Retrogaming Review of The Year 2015

Retrogaming Review of The Year 2015

2015 was the year I returned to my old purple box of joy, the GameCube. I'd been playing games on there in recent years, of course, but I started hunting out all the games I'd never bought back in the day, but had had some interest in. Thanks to eBay I went bid crazy and amassed a number of titles, some of which I got through, and others are still queued up, ready for 2016. It helped that I continued last year's specific and regular gaming sessions as part of my weekly routine, rather than fitting things in whenever I had time (but rarely did), so that discipline kept me playing through the good, the bad and the ugly, regardless, though I can't deny some games were a bit of a chore. You pick some good ones, you pick some bad, and you live with the consequences, that's the fun of gaming, and if you're dedicated enough you get through all the games you started and write a blog post about it so you don't need to play them again.

[Ratings reflect total, historical experience, not just the enjoyment level I got out of them this time.]


January: Banjo-Tooie (2000, N64) - I feel like I may have given this game an overly unfair critique when I reviewed it, as I look back on it and think favourably of the time I spent on it, but it may have been because I played it so soon after 'Banjo-Kazooie,' a seminal game that casts a long, wide shadow of greatness which few can escape. I think it's safe to say this was the best Banjo game I played all year… but not the only one. In retrospect I'm going to bump it up to four stars rather than three as I still think well of it, especially having enjoyed another of Rare's classic platformers this year. ****

January - December: UFO: Enemy Unknown (1993, Amiga 1200) - The 30th January marked a milestone for me: the tenth anniversary of when I started the game file. I continue to battle on regularly, still keeping roughly to real world time (in months - I'm in 2009 in game time), and still finding it a solace to go back to, a reminder of the past and something that remains addictive enough to keep me returning, week after week. It's reassuringly familiar and comfortable and I have absolutely no idea how long I'll continue it. Probably a while yet as I bought replacement blank floppy disks in case of disk failure. Whether the old monitor will hold out is another matter, however, as the connections are loose and unreliable, and it's quite annoying having to keep getting up to adjust them! *****

January - March: Spartan: Total Warrior (2005, GameCube) - One game that kept me up and going through the winter months, this hack and slasher with links to the 'Total War' series, but with a far more arcade approach, had its moments, and as I say, kept me up late some nights, and that's primarily what I remember it for. It wasn't easy, but neither was it too difficult, so it allowed a pleasing level of challenge, though not one I'd revisit. ***

March - July: R: Racing (2004, GameCube) - This was a game that only just scraped in on the 'good' end of the rating system as it was a little lacking in some areas, but, like 'Spartan,' it provided a challenge and I kept coming back until it was all done. All but 0.2% which was impossible to achieve thanks to a bug or failure in play testing (not the last game with bug troubles I was to play that year). It had varied racing types and I like racing, so although it wasn't ideal (I'd planned to play the next 'Need For Speed'), I got it cheap, and it was the game that started me regularly bidding on low-priced 'Cube games that I had the slightest interest in, so I can thank it for that, if nothing else. ***

May: Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge (2003, Game Boy Advance) - A pocket-sized version of the bear and bird adventures with similar music, looks and moves. Simple, more child-friendly rather than serious platformer of depth, it was a pleasing, if short experience to herald the summer, and a nice thing to play in the garden with the sun warming me. ***

August: Future Wars: Adventures in Time (1990, DOSBox) - I didn't remember as much of this as I'd thought (the start, up until you climb into a barrel in the Middle Ages, and a red, futuristic ruined cityscape were all I recalled). Sound seemed inferior to the Amiga, but it remained a beautifully visual game, with intuitive controls and a good story involving various time periods (present, past, future, and distant past), with even a little arcade action thrown in (shooting Crughons - or is that Klingons; running to the control room and back in a tight time limit which turned it into 'Impossible Mission'). It's the little puzzles and neat solutions that are most enjoyable as you appreciate the minute detail of the visuals, so tiny and compact (in a room or enclosed space the game screen shows only that area, whereas when outside you have the whole screen, making it alternately intimate and open), adding to the graphical pleasure, as well as the amusing messages when you Examine things. Not as humorous and clever as 'Monkey Island,' my other favourite point-and-click adventure from the time, the controls (left button = move, right = select), may be topsy-turvy compared to other games, but it was nowhere near as frustrating as 'Enchantia,' - less developed, but a tighter experience, with a sense of fun and irony. Sometimes tricky puzzles that were never unfair, my only caveat was the slow walking speed and you had to be careful to pick up or examine everything, or risk being impossibly stuck later. The game went down as one of my favourites on the Amiga - it may be my memories that made it an amazing game as it was a lesser experience this time, but I include my nostalgia in the rating. I couldn't give it the full 5 stars I once would have, but more than just a good game, it remains a strongly enjoyable experience that it was fun to revisit over fifteen years later (1998?). ****

August - October: Space Station Silicon Valley (1998, N64) - This game's claim to fame in my house was that it killed my N64's power lead after sixteen years of use, but that wasn't the only thing I held against it, as it was so tough, and even though it was supremely satisfying (and a relief), to finally beat it and get every Souvenir, it was horribly disappointing that a bug in the game meant there was one you could never pick up thanks to missing collision detection. I had no nostalgia for it as this was the first time I'd played it, and it didn't quite live up to the impression I had of its place in the console's pantheon and was a bit of a chore to complete. A shame, because I really wanted to like it. **

October - December: Gun (2005, GameCube) - Another one that didn't quite succeed in my eyes, despite pulling off some wide open spaces and good visuals, not to mention stirring music, it ended up not being varied enough and having content geared away from the usual Nintendo demographic: those that prefer cleverness and bright good humour to murderous, swearing, miserable violence and bleakness. Still, while it was sometimes a game I just wanted to finish, it almost sneaked into the 'good' category for its technical achievements on the machine. It stymied itself making you want more freedom because of its ambition, and the story wasn't that interesting on the whole, but I still had the drive to complete everything in it except for finding one piece of gold. **

December: Donkey Kong 64 (1999, N64) - After enjoying the relaxed play of a platformer the previous Christmas I resolved back then to dust off this classic when the festive season rolled around again, and how quick it came! It once again proved that an undemanding collect-'em-up is the order of the day when you're dosed up on turkey and mince pies and want something to fill the void between films. I didn't quite finish it, rattling off around two thirds, but it was lovely to get back to something of this kind, and while the levels aren't as well-designed as the Banjo or Mario games, being less impressive, more like expansive chunks connected to other chunks than properly laid out levels (with the usual cliched themes), it was fun to try and beat my previous time of sixty hours, which I'm well on course to smash. Provisionally: ****

Honourable mentions should go to the multiplayer modes of 'Perfect Dark,' 'Burnout 2,' and 'Age of Empires II,' which all played their part in the Christmas festivities as they once regularly did years ago, and it was really nice to get back into those competitive and familiar arenas, even if the AI showed itself up as the creaky and simplistic 'brain' that it was.


Next Year - The goals are to mostly keep playing regularly, and I certainly achieved my wish to play more 'Cube games, another racing game, finish 'Banjo-Tooie' and get the GBA Banjo game. Even if I failed again to hook up with an XBox 360 or play many DOSBox games. In 2016 I'd like to:

- Play more 'Cube games, something I'm guaranteed to do, having bought more 'Cube games (I've also started re-reading old issues of NGC Magazine from the beginning, just in case there's a game I forgot about!).

- Play more DOSBox games, especially the 'Star Trek' ones since it's the 50th Anniversary in 2016.

- Get the 'Re Lo Kick' disk that I've learned will make it possible for me to play Amiga 500 games on my 1200, as there are a number of old games I'd love to play ('Flashback,' 'Fire & Ice,' 'APB,' for some examples), without having the trouble of turning out the loft for the older A500 or A1500, plus the extra power lead and bulky adaptor.

- I'm tempted to purchase a Wii, as it can play 'Cube games and would also open up some new experiences and games, but I have so many to play already this is a remote likelihood.

Happy New Year!