PC Engine Platform Games #1

Dragon Egg! (1991)
By: NCS  Genre: Platform  Players: 1  Difficulty: Easy-Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16
Also Available For: Nothing

One thing I love about delving into the mysterious realms of Japanese gaming is discovering another of the many hidden gems that were, for some bizarre reason, never released outside of their native territory. It's not without its frustrations either, though. This is mainly down to problems presented by the language barrier. Some games, RPG's for example, are pretty much rendered totally unplayable as you might imagine, but sometimes even relatively simple platform games like Dragon Egg can't be fully understood either. The game is perfectly playable and features little text beyond the intro sequence, and yet the premise behind the game remains a mystery. It seems some terrible creatures were summoned by a dark power and let loose upon a peaceful land but I couldn't be certain. All I can tell you for sure is, there's a little girl and she has a backpack, and nestling atop this backpack is an egg.

Random Game I've Never Heard Of #1

Energy (1989)
By: Quasar Soft / NCS  Genre: Platform / Shooting  Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16
Also Available For: Nothing

Welcome to yet another new Red Parsley feature! Here, as you may have guessed from the title, I will choose a random game that I've never previously heard of on a random system and give it a go! For the first game of the feature I thought I'd take a look at the PC Engine's back-catalogue. The game I settled on is a Japanese-exclusive apparently based on an old NEC PC-88 game by the same company called Ashe. It takes the form of a flick-screen run 'n' gunner set in the ruins of Tokyo which are now populated by all manner of monsters and demons and you, as a member of the 'Demon-Busting Squad', must journey through the ravaged lands in search of your three fellow Squad members who have gone missing in the city.

Top Five SNES Shmups

Games-Related Top Fives Disclaimer: I've traditionally stuck to the games I know and love so far, and these game-related top fives reflect that. One of the purposes of this blog is diversify my gaming experiences, to play games I haven't played before, so I will do new game-related top fives in a few years to see how different they are!

If I review any SNES shmups in my upcoming features that get really high scores, they don't appear in this Top Five because I hadn't played them before! (a.k.a covering my arse!)

5. Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie (1993)

I didn't discover this one until fairly recently as it was only released in Japan but I was certainly glad I did find it! It's based on an older anime and as such you can choose between three characters, each of whom has their own variation of the 'Valkyrie' fighter with unique weapons, all of which can be upgraded. The ships have an energy meter rather than lives and they can also switch between three different forms at will too, each of which is more useful in certain situations than others, as you might expect. There's a good few other nice features here too (including enemies with tractor beams - grrr!) and that, combined with the superb graphics and decent soundtrack, makes this a pretty damn fine shmup. It would be higher on the list if only it wasn't so bloody difficult though!

Game Gallery #4

Arkanoid (1987)
ZX Spectrum Version featured. Arcade version reviewed here.

As with many games of its time, Arkanoid was born in the arcades, but the version I spent by far the most time playing is this fine conversion for the Speccy. It doesn't look quite as nice, as you might expect, but it's got it where it counts. All stages and features from its arcade parent have been squeezed into the 48k of memory and mercifully it's even a little easier, awarding the player with four lives from the start rather than two. Having said that, I still doubt that I could've finished this game without the aid of the 'PBRAIN' cheat. So, thanks to that splendid bit of foresight by the programmers, I can present all 33 rounds of Arkanoid!

Overhead Racers #6

Neo Drift Out (1996)
By: Visco Corp  Genre: Overhead Racing  Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: SNK Neo Geo MVS
Also Available For: Neo Geo AES & CD, Arcade (variation)

From around the early to mid-90's the stagnating genre of overhead racing games suddenly saw something of a revival when lots of rally-based variations started appearing. Many companies made offerings but credit for this sub-genre can largely be given to Visco Corp. Their 1991 game, Drift Out, though frustrating and tricky to play, was one of the first games of this type and swapped the traditional overhead racing game viewpoint for a zoomed-in perspective which allowed for much more detail and longer, more complex courses. It wasn't hugely successful but sufficiently so to give rise to two sequels. The first of these had the superb idea of shifting the viewpoint further still to an angled-overhead perspective and the game was much better as a result but it still had its problems. I'm hoping this sequel, using Neo Geo hardware, would attend to them.

First Look Master System #1

Alex Kidd BMX Trial by Sega (1987) - Sega Master System

No, your eyes do not deceive you - it's another Alex Kidd game! While writing my recent Top Five Alex Kidd Games feature, I was as surprised as many of you will no doubt be to learn that Sega did in fact release a completely unheard-of game starring their mascot of the day! Unlike all the other games in the series, however, this one takes the form of an overhead racer which sees Alex racing through obstacle-strewn courses while other riders try to knock him off. Even slight contact with them, trackside objects like trees, or obstacles on the course such as rocks or fences, knocks him off his bike. He has an energy bar which is gradually depleted by knocks and when it's empty, it's game over. Upon discovering this game, I had intended to give it a good long play and write a full review but unfortunately it seems the game was made to be played with Sega's paddle control and as such is almost impossible to play via emulation.

Run 'n' Gun Games #3

Exolon (1987)
By: Hewson Consultants  Genre: Run 'n' Gun  Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum First Day Score: 15,850
Also Available For: Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Enterprise 128

Having recently revisited one game by the great Raffaele Cecco, and the one I knew best, I thought it might be time for a long overdue look at another, this time on the system where he made his name. I was always enticed by the attractive-looking screen shots of Exolon in the Speccy magazines I enthusiastically read in the mid-to-late 80's too, which makes the fact that I never played it all the more odd. There's no story here as such with the game merely plonking you on some alien-infested planet and advising you to proceed from left to right wiping them out! This involves guiding your battle-hardened space marine through 124 screens filled with everything the aliens can throw at you.

Bomberman Series - Part 3

3-D Bomberman (1984)
By: Hudson Soft / Kawaguchi  Genre: Maze  Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: MSX  First Day Score: 000,000 (seriously!)
Also Available For: Sharp X-1

It's been a while now since my last look at this great series but since returning to it I've discovered, apparently in my eagerness to progress through the series, that I missed one out! Now that I've realised this, however, I wish this particular offering had remained obscured from my sight until the end of time. For better or worse though, it does exist, and as you may have guessed from the title, it tries to do something a little different. In more recent years there have been a few attempts to turn our hero's world into a three-dimensional one but I thought Bomberman 64, which itself got a rather lukewarm reception, was the first one. It now appears that this isn't the case, for as far back as 1984, and immediately after the original game's release, Hudson released 3-D Bomberman, and it was something of unbridled horror.

Arcade Adventures #1

Stormlord (1990)
By: Hewson Consultants / RazorSoft  Genre: Arcade Adventure  Players: 1  Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: Sega MegaDrive / Genesis  First Day Score: 18,050
Also Available For: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum
Download For: Symbian Mobile OS 

Censorship is a funny thing. Whether it's games or movies, it seems that it's fine to feature regular, gratuitous, and often unnecessary violence and gore, but as soon as there's some nudity? Well that's just plain evil. Only someone truly sick would want anything to do with that kind of thing. Even older games with limited visual prowess weren't safe. Indeed, for all its positive qualities, and there are a good few, Stormlord is still most well-known for the teeny bit of nudity it featured. Arriving first on the various home micros of the day courtesy of celebrated British coder, Raffaele Cecco, the game soon found its way to the MegaDrive too, but even with Sega's liberal censorship policies it was here that it met with the most controversy yet.

Top Five Lolcats

Just a quickie today to celebrate the wonder that is the Lolcats! As many will no doubt already know, the home of the Lolcats is the amusing site, I Can Has Cheezburger?, which is updated daily with many chortlesome captioned pictures of cats, as well as various other things, but it's the cats that most go there for, and with good reason. Here are my favourite five so far, but what are your favourites?

5...

Bat 'n' Ball Games #1

Arkanoid (1986)
By: Taito  Genre: Bat 'n' Ball  Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade  First Day Score: 27,690 (with control pad - eeek!)
Also Available For: NES, Amiga, Atari ST, Apple Mac, PC, Commodore 64, MSX, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, Atari 8-bit, Apple II, TRS-80
Download For: Xbox Live Arcade, Wii Virtual Console, iPhone

The history of videogames is a convoluted one. Many disagree even on what constitutes the first ever example of a videogame, nevermind some of the more intricate facts and figures, but one thing that surely cannot be disputed is the first popular game. Computer Space, unveiled by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in 1971 brought gaming to the masses for the first time but it was too complicated for many users tastes. Realising this, the two talented engineers went back to the drawing board and returned the following year with Pong, which of course soon became a worldwide smash-hit. It's simple tennis-style gameplay was hugely enjoyable for two players but what about one?

Crush Series - Part 6

Alien Crush Returns by Tamsoft / Hudson Soft (2008) - Nintendo Wii

It's scary to think that it's now 23 years since Naxat dreamed up the genesis of the Crush series. There have since been several sequels, both official and otherwise, the last of which was the little-known Jaki Crush, itself now almost 20 years old, but that was it. Until now! Yes, in a move of special magnificence, Tamsoft have resurrected this great series and what better way of doing so than to remake the original? Alien Crush Returns is more of a sequel than a remake really though and they've even managed to tack on a backstory this time! Apparently "an elite squad of space marines sets off to investigate an alien spaceship trapped in Jupiter's gravity" or some such nonsense. Sound familiar? How they've managed to facilitate a pinball game with that story I don't know, but the game includes a story mode, arcade mode, ranking mode and versus mode (1-4 player), and as well as multiple tables, including bonus tables as always, and lots of other sweet features like multi ball, reverse ball, etc.

Saturn Shmups #1

Mass Destruction (1997)
By: NMS Software  Genre: Shooting  Players: 1  Difficulty: Easy-Medium
Featured Version: Sega Saturn  First Day Score: 205,425
Also Available For: PlayStation, PC

The poor old Saturn had a bit of a torrid time in the UK and US but it met a little more success in Japan and it's the titles released only there that have made the system something of a collector's favourite. Among the most prestigious and desirable of the sexy system's Japanese exclusives are the large number of amazing 2D shmups it was blessed with, most of which could not be fittingly represented on any other machine of their time (and yes, that includes the PlayStation - hee hee!). So, for the first game of this new Red Parsley feature focusing on the shmups released for Sega's 2D powerhouse, I'll very sensibly start with... one that has 3D graphics and was released in all major territories around the world!

First Look GameCube #1

Animal Crossing by Nintendo EAD (2001) - Nintendo GameCube

Actually, this time it's not strictly a first look as I've already played this game quite a bit, but I've never 'taken the plunge', so to speak, and bought it myself. As some will know, I grew up as a Sega fanboy and much of my console gaming has been done on their systems, but an old friend of mine is the same except with Nintendo. He's the sort that buys every incarnation of GameBoy and DS the day they come out and plays every release of every Nintendo IP to completion, etc, and out of all of them the one he is most obssessed with is... Animal Crossing! After he showed it to me a few times I started to see why too - it must be the most chilled out game ever! I guess I'd have to categorise it as an RPG but it's more of a 'life simulation' really, and is quite unlike anything I've played before!

Arcade Shmups #5

ASO - Armored Scrum Object a.k.a. Alpha Mission (1985)
By: SNK  Genre: Shooting  Players: 1-2  Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade  First Day Score: 20,480 (one credit)
Also Available For: Nintendo NES

You know, the history of videogames can be funny. As genres were born, some examples of their games were forgotten almost as soon as they appeared while others went on to be remembered as landmarks, even legends in the years to come. The ones most fondly recalled were generally the most playable, not necessarily the most innovative, and that brings me to ASO (or Alpha Mission as most will probably know it). I must confess that I'd never seen or played it before undertaking this feature. I had vague knowledge of its sequel on the Neo Geo, but this original? Not a clue. When I started playing it though, I was rather pleasantly surprised for, as it turns out, ASO is a very innovative game considering its age! Is its obscurity a blip in history or is it deservedly ignored?