Retrogaming

Welcome to the Game Zero's Final Word review section. Here you can find reviews for a wide variety of console games--both new and old.

The first time I ever heard of the PC Engine was when a friend whose Chinese mate's uncle had imported one told me about it. Without having seen it, I just assumed it was some kind of Japanese computer for word processing's sake - not a console the size of a good sarnie, and certainly not one that ran cutting-edge games stored on credit cards. Any which way you sliced it, the PC Engine was something special. From five-player games and the eight-way d-pad sported by its controller to what was at the time easily the best console version of R-Type, NEC's machine was a little marvel. Shame, then, that hardly anybody in the UK had one (though, for some reason, everyone in France did).

A competent repackaging of a 1999 PlayStation compilation, with a lovely 50% extra thrown in (adding up to a total of 15 games, instead of the PSOne's 10), Classics charts the early years at Konami ranging from 1982's Scramble to 1987's Contra (or Gryzor). The package contains all the usual extras such as information on the games, pictures of the game board and scans of the control sheets to ensure you know how to play. As some of the games are vertical and others horizontal, it's possible to choose from various orientations and multiplayer options on some games which, from a single cartridge, is a nice feature. But with any retro collection, we're only really interested in two questions: Are the classic games we really want included, and do they still play well today? The answer (as always) is yes and no to both questions. Let's delve into the packet of Revels and see what delights we find...

17 games including Ogre Battle, Kirby Dream Land 3 and Smash Bros.

For many of you reading this site, the arcade may well be the primary reason you got into videogames in the first place. That's certainly how it was for me back in 1980 and '81 when the sights and sounds of Pac-Man, Galaxian and Donkey Kong were hard wired into my brain.

Break out the cake and bunting and then put them on ice, or something: Nintendo's Virtual Console is almost two years old. There are currently over 250 emulated retro games available in Europe, drawn from eight different gaming platforms and covering a span of two decades. It's a daunting tombola of choice, so here's our rundown - in no particular order - of the Virtual Console games that you really should download.

It's not a hard task to conjure up a list of great Commodore 64 games when you're faced with a software library that's reportedly around the 10,000 mark. Between late 1982 and 1993, an almost constant stream of software highlights kept interest in the machine alive long after its logical sell-by date, so it's hardly surprising that the nostalgia value surrounding its finest games still runs high.

The Essential Guide to Classic Games

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Welcome ghouls and goblins to a special feature of NES Player. Well, it is that time again. A short-lived period of realization that summer has long died and we are forcibly accepting the changes that follow. Fall has made itself feel comfortable in our lives until the coldness of late November sneaks up close behind on us. This is the time of year when we celebrate autumn by placing seasonal corn stalks, haystacks, and pumpkins in and outside of our homes in the season's tradition. Let's not dance around the subject, though. We all know that October is best known for one day and one day alone. A certain holiday that has evolved through the generations -- the event we refer to as all hollow's eve.

Released in 1977 by Atari shortly after its acquisition by Time-Warner (then Warner Communications), the Atari 2600 was only intended to be a stopgap for the company, not the industry giant that it eventually became.  However, its use of interchangable solid-state cartridges made it immensely popular with gamers tired of Pong clones, as well as early third party developers like Activision and Imagic.

Most people don't realize that I didn't get my start at the San Francisco Chronicle as the universally beloved pop culture critic that you know today. I was actually a Chronicle paperboy in the early-to-mid 1980s.

How many times have you clicked on a "World's Greatest Video Games" link only to discover that most of the games listed were released within the past few months? Or even worse, the list omits such important video gaming milestones like Pong, Asteroids, or Tempest 2000?

You know how many games were released for the various Sinclair formats over the years? We'll tell you - dozens. Maybe hundreds. Actually, thousands. Maybe a million. A lot. So choosing the fifty best from a list consisting of "a lot" of games is no easy task. That's why we asked you, the Retro Gamer massive, to do the legwork for us with your voting gloves. Vote you did, and the results are in. With Your Sinclair only bursting into fragrant life in 1986, review scores for older games have been taken from re-release or compilation reviews where available.

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The PC Engine Software Bible is a comprehensive listing of games for NEC's PC Engine console, released in 1987 in Japan, and two years later as the TurboGrafx-16 in America. On this site you will find reviews, screenshots, videos, music tracks and many more extras.

Know what to expect before you purchase a new Xbox game. We offer our unbiased opinions here.

Information guides include screen shots, a brief game review, box, manual, and overlay images, and content about Easter eggs and known ROM revisions. If you find new, contradictory, or other information you wish to share, please let me know!

The appeal may be lost on some people, but for many who grew up in the "golden age" of arcade games, owning a vintage video game arcade machine is the ultimate. These machines used to be everywhere in the early 80's: the mall, bowling alleys, the local 7-11, sub shops, and even many restaurants. Although I dropped my share of quarters into them, I also spent a lot of time watching other players. I always noticed and admired the machines' colorful marquees and distinct artwork.

One of the most popular sections in my video game newsletter, Retrogaming Times is the MAME Reviews.  Each month, I would choose two or more games and review them.  Over the years, I received alot of requests to review certain games.  Well, the newsletter has been around for a long time (nearing 30 issues at the time of writing this) and it is quite time consuming to go through all the issues to read the game reviews.  So, I decided to compile all of them here.  This way, you can easily read all of them, quickly and easily.  Plus, I hope to add some new reviews here of games that weren't originally reviewed in Retrogaming Times.  So enjoy the reviews and let me know what games you would like to see covered!