Tag: Playstation

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The GRade Twitchcast Episode 17 – The Name Will Come Later!

The hosts of this weeks GRcade Twitchcast are Pedz and The Doom Spoon.

This week the guys talk about the latest PlayStation State of Play. The games they’ve shown, whether it was engaging enough – did anything pique anyone’s interest?

After that, the chat turns to the Inside XBox presentation and again similar things are discussed; which was more interesting?

Lastly, it’s been 2 weeks since Robocop Versus Terminator was picked as a game that both will replay to see if it still holds up and whether nostalgia is a big part of that. Both have played the game, but, how does it fare today? Pedz also played the NES prototype game and that’s rather different. During the podcast, there is footage from the game shown. Check it out on YouTube if you are interested in seeing some of the points made.

For audio-only download click here: Click Here.

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Retro Monday Game 94 – Apocalypse!

Apocalypse was a ‘multidirectional shooter’ (or as we call them usually to call them now ‘Twin Stick Shooter’)  game for Sony’s PlayStation. It was made by developed by Neversoft and published by Activision. It was released in 1998 and was the second game that was created by the Neversoft.

The game was picked via a poll of three games over on GRcade. The three games were picked by Preezy.

Another game I knew nothing about. Which seems to be quite the common theme at the moment.  Well, I have to admit, that the Playstation era visually for me, just isn’t very nice, it hasn’t aged particularly well. Obviously, it will depend on the stylistic choices made and the aesthetic of the game, but a lot that I see or play just don’t hold up. This is one of those games. It isn’t helped that I’m playing it on a 4K TV making it looks worse. For the time I think it would have been held fairly highly, and while the visuals aren’t amazing, when I re-adjusted to them, but the 4th level I was really digging the look of the game and in general prefered the game after the first level. I enjoyed my time with this, it’s not massively different to similar titles before it, when I was asked ‘what kind of game is this?’ in the stream, I said it seems similar to something like Smash T.V. but not as hard. It has different things to Smash TV, there are points where the camera angle changes and there are platforming sections, but it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before. It’s a fun game, and for me, that’s what matters. A game doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel to be fun and enjoyable, which I think a lot of people forget nowadays and expect some kind of revolution at all times.

The sound is actually pretty good, the first level I admit I wasn’t a fan, I thought it just sounded odd. I think the music picks up from there on. with music that suits the levels, and on occasion you come across a billboard and on it is a video from a music video which can be from several bands. The ones I happened to see/hear were not something I knew, bar ‘System of the Down’ and ‘War?’ and I thought maybe on was ‘Pantera’ well, it wasn’t. The sound effects were all well done too, the various weapons all had their own unique sounds which were distinct from each other and the explosions were very loud and explosion-y. BUT, the voice acting of Bruce Willis – yes, Bruce Willis the actor – were underwhelming, the quality wasn’t the issue, it was more than he sounded like he couldn’t really be bothered with it and it just seemed half-arsed. On top of that, the dialogue through the stages was repeated way too much you heard 90% of what is going to be said by Bruce by the end of the first stage. It’s a shame as it could’ve been so much more than what it was if there were more lines recorded and Brucey actually had an interest in it.

Verdict: Recommend.

If you’d like to take part in voting for the games or even  picking the games yourself, take yourself over to the GRcade forums and pop into the Retro Monday thread and just post to show your interest. Not just that, you can watch the gameplay live over on Twitch where it’s streamed at 9pm on a Monday evening.

 

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Retro Monday Game 90 – Tomba!/Tombi!

Tomba! was a platforming game made by Whoopee Camp and published by Sony for the PlayStation 1. Releasing in Japan in 1997, it was 1998 that we in the UK got the game but it was called Tombi! not Tomba!.

 

I looked online for a little while and I saw that Tomba is Italian for grave and that may be the reason for the title change.

The game was picked by GRcade in a poll of three games that were selected by Jeffyard.

I have little knowledge of Tombi, very little. The only time I can remember seeing it was one year at Awesome Games Done Quick, and some guy asked another guy if he would basically shut up. Well, as I found out on during this stream that was Tomba! 2, so my experience was with the wrong game anyway.

The game centres around a young boy, named Tombi. Described as a pink-haired feral boy, you started the game to try and find your grandfather’s bracelet that was stolen by the Evil Pigs. You’ll get to see a lovely animated cutscene at the start for that. Travelling around you’ll come across a variety of friends and things to collect (and this was in only around 1 hour of play time).

The gameplay is a little different to your standard platformer – you don’t just run along and jump on the enemies and then carry on running. In this there are more platforms in the background, and there are then places you can jump onto a wall in the background and climb it, and then explore the area. It seems to be like that for a fair whack of what I played –  you even climb a pretty big set of walls and platforms at one point to find an old guy. Enemies are defeated in several ways: you can either hit them with a weapon which will kill them dead when fully charged, or incapacitate them, when not charged. When incapacitated you can jump on them and grab ahold, press jump again and you jump up with them and throw them. They will die and if hitting another enemy take them out too. I must add, you don’t have to hit the enemies you came across to grab ahold of, but it can make it easier than jumping on them while they are moving. It’s the unique fun of this play style that has me itching to play more.

Musically it’s also lovely. The sound effects pack a punch and the music has a kind of whimsical, upbeat colourful feel.

I’ll say now, that I plan to play more of this. I’m eager to get back to it – there’s something about it that just calls to me. It’s colourful, fun, cheery and plays extremely well, and even as I’m writing this I just want to get back to the game.

Verdict: Highly Recommend

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfv_2NIeT8]

If you’d like to take part in voting for the games or even  picking the games yourself, take yourself over to the GRcade forums and pop into the Retro Monday thread and just post to show your interest. Not just that, you can watch the gameplay live over on Twitch where it’s streamed at 9pm on a Monday evening.