Retro Gaming Australia

Zombie Nation is a really odd shooter for the NES where you play as either a disembodied samurai head or tengu mask, who are on a quest to destroy a meteor that has turned the population of the United States into zombies.

Mega Man 8 is one of the more overlooked entries in the classic Mega Man series, probably due to the focus being on the X series at the time, being a 2D game in a 3D era, and having a pretty ghastly English dub. It has beautiful sprite work, though.

The criminal mastermind Carmen Sandiego is on the loose again, presumably with some form of time machine. As a result, you get to spend the next couple of hours doing history homework in order to catch her.

Nintendo effectively turned the Game Boy Advance into a SNES port dumping ground, but it’s safe to say that many of the ports were actually worse than their original versions. Probably the most offensive case was Donkey Kong Country, which was significantly brightened up – to the point where it looks absolutely awful on anything but the original, non-lit GBA console.

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.

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.