The Curated Pulse of Retro Computing.

NEOGEO owners are in for a treat as the legendary, punishing platformer Rick Dangerous is making the jump to SNK’s iconic hardware with the upcoming Rick Dangerous DX. Originally created by Core Design in 1989, this merciless classic wears its Indiana Jones inspiration proudly, sending players into deadly caves and trap-filled temples where every step can be a mistake. Our hero is armed with a shooter, a few sticks of

Welcome to Maxwell’s Odyssey from Cosmic Void. This teased adventure platformer drops you into the grim, pixel-art fortress of the Blood-Spitting Prophet, where your task is as dangerous as it sounds: fight through his deep dungeons and rescue the sorceress of Amber Valley, the legendary guardian who has protected the realm for generations. As you push through the castle’s eerie, atmospheric corridors, you

Friday just got a lot more interesting for the Commodore Plus/4 scene: International Karate has now arrived in full release, courtesy of the talented developer Ati. First shown as a promising preview at last year’s Arok Party, the long-awaited port is finally complete and ready to download, with players once again able to lace up their boots and fight their way through the action.

The legendary JOTD, already known for conversions like Double Dragon, Ghosts'n Goblins, and Xevious, has brought Capcom’s classic Commando to the Amiga as an enhanced AGA Arcade edition. Built for the Advanced Graphics Architecture of the Amiga 1200 and 4000, this version aims to deliver an arcade-faithful experience that outguns earlier home ports.

I used to love playing racing games such as Outrun, Lotus or even XJ220 on the Amiga. It was a time that gave me the feeling of intense speed and near misses without driving a real car and ending up in the local clink. Thankfully if you too like games like that, or even ones with a more science fiction element to them, then make sure to keep an eye on Hyper Runner; A sci-fi racer for the

Old School Gamer Magazine chats with game developer Van, who discusses his new Temple of Webshai game. Project, which he calls “a tribute to the foundational and beloved 8bit classic Temple of Apshai (1979).” Old School Gamer Magazine: How did this project begin? Van: I guess it began in spirit with the original Temple of Apshai by Automated Solutions in 1979, that I loved as a kid on the Apple ][+ and later C64. That credit goes to the great Jim W. Connelly of game dev legend. Hope to meet him someday, so I can thank him personally. Fast-forwarding to today, Webshai began a few months ago as a Claude AI experiment in design-driven development. Im a life-long old-school career programmer, but the sudden and recent AI revolution has made code-writing skills obsolete. I’ve been “vibe-coding” as the kids call it now, on another much larger project when I needed a break. Ive always wanted to pay homage to the classics that inspired me, so I wrote every note and observation about old Apshai that I could think of, into a design doc to see how well Claude could execute purely on a detailed vision. It was an experiment in new alternative workflows. Old School Gamer Magazine: What makes it special? Van: Originally I intended to make no enhancements, just a functional clone written from scratch for the web. But web accessibility is the first point-in-favor, I suppose. The most fundamental change. Just browse and go – no signup, no download, no friction. Also, it’s genuinely roguelike – people abuse that term today, to the point that they clearly don’t know (or dont care) what it even means. But Webshai is the real deal (largely because Im also in love with Nethack, the direct descendant of the original Rogue). Instead of the original 4 static levels of Apshai (or 12, if you include the also-great Upper Reaches and Curse of Ra sequels), Webshai has a procedural level generator.  I defined 7 tiers with their own visual themes, tile sets, and monsters, 4 levels per tier, for 28 levels total.  Each level larger with more rooms than the level before it. And even that was an arbitrary cap. With more art, I could offer 100 levels. 1,000 levels. I will, if I get enough players to justify more development. And these are generated for each user, uniquely. No two users will see the same dungeon. And yet yours wont change, so you can still memorize YOUR levels (NetHack is a cold-hearted bitch on that issue – new game? WHOLE new dungeon again!) same as we did when playing the original. Otherwise, it’s primarily a nostalgia play. Lastly, all my games are web-based. I love the ease of accessibility and delivery for the players – just browse and go. No bloated 50 gazillion derpabyte download to install. And no risk of malware in those binaries – a problem occurring with increasing frequency, particularly in the low-budget indie market. Don’t get me wrong, I have an embarrassingly large and venerable library of purchased games on Steam. Steam is, generally speaking, fabulous. But I wont even download indie games from Steam until the binary has been vetted by others.  And I *do not* install binaries from Itch. No hate, I applaud what they’re trying to do, but I do not trust their content creators. And I don’t build Windows binaries. I bear an admittedly pathological hatred for Microsoft in general, and Windows in particular, both as a user and a developer. The Web is my rejection of all-things Microsoft, and of Apple as well. They work overtime to control us, limit our options, and force us into their walled gardens. The web is freedom. Old School Gamer Magazine: Who’s the core audience? Van: Well so far, nobody. Figure in an era of global virality, if you cant earn a following via simple word-of-mouth popularity, you’re doing something wrong. You either stand out, or you die.  Blending in,is not an option. So thus far, I have no players. But I only dropped the open beta of Webshai maybe a week ago. Now Im looking for my first players. Old School Gamer Magazine: Who are you trying to reach? Van: The only crowd that I expect will really care – us 40-something/50-something old timers. To the kids these days, the old games just look primitive. Which is fair – they ARE primitive. But if you grew up on Apshai, you were left wanting more. At least I was. Old School Gamer Magazine: Why does the preservation and homage of this era of games mean something to you? Van: Two reasons, I think: 1 I was there, I lived it, these are the relics of my formative years, and represent some of the best times. Many a survivor of the torments of childhood, emerges from that battlefield with a guiding light. Something that led them through the darkness. For me, gaming was an HUGE part of that. 2 Those were the frontier days. The developers from that era, didn’t have game engines. They didn’t even have utility libraries. Often they didn’t even have pixels! And there were definitely no standards, no patterns. We didn’t even use the WASD UI pattern for steering yet! So what they made, was raw. It was feral. It was almost random. And it was ground-breaking. Those early devs went out into the frontier, the wild, and they built.. whatever, whatever they could with whatever they had! And they built a whole new world and a new industry, and invited us to follow, to join them in something they called “home computer gaming” – when us users were still barely learning what a “home computer” even meant! Old School Gamer Magazine: Why is this all important to you? Van: That’s a surprisingly important and heavy question. Why do we game? Of what value is it? Sometimes I wonder if what I do – I was an off-and-on big-studio game dev for 35 years – is even meaningful, or just a waste of time. With all that’s wrong in the world, what do I contribute? Video games? That’s it?! I don’t farm to grow food. I don’t build homes. I don’t heal the sick. All I do is provide entertainment. Then I remember that 2nd grader, just 8 years old, introduced for the first time to Temple of Apshai, and I remember how a world of magic and fantasy and adventure and wonder opened up before me like an endless landscape. And I remember, we aren’t just animals. We need more than food and shelter and our health. We need entertainment. And specifically, entertainment that challenges. That invites us to explore.  Interactive entertainment is the next level, beyond books and movies (both of which I still cherish). Interactive entertainment let’s us be the hero, instead of some Hollywood actor having all the fun. It’s the ultimate storytelling, because we get to *tell OUR story*. Not have someone else’s story told to us, whilst we imagine ourselves as the protagonist. And Ive done this – trying to design games, build games, and empower people to tell THEIR stories – since I was a little kid. Even before computer gaming, when tabletop D&D was all the rage. Old School Gamer Magazine: Anything else you’d like to add? Van: Credit where credit is due: Half the sound FX in Webshai, were done working with Claude AI tuning programmable oscillators by ear to recreate the classic C64 sound.  The other half, was my sound artist/musician girlfriend Elisa Berlin of Noise Complaint (and who has a boss cameo in level 4 of the Catacombs tier). The sprites were all generated on PixelLab.ai – I can’t draw a decent circle to save my life. Tile art, all procedurally generated by Claude. Likewise, the code was written entirely by Claude AI. I only take credit for the design and architecture of that code. Ive been developing for the web for the last 25 years, with 15 of those in Javascript.  This would have taken me AT LEAST 6 months to build by hand, but with AI it took just 6 weeks. Though admittedly it became a very back-and-forth process after the initial generative pass. Anyone who thinks using AI for game dev is equivalent to pushing some magickal do-it-all-for-me button, should try that sometime. The post Old School Gamer Magazine Exclusive: Inside new C64 Temple of Webshai Project appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

The Virtual Boy requiem finally reaches its ending note.

The Sega Master System was available in North America from 1986 to 1992. During that time, it was never able to best the juggernaut that was the Nintendo Entertainment System, but it put up a valiant fight. Games like Phantasy Star, Alex Kidd in Miracle World, and the arcade port of Rastan helped to put the system on the map for many US fans. Those of us who stuck with the system beyond the US retirement date and were able to import titles from Europe or Brazil, where the Master System lasted longer (in Brazil’s case, years longer), were treated to some of the best games ever released for the system. Here are five Master System titles that you’ve probably never played, but definitely should. Power Strike II for the SMS Power Strike II Power Strike II was developed by Compile, the Japanese studio responsible for Zanac, Aleste, Gun-Nac and numerous other technically accomplished shooters. It is a genuine Master System entry in the Aleste lineage and should not be confused with the separate Game Gear game also marketed in some regions as Power Strike II. It was released in Europe in September of 1993, with TecToy subsequently distributing it in Brazil. Rather than using the overt science-fiction imagery associated with many Compile shooters, Power Strike II takes place in an alternate version of the early 1930s. Economic collapse has led unemployed pilots to become airborne pirates. The player is a professional pirate hunter piloting the Falcon Flyer and accepting contracts to clear the skies and seas around Italy. September 1993 was exceptionally late for a Japanese-developed Master System exclusive. The Mega Drive had already been established in Europe for several years, and players interested in shooters had access to titles such as Thunder Force IV, M.U.S.H.A. and Raiden Trad. North American and Japanese Master System owners had no official way to buy it at all. Its limited production and regional distribution also made the cartridge comparatively scarce. For many years, emulation or importing an expensive PAL copy was the only practical way to experience it. The Aleste Collection for the PS4 and Nintendo Switch finally gave it a broader official release 27 years later. Land of Illusion for the SMS Land of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse Land of Illusion was developed internally by Sega as the 8-bit successor to Castle of Illusion and released in Europe in 1993. It is not an abbreviated conversion of the Mega Drive’s World of Illusion. The Master System and Game Gear editions were created as separate games, although the portable and console versions share the same underlying design. Mickey falls asleep while reading a fairy-tale book and awakens in a village whose magical crystal has been stolen by the Phantom. Without the crystal, the surrounding land has become dark and hostile. Mickey must cross the countryside, consult the princess, and ultimately reach the Phantom’s castle in the clouds. By 1993, the Master System had left the US and Japanese markets, so American players were far more likely to encounter Mickey on the Genesis or Game Gear. Its family-friendly license also disguises how sophisticated it is. It is frequently assumed to be a simplified children’s platform game, when it actually combines precise controls, item-gated progression, secret collection and unusually varied stage mechanics. It deserves to be discussed alongside Wonder Boy III and Asterix as one of the Master System’s best original platform adventures. Ninja Gaiden for the SMS Ninja Gaiden The Master System’s Ninja Gaiden is neither a port of Tecmo’s arcade brawler nor a conversion of the NES trilogy. It was developed by SIMS under license from Tecmo and presents an independent story, its own stages, its own bosses, and several movement mechanics not found in the NES games. It was released in PAL territories on July 16, 1992. Ryu Hayabusa returns to his village to discover that the Dragon Ninja clan has been massacred and the sacred Bushido scroll stolen. The scroll supposedly grants its possessor the power to control the world. Ryu pursues the thieves across Japan and eventually confronts the Shogun of Darkness. The game uses illustrated narrative panels between stages, imitating the cinematic presentation that helped distinguish the NES series. The story is simpler and less elaborate than the NES trilogy, but the cut scenes give the adventure continuity and showcase artwork unusual for many Master System action games. Its greatest disadvantage was that it was part of a franchise strongly associated with Nintendo hardware. Players in the United States and Japan often assume the classic series consists of the arcade game, three NES titles and several handheld adaptations. The Master System game fell outside that familiar lineage. It also appeared after the Mega Drive’s The Revenge of Shinobi and Shadow Dancer, which offered superficially similar ninja action on newer hardware. Even European Sega owners could easily treat it as an aging 8-bit alternative rather than a distinctive game in its own right. Micro Machines for the SMS Micro Machines Codemasters originally created Micro Machines for the NES, releasing it in 1991 as an unlicensed cartridge. The design grew from an earlier prototype called California Buggy Boys and was transformed into a licensed Micro Machines game after Codemasters reached an agreement with toy manufacturer Galoob. The Master System edition was programmed and graphically adapted by Ashley Routledge and David Saunders, with original design credited to Andrew Graham. Lyndon Sharp provided its PSG music. Codemasters published it in Europe on March 10, 1994, making it one of the last significant commercial Master System games released in Great Britain. The game views its races from overhead. Because the vehicles are miniature toys, ordinary household environments become enormous racing circuits. Breakfast tables, billiard tables, desks, gardens, bathtubs and workshops contain improvised tracks whose hazards include pencils, cereal boxes, spilled liquids, rulers, tools and pool balls. Vehicle types include sports cars, Formula One cars, off-road vehicles, powerboats, helicopters and tanks. The handling varies enough that a course designed around boats or helicopters does not simply feel like the same race with a different sprite. Tanks can also fire at opponents, adding a combat element to certain events. By its March 1994 release date, European players could purchase Micro Machines on the Mega Drive, Amiga, and Game Gear, and Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament was approaching release. The Master System edition was an excellent conversion of a game many consumers already associated with newer hardware. It was also completely absent from North America, despite the Micro Machines toy brand’s popularity there. American Master System owners who had remained with the console never received this unusually suitable version. Lemmings for the SMS Lemmings The original Lemmings was created by DMA Design and published by Psygnosis for the Amiga in 1991. Probe Software handled the Master System conversion, with Krisalis contributing audio work. Dominic Wood is credited as the programmer, Mark Knowles as the artist, and Neil Young as the producer. Matt Furniss arranged the Master System music. Sega published the cartridge in Europe in 1992 under license from Psygnosis, with Brazilian and South Korean editions also appearing. It fits 120 levels into a 2-Mbit cartridge and uses passwords rather than battery-backed saving. Each level releases a procession of lemmings that walk forward without regard for cliffs, water, fire or traps. The player must save a specified number by assigning one of eight jobs: climber, floater, bomber, blocker, builder, basher, miner and digger. The challenge comes from limited resources and timing. A builder creates only a fixed number of steps. A blocker may save the group from immediate danger but must eventually be bypassed or removed. A poorly positioned miner or basher can create an unusable tunnel. Later levels require coordinating several actions across different areas before the time limit expires. Most players experienced it on the Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, Mega Drive or Super NES. The Master System edition arrived after the game had already become synonymous with computers and 16-bit machines. North America did not receive the cartridge, and the lack of the two-player mode gave owners of newer systems an obvious reason to choose another edition. Nevertheless, the 120-level campaign, exclusive Sega stages, and strong music make it more than an inferior curiosity. The post Sega Master System Games You Probably Missed appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

The Sega Master System was available in North America from 1986 to 1992. During that time, it was never able to best the juggernaut that was the Nintendo Entertainment System, but it put up a valiant fight. Games like Phantasy Star, Alex Kidd in Miracle World, and the arcade port of Rastan helped to put the system on the map for many US fans. Those of us who stuck with the system beyond the US retirement date and were able to import titles from Europe or Brazil, where the Master System lasted longer (in Brazil’s case, years longer), were treated to some of the best games ever released for the system. Here are five Master System titles that you’ve probably never played, but definitely should. Power Strike II for the SMS Power Strike II Power Strike II was developed by Compile, the Japanese studio responsible for Zanac, Aleste, Gun-Nac and numerous other technically accomplished shooters. It is a genuine Master System entry in the Aleste lineage and should not be confused with the separate Game Gear game also marketed in some regions as Power Strike II. It was released in Europe in September of 1993, with TecToy subsequently distributing it in Brazil. Rather than using the overt science-fiction imagery associated with many Compile shooters, Power Strike II takes place in an alternate version of the early 1930s. Economic collapse has led unemployed pilots to become airborne pirates. The player is a professional pirate hunter piloting the Falcon Flyer and accepting contracts to clear the skies and seas around Italy. September 1993 was exceptionally late for a Japanese-developed Master System exclusive. The Mega Drive had already been established in Europe for several years, and players interested in shooters had access to titles such as Thunder Force IV, M.U.S.H.A. and Raiden Trad. North American and Japanese Master System owners had no official way to buy it at all. Its limited production and regional distribution also made the cartridge comparatively scarce. For many years, emulation or importing an expensive PAL copy was the only practical way to experience it. The Aleste Collection for the PS4 and Nintendo Switch finally gave it a broader official release 27 years later. Land of Illusion for the SMS Land of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse Land of Illusion was developed internally by Sega as the 8-bit successor to Castle of Illusion and released in Europe in 1993. It is not an abbreviated conversion of the Mega Drive’s World of Illusion. The Master System and Game Gear editions were created as separate games, although the portable and console versions share the same underlying design. Mickey falls asleep while reading a fairy-tale book and awakens in a village whose magical crystal has been stolen by the Phantom. Without the crystal, the surrounding land has become dark and hostile. Mickey must cross the countryside, consult the princess, and ultimately reach the Phantom’s castle in the clouds. By 1993, the Master System had left the US and Japanese markets, so American players were far more likely to encounter Mickey on the Genesis or Game Gear. Its family-friendly license also disguises how sophisticated it is. It is frequently assumed to be a simplified children’s platform game, when it actually combines precise controls, item-gated progression, secret collection and unusually varied stage mechanics. It deserves to be discussed alongside Wonder Boy III and Asterix as one of the Master System’s best original platform adventures. Ninja Gaiden for the SMS Ninja Gaiden The Master System’s Ninja Gaiden is neither a port of Tecmo’s arcade brawler nor a conversion of the NES trilogy. It was developed by SIMS under license from Tecmo and presents an independent story, its own stages, its own bosses, and several movement mechanics not found in the NES games. It was released in PAL territories on July 16, 1992. Ryu Hayabusa returns to his village to discover that the Dragon Ninja clan has been massacred and the sacred Bushido scroll stolen. The scroll supposedly grants its possessor the power to control the world. Ryu pursues the thieves across Japan and eventually confronts the Shogun of Darkness. The game uses illustrated narrative panels between stages, imitating the cinematic presentation that helped distinguish the NES series. The story is simpler and less elaborate than the NES trilogy, but the cut scenes give the adventure continuity and showcase artwork unusual for many Master System action games. Its greatest disadvantage was that it was part of a franchise strongly associated with Nintendo hardware. Players in the United States and Japan often assume the classic series consists of the arcade game, three NES titles and several handheld adaptations. The Master System game fell outside that familiar lineage. It also appeared after the Mega Drive’s The Revenge of Shinobi and Shadow Dancer, which offered superficially similar ninja action on newer hardware. Even European Sega owners could easily treat it as an aging 8-bit alternative rather than a distinctive game in its own right. Micro Machines for the SMS Micro Machines Codemasters originally created Micro Machines for the NES, releasing it in 1991 as an unlicensed cartridge. The design grew from an earlier prototype called California Buggy Boys and was transformed into a licensed Micro Machines game after Codemasters reached an agreement with toy manufacturer Galoob. The Master System edition was programmed and graphically adapted by Ashley Routledge and David Saunders, with original design credited to Andrew Graham. Lyndon Sharp provided its PSG music. Codemasters published it in Europe on March 10, 1994, making it one of the last significant commercial Master System games released in Great Britain. The game views its races from overhead. Because the vehicles are miniature toys, ordinary household environments become enormous racing circuits. Breakfast tables, billiard tables, desks, gardens, bathtubs and workshops contain improvised tracks whose hazards include pencils, cereal boxes, spilled liquids, rulers, tools and pool balls. Vehicle types include sports cars, Formula One cars, off-road vehicles, powerboats, helicopters and tanks. The handling varies enough that a course designed around boats or helicopters does not simply feel like the same race with a different sprite. Tanks can also fire at opponents, adding a combat element to certain events. By its March 1994 release date, European players could purchase Micro Machines on the Mega Drive, Amiga, and Game Gear, and Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament was approaching release. The Master System edition was an excellent conversion of a game many consumers already associated with newer hardware. It was also completely absent from North America, despite the Micro Machines toy brand’s popularity there. American Master System owners who had remained with the console never received this unusually suitable version. Lemmings for the SMS Lemmings The original Lemmings was created by DMA Design and published by Psygnosis for the Amiga in 1991. Probe Software handled the Master System conversion, with Krisalis contributing audio work. Dominic Wood is credited as the programmer, Mark Knowles as the artist, and Neil Young as the producer. Matt Furniss arranged the Master System music. Sega published the cartridge in Europe in 1992 under license from Psygnosis, with Brazilian and South Korean editions also appearing. It fits 120 levels into a 2-Mbit cartridge and uses passwords rather than battery-backed saving. Each level releases a procession of lemmings that walk forward without regard for cliffs, water, fire or traps. The player must save a specified number by assigning one of eight jobs: climber, floater, bomber, blocker, builder, basher, miner and digger. The challenge comes from limited resources and timing. A builder creates only a fixed number of steps. A blocker may save the group from immediate danger but must eventually be bypassed or removed. A poorly positioned miner or basher can create an unusable tunnel. Later levels require coordinating several actions across different areas before the time limit expires. Most players experienced it on the Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, Mega Drive or Super NES. The Master System edition arrived after the game had already become synonymous with computers and 16-bit machines. North America did not receive the cartridge, and the lack of the two-player mode gave owners of newer systems an obvious reason to choose another edition. Nevertheless, the 120-level campaign, exclusive Sega stages, and strong music make it more than an inferior curiosity. The post Sega Master System Games You Probably Missed appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

As if you couldn’t get enough Street Fight! Saberman has uncovered that APE is working on a Street Fighter 2 game called SFII: Ape Edition. This in-development fan project for the Amiga 500 is being built with the Scorpion Engine and currently needs 512KB Chip RAM and 1MB of other RAM. With a clear focus on character accuracy, the WIP version already includes mostly complete movesets for

Ranbler is a fresh ZX Spectrum Next release that tips its hat to Konami’s 1981 arcade classic, Scramble. Built entirely from scratch, it’s also the creator’s first full production written in z80 asm language on the Next. Released via itch io by zxspeccykid, the project grew out of a self-imposed challenge to get to grips with the Next’s advanced hardware.

  By Charlotte Reber’s own admission, Dragon Age II is a somewhat counterintuitive choice for a Boss Fight book. After all, Dragon Age: Origins is the main famous, well-regarded game of the series, a fantasy epic role-playing game in the Bioware house style that takes place in an original fantasy setting. Reber’s book, while mostly a depiction of the Dragon Age II writers’ room, is framed in the context of Reber explaining why it is that this game, specifically, struck a chord with her, motivating her to grab a copy years later despite her being a part of the mushy majority that vaguely liked Dragon Age: Origins but never actually finished it.   Dragon Age II, both the book and the game it’s about, functions as a sort of roundabout story about a story in this way. Why Dragon Age II specifically has this odd character focus is largely due to corporate drama. Electronic Arts bought Bioware in 2007, started paying more attention to the acquisition in 2009 as its long-term MMORPG plans started to take shape, and just sort of arbitrarily demanded that Bioware release a new Dragon Age game by March of 2011 because they noticed that Bioware didn’t have anything else scheduled for that specific year. Reber namedrops The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask as a similar kind of spiritual successor and even just going from the rushed timeline, there are definite parallels to that Boss Fight book too.   The relatively unambitious replication of the prequel’s game engine features in both too, but the main aspect of Dragon Age II that intrigues Reber is the scaled down plot, which doesn’t feel any less dramatic despite having far less intense world-ending stakes. In Reber’s argument, it’s precisely because Dragon Age II has these lesser stakes that it’s much easier to identify with the characters. The whole game is framed around character interactions, specifically, the dwarven hustler Varric who narrates the full story to an inquisitor, a metatextual thread that begs a lot of questions about the narrative’s general accuracy, even if it never quite gets to the absurdity of the opening sequence.   Reber attributes the depth of the story to the character conflicts because, well, because that’s the main thing the writers had to work with. While the book never really discusses what was going on from the programming side, it’s a clear, ever-present concern from the writers how they can’t really script anything all that ambitious from a gameplay perspective because the technical team just didn’t have the time to expand on the game’s engine in an especially impressive way. Even the conceit of the game mostly taking place in a single town, with a lot of refused locations outside that town, is only just barely justified by the writers coming up with a three-act structure, allowing the passage of time to let the town feel different despite mostly just looking at the same.   The Dragon Age II Boss Fight book is oddly open about the game’s shortcomings, certainly more than any other Boss Fight book I’ve read to date. The game’s reception, far from being a triumph, instead becomes an almost anticlimactic disappointment, with fans trashing the title. What makes this ambiguous tone especially weird is that Reber dedicates a lot of energy to emphasizing that this was an early example of bigotry in gaming, tying that practice to Gamergate years later. Yet there’s no real sense of perspective about how much gamers were criticizing the game, rather than the story specifically, or how representative any of the more bigoted responses really were. It all comes off as a very stupid Internet argument, and for whatever it’s worth, Reber does discuss the topic so little it’s not clear she thinks there’s really that much to be said about it either.   In the end, Dragon Age II is one of the more flawed Boss Fight books I’ve read, on account of the fact that I’m still not entirely sure what the game is really about, from a story perspective. Reber discusses the storybuilding from a fairly mechanical perspective, as might be expected from a person who is described on the back of the book as a writer of fiction, but doesn’t integrate those mechanics into the game’s actual content as well as Tremblay’s recent tome on Life Is Strange. At least part of this is a problem with the script of Dragon Age II, which as Reber notes, can’t really be interpreted on its own as if it were a screenplay because there are too many potential variations between major plot points.   In short, both in book and game form, Dragon Age II is a series of difficult challenges not quite convincingly surmounted, even if the high points are strong enough that they’re easier to remember than the weaknesses. Indeed, the oddities and the contrasts engendered by these issues make up a lot of the charm. It’s always worth remembering that distinctive games with personality tend to weather historical perspective better than technically better generic ones.     The post A review of Dragon Age II from Boss Fight Books appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

  By Charlotte Reber’s own admission, Dragon Age II is a somewhat counterintuitive choice for a Boss Fight book. After all, Dragon Age: Origins is the main famous, well-regarded game of the series, a fantasy epic role-playing game in the Bioware house style that takes place in an original fantasy setting. Reber’s book, while mostly a depiction of the Dragon Age II writers’ room, is framed in the context of Reber explaining why it is that this game, specifically, struck a chord with her, motivating her to grab a copy years later despite her being a part of the mushy majority that vaguely liked Dragon Age: Origins but never actually finished it.   Dragon Age II, both the book and the game it’s about, functions as a sort of roundabout story about a story in this way. Why Dragon Age II specifically has this odd character focus is largely due to corporate drama. Electronic Arts bought Bioware in 2007, started paying more attention to the acquisition in 2009 as its long-term MMORPG plans started to take shape, and just sort of arbitrarily demanded that Bioware release a new Dragon Age game by March of 2011 because they noticed that Bioware didn’t have anything else scheduled for that specific year. Reber namedrops The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask as a similar kind of spiritual successor and even just going from the rushed timeline, there are definite parallels to that Boss Fight book too.   The relatively unambitious replication of the prequel’s game engine features in both too, but the main aspect of Dragon Age II that intrigues Reber is the scaled down plot, which doesn’t feel any less dramatic despite having far less intense world-ending stakes. In Reber’s argument, it’s precisely because Dragon Age II has these lesser stakes that it’s much easier to identify with the characters. The whole game is framed around character interactions, specifically, the dwarven hustler Varric who narrates the full story to an inquisitor, a metatextual thread that begs a lot of questions about the narrative’s general accuracy, even if it never quite gets to the absurdity of the opening sequence.   Reber attributes the depth of the story to the character conflicts because, well, because that’s the main thing the writers had to work with. While the book never really discusses what was going on from the programming side, it’s a clear, ever-present concern from the writers how they can’t really script anything all that ambitious from a gameplay perspective because the technical team just didn’t have the time to expand on the game’s engine in an especially impressive way. Even the conceit of the game mostly taking place in a single town, with a lot of refused locations outside that town, is only just barely justified by the writers coming up with a three-act structure, allowing the passage of time to let the town feel different despite mostly just looking at the same.   The Dragon Age II Boss Fight book is oddly open about the game’s shortcomings, certainly more than any other Boss Fight book I’ve read to date. The game’s reception, far from being a triumph, instead becomes an almost anticlimactic disappointment, with fans trashing the title. What makes this ambiguous tone especially weird is that Reber dedicates a lot of energy to emphasizing that this was an early example of bigotry in gaming, tying that practice to Gamergate years later. Yet there’s no real sense of perspective about how much gamers were criticizing the game, rather than the story specifically, or how representative any of the more bigoted responses really were. It all comes off as a very stupid Internet argument, and for whatever it’s worth, Reber does discuss the topic so little it’s not clear she thinks there’s really that much to be said about it either.   In the end, Dragon Age II is one of the more flawed Boss Fight books I’ve read, on account of the fact that I’m still not entirely sure what the game is really about, from a story perspective. Reber discusses the storybuilding from a fairly mechanical perspective, as might be expected from a person who is described on the back of the book as a writer of fiction, but doesn’t integrate those mechanics into the game’s actual content as well as Tremblay’s recent tome on Life Is Strange. At least part of this is a problem with the script of Dragon Age II, which as Reber notes, can’t really be interpreted on its own as if it were a screenplay because there are too many potential variations between major plot points.   In short, both in book and game form, Dragon Age II is a series of difficult challenges not quite convincingly surmounted, even if the high points are strong enough that they’re easier to remember than the weaknesses. Indeed, the oddities and the contrasts engendered by these issues make up a lot of the charm. It’s always worth remembering that distinctive games with personality tend to weather historical perspective better than technically better generic ones.     The post A review of Dragon Age II from Boss Fight Books appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

A fresh 8-bit Sega adventure steps in to follow the Game Gear Directory!

Namco’s 1979 arcade classic Galaxian took the Space Invaders formula and pushed it into more dangerous territory, introducing dive-bombing alien formations with fluid animations and a sharper sense of risk and reward. Take down these charging enemies mid-flight, and the score climbs fast. Now, Sega Mega Drive owners can bring this arcade staple home, thanks to a new port built on

A salute to the muscle-bound warriors who made brute force look like an art form.

A month of undead visions and down-under legends comes into focus.

Digging through itch.io for more retro game news turned up a surprise: one of my all-time favorite games, Pitfall, has been ported to the Sega Genesis and Sega Mega Drive in its original graphical style, then remastered with the help of AI. As the creator put it, “44 years later, AI made it possible for me to bring that classic to the console I loved the

Fancy trying a fresh release that looks rather lovely? Nightshift Skedaddle has just arrived for the ZX Spectrum 48K, bringing an arcade-style ladder maze race to the table as a sequel to Scrapyard Skedaddle. Developed by mavtherave as a personal project focused on learning game development, the creator took on the MPAGD scripting, art, and design to build this functional,

From the trademark score and sound effects to the simple and addictive gameplay, the RBI Baseball series was legendary on the Nintendo Entertainment System and even had some cool moments on the Super Nintendo and Genesis. In the end though the story remains the same. If you’re looking for a casual and simple game of baseball to play with your friends, “RBI Baseball 16” is for you. If you want something with a little more pizazz and sizzle, then you’re a Show person. In the end, the comparisons made between the two titles are unjust ones as they are two entirely different dishes, for gamers on two different diets. Trying to convert someone to one side over the other just isn’t going to happen. In order to truly enjoy “RBI Baseball 16” you either have to have to travel back in time, granted you could find a flux capacitor (Ask a Cubs fan, they’ve tried that before, but it didn’t work out so well.) or just play. Don’t whine that it’s not pretty, just play. With no play-by-play and advanced batting stances or pitching motions, “RBI Baseball 16” can feel vanilla to many Millennial gamers. Those that remember the heyday of the NES however will find it old-school in approach and void of distractions. Although it’s got a glitch or two here and there and requires you to revert back to your retro gaming mindset of time-based hitting and fielding, once you reset you can quickly get into a game and have a decent time. All in all, the team at MLB have continued to polish the gameplay engine and add things that players want to see like dives, double-switches and great looking ballparks. Those that have become fans of the series will see the visual and gameplay improvements and enjoy the new rosters in a way much different than gamers of a AAA series, who expect the wheel to be invented all over again every year. With gameplay as simple and straight ahead as this, there’s no need to. Without the bells and whistles of the competition, “RBI Baseball 16” is still a solid game of America’s pastime that ultimately caters to more fans of the sport than “The Show.” Pros: Simple to Pick Up and Play: Much like the Nintendo and other retro games it gets its inspiration from, “RBI Baseball 16” can be played by just about anybody. With no complex button sequences or crazy HUD to master, anyone can just jump right in. Beautiful Parks: While the visuals on the players has been purposely toned down and the game mechanics are simple, the parks in “RBI Baseball 16” are gorgeous. From the dynamic lighting and atmosphere, you always get the feeling you’re playing in a different park. Cons: Stripped Down Gameplay: While it’s obvious what these guys are going here and things like play-by-play aren’t needed, it would have been nice to have authentic stances and pitching, or at least a few differences between players. At this point, it’s hard sometimes to realize who’s at the plate because many players look similar and their stances are all the same. Final Thoughts: For what it is, a throwback baseball game, “RBI Baseball 16” is playable and can be, with the right people, enjoyable. But with a lack of overt sexiness and bells and whistles, hardcore baseball fans will obviously look to the show for a more complete next-gen offering. The post Retro Review: RBI Baseball 16 appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

From the trademark score and sound effects to the simple and addictive gameplay, the RBI Baseball series was legendary on the Nintendo Entertainment System and even had some cool moments on the Super Nintendo and Genesis. In the end though the story remains the same. If you’re looking for a casual and simple game of baseball to play with your friends, “RBI Baseball 16” is for you. If you want something with a little more pizazz and sizzle, then you’re a Show person. In the end, the comparisons made between the two titles are unjust ones as they are two entirely different dishes, for gamers on two different diets. Trying to convert someone to one side over the other just isn’t going to happen. In order to truly enjoy “RBI Baseball 16” you either have to have to travel back in time, granted you could find a flux capacitor (Ask a Cubs fan, they’ve tried that before, but it didn’t work out so well.) or just play. Don’t whine that it’s not pretty, just play. With no play-by-play and advanced batting stances or pitching motions, “RBI Baseball 16” can feel vanilla to many Millennial gamers. Those that remember the heyday of the NES however will find it old-school in approach and void of distractions. Although it’s got a glitch or two here and there and requires you to revert back to your retro gaming mindset of time-based hitting and fielding, once you reset you can quickly get into a game and have a decent time. All in all, the team at MLB have continued to polish the gameplay engine and add things that players want to see like dives, double-switches and great looking ballparks. Those that have become fans of the series will see the visual and gameplay improvements and enjoy the new rosters in a way much different than gamers of a AAA series, who expect the wheel to be invented all over again every year. With gameplay as simple and straight ahead as this, there’s no need to. Without the bells and whistles of the competition, “RBI Baseball 16” is still a solid game of America’s pastime that ultimately caters to more fans of the sport than “The Show.” Pros: Simple to Pick Up and Play: Much like the Nintendo and other retro games it gets its inspiration from, “RBI Baseball 16” can be played by just about anybody. With no complex button sequences or crazy HUD to master, anyone can just jump right in. Beautiful Parks: While the visuals on the players has been purposely toned down and the game mechanics are simple, the parks in “RBI Baseball 16” are gorgeous. From the dynamic lighting and atmosphere, you always get the feeling you’re playing in a different park. Cons: Stripped Down Gameplay: While it’s obvious what these guys are going here and things like play-by-play aren’t needed, it would have been nice to have authentic stances and pitching, or at least a few differences between players. At this point, it’s hard sometimes to realize who’s at the plate because many players look similar and their stances are all the same. Final Thoughts: For what it is, a throwback baseball game, “RBI Baseball 16” is playable and can be, with the right people, enjoyable. But with a lack of overt sexiness and bells and whistles, hardcore baseball fans will obviously look to the show for a more complete next-gen offering. The post Retro Review: RBI Baseball 16 appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Horned Goat Productions has just released the first version of Callback64: Operation Internot, a new Commodore 64 title that takes aim at modern internet addiction with retro charm. Set in the year 2026, it drops players into a dystopian future where a central algorithm has seized control of humanity, reducing citizens to screen-locked “doomscrollers” with all the subtlety of a warning label.

  If you’ve never heard of the original Xibalba, that’s not too surprising. The 2014 browser game from Phobos Lab is a weird little artifact of its era, a chonky retro styled Doom clone premised around the Mayan underworld. The blocky aesthetic exists alongside Oculus Rift functionality, allowing players to immerse themselves in the weirdly blended aesthetic of New World iconography, nineties era first person shooters, and the spooky ambient music of Andreas Lösch. ModRetro’s decision to bankroll a Nintendo 64 version of this game adds another level of eerie recursion to the whole concept, creating a demake that feels like a delightful, disturbing trip from a parallel universe.   It certainly helps that Dominic Zablewsky seems like a genuinely sweet and enthusiastic guy. As he tells it in the game’s instruction manual, Xibalba was mostly just a demo for his JavaScript game engine, and not even a “real” game in and of itself. Building it up to something worthy of the fifty-dollar asking price required, among other things, that Zablewsky rewrite the entire game in the C programming language. This is the kind of ambitious task a programmer takes on only if they have genuine passion and curiosity, and Zablewsky’s enthusiasm bleeds through every one of Xibalba 64’s seventeen levels.   What really sells this title as something special is how despite the sheer sense of scale of this world, we ultimately know surprisingly little about it. The story as outlined in the instruction manual is vague and cryptic. So is the opening crawl that prefaces each level, eerie, ominous poetry about the nameless protagonist’s descent into this world, culminating with an equally strange encounter with a god and a ray of light.   We never really do find out what exactly was going on, causing the entire text to read like a nightmarish fever dream. Even Zablewsky’s flawed English goes a long way to maximizing the vibe. It’s not always entirely clear what certain technical instructions mean, for example, but in a game this simple, there are only so many ways to interpret them. Who’s telling us these instructions anyway? The shamans? The tree monsters? The robots? A disembodied voice somewhere? Not knowing just makes it that much creepier.   Even getting lost is just an excuse to take in some of the details, trying to figure out what exactly is going on with this worldbuilding. One of the few technical flaws I noticed in this game was a lack of a map. Although I realized upon further consideration this was a deliberate choice to maintain the immersion, and it works wonders. Especially with the lights out, I consistently felt as if I was wandering through a deeply unsettling place. That I was using a small collection of high-powered weapons to blow up every other living or mechanical thing I found down there just contributed to that sense of unease.   The actual gameplay of Xibalba 64 is nothing new, not just compared to Xibalba but relative to Doom clones in general. In some ways it’s beneath the capabilities of the M64. There’s no vertical shooting for example. Again, though, the simplicity of the overall game design is what makes it much easier to focus on the smaller details. This isn’t a game about shooting monsters, even if it’s difficult to finish any given maze without killing everything in the level. It’s a game about being tested, or judged, by who or what, it’s hard to say.   This as much as anything else nails the retro gaming experience. Why do we play games at all, really? Why play Nintendo 64 games instead of titles on new, shinier consoles? It’s not just the nostalgia factor, it’s about that spiritual connection with other fans. Zablewsky nails that vibe long before the end credits, expressing immense appreciation to the Nintendo 64 homebrew community for all their help in getting him to figure out how to make this game work. Whether as the disembodied prologues or just the guy who uses the end credits to write in little hearts directed to his fiancé, Zablewsky is a real person, and Xibalba 64 is his genuine labor of love.   Not to suggest that the main value of Xibalba 64 is its connection to Zablewsky. There’s a lot of replay value in here, from extra difficulty settings to loads of secrets and cheat codes. This isn’t even getting into the multiplayer options, from a co-op mode in the main campaign to a four-player bug hunt or, for that real nineties magic, a deathmatch to the last person standing, with enough options to change up gameplay to keep it spicy without being overwhelming. This is the kind of game you can play at parties. Nerdy parties, perhaps, but Xibalba 64 is the kind of game that makes you proud to be a nerd. It just feels really considerate, right down to the bevy of customization options.     The post Testing the M64: Xibalba 64 appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

The Atari Jaguar rarely gets a turn in the spotlight, but JagDoomEX is making a case for attention. This updated release aims to breathe new life into the classic 1994 Atari Jaguar version of DOOM, with ChillyWilly leading the charge. Known for work on other ports, including the Vic-20, ChillyWilly has focused this version on a major overhaul of the game’s audio and music systems.