Retro of the Week Logo
Rayman 2: The Great Escape
Posted by Billy
Posted on 22 October, 2016 at 12:43AM ↑ 1 ↓ 0
Rayman 2: The Great Escape

Some games fall into a category I call “mystical”. These games inspire the imagination and there seems to be more to the world than what you can see at face value. One of exemplary game series are that of the character Rayman. Just look at Rayman himself, he has no arms or legs, so his body parts just float! When I first played the demo for the Dreamcast version of Rayman 2 at nine years old, I knew it was something special. Though strangely, I didn’t really play Rayman 2 until this year. Perhaps it’s because when I rented Rayman 1 many years ago, I was put off by the crushing difficulty. Thankfully that’s not the case with the second one.

Continue Reading »

Super Mario 64
Posted by Billy
Posted on 13 February, 2016 at 4:12PM ↑ 1 ↓ 0
Super Mario 64

I love looking at games from what amounts to the puberty of video games, there's so many things to talk about. Transitioning to 3D was an awkward time for video games. Many 3D games of the era had what are commonly referred to as "tank controls" -- You turn your character left and right, and then you move forward and backwards. You never performed these actions at the same time, until Super Mario 64SM64 changed how 3D controls were thought of, thanks in part to the analog stick on the N64 controller.

Continue Reading »

Spyro the Dragon
Posted by Billy
Posted on 18 March, 2015 at 2:34PM ↑ 1 ↓ 0
Spyro the Dragon

I have interesting history with the Spyro series. My first exposure to it was the demo of the first game included with Crash Bandicoot: Warped, its inclusion owed to the fact that Naughty Dog and Insomniac had a working relationship. Years later I found myself in a video rental store picking out a game to rent. Spyro 2 caught my eye, and I rented it, played it, and really enjoyed it. Spyro 2 is definitely my favorite of the series, and the one I would recommend overall. However, recently I saw a 100% speed-run race of the original Spyro the Dragon, so I was reminded that I have never completed any of the Spyro games to 100% completion. Inspired, I chose to finish the original.

Continue Reading »

Super Smash Bros. at Best Buy!
Posted by GamersTavern
Posted on 27 May, 2014 at 00:38AM ↑ 0 ↓ 0
Super Smash Bros. at Best Buy!

Are you hyped for the impending release of the new Super Smash Bros. games? Would you like a chance to play the game before its official release? Well, then look no further than Nintendo's Smash Fest event at Best Buy! Certain select Best Buy stores around the country will allow the general public to play the game early. This will only occur for a limited time, though. The dates and times for when this will happen are as follows:

Wednesday, June 11 from 4pm to 9pm

Saturday, Ju

Continue Reading »

Play Wolfenstein 3D with WASD + mouse
Posted by Billy
Posted on 11 April, 2014 at 5:18PM ↑ 2 ↓ 0
Play Wolfenstein 3D with WASD + mouse

Update August 2016: The download link was broken, so that's been fixed. I have also added instructions down below.

One of the things that always irked me about Wolfenstein 3D is that its control scheme is a little too oldschool. The game features what I'd call 'strafe mode', instead of dedicated strafe keys, so you can't really play it like you would any other FPS. So online I found there's a top-notch port of Wolfenstein 3D to windows called Wolf4SDL. I grabbed the source code, made it so your left/right keys always make you strafe, and made it so the mouse doesn't move you forward/black, and boom, now I can actually play Wolf3D!

Download it here. Extract this zip into your Wolf3D folder. If you don't have Wolf3D, just go get the shareware version. Source code can be found hereThis will not work with Spear of Destiny.

Continue Reading »

Super Smash Bros Nintendo Direct
Posted by Lazlo Falconi
Posted on 8 April, 2014 at 11:15PM ↑ 2 ↓ 0
Super Smash Bros Nintendo Direct

Oh man oh man oh man. Was that Nintendo Direct cool or what?! First, I want to get something off my chest, though. I'm honestly a bit annoyed that they're releasing two different Smash Bros games at once. When the two were first announced, I held some hope that they'd be, essentially, the same game, with minor graphical changes, but this has proven to not be the case. Why, Nintendo? Why are you making us buy what is, for the most part, the same game, twice? This is worse, and more despicable than any DLC campaign I've ever seen. And nobody is talking about it. Why? I'd rather pay a couple dollars here and there for new stages over the years, than having to pay over $100 to get all the stages. And to top it off, at any given time, half of the available stages will be inaccessible in any given playing session. Nintendo, please. Please don't do this.

Continue Reading »

Star Fox (SNES)
Posted by Lazlo Falconi
Posted on 19 March, 2014 at 8:08PM ↑ 2 ↓ 0
Star Fox (SNES)

The year is 1993. We've seen 3D on TV and in the arcade. But at home? Only that one kid with the rich parents had a computer that could play 3D games, and the rest of us just had the same 2D sprites that had been kicking around since the NES days. Then here comes Nintendo, ready to once again blow you away.

Star Fox is a game about flying space triangles and exploding ground squares, or something. Maybe there's a monkey in there? The green circle at the end of the map, named Venom and piloted by the vicious Admiral Andross is turning itself into a technological powerhouse, and terraforming planets to suit his army of mechano-men, when General Pepper of the Cornerian Mothers Against Change launched a full-scale war.

Continue Reading »

DS Games on Virtual Console?
Posted by Lazlo Falconi
Posted on 30 October, 2013 at 12:09AM ↑ 1 ↓ 0
DS Games on Virtual Console?

If you buy a lot of video games from Nintendo, and you're not taking part in Club Nintendo, you're wrong. The service offers a few great prizes, and goodies that aren't available anywhere else, and costs nothing more than the games you're already buying. One of the items Japanese Platinum members are lucky enough to find this year is a download for Advance Wars; Days of Ruin, which was unreleased in Japan. 

Why does this matter to us? It probably doesn't. It's just interesting that a DS game has been converted to an eShop game after it went unreleased. Could we soon see DS games added to the Virtual Console? Probably not, but it's definitely something that could have a market.

Continue Reading »

Sonic 3D Blast/Flickies Island
Posted by Billy
Posted on 28 July, 2013 at 8:04PM ↑ 2 ↓ 0
Sonic 3D Blast/Flickies Island

1996 was an awkward time for video games. 3D was the huge new thing, and everyone had to adapt or die. Some franchises made the jump quite well (see: Mario), some didn't do so to well (see: Castlevania). Sure new IPs came along much well suited to this 3D thing, but we what we really wanted was our favorite characters to make the jump. In '96 Sonic made the 'jump' to 3D... on the Genesis. The problem with this is in order to be '3D' on the genesis, is it had to be in an isometric view and imply depth instead of actually have it. Sega used this technique back in the 80's with Zaxxon. Later on Sega ported this game to the saturn with enhanced graphics, and that version was ported to the PC. I'll mention the differences as they come.

Continue Reading »

Modern: Crimson Shroud
Posted by Gilgamesh
Posted on 16 April, 2013 at 06:15AM ↑ 1 ↓ 0
Modern: Crimson Shroud

Released initially for the 3DS as part of the Guild01 project in Japan Crimson Shroud has since been released on its own in both Japan and abroad. Directed by Yasumi Matsuno (Director of Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together and Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen) it is a somewhat traditional RPG that pays great homage to tabletop RPGs such as Dungeon and Dragons or Shadowrun.

Continue Reading »