Category Archives: Retro
In the relatively short time electronic gaming has been around, the industry has seen several games that managed to catch on in such a big way that they took over the hobby for a period of time. Many of these are remembered well today, even by people who weren't into gaming at the time. Nobody forgets Super Mario, Street Fighter 2, Doom, or Grand Theft Auto 3. Still, there are a few truly huge games that, for whatever reason, seem to have slid into slight obscurity over the years. The series falls dormant, either due to the publisher disappearing or sales falling off, and soon, games that shifted the entire course of the industry fall between the cracks. Double Dragon seems to be one of those games...
As if yesterday's onslaught of new releases wasn't enough, SNK Playmore quietly snuck in a new iOS port of their 1997 Neo Geo fighting game The King of Fighters '97 to the App Store. KOF '97 is the fourth entry in SNK's The King of Fighters series, which features a mashup of characters from previous SNK games battling it out in teams of three. ..
It was all the way back in April of 2011 that developer SoMoGa announced that they were working on an iOS port of Lunar Silver Star Story, a classic RPG that graced the Sega CD and PlayStation in the '90s. SoMoGa had done the excellent iOS port of another Saturn RPG, Vay , so we were really excited to see what they could do with Lunar. Well, as with most things that people are excited for, it took a lot longer than expected but Lunar Silver Star Story Touch finally did arrive in the App Store in September of last year...
Revolutionary Concepts has given their lovingly-crafted iOS port of the classic fighting game Karate Champ a new update which adds support for Retina Display graphics, 4-inch wide screens, and iOS 7. The original Karate Champ launched in arcades back in 1984, and was one of the forefathers to the fighting game genre. It's not your typical fighting game though, with health bars and crazy special moves. Rather, it's a much more tactical affair more akin to an actual karate competition. The iOS version was recreated with an incredible attention to detail back in 2010, and we really enjoyed being able to carry around this classic in our pocket. The game has been stagnant since then though, so it's refreshing to see it still getting some love after all this time. Here's a couple comparison screens so you can see Karate Champ in its previous blurry form and its new high resolution, widescreen updated form...
If there is one genre that is having a great go of things thanks to the mobile gaming surge, it's physics-based puzzle games. But if there is a second genre, it would have to be the RPG. With major western RPGs like Baldur's Gate , major Japanese RPGs like Chaos Rings 2 , and a bevy of unique hybrids and smaller-scale work from lesser-known developers all under one beautiful gaming roof, RPG gamers have it good on iOS. The coolest thing about this boom is that we've seen some really interesting ideas that probably never would have even been attempted on other platforms, like Tower of Fortune , a curious little roguelike/slot machine hybrid that caught a fair bit of attention a couple years back. It had some similarities to the great King Cashing , but brought enough of its own unique style to find success, and so like that game, we are now lucky enough to be playing a sequel...
It's been a tough month for fans of classic CRPGs. Whatever one's feelings might be on EA's new Ultima Forever , there's no questioning the fact that it doesn't have a lot in common with previous games in the highly (and rightly) revered series. Well, whether your heart was broken, stomped on, and tossed in a dumpster or, you know, not, if you're looking for something that scratches the itch for some old-school Ultima, you have got to check out Gurk III, the 8-bit RPG ...
Game of Watchcraft: Spawn of Squishy takes only a few minutes to master, but Australian indie developer Clicker stretches that into hours by capitalizing on a retro style and offering minor incentives that encourage players to continue adventuring for as long as they want...
Last December Beamdog resurrected a classic and brought it to an entirely new generation of gamers with the iPad port of the 1998 BioWare RPG Baldur's Gate, but in June we got word that the game had been pulled from the App Store due to "contractual issues" with the game's publisher. Lame...
As an old fart who has been gaming since the birth of the home console, I have to admit that my eyes light up when I see a game as gorgeously retro as Kid Tripp . Once upon a time, 120x80 resolution was considered laughable in the high definition world of systems such as the NES and Commodore 64, an age where more pixels, more colors, more sound channels and more, well more of everything was better. ..
As a child I remember playing Galaxian several times. Each time I think I reached as far as a few levels in and then failed. It was a fun distraction but the arcade formula never struck a chord with me. Understandably I approached Chillaxian , by Madgarden, with caution. Can this part spiritual successor/part parody win me over on this classic genre?..
Sometimes it's best to dispense with the bells and whistles. Sometimes it's refreshing to see a game free of bloat, with no mediocre ideas, just doing one thing very well. A Ride into the Mountains does just that. Developers Chia-Yu Chen and Lee-Kuo Chen present a simple story through basic gameplay and a stunning pixelated setting...
As a hobbyist Unity3D developer myself, I often frequent the forums over there and have been keeping a close eye on Futuridium EP . From the screen grabs that the developers uploaded from WIP versions of the game, I knew that this title was going to be something a little bit special...
Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded is a revamped, reshuffled remake of 1987's Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, a title that takes me back to 1989 and being a spotty thirteen year old. I remember going to my friend's house after school, plonking ourselves in front of his Dad's CGA IBM compatible and loading up Leisure Suit Larry, in the vain hope that we might see some pixelated female naughty-bits. Unfortunately, we never managed to pass the age test screen, as we didn't know the answers to any of the questions (I guess it worked), so we would always end up back in front of my friend's Amiga 500 for a spot of Chase HQ or drawing willies with Deluxe Paint...
At first glance, one might take a look at Jeffrey Fal's Dungeonism  and dismiss it as yet another retro-inspired dungeon crawler. However, anyone doing so would be making a big mistake, as they'd be missing out on an impressive addition to the App Store. With a deceptive amount of depth, plenty of content and a great art style, Dungeonism is an excellent addition to the old-school dungeon crawling scene and must be checked out...
Kavinsky is a bit of an oddball. I get the feeling that it's going to be a love or hate affair. So before you read too far along, let's first decide whether you will indeed love or hate it. Are you older than thirty-five? Do you love old-school, side-scrolling brawlers? Are you fond of '80s music and Ferrari Testarossas? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you will no doubt love Kavinsky. If not, you are either too young, have no soul, or both...
