Retro Gamer No. 229

DARRAN JONES I’m going to go with Compile’s Super Aleste. It’s an astonishing shmup that proves the SNES was more than capable of throwing lots of sprites about the screen with little slowdown. Expertise: Juggling a gorgeous wife, two beautiful daughters and an award-winning mag, all under one roof! Currently playing: Guardians Of The Galaxy Favourite game of all time: Strider ANDY SALTER I’m generally not a fan of racing games but Super Mario Kart is probably my favourite SNES game of all time. Expertise: Modding games, no ‘vanilla’ versions for me, thanks! Currently playing: M&B2: Bannerlord… Modded of course Favourite game of all time: Rome: Total War ASHLEY DAY It has to be Starwing. I couldn’t even imagine a game like that at the time, and as a Mega Drive owner it made me super jealous of my SNES-owning friends. Expertise:…

I can still remember my first encounter with our cover game Pilotwings. I was visiting my best mate Paul Staddon because he had a Super Famicom and a number of games for it, including Super Mario World and F-Zero. Both were superb, but Pilotwings really stood out for me because it looked like nothing I had ever seen on a home system before. Seeing Pilotwings’ levels scale and rotate as you completed tasks felt like witchcraft and I knew right then that I had to own Nintendo’s console. It proved to be a solid purchase and even though it wasn’t always the best system for shmups, I nevertheless built up an impressive library of games, many of which pushed the technological limits of the console. Thirty years ago in 1992, European gamers got…

VISIT RETROGAMER.NET/FORUM TO HAVE YOUR SAY In 2021, we celebrated 50 years of the commercial videogame industry, and with that milestone comes the sobering reality that many of the pioneering creators that have built the games we love have reached an advanced age. We recently learned of three major figures in the industry that have passed away. Hiroshi Ono passed away on 16 October at the age of 64, Masayuki Uemura passed away on 6 December aged 78, and Ian Hetherington passed on 14 December at 69. Hiroshi Ono was an artist who joined Namco in 1979, and became known as Mr Dotman for his skill in creating pixel art. Many of the company’s early arcade hits featured his work, including the likes of Dig Dug, Galaga and Xevious. Ono would remain…

We’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of Taito’s Egret II Mini, but we were worried that it might remain an import exclusive. Thankfully, it has now been announced that it’ll be coming to North America and Europe this year via Inin Games and Strictly Limited Games. The miniature arcade cabinet features 40 builtin games including Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble, The New Zealand Story and Elevator Action Returns, a rotating 4:3 display and HDMI output. The unit also has the ability to add extra games, with the likes of Arkanoid and Puchi Carat included with the paddle and trackball controller kit. We can’t wait.…

Sonic has occasionally been known to travel through time on his adventures, and homebrew coder Mr SID has brought Sega’s mascot back to the Eighties with a Commodore 64 port of the first Master System game. Stages, bosses and secrets all come across intact, and the tunes by Yuzo Koshiro have been faithfully translated to the SID chip. You’ll need a 256KB RAM expansion unit to play it on original hardware, but it will also work on the C64 Mini and its full-sized brother as well as various emulators. Download the disk image at https://csdb.dk…

Antstream has come a long way since it made its debut and it has quickly become the go-to place for playing classic retro games online. While we had issues with certain aspects of the service when it first launched, there’s no denying how responsive it feels to play games online now and improvements are continually being made to the service. Numerous competitions are in place too, ensuring there’s plenty of entertainment to be had for those that have subscribed. Games are continually getting added as well, and one of the more unusual additions is the planned MSX games that are being added. However, as Antstream’s CEO Steve Cottam tells us, the inclusion of MSX games makes perfect sense when you look at the larger picture. “Antstream is a global gaming service…