Cybergoth

Meanwhile I had a splendid time with another half a dozen Shattered Steel missions. They're pretty diverse, ranging from convoy protecting to convoy destroying, from base protecting to base destroying, from destroy all enemy forces to plain survival. Some mission requires two or more runs to figure out the precise mission goals and how to best achieve them. The hardest bit in some is to figure out when and where to destroy a certain kind of... hm... let's call them monster generators. You'll have to leave your base in order to destroy them, but all nearby enemies will wreck havoc while you're away from home... There's an interesting plot tying the missions together. It's branching out occasionally, leaving the player with two choices of approaching the next milestone. E.g. I'm currently supposed to take out a major base next and I have the choice between two plans, where one means a few hard battles, the other more but easier ones. Heavens, what only should I do tomorrow?

I'm kinda shocked to read through the Captivate news. The current Capcom seems to be nothing but a pale shadow of the Capcom of old. They must've suffered extremely hard from the Platinum brain-drain.

Ah, I remember reading about this one. From the video it looks like it should have control issues, no? It's from 1993, so considering my current progress I might feature it in the "Playing..." series approx. in 2014

Well, I guess they actually would work on XP as advertised. But on Win98SE they already crash midway during the installation I'm not dissing gog.com though. I assume it's a great service if you have XP or better and 3GHz or more. I just wish they'd additionally offer plain untinkered ISO images, as well as better manuals. The manual in my Shattered Steel box has at least thrice the content than the PDF that came with the download.

Sam & Max get delayed again and no replacement in sight, so I'm down to a Top 9 now...

There you go, a Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Trailer: =>

Hi there! Interplaying Shattered Steel (1996): When considering wether I should feature a game in "Interplaying", it is often enough for me to just read a review. This'll usually give me a very good idea what it's all about and if I might like it. For Shattered Steel reviews didn't help much though, since I've next to zero experience regarding mech games. So just for the fun of it, I've been trying the original 5 mission demo that was used back in the day to promote the game. And what can I say - it won me over! After the decision was made, getting the game running was quite an odyssey, since I decided to try the version from GOG, which was a big failure. I'll spare you the details, but it took almost two complete days, a second PC with WinXP, a CD burner, Daemon Tools, bin2iso and some more tools until I finally gave up. So if you have a PIII with 98SE don't even bother, just buy a copy of the original game - which I did in the end. Back to the game. Interplay defintely knew the secret of talent scouting, since after Blizzard they here published the work of Bioware, one of the biggest and best RPG Makers today. Their first seems to be highly polished and playable, with good graphics and audio. (It's kinda cool to be able to play such games with every graphics setting on maximum nowadays ) After a nice enough render intro I started straight into the game tonight (Since I already beat the demo, I thought it was safe to skip the training part ). I played through the first 5 missions already, which didn't differ too much from the ones in the demo. The story is still told with text only briefings, albeit some computer is reading them with digitized speech now. I was hoping for some more render sequences to drive the story, but maybe they're still to come The game plays a bit like a cross between an ego shooter and an X-Wing game. What seems to be a cool feature is that you can configure and equip your mech all on your own, with new material you'll get from completing missions. I'm looking forward to see some new mission tomorrow! Version Played: Original CD-ROM with 1.14 patch still available from Bioware. How to Run: It runs absolutely fine on my system. IP Status: Still owned by Interplay. Greetings, Manuel

Heya! I finally got my 500 points for Last Ninja 3 refunded, so I might get myself a copy of "Bubble Bobble" for WiiWare now

That's so far the best one of the current run

Uihjah! Is that the one with the moray eel? It scared the crap out of me when I was a kid

Hi there! Let's have a look at another C64 conversion of an obscure arcade one hit wonder: Did you ever hear of an Arcade games maker called "Cream"? Me neither. According to the KLOV, The Deep was the only game they ever made. Well, while it apparently wasn't good enough to keep the company going, it was at least considered good enough by U.S. Gold to aquire the license for homecomputer conversions. The C64 version at hands didn't impress me much. The graphics are functional at best and the whole audio experience is driven by approximately 3-4 different SFX. Regarding the gameplay, if you remember the old Sega game "Sub Scan", you already have a very good idea of how The Deep works - basically one could consider it a sidescrolling, graphically enhanced remake of Sub Scan. There's a bit more to it. Occasionally you can transform into a little sub, in order to pick up some treasure (I think). Then there's bigger middle and end (mother-)ships you have to fight against in each of the 5 levels, and a little minigame/bonus sequence inbetween them, obviously inspired by Missile Command. The later levels certainly ramp up the difficulty level. Overall it's not quite as boring as Sub Scan, but still far from a good game. And once again it's a game without an ending: After 5 levels it just loops back to the first Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another U.S. Gold game in the form of "Human Killing Machine", but first it'll continue with something else. Greetings, Manuel

If I counted right, SGNG got three nominations for Capcoms Retro Idol Experience so far, I hope that's good enough for it to even enter the show Thank heavens SNES9X doesn't emulate the slowdown either I always thought SGNG was the easiest of the Capcom made GNG games, as both Arcades and the NES one seemed to be much harder. The two from Sega are both easier, especially the one for the Master System is a joke. Of the modern ones, the PSP game was okay, albeit too much of a collect-a-thon, and I've never played the iPhone version.

Hi there! Ah, finally another Amiga shoot'em up! This one's from Martech, the makers of one of my favorite C64 games of all time: Mega Apocalypse. They never really managed to deliver yet another game as good as that though, so they slowly went out of business. I think Phantom Fighter was one of their last games. It is a mixed emotions experience. As you can see, the (animated!) background graphics are gorgeous for such an early Amiga game. The guy responsible for these superior drawings, Paul McLaughlin, would soon enough join Bullfrog afterwards. Pretty much everything else in the game is rather generic. The music sounds like a soundtracker demo loop, and the enemy ships appear in randomized order, flying a handful of predictable patterns. The game has five levels, 3 horizontal and 2 vertical, but they all play just the same. The endbosses are doing their job and the regular enemies are getting insanely trigger happy in the last two levels. I did manage to beat it nevertheless, but unfortunately I can't present an ending screen: After beating the final boss the game dropped me into the Hiscore list... Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another game with art from Paul McLaughlin in the form of "Treasure Trap", but first it'll continue with something else. Greetings, Manuel

Hi there! Considering the ongoing announcements of WiiWare titles based on Interplay classics, here's my unranked Top 10 wishlist of other Interplay classics I'd love to see coming to the Wii - preferably on disc certainly! Baldur's Gate Die by the Sword Fallout Freespace Icewind Dale MDK Messiah Planescape: Torment Sacrifice Shattered Steel Greetings, Manuel

=> http://www.vandal.net/foro/mensaje/549696/rumor-futuro-resident-evil-en-3-persona/ I don't understand anything from this spanish text, but it seems to mention Resident Evil and the Wii

Hi there! I just nominated SG'n'G for Capcoms Retro Idol Experience! Let's hope it'll even manage to enter the contest. Right now he needs more nominations, so if you have a capcom-unity account, please join me in this quest and add your support as well Arthur needs our support! ATTENTION: Don't hijack this thread for other Capcom Retro Idols, just open another thread if you must! Greetings, Manuel

Hi there! After Earthworm Jim, Clayfighter & Stonekeep Interplay just announced their 4th upcoming WiiWare title: Descent! => http://www.interplay.com/about/article.php?id=44 Greetings, Manuel

Another new rumor I've heard is about a possible Breath of Fire compilation.

Don't know about the states, but here in Europe Nintendo is the publisher of MHTri.

Yeah I noticed that as well. It got a 2.4 average from gamefaqs reviews, so I went with the Miggy version, not even looking at the Genny port I defintely wouldn't buy it

Hi there! Look at the size of those sprites! There you go, that was the main sales argument of the game when it came out Well, this was early in 1989, when slowly more and more original Amiga software was created. Sword of Sodan was part of that first wave, just like e.g. F/A 18 Interceptor or Populous. While the graphics were impressive and the audio respectable, the gameplay didn't follow suit. Clearly inspired by Arcade games like Ghosts'n'Goblins (it even has a level with Ghouls!), you're fighting your way once again from left to right through a good dozen stages. They are mostly rather short and easy or to quote my "Power Play" magazine, they almost take longer to load than to play There's a few tough spots, but you can usually pass them easily by saving the shield/smartbomb potions for those parts. The end battle was by far the hardest scene, but after a handful of tries the evil wizard was defeated: Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another huge-sprite platformer in the form of "The Plague", but first it'll continue with something else. Greetings, Manuel

Hi there! Anyone heard anything already? The two hottest rumours I'm aware of are possible DMC5 and MvC3 announcements. Greetings, Manuel

Hi there! Ah, I'll never get tired of playing Strip Poker games: Now this french production from Exxos is special in two ways. As you can see, instead of delivering yet another set of horribly digitized models, this one features handmade drawings, some of which could actually qualify as sexy The other difference from standard Strip Poker games is that Teenage Queen is playing with a very tough AI. Even when manipulating luck some through savestates, it took over 3 hours to fully undress Ms. Queen About the only thing one could complain about in this highly polished production is the audio. She's gotten only a very few sampled catch phrases and her "perdu" gets annoying fast. Come to think about, one could complain about the end as well. Thanks to some weird french humor, this is the first (and probably last) Strip Poker game where I can present the ending picture here Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another game from Exxos in the form of "Kult", but first it'll continue with something else. Greetings, Manuel

Funny HtTyD tidbit: I thought "Toothless kinda looks like a dragonized Stitch" during the whole movie, only to learn afterwards through my wife that the movie actually is from the directors of Lilo & Stitch I agree that there's nothing particular 3Dish in the flic, I assume they just went with the hype and 3Dified it afterwards like Clash of the Titans. IMO you can often see from the trailers when something was really created with 3D in mind. E.g. parts of the Alice in Wonderland or Resident Evil Trailers absolutely scream 3D, which is not the case for HtTyD or CotT.

This here is interesting. All broken images aside (I'm already used to that), is there a problem with the two youtube links as such: They should point to two different targets actually.