Latest Articles (Page 2949)

Playing Scramble takes me back to my early teens, and a small chip shop in a seaside town in West Wales where I grew up. On pressing the Player 1 button and hearing the "here we go" jingle, I swear I can smell vinegar in the air and hear seagulls calling in the background.

The simplistic concept of the initial arcade shooter was somewhat short lived. Left, right and fire had proved to be a successful formula for a vast number of releases after the arrival of the seminal Space Invaders in 1978. To ensure the continuing success of the arcades, however, publishers had to innovate.

This game really had it all. By 1984, Atari was as close to a veteran as such a new industry could have, and it really understood the concept of digital entertainment.

While we await for the new blood to course through the Xbox Live Arcade, yet another of the Midway Arcade Treasures set has received a standalone release - which is either really bad news if you're sick to the back teeth of ancient old crud being fostered upon us, or a chance to relish old school gaming at its purest. 3/10 or 7/10: take your pick.

By 1985 gaming technology had lifted shoot-‘em-ups from the one-dimensional realm of vectors and static screens into epic, full colour space adventures. Released under the (now) better known name of Gradius in its native Japan, Nemesis heralded the next generation of bright, loud and detailed shmups.

While Gyruss holds a celebrated and respected place in arcade history, it's a distinct shame that game design legend Yoshiki Okamoto didn't deliver it to gamers just a few years earlier. During the Space Invaders craze and subsequent coin shortages that Gyruss' ancestor caused, this game had the potential to perpetuate the world's crippling small change famine.

Galaxian is a game so underrated that it's almost impossible for me to walk past a Space Invaders machine without throwing it a dirty look and shake of the finger. Galaxian is a masterpiece adrift in a sea of mediocrity, and far too much of its hard earned historical thunder has been stolen by Taito's original coin guzzler.

Space Rockets are thirsty beasts requiring large amounts of quenching juice on their journey through space. So with your fuel level indicator alarmingly approaching empty, your only salvation in Astro Fighter is to destroy the end of stage boss who will re-fuel your tanks allowing you to carry on your quest to reach the top of the high score table.

Another Gremlin-published gem from unsung hero Shaun Southern of the hugely prolific Mr Chips, 'Sout' came up with an almost uncategorisable racing game which, to this day, still feels fresh and original.

Although Geoff Crammond’s name is mostly associated with a series of splendid driving simulations, one of his titles stands apart. Alone. On a hilltop. Watching. Its name: The Sentinel. A unique experience, even for an era where that term could be liberally applied, and one which divided players on its release--a sure sign of something a bit different.

With the thoroughly traumatic implosion of Liverpool's Imagine the previous summer, some of the members of the infamous 'Mega Team' decided to form Denton Design - one of the first ever definable development teams.

Almost the last thing you expected from Ocean in 1988 was for one of its film tie-ins to actually be good, but Platoon was better than good, it was bloody great.

Few games on this hallowed list of C64 classics can claim to have aged as well as Nebulus; John Phillips quirky little platformer-with-a-twist.

Yet another Denton Design game that I was enormously fond of on the C64, and proof that Ocean was just as likely to release quirky, original new IP as it was to obsessively releasing licensed cash-in rubbish.

Without doubt the C64's finest technical achievement in its long and glorious history, this jolly platform romp (from the stupendously talented Rowland brothers of Creatures 1 and 2 fame) boggled the mind with some of the tricks it pulled off on the ageing hardware.

As the game credited with inventing the point and click adventure, it's only fair that we bow down to Ron Gilbert and company for creating one of the most important, innovative, and well-written videogames of the late 1980s.

Poor Rainbow Arts, poor Manfred Trenz.

Konami has patched the PC version of Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 to do sort out latency issues and correct other minor issues.

For a few years in the mid 1980s, Sheffield-based Gremlin Graphics seemed capable of releasing quirky original games for fun, and the bouncy bouncy Bounder was a typical example of its ability to pick a winner out of absolutely nowhere.

Now here's a particularly unusual Spanner to throw into the Spectrum works (thang yoo very murch). As soon as I got started playing the game, I had to go right back to the beginning of the review and disagree with the game's box: This isn't, I brazenly demand, an arcade adventure. It is though perhaps the finest RPG ever seen on the Spectrum, with game mechanics so subtle and advanced we're only recently seeing their like again today.

At first glance Wheelie looks like a pretty typical motocross affair with a scramble course that could have been laid out by Peter Purves himself for kid's to injure themselves on national TV.

6031769 is a sequence of numbers etched on to the inner thought waves of every Spectrum users crania, involuntarily regurgitated at the mere mention of Mathew Smith's stunning Miner 2049'er inspired game Manic Miner. Rumoured to be his driving licence number, this code opens up numerous cheats in Bug Byte's version of the game; some would say the only way to get through the twenty levels of psychedelic platform mayhem.

When is a sequel not a sequel? Jet Set Willy is both the question and the answer. This is, technically and without reservation, the sequel to Manic Miner. It looks the same, it's got the same main character, the gameplay is pretty much identical and the author, Matthew Smith, says it's the sequel. And yet, it isn't.

An unnatural evolution of 8-bit hero Jon Ritman's adventures into isometrics, Head Over Heels shook the home computing world by the neck in 1987; berating every last scrap of sanity from player's addled minds with the game's unrelenting eccentricity overload.

First, we should try and remember just how long ago 1983 was, otherwise nothing about Deathchase will seem remarkable. It would be unjust to rob this brightly coloured 16K hero of its rightful title as a genuine, carnage-centric classic that provided the much needed deforestation of rampant, trite, cutesy games so today's wonderful concrete sprawl of shameless hyper-violent entertainment barrages could be built.

Former Rockstar Vienna producer Jurie Horneman has spoken of his "outrage" that over 50 staff who worked on Manhunt 2 have not been acknowledged in the game credits, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

The last time we saw Turok... In fact, let's just leave that alone. The latest stab at dino-shooting comes from Vancouver-based Propaganda Games and publisher Disney Interactive, and transplants the action to a far-away world where dinosaurs are only half the trouble. With the game nearing the end of development, we caught up with Propaganda co-founder and studio manager Josh Holmes and game director Joel Manners to talk about their plans.

Propaganda Games and Touchstone's upcoming console version of Turok will also be appearing on Windows PCs, those involved announced this morning.

Warhammer Online will not appear in the shops until sometime between April and June next year, a few months later than its previous Q1 2008 date.

Spark Unlimited lead designer John Garcia-Shelton believes taking on market-leading games by imitating them is a mistake.