Retrogaming Review of The Year 2024

 Retrogaming Review of The Year 2024

25 Years of N64
October marked the quarter-century anniversary of when I got my favourite console and I was glad to pepper in strong gaming with it through the year, although I originally planned at least a couple around the actual anniversary - but the best game on the system kicked off the year, with a first serious play of one, and a replay out of the blue of another. If it wasn't the greatest amount of time on the system that's because I've replayed every great and many more over the last decade or so!

Birthday For One, Death For Another
25 years of N64 marked, but it was 25 years of my Amiga 1200 last year, and sadly it was the death of its stablemate, the 1500, this year, after enjoying so many games on it in 2023 - I only played 'Fire & Ice' for five minutes before the hunk of metal and plastic turned into the silent doorstop it now is, lifeless and inert, a very sad end to a wonderful machine for which I still had so many plans. A harsh reminder of the dangers of retrogaming: relish every moment because you never know when it might end (a maxim for life, not just Amiga).

Awards:
Surprise of The Year: Impossible Mission 2025
Disappointment of The Year: Eledees

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


January - February: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998, N64) - What more can be said? Simply my favourite game on the system, to the extent that I was actively missing playing it this Christmas and remembering back to the previous year's. The great thing about it was quality and quantity so I was still playing it into 2024, searching out the Gold Skulltulas and Heart Pieces, and playing it was not only a nostalgic trip back in time, but a very relevant challenge for the present, as great as ever, and one of Nintendo's triumphs. I don't think it will ever fade away for me. *****

January: 1080º Snowboarding (1998, N64) - Got this down as a potential multiplayer diversion, but we never got around to playing it. Didn't plan to play it myself, but when I didn't have time for a proper session on 'Zelda' this was ideal for a quick bash, especially now I have a better picture that isn't a white-out! I thought the main match races would be easy and the first two difficulties were, but the third was very tough, mainly on that last race against the Panda, reminding me it was such a challenging and (thanks to expert controls), rewarding game. I also enjoyed the trick courses, and though not usually a high score fiend, found it addictive and fun. There's nothing like carving a course through the snow as the sun goes down in the distance and this is such a technical marvel, certainly much better than its sequel on 'Cube, 'Avalanche,' which became a little cartoony, and I've not yet got around to playing 'SSX' so this remains the best snowboarding game ever for me... or would be if not for the superior 'Snowboard Kids,' though that's more 'Mario Kart' than serious sports sim - having these two in your collection covers all snowboard bases, whether Regular or Goofy! ****

January - December: UFO: Enemy Unknown (1993, Amiga 1200) - The continuing saga of X-COM's defence of the globe from alien evil has now been a regular stalwart in my Amiga's disk drive for twenty-two years and shows no signs of waning, except– right at the very end of the year, my last session of 2024, the drive started playing up, requiring me to insert and reinsert the disks several times before it would read them! Shock, horror, could this mean my 1200's drive is finally giving out after twenty-five years use (plus time prior to that as it was bought secondhand), or, as I've found the disks worked fine in early January this year, was it just a scare? Everything has its time, nothing lasts forever, I just hope the 1200 doesn't go the way of the 1500... *****

January: Perfect Dark (2000, N64) - Multiplayer fun sessions, with some good games of, among others:
- Man With The Golden Run (Hold The Briefcase in the Complex with Custom Golden Gun (F2 Silent, Shotgun, F2 Scope, DY-LX Golden Gun, F2, Shield), 10mins, first to 20 points, no teams),
- Silent Night (Combat in the Car Park with Custom weapons (Sniper, F2 Silent, Shield, Cloak, Sniper, F2 Silent), first to 15 points, no teams),
- To The Garden! (Pop a Cap in the Villa with Custom Power weapons (Magsec, Phoenix, Cyclone, Shotgun, Sniper, F2 Silent), 10mins, 2 teams of 4),
- Chocolate Game II (King of The Hill in G5 with Custom Heavy weapons (Mauler, Avenger, Reaper, N-Bomb, Shield, -), 10mins, team first to 30 points, Mobile Hill, 20s a point, max. teams),
- RCP in The Toilet (a new one: King of The Hill in the Felicity with Power weapons, 10mins, team first to 30 points, Mobile Hill, 20s a point, max. teams). *****

January - October: Wii Sports (2006, Wii) - This continued to be my choice for extra exercise through gaming, and while I struggled to increase the frequency (it remained a roughly fortnightly endeavour at best), I still enjoyed it, even if it's always so frustrating at the unfairness if you're knocked down once in the Boxing, you don't even have to lose the match, your ranking plummets and you have to claw your way back up point by gritted-teeth-point. Perhaps a reflection of the reality of real boxing, I don't know. My other favourites include the Tennis Target Practice against the wall and the Golf Target Practice, though in all the games I don't seem to come close to beating any of my records any more. ***

February: Impossible Mission (1984/1993, Amiga 1200) - Retrogaming can't get much more retro than a trip back to the early-80s (for me, at least!), and this was one of those things I picked up simply because I wanted to play more Amiga and it happened to work on the 1200 after the disappointment of losing the 1500. It's one of those where you have to finish it in one go, but the fact the rooms remain the same, if the location of each is randomly generated, helps you learn what to do in each to be able to check all the furniture (yes, it's a game about searching down the back of furniture for the carelessly dropped pieces of a code card that will enable entry into the villain's control centre!). The sound effects are perfect and there's a tactical side to taking risks (using up time on the tile memory game to gain advantages, or rushing through), giving it more depth. May not have that much replay value, but as I hadn't played it (and never completed it as a child on the Commodore 64), since maybe the late-90's, it was a joy to revisit and finally complete - the first time I'd played a C64 game in decades, perhaps not since 'Ninja Massacre.' ***

February - March: Impossible Mission 2025: The Special Edition (1993, Amiga 1200) - One game I never had any joy from was this Amiga-based sequel to the C64 original, as it was so different from the neat, tight, colourful original: dark, gloomy, brown, sprawling levels, needlessly complicated pickups, and quite tough, but somehow the challenge suited me this time, and where I failed in the past, I was able to put my mind and skill towards beating it. It helped that password saves meant completing it in one sitting was a thing of the past (although, similar to the original, each level has a time limit to up the tension), and the different levels with their variety of design made it more appealing - there's a reason why this sticks out as my Surprise of The Year! I had such low expectations, but still reeling from the inability to explore so many of the old Amiga games I'd been looking forward to, this ticked the box for what I needed, and so, while tough, was a pleasure to play. ***

March - June: WSC Real 08 (2008, Wii) - I've advanced so far in my career I now get an option at the start of each match to choose a 'Human Win,' 'AI Win,' or 'Play Match' - needless to say I always play! I was finally World Number 1 in 2023, so I entered my first full season in that position, still wanting to win every trophy on the calendar, but I never quite finished that season (stopping just before a match against Hendry in the Round of 16 of the World Champs having won everything else that season!), the fault of 'Eledees' taking over so much Wii time that I lost interest in Remote-based gaming after that game's wrist-workout, and never went back, even at Christmas, though I intend to get into it again in 2025. I still haven't switched to a Pool career, but I've got to at least get my full No. 1 season completed first. ****

March - May: Starsky & Hutch (2003, GameCube) - Runner-up for Surprise of The Year, this one. I'd intended to play it for years, but it was David Soul's death in early 2024 that brought it to my attention again, and playing it on some late nights during the Snooker World Championship will always remain happy memories. I usually enjoy racing games, and this had that and more, though I went in expecting it to be the usual licenced rubbish and came to really enjoy it. Unlike some games this year I was able to complete everything, despite the challenge, and at just the right length and just the right time it was a very pleasing experience. ***

May - June: Blast Corps (1997, N64) - My traditional N64 Summer game was this one I'd only ever tasted many years ago. Again, it was another toughy that required quick reactions and careful tactics to work out the clever puzzles, and though I'm not usually much of a puzzle enthusiast, the presentation as a game of vehicles and destruction, plus the tight time limit and bitesized gameplay across many levels was a marriage that worked. With good quality N64 titles I haven't already completed (either new to me, or returning to old favourites), starting to look thin on the ground, I was glad to find this very early Rare game on the system to be well worth trying out. ***

June - September: Eledees (2007, Wii) - The low point of the year, and not because it was a terrible game: it wasn't. It's just that it was so hard, which made for great satisfaction upon completion of each level or task, but it took up far more time of my gaming year than I intended, and at the worst time to be playing, too. Summer time, with the sun shining in the window isn't good for the Wii Remote's sensor, so you have to pull the curtain, and even then it can be a bit sensitive. But even in the darkest night the controls weren't up to scratch for the precision needed to feel in complete control, and I spent endless hours trying to hunt down some of those stupid Pink Eledees to unlock the other challenges on certain levels, ultimately unable to find them, to my great consternation. Technically, I did complete the game, but I wasn't able to get every version of every level (such as all the Challenges), and achieve what I wanted to so I eventually had to leave the game in frustration and admit defeat. I thought it was going to be a great one, too, and it could have been if the controls had been up to the concept. **

July: The Keys To Maramon (1990, Amiga 1200) - One that came a bit out of the blue, stemming from my desire to play more Amiga games that had been stymied by the 1500's demise, and this was just one of very few titles I was surprised to discover worked on the 1200. An innovative day/night cycle, it was almost a resource-driven game, except the resource is time and money to be able to get to the stage where you can venture into the catacombs beneath the beleaguered city under nightly attack from the monsters of down below, slowly collecting the keys which will unlock doors further into the lower levels, yet also keeping in mind you may have to rush back to the surface before the city is damaged too much by the raids. I wouldn't say it was anything special, very basic sound and visuals, but I'd never played it before, it was just one out of the many boxes of Amiga games I noticed, and was pleased to play as an antidote to 'Eledees.' **

October: Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (1997, N64) - Almost as much platformer as FPS, this was one of the big guns from back in the day, which is a suitable analogy since it features a lot of big guns. Perhaps the dinosaurs (for the most part), weren't that big, there's an over-reliance on human foes, plus the extreme levels of fogging show the limitations of the earliest days of development on the system, but it's one of those I'm amazed I never went back to as I was so sure I had! It was quite surreal to find a game I'd fully completed that in all these fifteen years of writing reviews (or even before), I'd never thought to replay, and it almost made me contemplate returning to the sequel, 'Turok 2: Seeds of Evil,' which I abandoned on grounds of occult content, though I'm not sure how true my impression was. As for this, it had that simple pleasure of blasting, coupled with some maze-like levels and that sense of being alone in a dark, barren place populated only by hostile enemies, excellently atmospheric. I played it on the hardest difficulty since I'd already completed it on Normal, and even then I rarely found it to be all that taxing, but it was ideal for some good old run-and-gun exploration. ***

November - December: Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010, Wii) - I didn't hurry to complete this as I intended it to be my main game over Christmas with only a Game Boy 'Zelda' planned as the festive season's entry, but I still found myself rattling through the stars (65 by end of year). It's true that some took a number of attempts, but this is really just more of the same from the first 'Galaxy.' I liked that game, but it's much more geared to a 2D platformer mentality, in fact certain sections even become practically 2D, and that side of the genre never interested me much, I always preferred vast 3D landscapes to explore, characters to meet, tasks to accomplish, all while collecting. The collecting side in this is almost an afterthought - you do need the Star Bits to progress (feeding the Lumas), and coins recover health, but coin-grabbing is too much in the high-score realm for me to be drawn to, and it's so easy to die during a level and lose all your accumulated coins, that, like the first one, I often found it frustrating more than empowering. Imaginative, as you'd expect from Nintendo, but I still prefer the 'Banjo-Kazooie' style of platforming. ***

December: The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (1993, Game Boy) - This should really qualify as the year's biggest disappointment except it was external factors rather than the game itself: I'd checked it earlier in the year in preparation, only to discover my old saves had been wiped, but what I didn't realise, and what I found out now, is that the internal battery wouldn't keep saves at all any more, so after a morning's play-test, enjoyable as it was to get back to it after about twenty-seven years, and long anticipation, I didn't have the will to open it up and do the necessary DIY, nor did I fancy keeping the Game Boy Advance SP (upon which I was planning to play it), switched on for days, so my Christmas tradition came to a sad and depressing end and I couldn't even stir myself to tackle the other (much inferior), Game Boy Color entry, 'Oracle of Ages.' A crushing end to the year's gaming. -

December: Mario Kart Wii (2008, Wii) - I hadn't played this since first starting it Christmas 2021 (!), and had always meant to go back to finish unlocking everything, but never did. Christmas, specifically Boxing Day (when we used to have big 'Mario Kart' championships twenty years ago for all the family), was the perfect time to re-immerse, and while it took time to get back into it, I eventually came to enjoy it, actually overtaking my play time on 'SMG2' as the main game over Christmas! Difficult to get into, even using the GameCube Controller rather than Remote, mainly because the CPUs appear to have stopped cheating like in the earlier titles (magically appearing behind you at the winning line, always pushing a particular character to be the winner), and had improved their ability no end. Once I'd got the hang of the Corner Turbo, or with motorbikes, the Wheelie, for a speed burst, not to mention the Boost Start (accelerate right in the middle of the 3-count), and got to know the various tracks, I found my skills increasing. I'm not sure many of the new tracks hold the same design excellence as older games, though the addition of the Game Boy Advance's rating system of E up to A, then 1-3 stars gave the one-player vastly improved longevity (plus ghosts to beat on every track and unlockable characters and vehicles), but by the end of December I still felt unsure if it was the classic of older versions (and appreciated the N64, GBA and 'Cube tracks that were included, much more), with too many characters, though admittedly I never tried out the multiplayer, and there is still much to be done. ***

Honourable mentions: Post-Christmas leftovers multiplayer Mario Kart 64 (*****), Perfect Dark (*****), and 'WWF Wrestlemania 2000' (****), and some 'Burnout 2' multiplayer into the year (Feb, *****)


Next Year - I didn't get to play as much Amiga as I'd hoped, and N64 appreciation meant I bought more games which I didn't have time for, and I also need to ensure I have my main Wii periods in the darker months for best results, so in 2025 I'd like to:

- Get the Amiga down... no, not the 1500, the 500 so I can play titles such as 'Fire & Ice,' 'Soccer Kid,' and 'Simulcra' that I wasn't able to this year (at least 'Sleepwalker' or 'Gauntlet,' which I discovered work on my 1200!)

- Another plan to get into big Wii games, even though I wasted too much time on one this year: 'Pirates,' 'Bully,' 'Need For Speed' would be my top selections

- Definitely 'Glover' as my Summer N64 game of choice, but 'Wipeout,' 'Winback' and 'Wars, (Lylat)' are all still begging for attention!

- Still want to do something on 'Cube, like 'XIII' or 'Lego Star Wars'

- Enjoying the 'Impossible Missions' made me want the Wii version

- Christmas 'Zelda' is down to slim pickings now, though whether I install a new battery and get into 'Link's Awakening' soon, or save it for next Christmas, I don't know

- A late addition could be the Nintendo Switch 2 as that may be coming this year, backwards-compatible with Switch titles, but do I have time to add a whole new console to the roster?

Happy New Year!