Retro Gamer

The original Evercade launched in early 2020 and proved a nice distraction in a very difficult year. It certainly wasn’t perfect, due to oversights like the lack of a 1:1 display, missing multiplayer capabilities and the sometimes strange selection o

Nintendo is never likely to happen, but I’m confident a PC Engine or Konami collection is perfectly possible going forward. Expertise: Juggling a gorgeous wife, two beautiful girls and an award-winning magazine, all under one roof Currently playing:

The world’s first pocket calculator was released by Sinclair Radionics in 1972 and adverts suggested it was the same thickness as a cigarette pack. (“One must always bear a packet of cigarettes in mind as the ideal size,” a Sinclair executive told th

Amstrad bought the rights to Sinclair’s inventions in 1986 and re-engineered the ZX Spectrum 128 into the tape-based ZX Spectrum +2 and 3-inch disk ZX Spectrum +3. But Amstrad’s former group technology consultant Roland Perry tells us, “Building some

Strictly Limited Games has recently unveiled a physical release of Wild Guns: Reloaded. These physical versions are limited to 2,000 copies on Switch and 1,000 on PlayStation 4 so expect them to sell out rather quickly. Alternatively PAL and NTSC rei

In addition to revealing a brand-new Kirby game, Nintendo recently announced that N64 and Mega Drive games are heading to Switch. Both systems are part of Nintendo’s online service and join the NES and SNES games that are already available. Plenty of

JANUARY 2005 – The silly season might be over, but there’s no time to relax – the first Nintendo DS game reviews are here, and Viewtiful Joe and Metal Gear Solid are both back. Excited? Nick Thorpe’s got a time machine, so let’s begin 2005 all over a

The 50 best games of the year have been ranked, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas takes the top spot ahead of Half-Life 2 in second and Halo 2 in third. Burnout 3: Takedown and The Sims 2 rounded out the top five. “The let downs of 2004” included Kil

1 – Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rockstar)2 – Need For Speed Underground 2 (EA)3 – WWE Smackdown! Vs Raw (THQ)4 – FIFA Football 2005 (EA)5 – The Getaway: Black Monday (Sony 1 – Halo 2 (Microsoft)2 – Need For Speed Underground 2 (EA)3 – Pro Evolutio

■ While this packed cart has plenty to do for solo players, there are some particularly good multiplayer games to be had here. Super Skidmarks and Tennis All-Stars both originally used the innovative J-Cart to support four players, and some heated ri

plus FREE CHOICE OF CONTROLLER AND BOOK The 8bitdo SN30 Pro Controller includes rumble functionality via USB, and is compatible with Switch, PC and more This Bluetooth controller is officially licensed from Sega and offers 20 hours of gaming per char

The original and undoubtedly the best of all of the MicroProse Soccer versions. It’s the one that Jon Hare, Chris Yates and Martin Galway lavished all of their attention on, leaving other developers to port it. Fast, fluid, packed with innovative fea

When one of your footballers has the ball, be wary of keeping hold of it for a prolonged period of time. Doing so increases the risk of you being tackled so look for other footballers on your team and quickly get the ball to them. You’re more likely

Why did you release a Boulder Dash title based on designing caves? We thought that we would get the kind of sales that we had gotten on Boulder Dash and Boulder Dash II by doing a construction kit, and that people would love that. Fernando Herrera –

What was the story behind the UK Boulder Dash coin-op Rockford? Rockford was done with Arcadia Systems, which was part of Mastertronic. Fernando Herrera designed it with Peter Liepa involved to a certain degree. As well as the coin-op, we had a deal

While it can’t quite be full screen, hence the giant Genie frame, the game’s intro features some impressive-looking art that conveys the early part of the story for those few players that were unfamiliar with the film. The most striking thing you’ll

■ Clem Chambers forms Computer Rentals Limited, based in King’s Yard, London. ■ The company becomes CRL and moves into games. ■ Worms? by David Maynard for Atari 8-bit is one of Electronic Arts’ five launch titles. ■ The Nu Wave Software label is ann

■ After his time at CRL, Clem is no longer in the games industry. “I run ADVFN, an international share trading information site,” he tells us. “The stock market is the biggest multiplayer game – if you play it well the points are real. I don’t game,

■ Perhaps we’ll never know why EA suddenly decided to turn its back on one of its most popular 16-bit franchises, but back before Future Cop: LAPD was on the scene there was Future Strike. This was to be a sequel to Nuclear Strike, the game that woul

1995, SHINY ENTERTAINMENT ■ The original Maui game was Disney’s answer to Shiny’s game, but came out at the same time as its sequel. Jim’s follow-up offered new gameplay ideas: from flying a rocket in an isometric view to changing the landscape of a

Parody plays a huge part into the humour, with Drinkbox’s game riffing on familiar sights from other games. For instance, powers are obtained from Chozo-like statues. Guacamelee! 2 introduces four-player play, letting you and friends run through the

Halfway through our marathon two-and-a-half-hour Zoom conversation, Steve says excitedly, “Let me show you it,” and disappears off screen. He returns a few minutes later with a box full of computer print outs and scribbled notes and sketches. It’s al

1981, Arcade ■ This ingenious Missile Command mod adds a new enemy, the evil UFO, which can zap your cities from a distance, whilst upping the overall difficulty to insane levels. Tony Temple’s Missile Command tournament world record is 4.4 million.

Steve on GCC’s failed laser disc project “This was our laser disc experiment,” says Steve of LaserRail, one of many unreleased arcade titles developed at GCC. “Dragon’s Lair used cartoon [imagery] but our idea was to have computer generated images on

Readers can get involved at www.retrogamer.net/forum Merman: What was the worst bug you had to deal with on Ms Pac-Man? [Laughs] We had a couple of bugs which showed up really late and one was to do with the cocktail table version, where you sit acro

>> This month we complete the long-awaited sequel to Metroid Fusion, build Lego’s latest Mario creation, discover how Konami’s new Castlevania collection fares and read about some fellow called Pac-Man Diablo II: Resurrected It’s definitely showing i

» Buy it from: lego.com/en-gb » Buy it for: £159.99 Not content with re-releasing one of Mario’s greatest 3D adventures on Switch, Nintendo has also teamed up with Lego to create a rather fitting tribute to its classic platformer. While no actual Que

» Buy it from: amazon.co.uk » Buy it for: £50 The first book dedicated to Pac-Man’s creation and cultural impact is every bit as good as you’d hope for such an iconic gaming character. Arjan Terpstra and Tim Lapetino have done sterling work here, cov

Nick Wilson Resident Evil Remake. It’s the best remake of any videogame ever made. Killian Bell I know this isn’t a popular answer, but Star Fox Adventures. I loved that game and ended up playing it all the way through four or five times. Adam Rowley

The Last Story. A really good RPG by Hironobu Sakaguchi, it offers an interesting variation of the Active Time Battle system and blends it with real-time action. The House Of The Dead: Overkill. I was CM for a large number of Wii games during my time

STAR LETTER Dear Retro Gamer, I have been a subscriber for two or three years now, and will continue to support the great magazine you produce! I also love collecting, but it is an expensive hobby, so I often have a smaller niche collecting target. M

What cartridges would you like to see on Evercade? I feel a Metal Slug collection would be amazing. I would love a Capcom collection of some of their better fighters: Final Fight, Saturday Night Slam Masters, Captain Commando, etc. All of the Disney

Editor Darran ‘The Oliver Twins Collection’ Jones darran.jones@futurenet.com 0330 3906443 Art Editor Andy ‘Bitmap Brothers 1’ Salter Production Editor Tim ‘Data East 1’ Empey Features Editor Nick ‘Codemasters 1’ Thorpe Photographer Phil ‘Namco Museum