Back in the late 1990s, while Lara Croft was happily raiding tombs on pretty much every platform you could shake a stick at (even the maligned N-Gage got a port of Tomb Raider), Nintendo fans could have been forgiven for feeling a little left out. Sure, Nintendo 64 owners got to plunder hidden treasure in Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, but a true rival to Miss Croft’s exploits was conspicuous by its absence on Nintendo’s powerful hardware. In an attempt to give gamers an equivalent adventure, Nintendo looked to a new heroine and teased shots of a 3D action adventure game with a female lead known as ‘Riqa.‘
Sadly, very little was ever seen of this game outside of a few rolling demos and fuzzy screenshots in magazines of the era, and after brief rumours that the game had been moved to Gamecube, Riqa vanished without a trace. It appears that the game was actually further into development than ever previously known however, and a user known as 10ahu from the Assembler forums has recently uploaded footage of Riqa in playable form.
Featuring some great character animation and varied level designs, as well as some intense gunplay, Riqa looks like it could well have been a hit on the Nintendo 64 – a console not really renowned for its third person shooters. Judging from the 15 minute video 10ahu has uploaded to YouTube (and in a similar fashion to the recently discovered Rev Limit), Riqa looks like it is running on actual N64 hardware and represents yet another game being unearthed that many thought would never be seen again.
Nintendo 64 Riqa Gameplay
{youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6RxfQLvgy8}
Link: Assembler Games forum thread
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While the Nintendo Game Boy may have ruled the handheld roost in the early nineties, it didn’t stop the many efforts from a wide range of companies to dethrone the portable king. Watara were one of the bold companies copying the Game Boy’s ethos, however, their cheap alternative – the SuperVision – came across as a little too cheap, and quickly faded into obscurity. With so few fans of the system today, its emulation options have been somewhat limited until now.
For each and every gaming console out there, there’s one final swansong which showcases the power behind the dated hardware it sits on. Take Shadow of The Colossus for example, a stunning adventure which pushes the PlayStation 2 to its absolute limits – limits we never knew the system even had. Although older consoles such as the Nintendo NES leave a lot up for discussion in terms of its most demanding game, a bunch of homebrew developers have just muscled in on this discussion by releasing an unofficial prequel to Metroid which puts the 8-bit console under incredible strain.
Over the last few years the Android operating system has opened up a whole new realm of affordable gaming options. With Google’s policy on what applications are allowed on their digital store being incredibly relaxed, and the ability to manually install software, the platform has become a modern haven for emulators and retro gamers. As a result, a plethora of new gaming hardware has been released as a cheap alternative to the mainstream consoles. One of the more recent ones, the Eagle Box, promises an awful lot from the get go, but how does it hold up against the competition?
Recently I found myself eyeing up another fellow collector’s purchase – the Sharp X68000, a Japanese home computer known for its incredible shoot-em-ups and near perfect arcade ports. It’s a stylish looking system, with its outer case resembling that of a sleek gaming skyscraper. Trouble is, the system is not only rare, but also quite expensive. Games alone often fetch over £100, and working hardware often holds a price-tag to dissuade any gamer. After spending longer than I’d hoped admiring this obscurity, I curiously stepped into eBay ‘just for a look’.
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After a hugely successful move to the mighty Doncaster Dome, we’re proud to announce that the Video Game Market is back for 2017. As the biggest and unrivalled retro gaming sales fair in the UK, this is yet another pixel-perfect day filled with bargains and rarities you won’t want to miss.