Retro Gaming Australia

A lot of people believe that it should be illegal to own a Neo Geo and not own this game.

Samurai Shodown II is arguably one of the best games on the Neo Geo. SNK rebuilt the sequel from the ground up, including the cast and most of the key elements from the first game while adding several new characters and important features like the POW meter and the parry system. You can also get the game on Virtual Console, Xbox Live Arcade or as the PlayStation 2’s Samurai Shodown Anthology set

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One of Data East’s all-time classics.

BurgerTime puts players in the shoes of Peter Pepper, who must build hamburgers by running over the top of their individual components while being chased by various condiments and ingredients. It’s kind of amusing in a surrealist way. This particular ad is for the US release of the Intellivison version.

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Konami and their weirdness.

Kid Dracula is a parody of/spin-off from the Castlevania series. Instead of playing as a member of the whip-wielding Belmont clan, you play as Dracula, albeit as a younger kid. He’s still evil, and rather cocky about it, but he’s too cute to be threatening. The Game Boy game is both a remake of and sequel to the Famicom game Akumajō Special: Boku Dracula-kun.

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Always loved the tagline on this one.

Unreal Championship II was the second Xbox exclusive unreal game. To date, it is the only 3rd person game in the Unreal series. The game focuses largely on fast-paced melee combat, a rapid departure from the series formula. Since the game was published by Midway, a couple of Mortal Kombat favourites make appearances as unlockable characters.

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Yeah, yeah, a bit on the new side, but it was technically a compilation of two pre-2000 releases.

Dead or Alive Ultimate is a compilation of Dead or Alive and Dead or Alive 2 for the Xbox, released in 2005. It features an enhanced remake of Dead or Alive 2, which was built on the Xtreme Beach Volleyball tech, giving it higher polygon models, new stages, smoother framerate, gameplay elements from Dead or Alive 3 and online play over Xbox Live. Which you can’t use anymore.

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The second-to-last of the great AKI wrestling games.

Ultimate Muscle: Legends vs. New Generation is based on the successful second series of Ultimate Muscle: The Kinnikuman Legacy, an off-the-wall manga/anime about a family of pro-wrestling superstars. The second series focuses on Kid Muscle, the spoilt and somewhat stupid son of King Muscle, the hero from the first series. You may remember the toys from the first series – they were marketed here as M.U.S.C.L.E.

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They don’t make video games like they used to.

System Shock is a futuristic first-person action-RPG set aboard a derelect space ship. The game is celebrated for its chilling atmosphere, as well as some of its technological innovations. This ad is for the later CD-ROM release of the game, which added more detailed graphics, speech for logs and emails, and multiple display resolutions.

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Kuribo’s Shoe for life.

Super Mario Bros. 3 was the biggest release on the Nintendo Entertainment System, selling over 18 million copies. It also features Kuribo’s Shoe, which is the best goddamn power up in any Mario game. This ad is for the French release of the game.

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Who doesn’t want an array of multi-coloured systems? Sane people, probably.

Nintendo released a bunch of coloured Nintendo 64s in 1999-2000 to boost flagging sales of the system. These systems had transparent casing and could be bought in one of six colours – purple, orange, green, red, blue or grey. They weren’t released in particularly big numbers in Australia, so expect to pay through the nose for one.

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One of those weird Mega Drive variants.

The JVC X’Eye, also known as the Wondermega, was a unit manufactured by Victor which combined a Mega Drive and a Mega-CD into one unit. It boasts improved sound capabilities and has S-Video outputs for a better picture. It’s not easy to find one of these, so you’ll probably have to fork over a bit of cash to get one.

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