Happy New Year
and welcome to this first issue of 2021 as we continue our celebration
of all things retrogaming. Our Thirtieth Issue is a bit of a
special one, as it completes a full five years of releases since
relaunching as The Retrogaming Times in 2016. We're looking
forward to providing another year of great articles and the continuing
opportunity for you to send in your thoughts and memories concerning
classic video gaming and have them published. This year of course
will also hopefully bring an eventual return to some form of normalcy
in the wake of the continuing coronavirus pandemic.
The year
begins with More C64 and Merman's chronicle of the history of computer
magazine ZZAP and its current return as a quarterly publication.
Donald Lee has memories of the Nintendo Game & Watch series, as a
special anniversary edition slides across Don's Desk. An almost
totally forgotten driving game with a rather strange legacy in film
skids into Arcade Obscure. A friendly neighborhood web-slinger
swings onto the Super Nintendo with Dan Pettis' review of Spider-Man
and Venom: Maximum Carnage. In this issue's cover story, the
recent documentary Console Wars is reviewed, highlighting the 16-bit
battles between Nintendo and Sega as detailed by Dan Pettis.
Aspirations of picking up an NES Top Loader return some mixed results
as Todd Friedman explains with his impressions of the hardware. All that and
more are ahead in this issue of The Retrogaming Times!
I want
to
again remind our readers if
they
have comments or questions about anything covered in the newsletter, or
there is something they would like featured in a future issue of The
Retrogaming
Times, to contact me directly at trt@classicplastic.net!
Of course article submissions are also always open. If you have
something
ready to go, the address is the same, trt@classicplastic.net. "If
there is something you want to write about, send it in!"
If
you're stir crazy at home and are a retrogamer, there has to be
something on your mind - let us know by submitting an article!
NOTICE: Due to the ongoing
COVID-19 pandemic, many shows and events have canceled, postponed, or
modified their dates. For the latest on the events listed below,
please visit their individual websites or contact their relevant
customer support channels as the current situation continues to
unfold. Thank you.
~
~ ~
KansasFest, July 19th - 25th 2021,
Kansas City, Missouri, USA
KansasFest is
an annual convention offering Apple II users and retrocomputing
enthusiasts the opportunity to engage in beginner and technical
sessions, programming contests, exhibition halls, and camaraderie.
KansasFest was originally hosted by Resource Central and has been
brought to you by the KFest committee since 1995. For photos, videos,
and
presentations from past KansasFests, please visit the official
website.
If there is a
show or event you would
like listed here, free of charge, please contact David directly at trt@classicplastic.net.
Please include a short official blurb about your event along with any
relevant
links or contact information and it will be published in the next issue
of The Retrogaming Times. The event listing will remain posted
until
the issue following the event date. Big or small, we want to
promote
your show in our newsletter.
Check out
these great events, shows,
and conventions and let them know you read about them in The
Retrogaming
Times!
More
C64! - ZZAP to the Future
by Merman
In the UK, one of
the best-loved computer
magazines was ZZAP (usually written with an exclamation mark after it,
but it plays havoc with the spellchecker). Catering for Commodore 64
users from 1985 until 1993, the magazine has undergone a rebirth in
recent years - and is now returning as a quarterly magazine. I was
privileged to write for the magazine in the 1990s and am now part of
its new era.
The ZZAP 64
logo designed by Oliver Frey.
BEGINNINGS
Franco Frey became
heavily interested in computers in the early 1980s, and shared his
enthusiasm with his brother Oliver. Oli and Roger Kean moved to
Franco's home town of Ludlow to help set up CRASH MICRO ACTION - a
mail-order catalogue for ZX Spectrum computer games. Its unique
features were honest reviews by Ludlow schoolboys and Oli's distinctive
art (including little fuzzy creatures that became known as Olibugs).
When a major retailer saw the catalogue they suggested setting up a
"proper" magazine, and so with the help of a distributor issue 1 of
CRASH! reached the shelves. Sadly the distributor closed owing the new
company Newsfield (set up by Franco, Roger and Oli) money, but they
persevered. New and older journalists added a professional edge, and
the circulation grew rapidly. CRASH maintained its honesty, which led
to conflict with unhappy software companies who threatened to pull
advertising.
In 1985 the Commodore 64
started to challenge the ZX Spectrum for dominance in the UK - and it
was time for a C64 magazine from Newsfield. Rejecting the original
names of Bang or Sprites & Sound, the first issue of ZZAP! 64
arrived in April 1985. There were actually two parts to the team behind
that first issue. Roger and Oli worked in Ludlow, while the rest of the
editorial team was in Yeovil. This was headed by Chris Anderson and Bob
Wade, who had been part of an earlier magazine called Personal Computer
Games. Joining them were two young gameplayers - Gary Penn and Julian
Rignall, who came to PCG after winning high-score competitions. Chris
would ultimately choose to move on rather than join the team in Ludlow,
taking his expertise to set up the company that became Future
Publishing.
The cover of
issue 1, featuring a review of the classic space game Elite.
There were two main
aspects to ZZAP's popularity. Each review gave at least two and usually
three different reviewers the chance to express their opinion in a
comment "bubble" - and the ultimate rating was decided in discussions
between the three. Each reviewer had their own "head," a caricature
drawn by Oli with their initials on a black sweatshirt. There were
typically three poses, one good, one OK and one bad, depending on how
they rated the game. Each box ending in a series of ratings using
percentages. The other key factor was the amazing Oli Frey covers. In
the early days Oli would add characters to the page margins by
physically drawing on the boards that would be photographed for the
printers. Text copy was printed out and set with glue, before more
sophisticated DTP (desktop publishing) became available. Those margin
characters included Rockford from the Boulder Dash games (under license
from First Star Software), Thing on a Spring, the Pantomime Horse and
Mr. Nose.
Reviewer and
editor Gordon Houghton found a game that disagreed with him...
ZZAP's circulation also
grew rapidly, with Roger Kean and then Gary Penn taking over as editor.
Top scoring games were awarded a Sizzler (usually over 90%) or the
ultimate accolade of a Gold Medal (above 96% or for anything considered
state of the art). Later on budget games were reviewed separately, with
the new Silver Medal for any that scored over 90%. A regular adventure
column was written by the White Wizard (Steve Cooke) and technical
advice came from Gary Liddon (who joined because of his interest in the
gaming industry, and would leave to set up Thalamus; this software
house was formed by Newsfield but independent of the magazines).
Brigitte van Reuben analysed C64 artwork, and a regular feature looked
at the online Compunet network (which was designed primarily for C64
users). AMTIX! became the third magazine and catered for Amstrad users,
although it closed much sooner than the other two. (Roger revealed that
they could have called the three magazines Crash, Bang and Wallop - but
I am glad they didn't).
As Newsfield grew, it
spread into other ventures - including the aforementioned Thalamus
software house - with The Games Machine covering more computers as well
as consoles and electronic toys, and the short-lived LM (Leisure
Magazine) mixing film, TV, comics and computer games. This unsuccessful
title ultimately cost Newsfield a lot of money. In Italy there was a
licensed version of ZZAP known as ZZAP Italia that lasted until 1992,
adding reviews for other machines.
ZZAP Italia
re-used Oli Frey's cover art under license, here on issue 34.
More changes of
personnel saw Julian Rignall's spell as editor come to a close as he
went to rivals EMAP. The new team included editor Gordon Houghton and
staff writers Paul Glancey, Maff Evans and Kati Hamza. Ken D Fish
became a regular, in photo stories and the margins. Wacky humour and
more colour gave the magazine a different feel, brought to an abrupt
end by issue 50. The writing team were all suddenly let go and new
staff brought in at short notice. Editor Stuart Wynne with writers Phil
King and Robin Hogg carried the magazine forward with a more
professional approach - although there was still humour, such as the
multi-issue "storyline" where the Scorelord stood in for Stuart. Other
features such as comic and film reviews came and went.
Issue 26 had come with
the Sampler Tape, a special cassette attached to the cover. This
included games, demos and a special musical recording from Rob Hubbard
(Thalamusik, the loading tune to Sanxion, re-recorded with
synthesizers). Issue 42 saw the cassette on the front become a regular
feature as the ZZAP Megatape. That issue also saw Amiga reviews become
part of the mag, although some saw it as controversial. The first
Megatape had its own problems, with the demo of Armalyte delayed and
the promised level of shoot 'em up Katakis stopped by legal action from
Activision (for its "similarity" to R-Type). The replacement was an
older US Gold title Time Tunnel. In later years, there would be two
Reel Action tapes on the front, carrying more full games and demos of
forthcoming titles. Issue 66 saw another subtle change, as rivals
Future launched its C64 magazine Commodore Format. Both covered the
cartridge-based C64GS, the short lived Games System.
The bumper
issue 44 Christmas Special had over 200 pages, while issue 66 competed
with the newly-launched Commodore Format.
ENDINGS
Money troubles meant
that issue 78 was nearly the end of ZZAP - but with funding from
Europress the story continued. However some felt this was the weakest
era of the magazine, with managing editor Lucy Hickman adding puerile
humour including her "alter-ego" Miss Whiplash. As Europress launched
new titles dedicated to consoles, ZZAP underwent a rebranding after
issue 90. The next issue was the first of Commodore Force
(incorporating ZZAP 64). This is when I joined, writing as Professor
Brian Strain to give technical advice (and in the last few issues as
The Games Guru, with advice on how to write a game). Commodore Force
closed after just sixteen issues with parent company Europress Impact
going into bankruptcy. I got some freelance work for Commodore Format
in the next year before that too closed. And that could have been the
end of the ZZAP story...
The Terminator
2 inspired cover of issue 78, and issue 12 of Commodore Force reviewed
Lemmings.
REVIVAL
First came issue 107,
created by super-fans Iain Black and Stephen Studdard. This reviewed
new games and looked back at classic ZZAP features. It was initially
available as a downloadable PDF and had a limited print run in 2002.
Next up was the Def Guide to ZZAP 64, a special supplement to issue 18
of Retro Gamer in 2005. Rob de Voogd put together a great team of old
and new staff, once again reviewing recent games. It was a sad occasion
though, as Live Publishing (the initial producers of Retro Gamer) went
bankrupt after that issue. Fortunately Retro Gamer survived with a new
publisher, and is now part of Future Publishing.
I finally got to meet
Roger and Oli in recent years. In 2011 I attended the Retro Replay
event in Blackpool, England. During the weekend I was the host of a
discussion panel on the history of Newsfield, interviewing Roger and
Oli about their work. And during the 2016 Pixels event, at the Centre
for Computing History in Cambridge, England, I was the host of C64 and
Amiga panels that Roger and Oli took part in alongside other
programmers, artists and musicians.
Over the past 15 years
Roger Kean and Oli Frey started to work with Chris Wilkins of Fusion
Retro Books. Roger brought his editing and design skills to several
history books, and there was a special art book celebrating The Fantasy
Art of Oliver Frey. That inspired Chris to suggest a yearly Annual for
Christmas. There have been three ZZAP Annuals and three CRASH Annuals
from 2018 to 2020, including former staff and dedicated new fans. Each
Annual has had a dedicated new cover created by Oli. Recent releases
and hardware for the C64 and ZX Spectrum have been reviewed and new
features written. I am really lucky to have been involved, writing new
reviews and articles under my old Professor Brian Strain alias. To be
part of the Annuals alongside Julian Rignall, Oli and Roger is special.
Oli's cover for
the 2019 Annual celebrated the new game Sam's Journey.
In 2020 Roger Kean
announced he is suffering from Motor Neurone Disease (also known as
ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease) and would be stepping down from working
on future annuals. This was while Chris Wilkins was negotiating with
Future Publishing for the rights to the names ZZAP and CRASH. The end
result is that both ZZAP and CRASH will be returning as quarterly A5
magazines, funded through Patreon. I look forward to being part of this
new era for ZZAP.
For more on ZZAP,
including scans of every issue and the special issue 107, check out the
brilliant Def Guide to ZZAP by Iain Black at: http://www.zzap64.co.uk
For more on the history
of ZZAP, I refer you to an excellent YouTube video from Perifractic's
Retro Recipes channel. (Perifractic himself is part of the 2020 Annual,
having been interviewed in the 2019 book about his LEGO C64). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMs8gCQb4ok
It has been a wild 2020 and I hope to
find
all the readers safe and
sound. I'm writing this a week before Christmas and a day before
the deadline. I've been busy with work and other stuff so getting
time to write something was lacking. But as my usual MO, I
suddenly remembered that Nintendo recently released the 35th
Anniversary edition of Super Mario Bros. as a Game & Watch handheld.
For the uninitiated, Game & Watch
was a series of hand held games made by Nintendo. The Game &
Watch series began in 1980 with the game Ball and the final game Mario
Juggler was released in 1991.
My experience with Game & Watches
(and other non Nintendo hand held games) began in my elementary to
middle school years. I attended school from Kindergarten to 8th
grade at two schools in San Francisco's Chinatown. I remember
walking around Chinatown after school with my mom and seeing various
games being displayed at various electronic stores around the area.
I probably bugged the heck out of my
mom through the years for various games. While I don't think i
got every game I wanted, I did end up with quite a few:
Parachute Donkey Kong (Dual Screen) Donkey Kong Jr. Mario Bros (Dual Screen - side ways) Donkey Kong 3 (double controllers -
much bigger than the single screen games)
While I remember each of the games
and how they looked, its been years since i played them. So I'll
skip any comments on game play. But I did remember spending a ton
of time on the games. Like regular arcade games, your goal wasn't
to beat the game, but just beat the high school as much as you can.
While the graphics and pseudo
"animation" on the Game & Watch games won't impress any of the
folks playing on the current generation of systems, it was still fun to
play for me at the time. While it would be cool to go back and
just play the games again, I think I might get bored.
Apparently Nintendo released some
official Game & Watch collections for the Nintendo Game Boy and DS
systems. While I never played the modern Nintendo hand held, it
might be worth exploring to see if I can get the Game & Watch
collections. The alternative is that Nintendo releases Game &
Watch collections for the Switch!
In any case, thanks for reading about
my walk down memory lane. See you next issue!
If
there is one arcade game developer that made nothing but obscure titles
it would have to be Bally Sente. Tracing its roots back to the
tiny ex-Atari employee founded Videa, which in turn was purchased by
Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell to become Sente Technologies, which in
turn was sold to Bally during Pizza Time Theater's bankruptcy in 1984,
Bally Sente never became a big player in the arcade industry.
Even though they are little more than a footnote in the history of
video games, the over twenty titles released during their short history
left a rather interesting legacy of lesser-known arcade games.
Stocker is one of their more widely distributed games, although when it
comes to Bally Sente that's not saying a whole lot.
Stocker is a
top-down driving game with the objective to drive from
Florida to California on a cross-country illegal road rally.
While the action plays out similar to the Sprint titles, each screen is
only one small area of a massive multi-state map with interconnected
roadways and shortcuts. Controls are a bit unique for a driving
game as there is no accelerator pedal in Stocker, in fact there are no
pedals at all. Speed is controlled with a two position gear shift
featuring low and high gear, which means the car is always under power
and cannot be brought to a complete stop by the player. The
steering wheel is free spinning and anyone who has spent time playing
Super Sprint or Pole Position will feel right at home with its quick
response. As there are no brakes, shifting between gears and
spinning the steering wheel to induce slides is often the best strategy
to thread the needle around tight obstacles.
From the time
your car speeds off from the starting point in Florida
its fuel gauge will begin to deplete. This functions as the
game's
timer and is the single biggest obstacle to completing a run to
California. Gas stations along the way will add fuel when driving
over the "GAS" icon in front of them but the further westward you
drive, the more sparse gas stations will become, and the amount of fuel
provided by them will decrease as well. This means that precision
driving is required to make what little fuel you have stretch out
between gas stations. While your car can drive over most terrain,
it will always travel fastest on the roads, which will also accumulate
the most points. There are multiple paths and shortcuts along
the route but often the best way to complete a state involves learning
how the individual screens are laid out in relation to one
another. As an example, in Texas there is an area where the road
follows along the top of the screen before snaking downward and to the
left. Instead of following the road down to the bottom, simply
driving left off the screen, then quickly up at the very corner of the
next screen, will cut these two long and windy sections with next to no
speed loss - saving a massive amount of fuel. There are a lot of
little tricks like this in Stocker and they reward the player who seeks
them out as they memorize a route, then build a strategy to optimize it
as much as possible. It really does add a lot of replay value to
a game that can end rather quickly and can feel extremely difficult at
first.
Setting off on the
journey (left), tearing out of a gas station and leaving tire tracks
(center) approaching the Alabama state line (right)
Two types of
traffic are encountered throughout the journey: regular
motorists and police cars. Motorists may be in cars, trucks, or
on motorcycles but they all behave the same and generally follow the
most standard route through each screen. Colliding with a
motorist doesn't result in an accident or loss of fuel as it would in
similar games. Instead the player and motorist will bounce off
one another and continue on, like something out of the Data East game
Bump 'n' Jump, rarely even losing any speed in the process. In
fact getting hit by a motorist is actually a strategy to quickly regain
speed after colliding with a roadside obstacle, building up momentum
from the bounce. Police cars don't behave in a manner that may be
expected, as they really don't pursue the player or other cars.
For the most part they're content to simply drive along the road like
normal traffic, even smashing into their own ranks and clearing the way
at roadblocks. Occasionally a police car may be sitting on the
roadside and will speed off to join the chase but even then they will
simply fall into the traffic line and otherwise ignore the
player. The difference between police cars and regular motorists
comes in the form of tickets, issued to the player for colliding with a
police car. This event will bring the player's car to a full and
complete stop for a couple seconds, eating up valuable fuel and wasting
precious time getting back up to speed. Beyond the loss of time,
by default the effect tickets have is to subtract 2000 points per
ticket from a possible 6000 point "safe driving" bonus at the end of
the game. However the game can be configured to issue a "game
over"
after three violations are issued, making an already difficult game
into a maddening exercise in frustration. No matter the way the
game may be set up, police cars should be avoided at all costs. I
can only imagine at how much harder things would be if they actually
zeroed in on the player.
Of the few
people I've encountered at arcade collector's shows that
remember Stocker, what they always seem to recall most is the
music. It may be nothing to write home about but the background
song and the audio cues when refueling are all built around automotive
advertising jingles. The opening bars of the background music are
undeniably the 1950's "See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet" jingle, which
went on to be a popular advertising song for over a decade. When
picking up gas, the 1960's Texaco jingle "You can trust your car to the
man who wears the star" plays briefly. Other than the music
there's some banging and
crunching when cars impact one another and the soft whine of police
sirens but for the most part game sounds are subdued by the
music. While the game is colorful and has some nice variation in
types of terrain and scenery, the visuals are quite simple and rather
plain. What I do really enjoy is how virtually every vehicle on
the road can make skid marks and tire tracks as they zip through each
screen. It's not random either, it always makes sense when and
where they are laid down. I can't think of another game from this
era where you can essentially draw on the grass with your tire tracks.
Running out of
gas just moments before pulling into the service station (left), a
strangely icy desert (center), sliding around a corner near the end
(right)
I actually
first played Stocker years ago when I reworked a Pole
Position upright cabinet to run the MAME arcade emulator. I
didn't want to add additional controls or buttons, so the hunt was on
to find games that worked with Pole Position's limited setup of a
steering wheel, accelerator pedal, and single shift switch. Pole
Position shifters only have a switch depressed when in high gear - the
game program is always in low gear unless given this input, which
greatly reduces the other driving games that can be played on this
configuration. Stocker fit the bill perfectly, as it too is
always in low gear unless the high gear switch is depressed.
Although Stocker didn't seem like anything special at first I found
myself playing it quite a bit, working out different strategies to
maximize my score and get through each state as quickly as
possible. In the end it became fairly addictive and one of my
favorite games on the cabinet. Playing the game on an actual
cabinet with the original controls many years later only furthered my
enjoyment of this overlooked title.
It also has to
be mentioned that Stocker's place in history has
been cemented by the 1986 Martin Scorsese film The Color of Money,
starring Paul Newman and Tom Cruise. A sequel to the 1961 film
The Hustler, Eddie Felson (Newman) offers to assist Vincent Lauria
(Cruise) in hustling players in nine-ball pool. At one point in
the film Vincent declines Eddie's offer as he is more interested in
playing Stocker, insisting that with the rise of technology his gaming
skill will be his doorway to the United States Military Academy at West
Point, even saying, "Ten years from now, a guy who scores heavy on
Stocker is a shoe-in at The Point." Stocker is actually directly
referenced by name a few times in the scene, with Eddie rather
ironically asking if Vincent could make a lot of money playing
Stocker. Well, I can tell you that my skills at Stocker have
brought me neither fortune nor a
military career, but have given me many enjoyable hours of flat out
driving from coast to coast. I recommend giving this one a try if
you aren't familiar with it.
Peter
Parker Picked a Pak of Near Perfect Pummeling
Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does
whatever a spider can, and for over 40 years he's done that on nearly
every console ever made. He's one of pop culture's most enduring icons
and since first appearing in Marvel Comics' Amazing Fantasy 15, he has
had such a long lasting streak of popularity that it would make almost
any other superhero jealous. While Peter Parker may live a tough
existence, juggling his personal life while battling a host of the
worst super powered villains New York has to offer, Spider-Man has
lived an absolutely charmed video game life. In the world of video
games he's a vastly underrated super star. Starring in over 40 games,
and making supporting appearances and cameos in tons more, Spidey has
had arguably the greatest video game career of any super hero. So
enduring is his popularity that a younger version of Spidey even helped
Sony launch the PlayStation 5 last November with a brand new game,
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
He's also got a very diverse resume.
He's traded punches with Ryu, rode a skateboard with Tony Hawk, and
dodged ninja attacks from Sega's Shinobi. In North America on the Super
Nintendo alone, he was featured as the headliner in four of his own
games and appeared in many more. But only one of those games featured a
plot adapted directly from a comic book story line, 1994's Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage
for the Super Nintendo. It's based on a fourteen part story which spun
a web across the various Spider-Man titles in the summer of 1993. The
game does a great job referencing the source material as the game's
plot closely follows that of the comics. In the story of the Maximum
Carnage comics, all hell breaks loose as serial killer Cletus Kasady,
also known as Carnage, breaks out of a prison for the criminally insane
and goes on a killing spree with some of Spider-Man's worst villains in
tow. To combat this chaos, Spider-Man teams up with Venom, one of his
fiercest adversaries, as well as many other members of the Marvel
Universe in order to stop the psycho symbiote and his posse.
Spidey swings into
action
against DemoGoblin (left), Venom smashes his way
through San Francisco (right)
If you know a lot about old school
licensed games, your Spidey-sense may start tingling for danger when
you see the logo for LJN flash onscreen. It's a logo associated with
some of the worst, most putrid cash-in licensed games of the 8 and 16
bit generations, games like Jaws, and the Back To The Future games. But
the general low quality of LJN's games is not entirely their fault
since LJN didn't actually develop their own games. They were primarily
a toy company and they only published the completed games. The real
fault lies in the mediocre developers that they hired on the cheap to
make the games, which were guaranteed to sell a good amount of copies
as long as a hot character was on the cover. This approach is the real
cause of the general crappiness of most of their games. For Maximum
Carnage they went with a British company for development duties,
Software Creations. They were familiar with the web head from their
earlier 1992 multi-platform game, Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's
Revenge.
Despite bearing the infamous LJN
logo, this one is most certainly not a disaster and is in fact very fun
and playable. Gameplay wise, Maximum Carnage is a side scrolling beat
'em up in the vein of Final Fight or The Simpsons arcade game. It's
also an attempt to function as a playable version of the comic books
and in this regard it mostly succeeds. Since the story of the comics is
mainly an excuse for colorful fight scenes of Marvel's best beating
each other down, this was the perfect direction to take the game. There
are lots of comic panels shown between the levels that act as cut
scenes and help keep you interested and engaged in the story between
punches. Many of the actual panels from the Maximum Carnage storyline
are colorfully recreated in pixelized form and are prime pieces of the
over the top 1990's superhero art that ruled comics at the time.
Captain America
offers his
shield for assistance (left), Spidey battles his
doppelganger (right)
Gameplay wise you'll start out as
Spider-Man, with the option to play as the giant blue baddie Venom
given later in the game. No matter who you play as, you have a lot of
moves at your disposal. You have a standard punch attack which will
give your thumb a serious workout through out the course of the
adventure. These hits land with a satisfying thumping noise and comic
book stylized words flashing on screen. There's a jump kick, a
backflip, a scissor kick, and web based moves to attack and tie enemies
up with. If you stand between two enemies and use your web line you can
even smash two enemies together, hurting them both. Since this is a
Spider-man game, you can also swing from web lines and climb buildings
in the background to find hidden items. You will also find super hero
icons that let you call in a screen clearing assist from many of
Marvel's most popular characters like Captain America, Black Cat, and
Morbius. An interesting move to master is the power hit, which is
awarded to the player after scoring consecutive hits without misses on
the enemies. Once activated, the power hit deals a ton of damage and
knocks out most common baddies. Also one of my favorite moves at your
disposal is an especially satisfying run slam move which is performed
by double tapping a direction to run and then pressing the Y button to
send a baddie flying across the screen. This wide variety of attacks
gives the player many options to keep the repetitive mashing feeling
fresh.
As far as graphics go this is a
pretty good looking game for the time period. Both Spider-Man and Venom
look really good and so do the other guest starring superheroes. Ditto
for Carnage, and his motley crew of baddies. The characters are well
designed and brought to life with smooth animations. Bogging down the
good graphics though are lots of pretty generic looking streetscapes
and alleyway backgrounds to fight in. Also there aren't too many
different types of basic goons to fight, so expect to fight a lot of
the same enemies in slightly differently colored clothing. There is a
little graphical diversity on display though in areas like a trip to
San Francisco with Venom, a fight against the Demogoblin in a neon
drenched Times Square, a nightclub brawl, and a trip to the Fantastic
Four's headquarters. These areas add a little variety to the otherwise
repetitively dark scenery of New York streets. On the audio side when
you fire up the game you're greeted by the sludgy rocking sounds of
1990's alternative group Green Jelly, with a digitized version of their
song "Carnage Rules." The rest of the music also has a sludgy
alternative rock feel which properly sets the mood for this adaptation
of an edgy Spidey comic.
Unfortunately there are some other
negative qualities of the game. The main one for me is the lack of
multiplayer. In a game featuring both Spider-Man and Venom and tons of
other Marvel characters, they should really have given the player a
chance to partner up with a buddy for some cooperative smashing. If you
only want to enjoy this game solo, that won't matter to you though.
It's also a little weird that you can't select Venom right away, but it
can be argued that this is in service of the story since Venom doesn't
join Spider-Man's side right away in the Maximum Carnage comics. This
choice does lead to slightly branching pathways and exclusive stages
for both characters. I also am not a fan of the decision not to include
a save or password system. Granted, the game is not incredibly long,
but if you run out of a limited amount of continues you'll have to
start all over at level one.
Firestar heats things
up (left), One of the recreated comic
panels (right)
But overall, I really do think Peter
Parker picked a pack of pretty proficient pummeling on this one, thanks
mainly to Software Creation's bang up job of adapting the Maximum
Carnage storyline. If you wind up playing and enjoying this game, I'd
recommend checking out their other spider success, a spiritual sequel
to this game: 1995's Separation Anxiety. The game also stars Spider-Man
and Venom as they battle Carnage and a host of other evil symbiotes and
does feature cooperative multiplayer. If you do decide to track down a
physical copy of Maximum Carnage, I'd recommend grabbing the Carnage
colored red cartridge that most copies of this game were printed on. It
may cost a little more than the plain gray cart versions, but it'll
look much cooler when you pop it in your SNES and on your shelf. Also
if you're a really serious collector, there was also an awesome
collector's edition of the game released in an oversized and extremely
stylish numbered box. But be prepared to shell out a lot of money for
that one. But either way you go, I'd highly recommend giving this one a
spin next time you're in the mood for a high quality retro Spidey beat
'em up.
Looking
Back at Five Years of The Retrogaming Times
As I announced
earlier, the Thirtieth Issue of The Retrogaming Times rounds out our
fifth full year since returning to publication in March of 2016.
While we hadn't planned anything special for this occasion, I thought I
should at least acknowledge this milestone. Admittedly I am a bit
of an "autopilot" editor, in that I try to step back as much as
possible and allow submissions to come in and set the tone of each
issue. Very rarely do I request a specific topic for an issue,
outside of the Holiday Gift Guide column that began in 2019. This
has been a double-edged sword in that it has allowed newsletter
business to remain flexible and easily fit into the rest of life but it
also means I don't put an emphasis on growing the newsletter or
aggressively expanding its reach. At the beginning of the
re-launch it was always my intention to preserve the newsletter as an
open platform for other retrogamers to present their experiences and
opinions on the hobby, which by definition would keep it small. I
always loved the old school fan site aesthetic and tradition of
Retrogaming Times, whether due to the era in which it began or by
design
of previous editors, and that is what I have tried to follow.
From the start
I didn't want to change much, opting for a slightly enhanced version of
the Scott Jacobi era of Retrogaming Times Monthly. Simple
formatting, clean presentation, unified text and graphics. My
goal was to have something that could easily be archived or printed,
allowing the content to live on for as long as possible. Part of
this archival push was a .PDF archive of the entire back catalog of
Retrogaming Times, Bit Age Times, Retrogaming Times Monthly, and The
Retrogaming Times - over 200 total issues - which was realized in
January 2018. I'm continuing to standardize some of the latter
issues of Retrogaming Times Monthly (issues 082 - 111) into the base
format, allowing our entire history to be easily enjoyed for decades to
come. The conversion of those last few RTM issues should be
completed sometime this year.
The biggest
change I've made to the makeup of the newsletter in my tenure is to
greatly expand the opening and closing columns. It seems every
editor has made these their own in different ways, right from the very
start, and it was my intention to follow suit and totally run with the
concept. Every editor has also titled these sections of the
newsletter in their own way, a bit of an unofficial tradition, and I
decided to use my history with and love of Pole Position for
mine. In addition to welcoming our readers to each issue, my
intention with "Prepare to Qualify" is to give a quick
summary of the
articles ahead and promote our always open reader submission model.
However the
closing column, "See You Next
Game," is truly my favorite thing to write every issue. Inspired
by Howard Phillips' closing letters at the end of the early issues of
Nintendo Power, I wanted to provide a consistent closing to each and
every issue where I could write directly to our readers.
Frequently a musing or idea brought on by a staff article in the issue,
occasionally a memory that I'd like to share, sometimes a question
asked to the readership, and often simply a retrogaming topic on my
mind that wouldn't warrant a full article. I see the closing of
every issue as an opportunity to reiterate who and what we are:
retrogamers who love video games and enjoy sharing our common interest
with others.
I do hope that
at the very least we've
have anchored our place in the greater legacy of Retrogaming Times
over these past five years. I believe we've always done good work
right from the start, and I truly feel humbled and privileged in the
opportunity to publish outstanding content submitted by our staff - all
walks of life, all interests and skill levels. Submissions remain
open and I invite our readers to send in an article and be part of our
tradition. I have no changes planned for 2021 and we have another
wonderful year of issues ahead of us - please continue to join us,
thank you.
When you were a gamer in the
1990's, you didn't just pick a console to buy, you picked a side in an
ever expanding battle for living room dominance. Gamers got caught in
the crossfire in the war between the two biggest game companies of the
day: Nintendo and Sega. You had to make a stand and decide if you were
a member of the aggressively edgy, cool and punk rock stylized team of
Sega fans. Or if you were a part of the Disney-esque Nintendo team that
made Mario, Zelda and the best games for the whole family to play. It
was a potentially life changing decision, and the ramifications of this
choice are illustrated perfectly in the new documentary film Console Wars that recently made it's
debut on the streaming platform CBS All Access. This loving tribute is
packed full of all new interviews with the people who started the war
that exponentially expanded the reach of the industry and helped birth
an entire generation of life long gamers and all the drama that went
along with it.
The start of the film takes us all
the way back to the start of video gaming. It starts at the beginning
of the medium with black and white footage from 1968 of Ralph Baer, who
is dubbed the Father of Video Games, showcasing the revolutionary game
Pong that helped start everything. From there, the opening credits
quickly feature the rise of video games through the Atari era and then
transitioning to Nintendo's rise to dominance with the North American
launch and immense popularity of the Nintendo Entertainment System
through a snappy montage. Through this sequence Console Wars quickly
establishes Nintendo with their 95% market share as the Goliath
dominating the industry and Sega as an incredibly small but scrappy
David style challenger.
Rather than focus on the leader
Nintendo, this film mostly takes place from the perspective of the
underdog challenger Sega. There's still plenty of attention paid to
Nintendo, but since an underdog story is always interesting, it mainly
focuses on Sega's efforts to break into the marketplace. The movie is
produced and directed by Jonah Tulis, and Blake J. Harris, the author
of the Console Wars book that the film is based on. The book was almost
entirely focused on Sega, but the movie does a better job of giving
Nintendo more attention. It also had a more conversational narrative
tone despite being based on true events. Be warned that if you are a
Nintendo fan who thinks they could do no wrong back in the day and
always played fairly, then get ready for Nintendo to not always be
depicted in the most pleasant light. For a good chunk of the movie,
they are depicted as the villains of the story. They are described by
some of the people interviewed in the movie as "arrogant and cocky"
while they were in their position of power as the number one gaming
company. Some of their business practices at the time are also
described as "monopolistic and wrong" by some of Sega's employees and
at one point they are compared to the communist nation of Russia. The
film does however give due credit to Nintendo for reviving the video
game industry following Atari's collapse amid the infamous ET video
game release disaster that plunged the games industry into chaos.
Former Nintendo Game
Master Howard
Phillips frequently appears throughout the movie.
After learning a little about
Nintendo's backstory, viewers are introduced to Tom Kalinske, the
mastermind behind Sega's rise to prominence in the gaming industry.
Kalinske was the former CEO of Mattel and helped bring Barbie and Hot
Wheels back to prominence and also launch the mega popular He-Man toy
line. Strangely enough he was tapped to lead Sega of America after
being stalked and recruited by a member of Sega while he was on a
vacation in Hawaii with his family. After hesitantly flying to Japan
and seeing some of Sega's upcoming products, he was convinced to help
lead the American branch of the company in their fight against Nintendo.
It was Tom Kalinske who had the idea
to take an aggressive approach and directly take on Nintendo by poking
fun of their family friendly approach to gaming by making them and
their games seem childish and boring. It was he who realized that the
industry had grown up a little bit. He figured if he could appeal to
teenage and older gamers, that it would make them appeal to their
younger siblings too. He also made the decision to lower the price of
the Genesis to get people to buy the console and perhaps most
importantly, it was he who decided the company needed to introduce a
mascot to rival Mario. This of course turned out to be the ultra iconic
blue blur himself: Sonic the Hedgehog.
The movie also showcases some of
Sega's other savvy guerrilla marketing techniques like targeting
college campuses and an extensive mall tour. It's hard to remember now,
but back then malls weren't just a place to shop. They were super cool
hangout spots where teens would routinely go after school and on the
weekends and meet up with friends and shop and eat and congregate for
hours on end. At this mall tour, Sega challenged players to compare
Nintendo's products side by side to their own and helped sway gamers to
their approach but putting demos of their games directly into potential
buyers hands. The movie also shows the unique way they were able to get
their products into Walmart stores with more shrewd marketing when they
opened an exclusively Sega video game store and demo location mere
minutes from the Walmart headquarters in Bentonville Arkansas. That got
the retail giant's attention and they agreed to give Sega shelf space
in their previously Nintendo dominated gaming section.
Tom Kalinske being
recruited to lead
Sega of America while on a family vacation to Hawaii.
The movie features snappy pixel art
style cartoon scenes created by Mindbomb Films to help illustrate and
liven up some of the stories told by the people who were there for the
battle. This is the same narrative technique used by Netflix's recent
video game documentary series High Score. But the animation found in
this movie is far superior to the one found in that show. The animation
from that show was relatively simplistic, but the scenes in Console
Wars are more complex, beautifully illustrated tributes to specific
games, genres, and to 8 and 16 bit style graphics. Similar to High
Score, these cut scenes also have a humorous undertone to add a much
needed touch of humor and irreverence to the stories. The comedic
sensibility of these animated scenes surely comes from famous funny man
and executive producer Seth Rogen.
Another one of the best things about
the movie is the treasure trove of vintage footage contained in Console
Wars, including some rare footage inside Sega of America and Nintendo's
headquarters. There's a ton of excellent archival footage here from
vintage newscasts to classic commercials that'll have you screaming the
word Sega all over again. The movie also features plenty of the always
hilarious and heartwarming vintage family Christmas video game
unwrapping videos. There are also some of the best and catchiest
licensed songs from the 80's and 90's included to help lighten up the
movie. The movie also features interviews with dozens of people from
the front lines of the gaming wars, but Mario and Nintendo mastermind,
Shigeru Miyamoto is strangely absent.
After the knock down drag out blows
in the media, the console wars got a little personal. The movie even
claims that Sega and Nintendo employees nearly had their own game of
Streets of Rage in real life. The employees apparently nearly came to
physical blows after an intense conference and because of the
escalating rivalry between the two companies. The movie also features
some of the testy footage from the senate hearing on violent video
games in the wake of the Mortal Kombat violence controversy showing
both Sega and Nintendo taking some fairly cheap swipes at one another.
This saga ended with Howard Lincoln writing a bizarre poem to Kalinske,
after he speculated that Nintendo started the violent game controversy
on purpose in order to make Sega look bad and lead to a lot more bad
blood between the two gaming companies.
Ellen Beth Van
Buskirk, Director Of
Communications for Sega of America, was a key player in the rise of
Sega.
The film does come to a sad ending
for Sega as Nintendo gets their groove back following the release of
Donkey Kong Country and the launch of the Nintendo 64. It shows Sega
utterly defeated after the botched launch and poor overall sales for
their Saturn console. This system crashed and burned with over priced,
under powered hardware and a baffling rush to the marketplace before
they had enough units for retailers. In perhaps the most appropriate
metaphor for Sega's downfall, the movie shows footage from the 1993
Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade when a massive Sonic balloon was popped
by a lamppost and fell limply to the ground.
It is towards the end of the movie
that the actual surprise winner of the 1990's console wars is
introduced with Sony's entrance into the ring with the first
PlayStation system. The movie positions this as a big mistake on Sega's
part after Sony initially had a deal to make hardware with Sega before
that deal fell apart. In an odd omission from the movie, Sony's similar
deal with Nintendo that also fell apart is strangely not mentioned in
the movie. This is an especially curious omission as that failed
partnership produced actual hardware that was famously unearthed and
sold recently. But regardless, after going out on their own, Sony had a
smash hit with the PlayStation console, selling over 100 million units,
far more than either the Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis and launching a
dominant console brand that continues to this very day with the 2020
release of the PlayStation 5.
A fighting game style
take on Tom
Kalinske and Nintendo's Peter Main near street fight after a testy
press conference.
No
matter how much you think you know about the battle between the big N
and the blue hedgehog's parent company, you're sure to learn something
new about their battle from the Console Wars movie. Even if you think
you know all there there is to know, it's a real joy to hear the story
from the people who lived to tell the tale. Although Netflix's High
Score also did an episode about the war between Nintendo and Sega, I
would recommend this as a more definitive version of the story. High
Score's console war episode was much shorter and much less in depth. It
also spent just as much time in the same episode about the creation of
the Madden series which is interesting but not incredibly relevant to
the overall story of the battle between Nintendo and Sega. For an
entertaining, educational and genuinely funny documentary, I suggest
you join in the Console Wars and check it out now, on the CBS All
Access streaming platform.
The NES-101 model of
the NES, sometimes called the NES 2, the top-loading model, or simply
the Top Loader, is a compact, top-loading redesign of the original
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) released by Nintendo in 1993. I had
been wanting a top loader NES for a while now. I see how gamers can
test and play their NES carts without issues or concerns of the front
loading model. Being a collector of NES games recently, I wanted a
reliable system that could play the NES carts I am collecting. There
are RetroDuo machines that can play them and portable ones as well, but
I wanted an authentic NES console. I finally found one recently at a
good price, with the "dogbone" controller. I personally do not
use that, I use the original NES controller, but it was nice to have to
display with it.
The new design
offered many improvements over the original Nintendo, most notably
eliminating the common problems such as flashing screens from dirty
connectors. After first glance, it was exactly what I wanted and
in good condition. I was excited to play a game and see if it
indeed doesn't crash or freeze up as the original usually did for me.
Then I saw one thing that was a bummer in my opinion, the connector to
the TV was only an RF cable, no an A/V option for this system.
There are also some vertical lines and color distortion in the picture
compared to the original NES. I am very surprised a console that came
out eight years later, with a NES original having AV hookups, that it
would only have an RF connection. So, for testing games it is perfect
for me, but for playing I prefer the original NES.
Then there is the
controller, or what is known as the "dogbone" controller due to its
shape. This was the first time I've really held the dogbone
controller in my hand for an extended period of time. I think it
comes down to the individual if you will like it or not. It looks
and feels similar to the Super Nintendo (SNES) controllers, but they
feel bulkier due to the rounded edges. The NES Top Loader can also
utilize the original NES controllers as the controller port is the same
configuration as the original NES.
Sure enough, there
are gamers out there who have "modded" there top loader to have A/V and
even HDMI hookups. Of course, there is a price and if you wan them to
do it, shipping costs. I have not decided to do that as of yet,
but eventually I think I may. There are kits that I can have mailed to
me, but the one thing I am not great at is modding and taking apart
consoles and putting them back together properly.
I would recommend
getting one if you are an NES collector or fanatic. I would try to find
one in the low $100 range, for the console and controller only.
Some higher priced models have the box and more controllers as well as
games with it. Don't get me wrong, I love the original NES and
the memories that come with it, but it is a difficult machine to keep
clean and running properly at all times. At the end of the day
the NES Top Loader isn't without its flaws to consider.
Every Friday on The Retrogaming Times
Facebook
page (facebook.com/theretrogamingtimes),
we present a Weekly Retrogaming Trivia question. This
just-for-fun
trivia challenge provided each week is an opportunity to test your
arcane
and oddball retrogaming knowledge. The answer to the question
from
the previous week is posted along with a new trivia question every
Friday!
Below is the recap of all
questions and
answers posted between this issue and the previous issue:
10/30/2020 - WEEK 187 Question: Johnny
Dash is the star of what spooky DOS game?
11/06/2020
- WEEK 188 Question: SkyRoads
was a remake of what earlier PC game from the same developer?
11/13/2020
- WEEK 189 Question: Club
Zero-Zero is the main conversation hub in what Super Nintendo action
game?
11/20/2020
- WEEK 190 Question: What
video game takes place in the dream world of Subcon?
11/27/2020
- WEEK 191 Question: Bentley
Bear is the star of what arcade game?
12/04/2020
- WEEK 192 Question: Metal
Slug X is an upgraded remake of what game?
12/11/2020
- WEEK 193 Question: Wearing
the Hammer Bros. suit in Super Mario Bros. 3 removes what standard
ability from Mario and Luigi?
12/18/2020
- WEEK 194 Question: "Action,"
"Danger," and "Reload" are all things that may be heard while playing
what arcade game series?
Monster Bash! is a
strangely gory game about a kid saving cats and dogs (left), advancing
the story at Club Zero-Zero in MechWarrior (right)
Answers: Week 187 Answer: Monster Bash!
(1993). Week 188 Answer: Kosmonaut,
created by Bluemoon Software. Week 189 Answer: MechWarrior. Week 190 Answer: Super Mario
Bros. 2. Week 191 Answer: Crystal
Castles (1983). Week 192 Answer: Metal Slug 2. Week 193 Answer: The ability to
slide, as the Hammer Bros. suit instead puts the player into a
defensive duck. Week 194 Answer: Time Crisis.
Bentley Bear scoops
up gems in Crystal Castles (left), being alerted to an object danger in
Time Crisis (right)
We
need your questions! If
you have a trivia question you would like to submit for possible
inclusion
in the Weekly Retrogaming Trivia question pool, e-mail it to trt@classicplastic.net!
If you question is selected to be featured, you will be entered in our
year-end prize drawing!
Thinking about
the battle between Nintendo and Sega for dominance of the North
American video game market in the 1990's always brings Hudson and NEC's
PC Engine to mind - probably better known to most of our readers as the
TurboGrafx-16. Surprisingly Sega was never able to carve out a
solid share of the home video game market in Japan, with the PC Engine
settling in right behind Nintendo's Famicom (NES) upon release.
Incredibly ahead of its time for when it was released in Japan, the PC
Engine would go on to be a spectacular success, also launching the
CD-ROM as a viable video game format with a later (and equally ahead of
its time) expansion. Unfortunately due to a continuous cycle of
delays and poor marketing decisions, the hardware lost its advantage by
the time it sputtered onto the American market, taking a seat on the
sidelines while Nintendo and Sega duked it out.
If Hudson and
NEC hadn't completely, totally, incredibly fumbled the
ball outside of Japan with the PC Engine (but don't worry, they later
did just that in Japan with its planned successor, the Super Grafx) the
modern day makeup of the industry would probably be very
different. Not to drift too far off into "what if" territory but
with a more successful and earlier western launch of the PC Engine, the
home gaming aspirations of Sega would have had even more obstacles to
overcome in the 1990's. I could have totally seen Sega and Hudson
merging at one point,
with a theoretical Sega-Hudson operating as both a home console and
arcade operations powerhouse - uniquely positioning them within the
industry as a whole. Ah, then again I suppose I'm still sore
with the reality of Konami letting Hudson die on the vine, only to
squeeze a few drops out of them every now and again.
Thank
you once
again for reading The Retrogaming
Times. We'll be back on March 1st with our next issue.
Be sure
to follow The
Retrogaming Times on Facebook and join our community for the latest
updates and information! Additionally The
Retrogaming Times Info Club on Twitter features up-to-the-moment
news
and notifications for all things The Retrogaming Times! I
sincerely
hope you enjoyed this issue and that you will return to read the next
issue
and possibly submit an article yourself. Remember, this
newsletter
can only exist with your help. Simply send your articles
directly
to me at trt@classicplastic.net or check out the submission guidelines
on the main page. Submit an article today and join a great
retrogaming
tradition!
