Some games just stick to your ribs, you know? Like that perfect Sunday roast your nan made—the one where everything aligned and you're still chasing that exact combination of crispy potatoes and gravy twenty-five years later. Flashback for the Mega Drive was one of those meals for me, cinematically speaking.I first spotted it in Electronics Boutique, that glossy box art promising something different. The screenshots looked…proper. Not cartoony, not chunky pixels trying their best to…
I’m Elena, and there is a major omission in what gaming historians say when discussing the ‘golden age’ of point-and-click adventure games. They always reference the American classics — the LucasArts comedies, the King’s Quest series from Sierra, possibly even the Myst series from Cyan if they’re feeling generous. What they always miss is that during the 1990s, some of the greatest adventure games ever made were developed by European companies who knew a few…
There’s something satisfying about rooting for the underdog. That’s probably why my Sega Saturn shares pride of place on a shelf with my PS5; and why I’ll freely admit I use it more often than my spanking new Sony console. I spent three hours playing Guardian Heroes last Sunday – and my wife came downstairs, caught sight of those huge pixel sprites plastered across her 55-inch TV screen and gave me “that look”. You know…
There's something almost criminal about how good Banjo-Kazooie still feels in your hands. I was rifling through my cart collection last weekend—proper cartridges, not ROMs, the ones with that satisfying plastic heft—when I spotted that familiar yellow spine wedged between Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time. Pulled it out, blew on it (I know, I know, it's supposedly bad for the pins), and within minutes I was twelve again, watching that opening cutscene where Banjo's…
OK, fair warning, I’m going to sort of step off the Amiga soapbox for a second to defend a game that actually worked on crap. “Listen to this guy whining, why not stick to bloody Sensible Soccer and leave the console reviews to guys that understand them, eh?!” Well, here’s the deal. I grew up in the age of computer gaming then watched the slow slide into console dominance, and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2…
Right, let me tell you about Full Throttle, because this one’s been sitting in my cabinet for years and I still can’t work out whether Tim Schafer was a genius or completely mad when he made it. The team’s been arguing about this one for months. Joe reckons it’s the best LucasArts adventure game after Monkey Island. Tim thinks it’s overrated nonsense that wastes Roy Conrad’s brilliant voice work. I’m somewhere in the middle, but…
October, 1996. I was working at a video rental shop in Manchester, one of those video rental shops that only existed during video rental’s cool years. My boss Steve (named Steve for reasons he likely regretted later given his propensity for getting tattoos up and down his legs) kept catching me staring at Resident Evil’s cover while I was stocking shelves. “Take it home Friday,” he told me over the counter when we closed. “Don’t…
As soon as we released this ranking, we knew there would be total chaos. Over three weeks of heated Zoom calls; seventeen dropped connections when things got too personal; and Joe threatening to leave the group chat after we suggested that maybe LucasArts made some better games than Sierra. We argued about whether Marcus’ obsession with the technological innovations of adventure games should count against him; Elena fighting tooth and nail for UK developers to…
Standing in my local game shop last Tuesday, holding a pristine Sega Genesis 2 in its original box, I couldn't help but smile at how wrong we all got it back in '94. There I was, thirteen years old, absolutely livid that Sega had "ruined" my beloved Mega Drive by making it smaller and—horror of horrors—removing the headphone jack. The audacity! How was I supposed to sneak midnight sessions of Sonic & Knuckles while mum…
Marcus here. While the rest of the crew argues about whether FIFA 98 or FIFA 99 was the peak of EA’s early PlayStation efforts, I’m over here marvelling at the engineering achievement that was ISS Pro Evolution. Released on May 11, 1999 (Brainly Infogalactic) in Europe, this was the game that made Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo (Brainly Infogalactic) a genuine threat to EA’s football dominance. Before PES became a household name, before Winning Eleven conquered…