Retro Game of the Day! Axelay

Retro Game of the Day! Axelay

Axelay by Konami, a Super NES release from the fine year of 1992. Yup, it's another shooter!

So what is the deal with this game then? Where the hell do they get these names? I mean what is an Axelay, anyway? Is it a guy chewing food trying to say "actually?" Oh who cares. Let's talk about the game!

A strange shooter by one of the kings of the shooting scene (after all, Konami are the developers of Gradius), the game received much fanfare leading up to its release due to the fact that it eschewed normal shooter presentation and took particular advantage of the SNES' Mode 7 capabilities - for those uninformed amongst you, this was the hardware's ability to perform powerful scaling and rotation functions akin to what one would see in the arcades during this period. It was seldom scene on consoles otherwise.

Rather than going for the straight-forward After Burner presentation (1st person into-the-screen) or top-down like Space Megaforce, Axelay gave the player an angled presentation to work with, sort of a mix of the two. The effect was.. strange, and difficult to adjust to. After a little while it felt like the background was a flat image being rolled along on a log in front of you, if that makes sense. It was very popular with most, but it never really gelled with me.

The other big gimmick here was that every other level was a side-view perspective, much more traditional. This I could wrap my head around! In both modes, the game utilized exceptional graphics (hey, it was Konami) and a decent, if unmemorable soundtrack.

Not an easy game, Axelay also played with the traditional method of weapons systems in a way that required a bit more strategic thought that usual. It added up to a fair degree of challenge (especially for those players who preferred to crank up the difficulty level).

Overall, a decent game, and an unusual page out of Konami's long book of shooters. Axelay was never seen nor heard from again, but its unusual presentation coupled with beautiful graphics and unique play style add up to a game which is worth a look.

Retro Game of the Day! Dig Dug

Retro Game of the Day! Dig Dug

Dig Dug by uber-developer Namco - arcade release in 1982. Yeah, I suspect a "couple" of people might remember this little game.

For the 6 of you out there who don't know what a Dig Dug is, let me explain. You're a little fella wearing a spacesuit-looking outfit. Your goal is to kill all of the enemies on each level (or die trying!) Your main weapon is an air-pump, which you shoot into your rivals - puff them up until they pop. Gruesome, eh? Who the heck thinks of this stuff, anyway?

Your enemies are known as Pooka (red blobs with ski masks) and Fygar (dragons). Touching either means instant death (which is really the best kind of death, if you think about it) - additionally, the Fygar can shoot a short-distance flame if you cross his path. So, don't!

Mr. Dig Dug gets his name from the fact that he spends each level below the earth's crust, digging away with his trusty drill, or shovel, whatever. Somehow, gravity has no pull here - so if you dig a hole, you will not ever "fall," you can just move all over the screen. When you clear pathways, it becomes accessible to your enemies. Otherwise, they may turn into intangible ghosts and just pass through the dirt as apparitions (still deadly to the touch). Also, of note are the presence of rocks - dig beneath these, and gravity will take effect. Unseat a rock and remain under it, and you get squished. Do the same with your enemies under it, and you rack up bonus points!


That's really all there is to tell of Dig Dug, for the most part. An innocent (even boring) looking game in screenshots, it is actually quite a fun title which has held up through the years. The game starts of rather slow and easy but quickly ratchets up to become a true test of stamina and maneuvering.Truly one of the greats of retrogaming - if you've not played Dig Dug in some years, I recommend you give it a spin. If you're a noob to the whole Dig Duggery scene, you just might find a new game to be in love with!

Retro Game of the Day! Contra

Retro Game of the Day! Contra

Contra. Contra, Contra, Contra. Yup, there is your review, I needn't say any more really..

Originally a 1987 arcade release, this Konami-developed game saw fame with its 1988 port on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Contra was one of those games "you just knew about, somehow" - the magazine ad looked interesting, and it was more than a little remniscient of that great title of theirs, Rush 'n Attack - there had to be something to it, right?

A strange story, a little.. I had planned to buy this game, but for some reason I rented it first (I never rented a game I knew I was going to buy anyway!) Still, it was a bright and sunny Saturday in Framingham, Massachusetts, and my friends and I decided that it was what we would do. We rented it, I guess we must have entered "the code" (you know the one) - and we beat the game! And even after this, I still had to buy the game. I mean - I had to. I loved Contra. Mario was fun. Zelda was amazing. Castlevania was something else. But this, this... valhalla! Sublime!

I daresay, the penultimate 2-Player simultaneous cooperative experience on the Nintendo, during its entire run. The game was just super-smooth goodness. Whoever you played Contra with, that kid became your best friend. It was like a Rite of Passage. The tight control - the gorgeous graphics - the incredible soundtrack - the ridiculously powerful weapons - the endless armies of alien soldiers to mow down. What more could a 13-yr-old ask for?

It's quite possible that I played through the game more than any other I've owned. Sometimes you'd just.. get bored, so hey! Might as well play Contra. Let's see that helicopter fly off of the exploding island again, y'know? Hey, I already beat Contra today. Well Hell!! Let's do that all over again! I could play it right now. If it only was not 2 in the morning...

And for all of my praise of Contra - man, it was a difficult game. Not quite the hardest ever, not by a country mile - but the game was not an easy play through. You needed that 30-man code, my brother. In fact, I am stumped to remember how far I managed to play through, in my prime, under my own steam. I wanna say the snow field (weak!) but who knows. I think I could have made it pretty far if not for the code. But you know what? Screw it! The code made this game. It was one of the rare instances in my gaming history where it was part of the game's proper experience to cheat through it. That was what Contra was about - the damned game was so hard, you needed to unfairly mess with the odds in order to still scrape by with just a few scratches. I bet some people never even managed that much..

Anyway, the true Golden Age of Nintendo Classics. Again I must say "and now we know why Sega Master System could not cut it," they never had a game even half as good as Contra (I'm no SMS hater, I love the system - but they got the short end of the stick when it came to quality titles like this. I mean, who's gonna play Quartet over Contra?)


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Retro Game of the Day! Last Battle

Retro Game of the Day! Last Battle

Last Battle by Sega for the Genesis, released 1989. I seem to be on a bit of a kick with "launch titles" lately, so why not continue the trend-

Last Battle was a bit of a mystery. On the one hand, it's obvious why they chose to launch it with the system over here - the game was a pretty nice showpiece for its time, with large, detailed characters walking around the screen beating the tar out of one another. This was a nice contrast to what was going on the 8-bit screens at the time (and a fair comparison with similarly-detailed TurboGrafx-16 titles as well). Yet for it's graphical prowess, the game was lacking.. quite a bit, really.

Last Battle was actually the localization of a Japanese anime/manga series known as Fist of the North Star, a series which had already seen some localization on these shores previously in 8-Bit incarnations (on both Nintendo and Sega's machines). At the time it was not really in vogue to bring over the entire story, or characters, et cetera, so instead they'd just rewrite a bunch of the plot/characterizations. Likewise, the source material was extremely violent (if cartoony in its way) and rather than seeing your defeated rivals actually exploding into eruptions of blood and guts, you'd see them usually just rocket off the screen (or, at worst, puff up with pimples).

The gameplay itself is not very engaging. Your character has a limited set of moves and he feels rather clumsy - though this was impressive to witness at launch, it's not really so fun to go back and play now. The game is hard and strange (especially since they ripped so much of the context out) and so not very compelling.

In spite of Last Battle's quirks - or maybe because of them - the game still had some charm to it. It was extremely slow paced, but fighting games (especially back in 1989) of this nature were quite unusual and it did give the player a degree of satsifaction to just walk all over the world, kickin' ass. It felt cool to power up your EXP points and get super-powered, even if all the crazy kung-fu moves looked.. well, crazy!

In hindsight, not a great game, not a terrible one, Last Battle is largely forgettable and yet somehow, still fertile ground for mining interesting gameplay out of. I know they released plenty of other (proper) games using this license, I wonder if any of them were enjoyable?

Retro Game of the Day! Ballistic

Retro Game of the Day! Ballistic

Ballistic by Mitchell, known outside of the States (and now, inside as well) as Puzz Loop. Released 1998 on GameBoy Color.


"All right, then," I can hear you ask, "What is Ballistic and why should we care?" Aha! Glad you asked. Interesting story. Ballistic was an arcade game port released over here on GameBoy and PlayStation at the cusp of the Millenium, to no fanfare whatsoever, but a virtually unknown (yet prolific) Japanese company named Mitchell - who themselves have an interesting history, but let's leave that for now.


Ballistic, Puzz Loop, whatever - more commonly known as Zuma, was - ahem - "adapted" by PopCap Games over here and made it into the big-time. Though Mitchell invented this deviation of the puzzle genre (known as the "Marble Popper"), Zuma became famous and no credit (respect or cash) was even given to the original developer. More interestingly, though this all happened quite some time ago, a recent popular iPhone title "StoneLoops of Jurassica" was pulled from the App Store at the request of Puzz Loop clone Luxor developer Mumbo Jumbo. Confused yet? Good!

Politics aside, the game itself is devilish in design. Taking a nod from Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble, you must shoot colored balls to match 3 or more, for a clear. Whereas Bust-a-Move moves the screen down towards a terminator line, Ballistic places your cannon at the center of a spiral on the screen, with the balls coming towards you. Destroy as much of the endless ball onslaught as you can, for eventually you will be overwhelmed and die. Curtains. The End. Game Over.

Simplicity, but very, very fun. The game has enough nuance to it to give classic Puzzle Game Grandfather Tetris a run for its money. To be honest, I think I have played Ballistic an equal number of hours as Tetris at this point. The gameplay really has a wonderful sense of rhythm, and though the visuals are sparse (at best) they do the trick perfectly when in the heat of the moment. To be honest, I prefer the B/W GameBoy version instead.

Certainly a shame that the original developer has been so ignored in all of this, I hope they have got some of their due inthe time since. You can find their own mods of this available all over the place (Magnetica on WiiWare, Puzz Loop on iPhone). For my money, those are alright, but the original model is tops. I would say this is in my top 25 of all-time favorite games!

Retro Game of the Day! Altered Beast

Retro Game of the Day! Altered Beast

Wiiiise fwom your gwave!! Sorry, I had to do it. Today's retrogame is Altered Beast, a 1988 Sega release (arcade) and launch title a year later for their 16-Bit Genesis console. Let's see how the old girl holds up to the ravages of time, eh?

This is another in a long, long line of side-scrolling beat-'em-ups, as they are called, with a mythological theme - sort of. You are a dead soldier, resurrected by Zeus and imbued with the ability to collect Spirit Balls from White Wolves; grab one and you get a little beefier, grab a 2nd and you're approaching Hulk status, then grab a third and you'll mutate into one of several different creatures - Bear, Tiger, Dragon, Wolf, each with different special attack abilities.

In hindsight, the game is a little worn, and not very fun - but for its time, it was quite fun, very pretty, and engaging for 2 players at the same time (something that was still quite unusual in a home port, for a game of this pedigree!) I am surprised to say there's never been a proper follow-up, especially considering that the game was a launch title on the system. I think most people were over it pretty quickly, though (it lacked the depth of a true platformer, as the game was mostly "walk to the right, kill foes."

I do have many fond memories of this game. I remember feeding quarters into the arcade and being entranced by its graphics. I remember the 1st time I had ever seen a Sega Genesis, right when it was released in Autumn 1989, at my friend Scott's neighbor's Izzy's place. Grabbing that giant crescent Genesis controller for the first time, so perfectly formed to support long hours of play (after years of achy hands with the boxy NES flat pad!). The system looked so cool and futuristic, like no other consumer electronics device I'd seen before. Altered Beast piping through, in stereo sound. This was gaming nirvana - this was the future.

It's easy to see why they ultimately removed Altered Beast as the pack-in game when Snic the Hedgehog came about (a game this thin still couldn't compete with the likes of Super Mario World!) and Sega sort of let it slip into oblivion following that (a standalone cartridge release never surfaced). They poop it out every now and again on collections or Virtual Console releases, but it is merely for nostalgia; I don't think many people genuinely are excited to get back into Altered Beast anymore, "you had to be there when it was new!"

But for what it was worth - and despite the naysayers, it was a great pack-in and the perfect to show off the system at the time (well, I guess they could also have gone with Ghouls 'n Ghosts, eh!) My claim to fame? I was bored, and played the whole way through with my feet, one day.

What could be cooler than an Altered Beast watch? Not much, to be honest..!

iPhone App Game Development Blog #13

iPhone App Game Development Blog #13

Yup. Sunday night. Time for another development update, on with it then.

Things are alright in iPhone-land. Steady as she goes! Development on 180 is coming along well. As noted recently, we've got the final gameplay elements in place and have been concentrating on the polish and presentation. The big hurdle now is "make the game understandable from the first-play" - up until now, when showing the game to folks Ben or I would try to give brief description "here's what you do..." There's been a "how to play" info card in place for awhile now, but people tend to breeze by that. We've spent time simplifying it (UBER-simplifying it!) and even still, people zone out when they look at it. The trick is to make the game accessible without that, even. It's tough! We have come up with a decent method to get around this, and it's planned out fairly well, technically - as anyone with an engineering mind knows, implementing anything takes time/resource and so we have to make sure we can pare this down enough to fit in the schedule. Otherwise, there's still a fair bit of presentation work to be done-

Otherwise, the gameplay is - addictive. As HELL. I have been playing the game for ~2 months now through it's various iterations. It's flowed and ebbed at parts, but I can say assuredly that where the gameplay is right now, it is spot-on. It's a completely satisfying game, for the state it's already in, and I would feel very comfortable releasing it in the current form and expect that it would hold its own. The way things are now, though, when you release a project you are going against a stiff wall of competition - and so it's necessary to go that extra mile and put in some bells and whistles. I can say this, however - it feels great, as a developer, to be at this milestone.

One thing I want to make clear - in this development blog, I go on and on about this game a bit "oh it's so great, blah blah" and I expect that would be met witha bit of criticism, "you're just saying that to pimp your product." I'll be frank - we geta fair amount of hits on our blog, but not so many for the actual development stuff - and those that do read this, my long-winded ramblings, I'm gonna make a bet that if you're in it this deep with me that you're already pretty sold on parting with a couple of bucks to see what we have been up to over here, "no matter what it is!" I am not worrying about selling to you, and therefore I have no need to go about proselytizing about our game in this manner. I am just going on and on about it because I am genuinely excited! When you put a bunch of time and energy into something, you want it to do well, sure. But when the product is coming out really well, to some greater degree that is its own reward. I have worked on lots of games during my tenure as a developer - some wonderful, some atrocious. This is one of the much smaller projects I have ever been involved with, and for that, it lacks a lot of "high level production value" - but for pure gameplay and enjoyment, of what constitutes a great gaming experience, 180 is easily ranking among the top. I can't wait to put it out there for people to enjoy.

Anyway, here's some other apps I have crossed paths with recently-

- Great Leaping Lambrettinis - a wonderful game, and criminally neglected. This is intended to be an homage to the great Nintendo Game & Watch games of the early 1980s - what they have crafted here is original however. Very simple and perfectly executed, the game was a little frustrating to play at 1st - once I got the hang of it, it became a blast. Absolutely worth the $1 asking price, and I wish they'd change the name (it's a great name, but horrible to market with!) Support these guys and pick it up, you won't regret it.

- Payday Roulette - just what it sounds like. A $1 purchase gets you a roulette wheel for your pocket. No-frills, but it is nice to fool around with. Each session starts you of with $500 for you to wind down with. The board is pretty, a little inconvenient to use but it's not bad for what it is. I am sort of a simple man, I enjoy playing with this. If I could find a more captivating experience I would jump on it though (other virtual customers at your table, etc)

- Critter Crunch Lite - I haven't felt the need to upgrade to the $2 full version, but the lite isn't a bad way to go. It's a nice little puzzle game, sporting beautifully rendered graphics - this game is oozing with production value. As for the gameplay mechanic; I have heard many people sing its praises. I give it a solid "meh."

- Grabimo - heard it was free, thought the screens looked interesting. I won't ever boot this game again..

- SeaGlass - sooo.... what is it? Another Tetris Attack knock-off, apparently. Unlike Puzzle Panel (the other "definitive" iPhone game of this nature, from what I can see), this game lets you speed up the panels by dragging on-screen, which is a nice touch. Overall - I love Tetris Attack, always have and will, but this game lacks personality and is so uncaptivating. People seem to like it, I say don't bother.

- Spheric - a strange, -almost- rewarding little game. They had some good ideas with this accelerometer-based physics puzzler, however it's neither intuitive nor gratifying enough to get past the starting gate with me. I did fiddle with it a few times, and got a few minutes of "oh, this is neat" enjoyment out of it - but I haven't looked back.

- Aurora Feint II: Lite - This is one of the iPhone App Grandaddies.I finally checked it out to see what all the fuzz was about, supposedly it's got a bit of a following. I wasn't really into all of the social stuff, so awkwardly found my way to the "mining" (gameplay) segment. Ummm.. it was alright. I might try it again, but overall it's not really floating my boat.