TABLELAND

Just finished uploading an article on Char's 100-in-1 GBA pirate onto tORP. 21% of the compilation was noteworthy for being pirates, hacks or homebrews. I haven't gone into a massive amount of detail this time around, because there's not much that can be said for graphic hacks and games I've already covered, but check it out sometime.

I am somewhat inspired to make a separate article on Sachen's "Pyramid" which appears in this compilation. As I said in the above page, the idea is good but the execution is lousy. However in this day and age I can't see why someone couldn't do a better job.

Virtua Hamster

X-Cult recently dumped the previously unreleased "Virtua Hamster" for the Sega 32X.

It's a very early tech demo with no real gameplay value. Your lifeless polygon hamster travels through linked tubes, occasionally passing a placeholder opponent or collecting "items".

There's not really much to be said about this one, but interesting nonetheless. Virtua Hamster was later cancelled, so it's unclear how much further development work was done before it was axed (though it did get a little bit further). But hey, 3D hamsters in tubes. Can't get that on Nintendo.

VELBT

Char sent me his recently dumped "100-in-1" Game Boy Advance pirate. As I'm not usually the first or second person to have a go at a game, I thought I'd post about it.

I mean it's nothing amazingly special, just PocketNES with a bunch of ROMs. But there's a few hacks, a couple of homebrew games and the odd pirate original included (bonus points if you can guess which ones). Gives me an excuse to review a lot of quick sprite edits on one go, so expect a tORP page soonish. One day I'll also get around to finishing that page on Hummer Team's Tiny Toon Adventures pirate (there's a lot to talk about there).

In other news, the Taxman, known for his Retro Sonic engine (Retro Sonic XG, Sonic Nexus) is developing a Sonic CD port to the iphone. It's been pitched to Sega after a "what iphone games do you want" blog post, who have promised to bring it up in one of their board meetings. A Sonic fangame adopted by Sega? Might be more likely than you think.

SAGE 2009

It's currently the 14th Sonic Ameteur Games Expo! Though I work at a Super Mario fangaming website, I often find myself drifting towards the hedgehog end because at the end of the day, I am a veteran Sega fan. You see, Nintendo are still hanging about producing games in the same vein as they were a decade or two ago (see: new Super Mario Bros Wii). But Sega? Sega stopped making Sonic games as I knew them in the late 90s, and though they've had a few hits with the Adventure series and the handheld titles, it's still not quite the Sonic I remember. SAGE often is.

I have more faith in the fangaming scene when it comes to producing quality Sonic games. Now granted, there's always some awful titles and many games are never finished, but SAGE is always a good place to go if you want to see some of the best games the fangaming scene has to offer. There's no Retro Sonic XG or Sonic Nexus this year, but there are others, such as...


Sonic Robo Blast 2 (again)

I find it difficult to believe a fangame can spend more than a decade in development and still not be finished, but then again when Sonic Robo Blast 2 started, there wasn't really much of a fangaming scene at all. SSNTails and the SRB2 gang have given us the first demo in three years dubbed the "marriage edition" (because SSNTails is so old he's getting married!), adding in a couple of new levels and fixing all sorts of problems. Aside from that 80MB download, this is probably the "biggest" SAGE release this year now.

Sonic: Time Twisted

I played this last year (or the year before) at SAGE and back then I would have classed it as "average" at best. This year, it's vastly improved and is actually worth mentioning. Don't really know what's going on with the whole "time travelling" thing - there's a lot of it and it doesn't really seem to serve any purpose yet except to get in the way, but nevertheless, another great demo. It's not a perfect match for my slow PC however (but it's a similar situation with all Game Maker games).

Sonic Zero Remastered

Another good game, though the fact it's using the Sonic Worlds engine probably gives that impression straight away. With only one level, there's not much to comment on, but it's still helping to fill that gap Sega left us, and it looks nice.

Sonic: Project Mettrix

Stealth seems to have his E02 engine up on display every SAGE nowadays, and with that comes Project Mettrix, the Sonic fangame that demonstrates the engine. Mettrix is about as close as you can come to having a perfect Sonic 3 & Knuckles engine, and it's always nice to see Shining Island Zone once more. The new level this year, Bronze Lake, does look a bit out of place though. Mettrix isn't exactly an artist's wet dream but this one doesn't really fit with the character sprites at all. If you don't care about graphics though, you'll have yourself a great game here, and let's not forget that not all great programmers are great artists.

Sonic Gemini

A co-operative platformer where you switch between Sonic and Metal Sonic. At a grand total of 13 frames per second, I can't really comment on this one much either, but it has the potential to be something special. It might lag a bit, but it's still nice to look at.

and there's a dozen more but I'm aware these blog posts take up quite a bit of room on the front page without condensed versions.

So check these games out sometime, especially if you're one of the many thousands of people longing for a return to the classic Sonic experience.

Space Chase

Here's a game from years gone by - Jason Storm in: Space Chase, deveolped by Safari Software and published by Epic MegaGames in 1993 for DOS computers.

Space Chase is one of the many DOS "classics" I had the fortune to grow up with. It's a lightweight 16 colour sidescrolling platformer in the vein of the original Duke Nukum and the Commander Keen series, except unlike those, nobody remembers it. It didn't get any sequels and Safari Software went on to produce better things like Traffic Department 2192 and Highway Hunter (before being bought out by Epic)

Time and time again I've revisted Space Chase and its many episodes. When I first played it, having installed it from it's brand new floppy disk, I could safely say it was an "okay" game, (bare in mind of course this was the mid-90s and I didn't know much better). Now in the grand year of 2009 having played both the best games and worst games ever created... it's still an "okay" game.

Space Chase has numerous flaws, many of which I'm only starting to fully understand today. The graphics aren't brilliant, the gameplay is very basic and sometimes broken, the music is awful and the sound effects are pumped out of the built in PC Speaker (and in the case of DOSBox - pumped out of the emulated PC Speaker which in many cases sounds worse).

Yet, it's not a terrible game. Sure some parts will melt your brain but there's still something appealing about walking around in very ridgid 16 colour worlds picking up lots of items. I'm compelled to like it despite its flaws, and since we've known each other for so long it's difficult to lecture it this far down the line. But then again, that MIDI music is terrible and is now haunting me like many awful yet catchy tunes in the past.

What's the point of this post? Dunno, but it's Space Chase - it doesn't really get any publicity at all, ever.

A Quest for Freedom

Look what I've found, it's the hard-to-find religious game Onesimus: A Quest for Freedom known for using the engine and graphics from Jill of the Jungle. I'd played about two minutes of this thing a decade ago and had to download it from a Spanish website just to have a second try. Needless to say it's not a very common game.

But alas like most religious games the end result was sub-par. Why? Because there's only about four or five levels not stolen from the Jill of the Jungle games, and the original levels are dull. It also loves to throw in unavoidable quotes from the book of Philemon that have little relation to the game at all aside from the title. And would there really be an ICE CASTLE in the time of the new testament? There's also a few sprite changes, probably because the devils/demons probably weren't appropriate, so what better than flying topless men? Oh and don't expect transformations or anything interesting like that.

I think the most embarrassing thing is the ending, in which you go to "Paul's house" who effectively says "believe in god". What a waste of a journey - the apples have been saying that since level one. But at least I can now say for certain now that there is no reason to play this game if you've got Jill's adventures.

It's a good nostalgia trip though I suppose.

Shooting down 48 UFOs

Before Nintendo had any sort of foothold in the video games market, they, like so many others, produced Arcade games. After Taito released Space Invaders in 1978, every video game company on the planet decided it would be fun to... uh... make more Space Invaders, and Nintendo swiftly followed.

Nintendo's first attempt was actually a game called Space Fever, though it never made it outside of Japan. Basically... it's just Space Invaders but with three different options that change the course of the invaders. Oh and there's some colour. Needless to say it was outclassed by Taito's machines, which were all over the globe, but hey, it's close.

Then came Space Firebird (which I'm not picturing because the pixel ratio is nuts) a galaxian/galaga clone which added bombs into the mix and for some reason felt it would be nice to have the player move in an arc, rather than a staight line. Again... not much success here, though it is worth noting that this game was published by Sega-Gremlin (yes, THAT Sega). Gremlin died during the video game crash of 1983, in case you're wondering.

And finally Radar Scope came along. Though it looks a bit like a "tilted" Galaxian, it's actually a very different game. Bare in mind that in 1979 there wasn't much you could do with a Space Shooter without spending too much money, Radar Scope gives the bottom of the screen some health and you're tasked with the job of protecting it. Plus, despite that "tilted" look being a bit dated in this day and age, it too was pretty impressive for the era. Remember, this was all before Donkey Kong and Pac-Man or DigDug or whatever

Unfortunately by the time it reached western shores, people had simply stopped caring about the game, and Nintendo of America were forced to convert 2000 of the machines into Donkey Kong ones (apparently if your DK Arcade machine is red, it used to be a Radar Scope one). But the sad thing is, despite Nintendo's commitment to dig up the past at every given opportunity, they've clearly lost the hole they buried Radar Scope in, because it hasn't been seen, referenced or duplicated since. It didn't even get a port to the NES, even though the less advanced Galaxian managed with no problems at all. Even other games such as Gorf or Phoenix, which I would have cited as being more obscure, have had ports. Exerion, as I mentioned below, nearly got TWO ports to the NES and that arguably aged worse than Radar Scope, which still doesn't look too bad today, and was actually made by Nintendo. Crazy.

So yeah, Radar Scope. Give it a try sometime.

Nintendo World Championships 1990

One of the fabled gold Nintendo World Championships 1990 NES carts popped up not too long ago and sold for a whopping £10800, making it probably the most expensive complete NES game of all time. Why so much? Well, only 26 carts of its type exist in the whole world, (though there's a further 90 boring old "grey" carts) and only 12 of those 26 carts have ever surfaced. Since obviously these things are no longer being produced in any format, demand is very high.

Originally these carts were used in a timed contest, with some fancy DIP switches on the side to adjust the time (the default being 6 minutes 21 seconds... don't ask me why). They were released in small quantities as competitions via Nintendo Power and other events, and are now deemed "the rarest of the rare" as far as video games go (if you discount Nintendo's PowerFest '94 event in which only one sole SNES cart survived and went for thirty times that amount)

But what's a NWC game look like? Well... a bit like this

Yes that's right, some kind soul did dump one of the 116 NWC carts a few years ago. But is it honestly worth £10k? No. Well, not from a gaming perspective anyway. You could probably obtain a large amount of the NES's game catelog for that price, but if you do feel the need to invest... probably wise to hang onto the game once you've received it, because every time one pops up on ebay it sells for more than its predecessor.

So the contest was simply to "get points", but in order to do so you need to play Nintendo games. After the time is up, the points are totalled and... that'll be your overall score. There's not much use for these carts unless you're competing with someone, as you'll see, but with scheduled events such as these you have to admire Nintendo's efforts in the late 80s/early 90s. Shame they didn't continue that outside of America and Japan. "World" Championships this isn't.

First up, Super Mario Bros. Yes, a third of your money would be going into purchasing one of the most common NES games on the planet, and it's a gimped version at that, obviously lacking the two player mode and giving you 99 lives. Your task? Get 50 coins, making it the most time consuming of the three titles. As soon as you get 50 coins you'll move on, but if you don't bother, I'm assuming you can probably beat the entire game as per normal, as long as you do it within the time limit (which by the way, is never shown on screen so you better make sure you have a stopwatch if you're wanting to be strategic).

Second, Rad Racer, a game by Squaresoft from the days where they weren't afraid to make games outside the RPG genre. Simple stuff this time around - finish the track. Personally, I don't see what's so "Rad" about Rad Racer. Sure it might have been "rad" for the hardware, but it was originally released in 1987, a year after the the hugely successful OutRun, and by the time 1990 had rolled along, there were plenty of better racing alternatives. There's been some minor changes to reflect the NWC, and some modes have once again been dropped.

And finally, a forced game of Tetris's A-type mode from the gimped Nintendo version. This game goes on forever, and is just an extra way to score points. As usual, we'd have been much better of with Tengen's offering, but to give them credit, at least they had the sense to assign the rotate commands to buttons this time around. I would expect that normal kids probably wouldn't have been able to get up to this round (or at least stay here long enough to get some lines). Might have been better to have split those six minutes into three equally timed sections in which players have to score as much points as possible.

And that's it. So if you're interested do note that you're paying ten grand for what is essentially some gold coloured plastic. But to give them credit, the concept of 26 golden NES carts scattered across the world is quite fun... it's just a shame that the internals of those carts are worth nothing.

Moonwalker

If you somehow haven't heard Michael Jackson passed away. A tragedy to say the least, but I suppose what's also a tragedy is the fate of his video games - whereas his music will live on through the ages, chances are games such as Moonwalker, Space Channel 5 (with the MJ cameo), Ready to Rumble etc. will never see a re-release with the celebrity in them. Aside from the fact that obtaining the rights will be damned-near impossible, chances are Sega won't be jumping on the idea of having a dead man as the main character, even though they are pretty cool games, even by today's standards.

So how about the Arcade version of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, a game that few people seem to remember, and is often overshadowed by the very different home console versions? It's an isometric beat 'em up, developed by Sega, in which you're Michael Jackson saving children from... some guy. It's based of that scene/music video in the movie of the same name, probably because it was the only decent section of the film, but as the film made no sense, neither does the game. But it has Michael Jackson in it!

In fact, as it's actually a 3-player game, it means you can also have two other Jackson clones walking about killing people too, so it's three times the Michael Jackson-ness. And if you find your chimp, Bubbles, you transform into a giant robot. It's very much like the home console ports, except that it's more linear, shorter and not quite as deep. In the MegaDrive/Master System game, MJ had a decent variety of moves, but was let down by the fact you spend most of the game opening doors and going around in circles. With the Arcade, you're on the move much more often, though since you've only really got one form of attack, that may not be a good thing (though at least it can be "charged up"). Thankfully the enemies are rather stupid, but there's a lot of them, and they've got guns while you haven't.

You can perform a special move, just like in the home console versions, which will make everyone on screen dance before exploding. The problem is, it's not quite as randomised as the home console version. For a singer/dancer, there's not a lot of singing or dancing, or that much of MJ's music (despite the graveyard level there's no sign of Thriller). Because it's on Arcade hardware it's a lot more pleasing on the eye and ears, and you're often faced fighting different enemies rather than the same guys in suits (such as dogs and robots, who will also dance).

It's a very basic beat 'em up, and it could still be considered a bit repetitive, though the same could be said for many games of the same genre. I didn't find myself getting bored with this one, but then again, it is incredibly short. And difficult if you're not armed with credits. However, since the arcade machine is reasonably rare (I mean those 90s scandals didn't really help) and probably going for a high price now, the only way to play it is on an emulator such as MAME, where credits aren't a problem.

But it's not a bad game, it's just short, and a bit unforgiving. It's a concept that needed expanding upon a bit more. It looks as if it should be a fantastic game but it falls far short from its goal. But it's not bad and is worth a look for the novelty value if nothing else. Again, it triumphs over the MegaDrive game in many places, and is arguably more playable than a lot of arcade games that Sega and others insisted on bringing to the home, it's just ruined by the fact that it's so short and basic. Worth a look though.

I one you a favour

Still other things to be done but for now, Final Fight 3 on the NES. Yet another Hummer Team NES port which actually holds up pretty well... as long as you don't mind a bit of sprite flickering and some typos. Not as good as the real thing, which in turn isn't as good as Streets of Rage, even if Haggar is one of the best mayors ever.

You sure can get a lot done when you're not spending hours on end monitoring MFGG.

Exerion 2

Exerion 2, the unreleased NES sequel to Jaleco's 1983 Arcade game got itself a dump the other day. Unfortunately it was polluted with NintendoAGE watermarks, so this is X-CulT's version that took some of them out. As you can see it's not a perfect fix, unless you want to believe Jaleco produced this game this year, but it's here, and is playable.

What's the difference between this and its prequel? Not a lot. It changes a few graphics and alters the duel shot a bit, but aside from that its generally the same game with some very minor improvements. My problem with Exerion is just how badly the NES version has aged. Exerion's selling point, the "parallax backgrounds" look hideous by today's standards, and those backgrounds were the only thing stopping the game from being classified as a generic shoot-em up. Sure they were early games, but the NES could have been pushed to give us better than solid green grass. By the time Exerion 2 would have been released it would have been in direct competition with Konami's first Gradius game, and that's not a battle that even the Arcade version had much chance of winning. On the plus side though, at least the first game looks good on the SG-1000.

This isn't much of a sequel so it's somewhat obvious why it was scrapped, but nevertheless interesting to see it had a sibling at some point, and who can say "no" to an unreleased title?

Expect the unexpected

because Tiny Toon Adventures (6) is about to start.

For ages I thought this was just another hack of Konami's Tiny Toon Adventures NES game. Turns out it's a completely original title, and for a pirate, isn't too bad. It needs a bit of a polish but compared to some of ths stuff I've played, this is a god.

In other news I re-wrote the article on Harry Potter's NES adventure and found some chickens. Like many early tORP pages it was hideously out of date and didn't really explain a lot. Now it does.

Squiggly's Extras

I set up The Obscure Ripping Project back in late 2007. It should probably be called "The Obscure Research Project" now since the focus has shifted quite a bit over time, but there are a few notable games that probably won't get massive articles, or if they do, it won't be for a while. Here's a few of them, to show you what I haven't forgotten.

First, "Mortal Combat 5" on the Sega MegaDrive:

GamesMonkey sent me this terrible excuse for a game months ago, and though I've tried having a decent stab at it, it just can't be tamed. MC5 is a pirate attempt to bring Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero to the MegaDrive, but the result is quite possibly the worst MegaDrive game ever spawned. Love kicking Kano recolours in the shins? This is the game for you. Without savestates there is no way you could play this game without enduring massive amounts of trial and error, and you will often find yourself fighting enemies that not only refuse to die, clearly cheat and all look the same. It has got some of the worst typos I've ever seen in a video game and is a horrible experience from beginning to end.

Next, "Pokémon Red" on the NES

I covered Pokémon Gold a while back but that was before I started reviewing past the first five minutes of play. Truth is, Pokémon takes a long time to finish, even with guides, and as these both cut all the non-essentials and are in Chinese, it's a challenge to review these two properly, especially if you were going to into any sort of detail. Also you can only give them a go in small doses before you feel the need to rip out your PC's speakers.

"Super Mario Bros. 3 Special" for the Game Boy Colour

Actually truth is there's no reason why I can't cover this one, it's just that there's not a lot to cover. It's a gimped, broken Mario platformer that's not "special" in the slightest. It's just not very interesting and there's not much to learn from it.

"Toy Story", "Tom & Jerry 3" and "Aladdin II" for the NES

I've grouped these three together because they're all practically unplayable generic pirate games with no redeeming qualities. Toy Story is a broken platformer where all Woody's friends are out to kill him and Tom & Jerry 3 is just stupid (though it's worth noting that Tom is a chain smoker). As for Aladdin II, it's much like Aladdin 3 except that it tries to give the NES Virgin's Aladdin game instead of Capcom's. Problems with that are a) the NES already got Virgin's game officially (though it's not the best port ever) and b) Aladdin II has some of the worst graphics and gameplay I've ever encountered within a NES ROM. There was a reason this system was being phased out by 1993 people!

"King of Fighters 96/97/98/99" for the NES

Another common pirate fighting game that had numerous revisions. There's also a couple of Samurai Shodown games that use the same engine. It'll be worth checking out at some point, but having already messed with those Mortal Kombat pirates recently, it's safe to say I'm a little tired of fighting games for the NES. One day though. One day it'll be done.

Besides, I do like to talk about games that aren't pirates every once in a while. There's plenty of obscure games that weren't made by people living in run-down garages in gloomy alleyways. Though I suppose I'm starting to cover those in this blog instead. Not much to research when these games's histories are widely known.

You ain't never had a friend never had a friend

Time to meet Somari's good friend Aladdin 3, also known as "Aladdin 4", "Aladdin" and "Popeye II: Travels in Persia".

Yes the NES gets yet another SNES game. This time it's Capcom's version of Aladdin, ported by pirates in an attempt to make a quick buck. There's actually quite a few NES Aladdin pirates - I guess the official game (based off the MegaDrive version I might add) wasn't good enough, so they had to make a few rubbish Aladdin games to make it stand out a bit more.

However saying that, this one isn't too bad. I mean the SNES game was a bit generic compared to Virgin's legend of a game, but with a quick fix up this could be alright. Of course then again, if it's taken fourteen years for someone to cover this pirate in depth I can't imagine the game being torn apart any time soon.

The real question is what possessed these people to stick Popeye in there?

EDIT: It appears that I am dense, having taken a screenshot of the elusive Hummer Team logo yet failing to talk about it. So I've updated the article, made another "shocking" discovery, and are now anxiously awaiting the arrival of "Aladdin III Special" or a similar name. Thanks again to KingPepe for the tip, and "Anonymous". See, they don't all go out attacking churches of scientology after all.

Toasty

Well, here you go.

I've been slaving over this garbage for the best part of this week. Thirteen Mortal Kombat NES pirates, all covered in one place.

The original task I set myself was to find out who made Kart Fighter but my results were inconclusive. There's just not enough evidence to say "Hummer Team made it" and call it a day, regardless of what you may have been told.

Remember kids; the Nintendo Entertainment System and the fighting genre don't mix!

Pirate Hunt

What can I say, I was in the mood for some pirate research. Big pirates that have been around for years include "Somari", "Kart Fighter" and "Super Mario World (NES)", but their origins are still somewhat in the dark. I traced Super Mario World's origins a while back and found that it was the lovechild of a group known only as "Hummer Team". Since then, word got out about the little Hummer Team logo and many other games have since been matched up with authors.

But that's only one third of the great pirate mysteries. For some reason "Somari Team" isn't widely accepted as a group name, and there's been links between Somari and its siblings to Aladdin ports to the NES. That mystery is still unsolved.

But we're incredibly close to finding the truth about Kart Fighter. Its graphics have been matched (almost) with sections of Super Mario World NES. Its engine (dubbed by myself as "the Kart Fighter Engine") has been used in TEN Mortal Kombat clones, some by Hummer Team, it's also been matched to beat-em-ups by Hummer Team, and... Tekken 2... also by Hummer Team. Whoever that team are, they sure liked Kart Fighter's engine, but sadly, there's still not much to say where Kart Fighter came from, because though some of these Mortal Kombat games have Hummer Team's mark, some have other peoples' marks.

Furthermore World Heroes 2's engine has been spotted in the form of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat clones. It just goes to show that these fighting engines were widely distributed in the 90s.

Either way I just thought I'd mention it because coming soon will be a MASSIVE tORP page comparing THIRTEEN Mortal Kombat clones. All we need is some romantic music and we can make a night of it.

Ken's Labyrinth

The first person shooter is still a relatively new genre. Unlike most others, older consoles and computers simply could not handle them, so even though arguably early FPS games are a graphical mess with all that pixelation, they stood out from the crowd just due to the fact they were first person shooters, and nobody had really seen one before.

During the early 90s there was no doubt that id Software ruled the roost. They had brought us Wolfenstein 3D, were about to revolutionise the genre again with the massively successful Doom, and would later produce another top FPS Quake.

But id had rivals. Rivals that wanted a slice of the FPS pie for themselves. Rivals such as Epic MegaGames, who were taking the PC games market by storm. Epic would later have some major success with the Unreal franchise, but it did dab in some FPS titles before then. And so, enter Ken's Labyrinth.


Having seen the success that was Wolfenstein 3D, Epic probably wanted a chance to better it. Ken Silverman, who later went to go work for Apogee and create the build engine (used in games such as Duke Nukem 3D) gave them a game he coded almost entirely from scratch - Ken's Labyrinth.

Ken's Labyrinth was the first FPS game I ever played. It would have been '96-ish when I got my hands on it, and amazingly it ran perfectly on our old underpowered DOS computer. Sure it didn't have soundblaster, but Epic made sure we weren't left without sound and had the entire game's musical score blurt out the built in PC speaker instead. So it's possibly the first game I had where music played from beginning to end.

If we take this as our FPS timeline

Wolf 3D -> Ken's Labyrinth -> Doom -> Duke 3D -> Quake -> Unreal -> etc.

you can see where the Labyrinth fits in. It's technically more impressive than Wolfenstein 3D, but not by much. The graphics are slightly better in places and it was the first FPS game to allow you to interact with scenery (aside from Wolf 3D's "moving blocks"), though truth be told it's a very boring game in comparison to id's gem. A kid's version perhaps. It has the same "untextured ceilings and floors" and sprites are always the same no matter which direction you view them from. Also even today, fourteen years after release DOSBox struggles to have both music and sound effects running at the same time. It boasts more enemies than Wolf 3D too, but since the enemies have less animation it's really up to you to decide which is better in that area.

The game is split into three episodes, as was the style at the time. The second is notable for having the rather annoying dog "Sparky" follow you about getting in the way. It would be a long time until friendly NPCs would be following you in FPS games again. Thank god most of them have more brains than this thing who either gets in your way or gets lost.

But despite this Ken's Labyrinth is a challenging title. Having played Wolfenstein 3D since, I can't possibly recommend this over that, but again, another childhood defining game here. Plus, it's freeware nowadays so you can't really go wrong. That first level's theme has been lodged in my brain for a decade and a bit, perhaps it can find another home in yours too. Plus, you get to fight Ken Silverman which predates all that "shoot the head of John Romero" stuff in Doom II.

Now you don't need a Game Gear 2

Sonic Drift 2 just got ported to the Sega Master System. Well okay, I say "just" but it was actually released three days ago.

It's even buggier than Triple Trouble SMS, but again, you can play it. Sadly Sonic Drift 2 hasn't really aged well - it betters its predecessor but aside from Sonic in a car, it's nothing special... and Sonic in a car isn't very special either since he's been in one before, and is due to be in one again.

Nevertheless you can't help but be fascinated by all of this. The Sega Master system getting new games fifteen years after it came off the market. Sure neither of the two Sonic games that have been released this fortnight were stunningly amazing games to begin with, but good lord there's worse out there for that system.

Now you don't need a Game Gear

Good news everyone

It may have taken fifteen years but Sonic Triple Trouble (or Sonic & Tails 2 for you Japanese gamers) has been ported to the Sega Master System. No longer must we live under Game Gear conditions.

Boasting a larger screen size, Triple Trouble is now a lot less cramped and can join its siblings on hardware that doesn't eat batteries for a living. It takes a bit of a hit on the graphics because the Master System has 4000 less colours to chose from, and because it's the first release of a fan-made hack, it's not exactly glitch free, but nevertheless it's quite an accomplishment. Kudos to the folks at Sonic Retro!

Michael Jordan in: Chaos in the Windy City

Following the trend of basketball stars in video games, here's another underrated Super Nintendo classic of days gone by:

Michael Jordan in: Chaos in the Windy City. Like Shaq Fu people dismissed this game from the get go because it was a platforming game featuring Micheal Jordan. As such, the game has been buried and forgotten about, which to be honest, must be some sort of crime. Though then again digging up a grave probably is as well.

Released for the Super Nintendo in 1994 by Electronic Arts, Micheal Jordan is set up with the task of saving all his team-mates so that an all star charity basketball game can continue (just like Shaq Fu!). In order to do this he must overcome the evil scientist "Maximus Cranium" who wants a perfect basketball team for some reason. Because this is clearly more important than curing cancer or whatever.

When I see basketball players in derelict buildings surrounded by floating eyes and zombies, I can't help but think of Scooby Doo's friends the Harlem Globetrotters. The concept of those guys helping to solve mysteries is a bit strange, but that didn't stop Hannah Barbera making several Scooby Doo specials devoted to them. In CitWC, Michael Jordan fits the role quite nicely as he runs about with a basketball attacking these creatures and opening doors with keys. If I were to write "one of the main parts of this game is opening doors", chances are you'd be turned-off, but don't be, because this game is a fine example of how to make the platforming genre more interesting. You have a colourful array of basketballs to deal damage to your enemies and the SNES manages to deliver a well polished, good looking (and pretty good sounding) title.

Though it's unwise to compare it to what could be considered the king of SNES platforming, Super Mario World, CitWC isn't as far behind as you may imagine. Its main problem is that it doesn't adapt to a PC keyboard that well. Granted, it's not supposed to, but with little chance of it ever being re-released it means you have to hunt down a real SNES (or a gamepad... whatever floats your boat) to get the true feel. Also because for whatever reason ZSNES isn't a fan of my keyboard, any gameplay flaws I may see many not actually be gameplay flaws. All I know is that it's got quite a bit of depth and is pretty damned fun. One thing EA could have done with is a saving feature instead of passwords (I mean come on it WAS 1994) but I suppose this is made up by the fact you can attack the press on your train journeys. In fact, this makes up for every flaw this game has.

Though you wouldn't make the album charts with the selection of music presented here, it's not too bad either. It fits the mood nicely, just a shame some of the tracks were re-used quite a bit. Then again how many EA games have noticeable soundtracks nowadays? Outside of the film licensees that come equipped with them, probably not too many.

But yeah, you can't go too wrong with Michael Jordan here. The real tragedy is that games such as these will likely never see the light of day again.