Retro Gamer

the retrobates

DARRAN JONES Super Castlevania IV uses Mode 7 to great effect, and it has a soundtrack that seemed impossible on any other system. Expertise: Juggling a gorgeous wife, two beautiful girls, one SNES-loving cousin and an award-winning magazine, all under one roof! Currently playing: Yakuza 0 Favourite game of all time: Strider ANDY SALTER The only SNES games I remember playing for any extended amount of time was the original Street Fighter II and Kevin Keegan’s Player Manager. However, the game that impressed me the most was Super Mario Kart, mainly because I don’t usually like racers but I enjoyed this one. Expertise: Modding games, no ‘vanilla’ versions for me, thanks! Currently playing: Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord Favourite game of all time: Rome: Total War IAIN LEE Super Mario Kart – I’m always amazed at how beautiful and clever it…

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I loved my Mega Drive, but the SNES made me cheat on it. Back in the day, consoles were expensive and money was hard to come by, so many of my friends had a single games machine, and I was no exception. I loved Sega’s Mega Drive, but when I saw those early screenshots of Super Mario World and F-Zero, I knew that I also needed to own Nintendo’s console somehow. I wouldn’t actually get a machine until late 1991 and the system I plumped for was the US version, mainly because there were no Super Famicoms in stock at the Video Game Centre. I traded in my Mega Drive and countless games in order to get my hands on a brand-spanking-new SNES and about six games, including Super Mario World,…

someone call a plumber

The internet has recently seen a number of fascinating revelations about classic Nintendo games dating back over three decades, as source code was leaked for games including the likes of Pilotwings, Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island, Star Fox 2, Super Mario 64 and The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time. However, the discoveries have been tainted by the fact that all of the data used to make them was obtained illegally. While source code and prototype games have often leaked to the public contrary to the wishes of their publishers, these incidents have typically involved people who were given legitimate access to them at some point. There have been incidents where source code has been used as padding on a game disc, or prototype games have been found in the possessions…

news wall

TAITO ON THE GO Another manufacturer has joined the plug-and-play console ranks, and it’s the legendary Taito. However, don’t start getting excited about Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble and Elevator Action, because this is a dedicated Densha De Go! console. While these train-driving games have never caught on over here, they have always had a cult following in Japan – one that the Square Enix subsidiary hopes to capitalise on with its authentic train control panel. Don’t expect to see this one in your local stores any time soon, but it’s scheduled to hit Japanese shelves in December 2020. Enthusiastic importers can pick it up for ¥14,800 (£107). MOUSE MAN PASSES William English, co-creator of the computer mouse, passed away at the age of 91 on 26 July. Based on conceptual notes provided by…

taped up

It’s all about cassettes for me. Tapes. I love ’em. Don’t they feel amazing? The rattle they make when you shake them. The texture of the little teeth in the holes. The hunt for some Sellotape to cover up one of the popped-out toggles because you found something even more important to record than the thing you thought you wanted to keep forever. The number of times I’ve taped over treasure from when I was a kid so I could record some rubbish off the radio… Cassettes are quite simply the best way to experience games. We joke about the loading times, but have you seen how long you have to wait to play a game when you haven’t switched on your PS4 for a week? Updates, all the time. With…

need for greed

Decades ago, I was lucky enough to visit Virgin Interactive’s offices in Los Angeles, with Bad Influence star Violet Berlin. Don’t think for a second that the life of a videogame journalist was all fancy trips overseas, and glitzy junkets with glamorous celebs. There was a degree of that, of course, but you also have to remember that I wrote Digitiser for Teletext, which most games company PR people viewed as having all the contemporary relevance of a recently defrosted Palaeolithic hominid daubing review scores on a cave wall. This is part of the reason the trip has stuck with me – I just didn’t get to go on that many. But also, Virgin Interactive was a pretty happening company at the time. RoboCop Vs The Terminator, Dune II, Alien 3,…