Review - Letter Quest : Grimm's Journey (PC / Mac)

Casual gaming finally wins me over

I have never once considered myself a casual gamer - I would scoff at the 'noobs' playing gibberish like Farmville and Candy Crush, guffaw at the naivety of so-called gamers who wasted their time playing touch screen nonsense on their mobiles and tablets - titles usually involving nothing more complex than swiping your finger across the screen. But now I may have to reassess my views (well, not entirely, Candy Crush is still an abomination) due to one title, Letter Quest : Grimm's Journey.

Amiga Homebrew - Fire 'N Ice (Solomon's Key 2)

Underrated 8-bit puzzler gets 16-bit port

A new homebrew game for the Commodore Amiga is always reason to celebrate and this brand new port of a classic, yet little known, NES game is no exception. While many old school gamers will be familiar with classic platform puzzler Solomon's Key, not that many people realise that Tecmo released a sequel in 1993, entitled Fire 'N Ice, exclusive to Nintendo's 8-bit console. Released late in the life of the NES, Fire 'N Ice failed to make much impact as most people had moved onto the SNES. This makes finding a copy of the game difficult and very expensive these days, but thanks to emulation this doesn't stop you from playing it on your PC / PSP / Xbox or whatever other system you enjoy running emulators on (you naughty person!). Now you can also enjoy the game on your Amiga, as lone developer Hukka has ported it to everyone's favourite 16-bit home computer!

Review - Tiny Thief (Android)

Light-fingered fun on your mobile device

Everyone enjoys a rousing tale of a kind hearted rogue stealing food and gold from the nasty rich folk and handing it over to the needy peasants, the whole Robin Hood deal. How much truth is in those famous tales I cannot be sure of, but the message behind them is a sound one - That is is perfectly acceptable to steal from someone if they are a bastard, or have too much stuff to begin with. At least, that's what I think the message is, but I may be mistaken. Anyway, you can relive these valiant tales via an adorable new adventure game on both mobile and computer platforms, courtesy of newcomers 5Ants, and published by Rovio Stars, who you may know from some game that involves firing annoyed birds at pigs or something, I have no idea.

Retro Review - Mopiranger (MSX)

The strangely titled Mopiranger is classic top down, arcade style game clearly based on the exploits of a certain yellow dot-munching circle. Coming out on the slightly obscure MSX system back in 1983, Mopiranger was one of many Konami titles to grace the platform, and contains the developer's usual high level of charm and playability.

Coin-Op Classics - Three Wonders (Capcom - 1991)

Capcom Threesome!

Three Wonders is an arcade game by Capcom that lives up to its moniker by featuring not one. Not two. Not three. No, wait. Three (sorry). Three games for the price of one. For your shiny quarter / twenty pence you could choose from either Midnight Wanderers, Chariots or, the bizarrely named, Don't Pull, each one offering a very different gaming experience, and - unlike many other x-in-1 games - each one could easily have been released as its own arcade cabinet. 

REVIEW - Waimanu (Nintendo DS & GBA Homebrew)

Flightless wonder

I'm a sucker for any game featuring penguins (or ducks for that matter). I don't know why, but from Penguin Adventures on MSX and Penguin Land on the Master System, to the gluttonous shenanigans of Yume Penguin Monogatari on the Famicom, I have found the flightless fowl to bring a delightfully cute air to any game. Waimanu - named after a prehistoric form of penguin - continues this trend by featuring a super cute blue penguin with an apparent affliction of gigantism, such is the monsterous proportions of his forehead. Despite this handicap, he still manages to star in his very own homebrew puzzle game on the Nintendo DS and, more recently believe it or not, the Gameboy Advance. Waimanu is a single screen puzzler with a top down maze view, much like the original Sega penguin arcade game Pengo, released in 1982, in which you must push blocks of ice - and later bales of hay, or rocks , depending on the backdrop - into the enemy blobs that patrol the maze. Pushing a block will cause it to slide in that direction until it hits another block or the sides of the maze and, should any enemies stray into its path they will be squished - the annilhilation of all on-screen foes resulting in victory.

Retro Review - Mole Mania (Gameboy)

We're going deeper underground!

You have to feel sorry for poor old moles, not only do they have to contend with appalling vision, but they also risk getting beaten over the head with a shovel by an irate farmer every time they pop their fuzzy little heads above ground. As if this weren't bad enough, poor old Muddy Mole, star of this cutesy puzzle game on Nintendo's Gameboy, has to deal with his entire family being kidnapped by the oddly named farmer, Jinbei. Quite what a grown man wants to do with a load of mole pups is beyond me (probably best not to dwell on the possibilities), but the spiteful old bastard now holds them hostage and it is up to you to rescue them.

Retro Review - Guru Logic Champ (GBA)

Time for some more Japanese insanity now with a ker-azy puzzler on the Gameboy Advance. Guru Logic Champ's rather generic title belies the quirky characters and lunacy contained within the game. Once you have been introduced to the zany duck-like 'Champs' that make up the main protagonists, you are treated to some bizarre cartoon cutscenes that tell a story of how other oddball duck things from another planet have come to wreak havoc - but it would appear their idea of havoc is simply causing mild irritations such as stealing the tap from a public water fountain, or the battery from someone's kitchen extractor fan. So, how can you help these unfortunate souls return their lives to normality? Why, by performing block based puzzles in order to reveal a small picture of course!

Obscure Retro Gem - Pieces (Super Nintendo)

There ain't no party like a jigsaw party!

A videogame adaptation of a jigsaw puzzle sounds like an extremely dull prospect, right? Well surprisingly, no, it transpires that it can actually be damn good fun. Pieces (or Jigsaw Party as it is known in Japan) is a puzzle game that simply tasks you with putting the correct pieces of the picture in the right places - I am sure you all know how a jigsaw puzzle works. 

Retro Review - Super Morph (SNES)

Chemistry 101

Some games are instantly fun, others take time to build up a momentum, hooking the player along the way. On the other hand, some games are instantly recognisable as utter balls, but others can lull you into a false sense of security, dragging you in with charming, cartoony graphics, bouncy music, original game mechanics, and enjoyable gameplay before grinding you down over time until you can no longer bare to look it in the face ever again. As if you couldn't guess by this long-winded intro, Super Morph falls solidly into the latter category.

Retro Review - Bounder (C64)

Rubber Ball, Come Bouncing Back To Me...

Back in the days of the 8-bit home micro computers, a game could be made based on absolutely anything - regardless of how mundane. There were games about a dustbin man (sorry, "refuse collector"), someone mowing their lawn, collecting shopping in the supermarket, and even a simple tennis ball bouncing along. That last one is, of course, Bounder, a successful top-down bounce-em-up from Gremlin Interactive - the same fellows that brought us the excellent Monty Mole series. 

Homebrew Review - Alter Ego (NES - PC - Android)

Time for the old Switcheroo!

Alter Ego is a wonderful little homebrew platform puzzler that first appeared on the ZX Spectrum in 2011 (yes, 2011!). Now, fans of brain scratching single screen platformers can enjoy the switching action on PC, Android and even the awesome 8-bit NES.

Based on the idea popularised in Binary Land, Alter Ego has you controlling two characters at the same time. Your main fellow is a little white chap who looks a little similar to Bomberman. The second is his 'alter ego', a black shadowy version of himself. When you move your character left or right, this shadow form will move in the opposite direction (but not up or down - in this case he will copy you). You have a limited number of 'switches' at your disposal per level which, when used, swap the two character's positions. The alter ego is invulnerable to the roaming skulls that patrol the stages and can walk in mid-air so this allows you to move him to areas the main character cannot access. Once there you switch characters and continue as the white character. Using this tactic, you must collect all the little square collectibles to complete each single screen stage. It's an extremely well executed mechanic and one that becomes familiar within minutes of playing the game.

Obscure Retro Gems - Kuru Kuru Kururin (Gameboy Advance)

You spin me right round

I must admit, I am having an absolute ball with casual games these days. Whether on my Android phone, or via the excellent emulation on offer on the PSP, I have been blissfully immersing myself in quick fire games that are easy to pick up and and play, yet extremely hard to put down. Old school arcade games and action puzzlers are my current genres of choice, and I have been loving such addictive titles as Amazing Penguin (Game Boy), Klax and Doki Doki Penguin Land (Mega Drive), Cameltry (Arcade), and now Kuru Kuru Kururin on the Gameboy Advance.

Classic Game - Amazing Penguin (Game Boy)

Cutesy puzzlers and single screen arcade games are the perfect match for hand held consoles. When done well they offer short bursts of fun and head-scratching action that's perfectly suited to gaming on the move. Games like Amidar, Qix, Tetris, Bomb Jack, Bubble Bobble, Catrap and Boulderdash are all great examples of this. And so too is Amazing Penguin.

Developed by Natsume and released in 1990, Amazing Penguin is an exceptionally fun single screen arcade puzzler starring a cute Arctic bird wearing a beret. Why he is wearing such inappropriate head wear is unexplained, but I would imagine if he were a human character he would be called something very different from 'amazing'. It would still begin with an 'A' though.

REVIEW - Snapshot (PC Indie)

Smile! You're on camera!

After crash landing on an alien planet Pic, our childlike robot hero, spots a beautiful butterfly. Mesmerised by the colourful creature he begins to follow it, a journey which takes him through vibrant forests, snow capped mountains, lava filled caves, and palaces in the clouds. This is the wafer thin plot to Snapshot, a wonderful and original take on the popular puzzle platformer genre from the talented folks at Retro Affect.

COIN-OP CLASSICS - Volfied (Taito) 1991

Volfied is the strangely titled follow up to Taito's earlier arcade titles, Qix, and Super Qix. Released back in 1991 Volfied took the line drawing aspect of its predecessors and set it in a futuristic theme not too dissimilar from their later Space Invaders sequels and spin-offs.

Whereas Qix has a very minimalist approach to its graphics, with basic sprites and geometric shapes as enemies, Volfied looks more like the space shoot-em-ups from that era of arcade gaming. Backgrounds consist of planet surfaces and space installations, while enemies are mostly mechanised or robotic in some way or another, this is especially true of the bosses that inhabit each single screen level. These behemoths are usually very striking, from huge robot hands and skulls, to centipede like creatures that snake their way around the screen. The smaller enemies that accompany them are either generic space ships, many of them looking quite similar to your own craft, or a smaller clone of the boss.

The sound is functional, with only title screen music, and a short riff that plays as you enter a stage, and sound effects consist of humming and basic sfx for the ship movement. To be honest, presentation is not Volfied's strong point, though it gets the job done and feels fitting to the basic nature of the gameplay.