Retro Gaming Australia

Crash Bandicoot was one of that games that really helped to change the fortunes of the PlayStation in its early days. The game also arguably made a name for its developer, Naughty Dog, a company which has gone on to become one of the best technical studios in the world. Pity about what happened after Naughty Dog stopped making Crash games, though.

Once upon a time, Squaresoft used to make games that were not RPGs. This nearly bankrupted the company. 3D World Runner was one such game. You play as a space cowboy on a mission to save the galaxy from some snake-like creatures, which somehow correlates to running on a constantly forward scrolling screen. You can choose to play the game in 3D using a pair of old red and blue 3D glasses, hence the name.

Capcom vs. SNK 2: EO is an enhanced port of Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 / Millionaire Fighting 2001 for the GameCube and Xbox. The main addition was the Easy Operation mode, which allowed you to utilise special attacks with the flick of an analogue stick. The Xbox version also added support for 480p and online play.

Bionic Commando: Elite Forces is the only iteration of the series not to be published by Capcom. In fact, it was developed by Nintendo Software Technology and published by Nintendo. It’s a little bit different to the other entries in the series – more techy and futuristic, and you don’t control Radd Spencer – rather, an unnamed male or female commando.

Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos is the third game in the 8-bit Sonic series. It’s the first Sonic game to allow players to control Tails’ ability to fly – which was kind of a big deal back then. It’s substantially better than its immediate predecessor, the 8-bit Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

It’s always Dr. Wily.

Mega Man: Dr Wily’s Revenge is the first of five outings on the original Game Boy. Capcom had intended to do an enhanced port of these five games for the Game Boy Advance in a pack called Mega Man Mania, but the original source code had been lost, and the attempt to rebuild the games from scratch was not pretty.

Never did catch ’em all. Got damn close, though!

The game(s) that launched a phenomenon. Pokemon Red and Blue had tipped the handheld gaming industry on its head in Japan, and the rest of the world could not resist the lure of Pikachu and his 150 friends. The western release of the game is not actually the original Japanese release Pokemon Red / Green, but rather based on the enhanced release Pokemon Blue, which featured redrawn sprites and a substantial number of bug fixes.

One of Rare’s best.

Jet Force Gemini is the perfect mix of action/adventure games and third person shooters. The game is known for its rather nasty endgame, where players have to go back through the entire game to rescue each and every one of the teddy bear-like Tribals before they can fight the bastard-hard end boss Mizar. This ad was from the Spanish campaign.

Get your ass to Algol.

Phantasy Star Online is remembered for being one of the best early online RPG experiences on consoles, and was one of the most popular games on the Dreamcast. So popular in fact, that it was ported to three other platforms and has formed the basis for every Phantasy Star release since, much to the chagrin of fans of the six games in the series that predate PSO.

If you could take Nemesis down with a knife, you are my hero.

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis was the last game in the series to appear on the PlayStation. Most of the game was spent getting away from the hulking bioweapon Nemesis, who could appear at random moments and cause you serious harm with strong physical attacks and/or his rocket launcher.