrade weapons, all powered by harvested wood and gold. Even the magic users and their spells are already in the game.

I never played this one back in the day, entering the series straight with Warcraft 2, so it's really surprising to see how much of it is already there in Orcs & Humans and how familiar it looks and feels. Mostly the movies are missing and the story is told with plain text briefings between missions.

This time I did all technical homework first. I had the game already setup and running when starting tonight, so it's not too surprising that I managed to play the first 5 missions of the Orc campaign in a single session. Four of them were regular base building missions, the other was some kind of vendetta, where I had to locate and kill the rogue daughter of an orc leader.

Looking forward to carry on tomorrow!

Version Played: Abandonware, from "Abandonia".
How to Run: I'm using DOSBox (max speed), for convenience and soundcard support.
IP Status: Wholly owned by Blizzard certainly.

Greetings,
Manuel

Hi there!

This is a small list and description of the 10 internet pages I frequented the most in 2009:

1. http://www.atariage.com/

Quite obvious. I'm mostly hanging out in the Wii and the Blog sections, but also reading elsewhere when I'm bored. My main focus here are the "Playing..." and "Interplaying" articles I'm writing, I love doing those

2. http://www.officialdamned.com/

I'm checking the frontpage daily, but I'm not participating on the message board. I have an account, but I'm only ocassionally lurking. I'm Online since 1995 and there's only so and so much you can talk about a single band, so it just got too boring for me to participate.

3. http://www.capcom-unity.com

This year I switched over from the European boards to Unity, never looking back. The #1 meeting point for Capcomaniacs like me. I like the new video game club feature, it's cool to play Resident Evil and Mega Man together with other fans

4. http://nintendowiix.net

A German Wii news page in blog style. It has very fast and complete news and you can post comments without registering an account. Much fun hanging around there, mostly very friendly folks.

5. http://www.mobygames.com

The best games database on this planet. I actually think it perfectly compliments Wikipedia for games. While wikipedia may have better detailed info on some games and companies, you can much better research/browse mobygames. You want to know all C64 games that Electronic Arts released in 1988? That's just three mouseclicks on moby!

6. http://www.gamefaqs.com

I like the reviews and the FAQs. Also a good database.

7. http://www.interplay.com

A new entry in my list. It's a very slow forum, with ~ 1 post per day, but that may change soon, when they rise from the ashes again. It's also been a good source for info regarding my Interplaying articles.

8. http://www.metacritic.com/

It's been a black day for the internet when the original gamerankings got destroyed in 2009. The remaining ruins left me in the cold, so I switched to metacritic. It's still probably not even better than gamerankings, but at least going there don't makes me angry.

9. http://www.kotaku.com

One of the best sources for gaming related porn, just ignore all other info there
(They're just as clueless about Wii games as any other "professional" gaming outlet...)

10. http://www.amazon.com

Strange enough, this year I bought much more from Amazon than eBay. This wasn't intentional or anything, it just seems they're serving my needs better these days.

Greetings,
Manuel

Hi there!

Merry Christmas every one!

Here's two versions of the #1 song in heaven for you to enjoy




Greetings,
Manuel

Hi there!

Not a movie license, this game is actually based on the book from Jules Verne:



While borrowing the basic formula of a Cinemaware title, the execution quality witnessed in this Chip Software production is on the very opposite end of the spectrum as you can see above. (Bonus points if you find the player sprite or some of the rocks and boulders raining down on him )

I still managed to have a fun time with it, getting some enjoyment out of the enormous trash factor of this game

I don't even know where to start. The graphics were obviously made with automatic conversion tools, run over the already badly digitized Amiga pictures. The game has zero music and 3 sound effects. It's bogged down by horrible loading times. Every. Single. Message. it displays on the screen, does it load extra from disk.

Disaster strikes in every detail, e.g. it says "Please insert the other disk" - when it was actually shipped on 3(!) disks

Most of the game plays on a map screen. The game doesn't tell you where you are on this map though. Instead you can move in 4 directions and the game then describes what happened (Worst case you just fall off a cliff - instant Game Over!). According to these descriptions you can then guess where you actually might be on the map

Occasionally your try and errorized path through the game is interrupted by one out of half a dozen mini games, with gameplay hovering slightly above the complexity of pong.

Well, if you read the book (I actually did once! ) or saw one of the movies, you know that it ends with a bang. Prepare yourself for the best picture found in the entire game:





Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another game from Chip Software in the form of Jeanne d'Arc, but first it'll continue with something else.

Greetings,
Manuel

Gabriel the First

He was a natural teleporter. The day after the disasterous Copenhagen Climate Conference something inside him exploded. He decided to singlehandedly fix what's wrong on this planet, once and for all! Never before had he realized that he was in fact able to change the world. Probably because no media dared to ever fully explore the true potential of a teleporter.

It took him about 5 minutes to plan. He just printed out a list of state leaders from the internet, like someone else would print out a shopping list:

http://en.wikipedia....leaders_in_2009

Within 24 hours he killed every person on the list. At first he visited the ones he thought to be the more difficult or dangerous ones to do, like the President of the United States or Kim Jong-il, but he quickly realized that nothing on this planet could stop him anyway.

After the first 2 dozen kills he even stopped worrying about the place the target was located or the time it was in a particular country. Some died at home, some in public places, some in bed, some in their cars or even in their planes.

His last action was teleporting straight into a CNN studio. "I am Gabriel the First", he declared into the cameras. "I grant this world another year to set up a new Climate Conference in order to do it right this time."

Then he just disappeared. The world held its breath.

© 2009 Manuel Rotschkar

Hi there!

I'm still on a dry spell, again I only managed buying two Wii games since the last report. At least my shopping list didn't grow anymore either. And the year should end better again, with christmas just around the corner

The list of games I'm done with: Wii Sports, Zelda TP, Excite Truck, Metal Slug Anthology, Geometry Wars, Bully , Eledees, Zack & Wiki , SMG, Death Jr., Battalion Wars 2, Disaster , MP 3 , Fire Emblem , Boom Blox, de Blob, Opoona, Lego Indiana Jones, Okami, No More Heros , MadWorld, Tunguska, Deadly Creatures, Force Unleashed, Wario Land, RE4, RE:UC, Tenchu 4, Another Code , Conduit

New entries in my Wii collection:

Anno (Dawn of Discovery) => I assisted my wife about halfway through the campaign, but we both lost interest in this pretty fast.

Cursed Mountain => I've already been raving about this one in the Wii Forum. In short, it's another must have in my book. A very high quality, spooky adventure game, with a gripping storyline and a very unique setting. Top game all around!

Metroid Prime Trilogy => Well, I _know_ it's already hidden in the house somewhere...

==========================================

My current shopping list:

Little Kings Story => Such a lovely gem, I definitely must have this!

Overlord Dark Legend => A Pikmin for goths, yay!

Mini Ninjas => The best Ninja game ever? At least on Wii I bet!

Muramasa The Demon Blade => Such a beautiful art direction in this one, I hope the gameplay follows along.

Rabbids Go Home! => I know it's just an average game underneath, but the kids love them rabbids

Dead Space Extraction => Since Umbrella Chronicles already broke the ice, why not?

Darkside Chronicles => Since Umbrella Chronicles already broke the ice, why not?

Firefighter => Always giving the underdog a chance!

==========================================

My future Hopelist:

Monster Hunter 3 => Well, I'm usually no fan of Online games, but maybe this one changes everything?

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom => Not my favourite genre, but so totally over the top and from Capcom? I'll have a look!

Fragile => I love the setting and the art style and the atmosphere and it is confirmed for Europe! Yay!

Samurai Heroes 3 => Hehe, Thank heavens Capcom Japan starts delivering again, putting an end to all the trash releases that the hopeless American office was cranking out...

Silent Hill => Most likely too scary for me, but I'm interested. Nurse!

Tales of Graces => Being a mothership title of a major series, this should finally end the RPG draught on the Wii, shouldn't it?

Greetings,
Manuel