Retro Gaming Australia

Filling our Mortal Kombat ad requirement for the month.

Mortal Kombat CD is the Mega CD port of the first game in the series. The game is packed with typical early CD game gimmicks – it even opens with a (low quality) version of the “Mortal Monday” commercial. While not quite up to the standard of the arcade game in visual terms, the sound is more than adequate and the gameplay is quite faithful. The load times are absolutely awful, though. This ad is an early teaser – the final version of the game had an MA-17 rating due to the infamous blood code no longer being required.

Possibly my favourite RPG on the PC.

Fallout 2 is set roughly 80 years of the original game, with the player controlling a direct descendant of the original Vault Dweller. Your village, Arroyo is in peril: you need to find a Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.) in the remnants of Vault 13, the facility from which your ancestor began his/her journey. It’s a bit lighter and funnier than the first game, but it doesn’t compromise on the story or gameplay.

Flagship’s first crack at Zelda was fantastic.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons are two parts of a whole. Originally, they started development as “The Triforce Series” – three interconnected games that could be played in any order – The Mystical Seed of Power, The Mystical Seed of Courage and The Mystical Seed of Wisdom. Co-ordinating the development of the titles and getting them to interact proved too difficult, so The Mystical Seed of Courage was cancelled, and Power and Courage were adapted into Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons

Very nearly missed today’s post due to the upgrades and an afternoon spent finishing Banjo-Tooie.

Metroid Fusion is the last non-remake game in the series to be presented entirely using 2D graphics. It takes place after Super Metroid, with Samus becoming infected by a new alien lifeform and, somewhat ironically, saved by a serum derived from a Metroid, a species she was bent on destroying.

The best game in the GBA launch line up.

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (or just Castlevania in Europe, again) was the first Castlevania game for the Game Boy Advance, and the second to use the free roaming structure set by Symphony of the Night. Unfortunately, due to its release with the original non-backlit GBA, a lot of players had a hard time actually seeing what the heck was going on when attempting to play.

Kind of disturbing, no?

Mario’s Picross is the first of a number of Picross games developed by Jupiter and published by Nintendo. A picross is a kind of puzzle where players have to mark specific squares to create a picture. The game didn’t do well outside of Japan, so we missed out on a number of sequels until Nintendo took another crack with Picross DS.

The best sprites in the history of gaming?

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike is (obviously) the third version of Street Fighter III and the second to be released for home consoles. 3rd Strike added five new characters, new music, the Guard Parry move and a multitude of other refinements. The game continues to be held in high regard amongst fighting game fans.

Falcon Punch!!

Super Smash Bros. Melee was the best-selling game for the GameCube, taking the formula that made its predecessor so successful, and jamming it with new content until it was bursting at the seams (though it didn’t have a trophy for Poochie from Yoshi’s Island).

You might remember the controversy, but do you remember the the cheesy credits theme?

Night Trap is one of a number of games directly responsible for video game classification, even though it’s quite tame. Night Trap was actually filmed several years several years before its Mega CD debut, as it was originally intended as a major release for Hasbro’s aborted VHS console, the Nemo.

An oft-overlooked Sonic adventure

Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble is the hedgehog’s fourth 8-bit platforming game and the first not to appear on the Master System in any region. It introduces Nack the Weasel, a talented thief who wishes to capture the Chaos Emeralds for mass profit. The game was developed by Aspect, who handled most of Sonic’s 8-bit appearances.