Battletoads

RareWare Central strikes again by releasing another unfinished Game Boy Advance game to the general public.

It's Battletoads, once set to be a remake of the 1991 classic. It's an extremely early and almost unplayable prototype, with much of its content being inaccessible during normal play. The project was scrapped before the team had a concrete idea of what they were actually making so as you'd expect, there's very little to see here. But it'll surely interest somebody, and it's a great way to make yourself deaf.

In other news, I'm a very busy man at the moment, forced to produce broken programs in my free time. You might have to wait a while between blog posts (i.e. more than a week). Don't blame me, blame a wacky higher education system!

Dropzone

I need to conserve brain cells, so time for a short break from the Game.com.

For now, Dropzone, a 1984 Atari 800 game published by U.S. Gold. It's yet another thing that caught my eye during my rounds at Sega Retro, and another opportunity to commend the work of the British video game industry twenty-seven years too late. Woo.

Indy 500

A film by George Lucas. With even more aliens and fridges.

Or could it be something worse? Indeed it can - it's Indy 500 for the Game.com! If you feel the need for more abysmal racing experiences in your life, this is the one to turn to. Provided of course you're turning left.

Diddy Kong Pilot

RareWare Central have taken a break from whatever it is they do these days to bring us Diddy Kong Pilot, a cancelled Game Boy Advance game featuring primates in planes. It's what the world needs at this time of economic uncertainty.

Mortal Kombat Trilogy

oh dear

Yes it's Mortal Kombat Trilogy on the Game.com. Sound good?

Centipede

Hasbro Interactive are back to kick some bugs in Wild Canyon.

Where would the Game.com be without an Atari license? Well... probably in the same place - a warehouse, not selling. This is Centipede, a 1981 arcade game Hasbro just happened to own the license for back in 1999. But the question is, will it match Frogger?

Frogger

Okay, so, 1992/1993 Sonic the Hedgehog platformers don't translate well to the Game.com. Let's try something a bit older.

Frogger. Questions have to be raised when you can buy a 1981 game conversion for the same price as a 1997 one. Surely the Game.com won't have troubles with this... right?

SHPDMBGWL4 Sunshine

Surprise!

My uncontrollable, rebellious urges have led me to release a scrapped game. The poorly titled SHPMDBGWL4 Sunshine. If you've been paying attention to my efforts in the last few years, you'll know why it's such a poor title.

There's also an NCFC booth which I dug up. It's here.

Sonic Jam

I haven't caused major harm to my brain in a while. Let's fix that.

Why look, it's Sonic Jam... on the Game.com. Yes, internet legend drx got his hands on an official Game.com emulator and development environment, so now it's possible to play games for this horrible, horrible system without having to exchange funds. As a start in this Game.com marathon I have lined up, I'll be looking at perhaps the most famous Game.com game and the first Sonic game to be released outside of a Sega system. I'm sure Yuji Naka will be proud.

Caanoo

Hardware reviews? On Blog Squirrel? Gasp.

With real life getting in the way at this time of year, it's the perfect time to try something a bit different. This, is a Caanoo. One of the latest entries in the line of open-source GP2X handhelds that nobody buys. I'm forced to use this as part of my course, but you likely won't buy one. Let me explain why that is.

Pokemon Gold Silver

An elusive unlicensed Super Nintendo game, supposedly titled "Pokemon Gold Silver" has been recently dumped. Joy of joys.

Crackdown 2

Because we needed this!

The rest of the world may be interested in the "3"s, but here's a 2. Crackdown 2, complete with plenty of murky browns and dingy blues. A sequel just as pointless as some on offer this winter.

Motor Raid

Time to raid the... motor..?

For those who dislike the Isle of Man comes Motor Raid, one of many Sega Model 2 arcade racers which nobody has played. Forgettable Japanese characters hitting each other with sticks while riding bikes. Just what what we need to quench the Eurozone debt crisis.

Rap Jam: Volume One

Look kids, another game designed by marketing departments

"Rap Jam: Volume 1" a household name no less for the Super Nintendo. Developed by our good friends at 64WD Corporation (..?) and published by Mandingo (...?!) exclusively in the US, it's a half-baked basketball game that nobody remembers. But wait, there's more - there's a selection of rappers and hip hop artists to play as. Yes, you heard that right - the music industry is in on this. What could possibly go wrong?

Duke Nukem Forever

Because I'm sure you want to read another opinion on this one!

I'm a long time fan of Duke Nukem, so even though this long awaited legend has been almost universally panned by critics for one reason or another, I figured at some point I'd be playing it. And that time is now.

SAGE 2011: Part 2

The smell of fear.

A second batch of Sonic fangames, to enrich our lives no less.

Crackdown

If the Conservatives had their way...

Crackdown, the 2007 Xbox 360 exclusive from Realtime Worlds and Microsoft Game Studios. A game for those who like their Grand Theft Autos served with more guns. It's a game enjoyed by many, though clearly not enough to cause them to post decent screenshots on the internet for me to borrow.

SAGE 2011: Part 1

It's Sonic Amateur Games Expo time! This year it all seems to be about taking an open source engine and slapping levels onto it, though Sonic fangaming is always a nice topic to follow as often the results top the official works of Sega.

And so, here's a first batch of mini-reviews in Blog Squirrel's limited coverage of the event.

SpriteHoe 2.0

SpriteHoe has been upgraded. Now it does "intelligent de-resizing", a term I've invented for marketing reasons. There's also been a few minor fixes and... well, that's it really. You can now feed it a sprite sheet that's been poorly resized and it will attempt to reverse the stupidity. It loosely fits in with the grand scheme of fixing the world's sprite sheet problems.

Note, of course, that it's difficult to get perfect results with simple games. Mario's limbs will be removed from Super Mario Bros. thanks to the lack of detail, but if you've got an image that's reasonably complicated there should be no troubles. Either way, I needed this feature once so someone else is bound to.

Cal.50

The Japanese are on top of world affairs.

Cal.50. Or Caliber Fifty. Or Caliber.50. Or Cal. Fifty... a 1989 arcade release by Seta. Massacre the Vietnamese enemy soldiers for kicks. Who needs politics?