Retro Gamer

Tommy Tallarico, who is known for his work as a videogame composer, recently sent the gaming world into a spin when he revealed that a brand-new Earthworm Jim game was being made for the upcoming Intellivision Amico console – another project which To

Manchester’s annual Play Expo event has become one of the highlights for any retro gaming fan and this year’s was no different. Actually, it was a little different, because it was housed at the Manchester Central Exhibition Complex instead of its usu

Andy Palmer is a very patient man. The owner of Bury’s Arcade Club has just opened a brand-new venue in Leeds and has been constantly shuttling between the two locations in order to ensure that everything is perfect for this month’s launch. “I have a

Fans of old-school first-person shooters would’ve rocket-jumped in delight upon the announcement of Wrath: Aeon Of Ruin earlier this year. Built on a modified Quake engine, it harks back to that era of shooters, complete with gib-packed action and ex

The press had returned from the sun of LA to provide us an update on everything at E3, and there was some interesting news. Microsoft was the first of the major players to show its hand, and it emphasised that it was going to be sticking around for t

» ZX SPECTRUM » 1985 » ROMANTIC ROBOT While there are plenty of racing games on the ZX Spectrum, I’d hazard a guess there are none quite like Wriggler. Starring a cute quartet of plump maggots, Wriggler was one of a handful of games released by Roma

Daffy Duck’s love of costumes, alongside Looney Tunes’ roster of colourful characters, held plenty of promise for a videogame. Digital Design, made up of programmer Dave Saunders and artist Ashley Routledge, took on the challenge of making Daffy Duck

A quick glance at the list of arcade games released in 1986 reveals a few surprises, and demonstrates an industry that was at least attempting to bring some originality to its product. In among the customary roster of shoot-‘em-ups (Salamander), driv

» MASTER SYSTEM » 1988 » SEGA R&D2 I loved playing Shinobi in the arcades. It was one of the first games that I was genuinely good at and I got banned from the coin-op in our local Circle K convenience store because a single ten pence would get me r

By any measure, Ocean Software’s multiplatform adaptation of the hit Eighties movie RoboCop was a success. As well as receiving top ratings across formats when reviewed, Ocean’s licensed title broke every record by staying at number one in the games

“I remember at the time that there was a lot of interest at Ocean in the new GX4000 console from a management point of view,” former Ocean artist Ivan Horn says. “That was to the extent that while in its development, James Higgins – an Ocean coder –

» DEVELOPER: Sega AM2 » YEAR: 1987 A s a game designer, Yu Suzuki has always been preoccupied with creating simulations of some kind, from the motorbike control method of the Hang-On cabinet to the detailed world of Shenmue on the Dreamcast. With Ou

» SNES » 1992 » CAPCOM When I was growing up, Street Fighter II was a game that I would only get to play on special occasions – during trips to seaside arcades, or when I visited SNES-owning relatives – so my time with the game was always limited. W

Warren Davis sighs deeply. “Oh man, I was crushed,” he says, shaking his head. “I loved Us Vs Them so much and was so proud of it. When you create something like this, you do it for one reason – so people can play it. Then I heard about the LaserDisc

We all know that it’s possible to extract amazing performance from a dated gaming platform – with clever programming and perhaps a little hardware help, minor miracles are possible. But sometimes you just have to accept that more power is the answer,

Konami’s third compilation celebrating its 50th anniversary is dedicated to Contra. It will comprise several classics, including the arcade games Contra and Super Contra, the NES game Super C, the SNES’s ContraIII: The Alien Wars and the Mega Drive’s

DEVELOPER: KONAMI YEAR: 1992 GENRE: BEAT-’EM-UP ■ Konami’s chunky and bright four-player cartoon beat-’em-ups, notably Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Simpsons, along with the even larger six-player X-Men cabinet, were a regular staple of arcad

» PLATFORM: N64 » RELEASED: 1999 » COST: £12.99 (LAUNCH), £8+ (NOW) To take advantage of its unique position as the only company promoting both a home and handheld console during the late Nineties, Nintendo created the Transfer Pak peripheral to e

In 1990 Sega issued a glossy flyer for its ‘High-Entertainment Gamer Series’, which was its own moniker for the deluxe versions of its ‘Super Scaler’ games. All of these top-of-the-range titles were listed in chronological order, starting with Hang-O

If your mother ever told you not to run with scissors, then she would certainly have warned you against playing a violently anarchic, boundary-shifting murder romp starring a gunman rampaging through a town. After all, killing people going about thei

» PLATFORM: MEGA DRIVE » RELEASED: 1993 » DEVELOPER: LUCASARTS Who would have thought that in a game packed with zombies, mummies, aliens, chainsaw maniacs, killer dolls, werewolves and all kinds of other horrors, the scariest foe of all would be a

There’s something about Peter Parker’s alter ego that has made the web-slinger one of the most iconic characters in comic books, film, television, toys and, of course, videogames. And it’s easy to argue that Spider-Man has had far greater success in

■ This is a secret level featured in Maximum Carnage and is actually only one of the few times the famous statue has featured directly as part of the Spider-Man games and their various missions. ■ The finalbattle of Enter Electro was supposed to tak

» MANUFACTURER: Nintendo » YEAR: 2004 » COST: £99.99/$149.99 (launch), (£20+ today) Having been the dominant force in the handheld sector for over two decades, Nintendo finally started to feel the squeeze around the turn of the millennium as the exp

To say London-based publisher and developer Chucklefish has a style is an understatement. Pocket Rumble looks like it could’ve been a one-on-one fighter ripped straight from the Neo-Geo Pocket Color’s library; Timespinner is a dead ringer for classic

» SATURN » 1995 » SEGA I’ve always wanted to own Astal. The opportunity first arose about 15 years ago after I picked up a ‘This Is Cool’ Saturn with 28 shoot-’em-ups for £500, but something stopped me from purchasing it. Fast forward to this year’s

We won’t lie, we were disappointed when we found out that Sumo’s latest Sega racing project would focus exclusively  on Sonic and regular karting, dropping the aircraft, boats and Sega characters of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. Of course, Se

Being a medium gives a person the ability to talk with the dead and hear ‘echoes’ of events from the past. It also opens up unusual and exciting chances to travel outside of our physical realm to explore the ‘Phantom Zones’, essentially the otherworl

A wedding-themed scrolling shoot-’em-up, where did that concept come from? We wanted to do a game that empowered women while still enabling them to be feminine. The concept of a wedding gave us some conventions to work with – like the classic confli

Beau and Emily: “We love Time Crisis, so when we found this rarity on a classified site we couldn’t let it go. It required a lot of effort to get it running.” PAID: AU$700 Emily: “After 15 years of searching, I found one in near-mint condition at a

I’ve been reading on various websites lately that Retro Gamer should create a new magazine that’s dedicated to ‘proper’ retro gaming. One person was suggesting it should be called ‘Vintage Gamer’ and that it should only feature 8-bit and 16-bit gamin