Classic Replay

Ouch! £7.99. FFS! Screw you Nintendo! That's bloody expensive, but take my money you dirty rotten scoundrels. But know this, I'll forever hold a grudge against you. It's quite sickening what Nintendo have gone and done here, they've given us the first few levels for free, hooked me in, and then fleeced me of £7.99 of hard earned sterling. I'm already addicted (business as usual Nintendo)! The lure and temptation are too much with the first four levels being bloody brilliant, easy to control and capture you from the start. I'm enjoying it, but that price has left a bitter sickness deep within. The world tour mode, the only one I've discovered thus far, appears to consist of only six measly worlds, with four sections within each and the "end level" boss at the end of each section. The first world is easily pushed aside but does enough to prepare you for the trials that lie ahead. The second world reminds me why I hate Mario games; it's not...

Have you ever wondered what Amstrad CPC games were exclusive to the Amstrad CPC? The list below is what I know of, some of the games below are truly awful, but then again, there's quite a few games I wouldn't have missed for the world. This is by no means a definitive list of exclusives, and in most cases, you can find these games on the Amiga, ST and Consoles, but you won't find 'em on the ZX Spectrum or C64 (That's if I've done my homework correctly).  There's some real classic amongst this lot, Bumpy is brilliant, as is Bactron and D.Day is a masterclass in arcade strategy. I also found a game I never knew existed in 'Dempsey and Makepeace' a classic cop series set in the 80s. But the jewel in the crown for me is Get Dexter. Star Driver needs to be checked out if you've never played it, it scrolls along like a mode 7 game, the scrolling technique from the SNES, and if you think you're ready for a challenge, try Builderland, it needs...

New games continually arriving for the Amstrad CPC...  I’ve been playing quite a lot of Amstrad CPC games of late, it's quite easy to forget about the commercial world of gaming if you allow retro gaming to take over. Recently there's been all sorts of 8-bit competitions and some seriously good games have come out the other end. The library of new games and projects in the pipeline is phenomenal, for example, I'm playing Magica and Doomsday Lost Echoes on the CPC at the moment, with the classic Amiga game Pinball Dreams arriving shortly. I haven't even mentioned the new games I'm playing on my other retro systems, but what a fantastic problem to have, seriously though I can't keep up.  I have  Uncharted 4 and the new Tomb Raider just sitting idle on the shelf gathering dust, nowhere near enough hours in the day to play 'em all.   My Amstrad CPC in 2016 has a wad of original titles, on par and exceeding in most cases the stuff I owned as a kid. I...

What's next for Nintendo? The NES Classic has sold out! More have been promised and I've already seen them selling on eBay for crazy prices. Here's the thing, I wager Nintendo are already considering a Super Nintendo classic console, with thirty maybe more great games. Here're fifteen of my own personal must-have games to be included with the system. Star Fox, Super Star Wars, Mario Kart, Mortal Kombat, Super Mario World, Axelay, Street Fighter II Turbo, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Chrono Trigger, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, Secret of Mana, Earthworm Jim 2 and Contra III: The Alien Wars. There's much more I'd like to see, but Nintendo can be a bit stingy when it comes to their back catalogue of games, especially the Super Nintendo, you can see this play out with their current availability and pricing structure within the WiiU and 3DS virtual console, so not holding ...

I first played HotShot in 1998, it was a demo that came bundled on cassette with the latest issue of Amstrad Action! I loved it so much, but I was never able to fully experience the game in its entirety. I looked everywhere, but nobody stocked the game, even tried to get it on mail order, but that attempt failed miserably, instead they sent me a copy of Karnov, and I never bothered with mail order again! Strangely, I never to played it under emulation, but now in 2016, I've finally tracked it down, thanks to eBay and it's every bit as challenging as I remember. This is Pinball, Arkanoid and Pong all mashed into one, it feels futuristic and there's a fantastic two player option. No time to spare, I need to get back to being a crack shot! What the press thought!

A brand new and original game for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive, to be released on cartridge in winter 2017! About this project  Tanglewood is a brand new and original game for the SEGA Mega Drive, to be released in physical cartridge form in winter 2017. Set in the realm of Tanglewood, the game follows a young creature, Nymn, separated from the pack after the sun sets. Unable to get back to the safety of the family's underground home, Nymn must find a way to survive the night terrors and get to morning. Tanglewood’s world is a dangerous one after dark; guiding Nymn you must use your skills of evasion, traps and trickery to defeat predators. Help back this project by clicking here!

I’m sitting here staring at a blank white Microsoft Word background. My head is swimming with random retro thoughts, however, I haven’t got a clue where I’m gonna go with this, but I'll give it a shot.  I've currently been thinking about all these new remakes i.e. The NES, Megadrive and five hundred other devices that are currently available or incoming. Initially, I was really excited by it all, but in essence, these are just more lumps of plastic that I’ve already collected. In 2016, shouldn't we be able to play all our favourite games on a single platform? For sure we have the PC and Raspberry Pie, but I’m thinking more along the lines of a SEGA console that plays all SEGA games, for example; SMS, Megadrive, Game Gear, 32X, Saturn, and Dreamcast all in one lovely lump of Japanese plastic. The same goes for Nintendo, Atari and any other console manufacturer, sick of the prospect of buying yet another lump of plastic and feeling restricted to only one genre of consol...