Retro Gaming Australia

Tomb Raider gets labelled as being groundbreaking or a pop culture phenomenon, but let’s face it – it’s Indiana Jones with tits. It has also aged really, really poorly – but hey, the first three are definitely better than the three that followed.

Grand Theft Auto 2 is sort of the odd duck in the series, set in the near future (from its 1999 release date) in a town called “Anywhere, USA”. The player must balance their allegiance between gangs while completing missions. Unlike future GTA games, the gang alignment system is not tied to the plot – players can tip the gang favour stakes by simply murdering members of the opposing gang to gain favour. If you’re looking to play it, go for the PC version.

There are a variety of Capcom and SNK crossovers out there, but the very first one came in the form of a card game, SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash. The game is a collectible card game, with cards based on popular SNK and Capcom characters. Two versions were available, one SNK and one Capcom, with different cards available in each.

Double Dragon for the NES is somewhat infamous for being one of the only home ports of the game without two player co-operative play. If you can overlook that, it’s a decent port, but given that co-op was one of the main selling points of Double Dragon, it’s a bit like a BLT without bacon.

It is widely held that Sega’s early Disney games for the Mega Drive and Genesis were all good. Fantasia is the exception to the rule. That’s probably because it was actually developed by Infogrames, whose track record at that point hardly inspired confidence. It looks pretty, but it plays like garbage.

Castlevania: The New Generation (Bloodlines for our North American friends, and Vampire Killer in its Japanese incarnation) was the first game in the franchise to be released on a Sega format. It saw the legendary Vampire Killer whip passed to a new, non-Belmont character, John Morris. Morris is joined by Eric Lecarde, whose girlfriend was transformed into a vampire when Dracula’s niece, Elizabeth Bartley, attempted to revive her uncle. The two join forces to destroy Dracula (yet again).

Donkey Kong 64 is a divisive game. Some, like myself, feel that the game was a pretty solid platformer. Others feel that the game is the pinnacle of the absurd collect-a-thon that apparently plagued the 32/64-bit console era. No matter your stance, you’ll probably agree that the DK Rap was a bad idea.

We’ve been so spoiled by good Batman games in recent times that we tend to forget that pre-Arkham Asylum Batman games were largely terrible. Among the worst would be Batman & Robin for the PlayStation, based on the rather awful film of the same name. Another quality Acclaim product.

I don’t think there was anyone out there who had a PC in the mid 1990s who didn’t own some form of shareware compilation CD. Most likely nestled on that CD would have been Jazz Jackrabbit, arguably one of the finer platformers on the PC.

Banjo-Kazooie was one of the most anticipated platformers for the Nintendo 64, though the combination of bear and bird often cops flack for collection focused gameplay, despite being nowhere near as absurd as Donkey Kong 64 in the collection stakes. This ad is from the German Club Nintendo magazine.