Category: Classic

This year’s CES in Las Vegas has thrown up a number of interesting new products from the world’s biggest tech firms. From cars that will become our friends, to submersible drones and laptops with multiple displays the consumer electronics industry hasn’t disappointed. Forget all that lot though. The real story of CES comes from Hyperkin…well, almost.

Hyperkin released the RetroN 5 multi-system emulator several years back and came in for some flack regarding the use of free emulators in a retail device, and since then other similar systems have surfaced with enhanced functionality – just look at the Retro Freak for further details. It looks like Hyperkin are ready to add extra compatibility to the RetroN 5 though, and have teased an image of a new adapter that will allow for Sega Master System and Game Gear games to be played through the system.

Called the RetroN 5 3-in-1 Adapter, the device appears to allow the use of both carts and cards for the Master System, as well as standard Game Gear carts. There’s no other information on this device apart from a single photograph posted by the Hyperkin Facebook page, but what we’ve seen is pretty self-explanatory. At present, the only way to play Master System games on a RetroN is with a Master System converter and they’re becoming increasingly hard to find (and expensive); so for gamers wishing to revisit the Megadrive’s older brother and play those old classics though a HDMI connection, this adapter may be a tantalising prospect.

Link: Hyperkin Facebook Page

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While Sonic and Mario might have skipped past the home computer generation, countless other developers attempted to recreate what made console gaming so alluring in their own way. Their tireless efforts brought around the likes of Zool, The Great Giana Sisters, and Mayhem In Monsterland to name but a few, however, the desire to produce a true rival to the console mascots continues even today. Commodore 64 developers Knights of Bytes recently returned online to showcase the latest trailer for their upcoming release, Sam’s Journey.

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During Spring of 1993 the Far Eastern development studio Micro Cabin brought their impressive home-computer adventure Xak: The Art of Visual Stage to the Super Famicom. Arriving as a polished update to the PC-8801 and PC-9801 original, this 16-bit port wasn’t the first time the game had been given the remake treatment after outings on the Sharp X68000, PC Engine and MSX2. Despite its many re-imaginings, it’s only as of recent that the game has been localised into English through unofficial fan translation efforts.

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2002 was a great year for games. The Playstation 2 was amassing more hits such as GTA Vice City, Final Fantasy 10 and as well as this the Xbox and GameCube games libraries were growing with some must own titles. With these games being almost 15 years old there are still some bargains to be found 2nd hand. Hopefully we can inspire you to give games a second look that you may have missed buying first time round.

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Ever since Electronic Arts stopped releasing its FIFA games on the Vita, soccer fans have had little to get excited about when it comes to kicking the old pig bladder into the onion bag on Sony’s handheld. Hell, Konami didn’t even bother putting its Pro Evo games out on the system, full stop. The last FIFA release was FIFA 15, a re-skinned ‘legacy edition’ of a game several years old, so in reality the last time the Vita received a bonafide new soccer title was probably around 2012.

Enter Active Soccer 2 DX from indie developer Gianluca Troiano, a reworked and upgraded version of one the most highly regarded iOS soccer titles. I have to be honest here – when I first learned that Active Soccer 2 DX had its origins in the mobile market, I was a little worried. A quick look at the Apple App Store reviews allayed these fears somewhat, as the game has some pretty positive reviews and ratings so I decided to take the plunge. £7.99 later and Active Soccer 2 DX was sitting on my Vita. With trepidation I tapped that little rotating token, but I needn’t have worried – Active Soccer 2 DX is a truly remarkable little arcade soccer title.

Looking at the screenshots here, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were looking at a re-issued version of Sensible Soccer, and to put it bluntly Active Soccer makes no secret of the fact that it borrows more that a little inspiration from Sensible Software’s seminal take on the beautiful game. The influences are clear to see as soon as you load the game up. The menus could be ripped straight from an Amiga monitor, with the familiar still backgrounds, and small text laid on little coloured boxes. The team selection screens offer a similarly bewildering number of clubs and national sides, all of which have some slightly humourous mis-spellings of famous player names due to the lack of official license. Likewise, Active Soccer 2 DX features classic teams with players of yesteryear populating the team sheets of your favourite club. You have the ability to tinker with formations, strategies, lineups – all standard stuff for any soccer game worth its salt…but it’s on the pitch that Active Soccer 2 DX really shines.

A word of warning though. Don’t go into Active Soccer expecting metered build up play or anything approaching the complexity of FIFA or PES. This is an arcade experience through and through, so if you go in expecting a mash up of World Cup Italia ’90 and Sensible Soccer, you’ll come away with nothing but a very broad smile on your face. The gameplay is fast, incredibly simple and above all it’s a ton of fun. There are only four inputs you need to worry about – short pass, long pass, shoot and sprint…that’s it. There’s a training mode included that gives you hints and tips on the best practices for passing, one-twos and how to take penalties and free kicks, but Active Soccer 2 DX is so easy to get to grips with if you’ve ever played a soccer game before that you’ll barely need to visit the tutorial.

Passing is crisp, shooting is as simple as holding down the shoot button and aiming at the goal. Crossing the ball into the box and sending lofted passes across the pitch are both handled by the long pass button. Tackling is fairly automatic – simply run into an oncoming player or slide them. It’s not as draconian as the system used in something like Virtua Striker, but it works well in a game this simplistic, allowing you to focus on getting the ball to one of your strikers and sticking the ball in the top corner. That said, scoring goals can be tricky as the goalies here are no pushover; but it never gets to the point where you’ll go for hours without scoring. There does appear to be a touch of randomness when you shoot – sometimes the ball sails into the goal with ease, others the keeper will make an impossible save or the ball just goes comically wide or high. But that really just adds to the excitement, especially if you’re trailing by a narrow margin and you’re throwing everything at the opponent’s goal. It can get pretty tense at times.

Active Soccer 2 DX is a lot of fun and represents one of the rare occasions where I’ve literally punched the air after scoring a vital goal. All of the expected components of the beautiful game are here: fouls, cards, offsides, throw ins, penalties, free kicks – everything you’d want. It really plays very well, and there are plenty of competitions and cups to take part in. The PlayStation 4 version does feature a career mode that’s missing from the Vita port, and the handheld version doesn’t have an online multiplayer mode at the time of writing this review, but Gianluca Troiano appears to be very active on Facebook and has announced that these missing options will be implemented in an upcoming update for the Vita game.

Active Soccer on the Vita isn’t perfect – there are some pretty horrendous loading times when you first start the game, and the slow down when the teams first walk onto the pitch is quite laughable, but as soon as the teams are out it quickly clears up. Personally, I’d have liked more variations in stadia (there’s only one) and better replays after goals, along with some rudimentary commentary (it’s just pitch and crowd noises during gameplay), but I suppose this style of audio does suit this type of retro-themed, top down soccer title. That said, the matches can be viewed from a number of camera angles, and they’re all perfectly playable – especially the isometric viewpoint if you’re hankering for some old-skool FIFA action.

I wasn’t expecting much from Active Soccer 2 DX, and not least because it started life as a mobile game. However, if you can look past the game’s origins what you’ll find here is a thoroughly enjoyable alternative to more serious soccer titles that have graced the Vita. Once the updates are rolled out, a full career mode and online multiplayer will make the Vita version of Active Soccer 2 DX a more enticing prospect, but even in its current form, this is arguably the most fun you can have on Sony’s handheld that involves 22 men kicking a ball around on a bit of grass.

Link: Active Soccer 2 DX website

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There have been a couple of recent Kickstarter projects that have added Dreamcast stretch goals, with the promising Megadrive/Genesis platformer Tanglewood being the latest. Now though, a team based in Denver known as Militia Studios has entered the arena with a brand new game for Sega’s old warhorse of a console; a game that has been built from the ground up for the Dreamcast. In the Line of Fire first surfaced around a year ago, when the team posted images on various forums of some pretty sinister-looking clowns holding weapons. Since then, the game has been revealed as a tactical first person shooter, very much in the vein of Payday…but with the player assuming the role of the cops instead of the robbers.

Militia Studios promise gameplay features such as being able to issue commands to a four-man SWAT team made up of AI characters, and the abiltiy to ‘tag’ enemies with an innovative third-person camera mode. It’s basically the Rainbow Six game the Dreamcast deserved. Having sampled an early build of In the Line of Fire myself, I can honestly say that it is one of the most impressive-looking Dreamcast games I’ve ever played, and the fact that it comes from a team of independent developers, over a decade after the Dreamcast was prematurley killed off is nothing short of amazing. The Kickstarter goal stands at a fairly modest $45,000 (£36,000) and backing at the $50 (£40) tier will secure you a physical copy of the game with free shipping worldwide. There are some pretty intriguing stretch goals too, with one promising that the development tools will be released to the indie development community; while a further goal promises online multiplayer support. With the recent uptake in Dreamcast online multiplayer gaming through the DreamPi and Dreamcast Live services, this is a very interesting prospect.

Having actually played In the Line of Fire, it’s apparent that Militia Studios have a tangible product that is running on actual Dreamcast hardware and not simply a load of screenshots from a demo running on a PC. While the build I played needed work, it hinted at a game that has a lot of promise.

Link: In the Line of Fire Kickstarter

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While the Commodore Amiga CD32 might not be the most popular system around, it definitely has a group of dedicated and loyal fans behind it. With such a limited number of games being made available for the console during its short lived life, the die-hard games devoted to the CD32 will be amazed to hear an unreleased snowboarding game appears to have been discovered – with an accompanying snowboard accessory too.

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If for any reason you’ve been feeling that your choice of action on the Commodore Amiga was growing stale then look no further. The Polish based development team Pixel Nation recently took to a number of message-boards dedicated to the classic computer to announced their upcoming February 2017 release, Max Knight.

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Tomb Raider is one of the most iconic games for the Sony Playstation, and a series still going today. This year is the 20th anniversary of Tomb Raider and original Tomb Raider composer Nathan McCree has something special planned.

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As many will tell you, the lack of a decent game based on the cult classic anime Akira is somewhat criminal. While the Japanese did see a text-based adventure game starring Kanedo and Tetsuo on the Nintendo Famicom, Western gamers were stuck with the abysmal Commodore Amiga offering from Ice – one which saw some of the lowest ever review scores in gaming publications. That said, there were several other adaptations planned for gamers, some of which are just coming to light.

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