1994 – NewRetroWave – Stay Retro! | Live The 80's Dream!

Smokey64 drops chipstalgic album ‘1994’

Robin Ono — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 21:47:02 +0000

Hailing from Arizona, smokey64 is a fresh new name on the block whose first efforts are worth tuning into. From the infinite vastness of Bandcamp’s ever-expanding catalogue, his debut full-length 1994 has emerged, hooking us instantly with its nostalgia-drenched 8-bit chillwave compositions. Throughout the record’s 14 tracks, the producer has managed to distil the purest essence of melancholy that will tug at the heartstrings of any young adult having spent their childhood with a handheld Nintendo console. Bare-boned as the production may be, smokey64’s debut makes its case by the sheer effectiveness of its ideas and will keep you hooked until it’s time to reach for that replay button.

Smokey64 ‘1994’ is out now via Bandcamp.

Retro Movie of the Month – ABOVE THE RIM (1994)

Sam HaiNe — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 12:33:09 +0000

ABOVE THE RIM (1994)

The last film in Barry Michael Cooper’s Harlem trilogy Above the Rim (94) was directed and co-written by Jeff Pollack with a screenplay by Cooper adapted from a story by Benny Medina. Above the Rim stars Duane Martin, Tupac Shakur (Juice, Bullet, Gridlock’d), Leon Robinson (Five Heartbeats, Colors, Cool Runnings), Marlon Wayans (Requiem for a Dream) and Wood Harris (Paid in Full, Dread, HBO’s The Wire). Distributed by New Line Cinema and premiering on March 23, 1994.

This Retro Pick of the Month is a coming-of-age story about a talented and promising young man named Kyle Watson (D. Martin) living in Harlem with potential to get a basketball scholarship and likely a future in the NBA. He must choose between working hard to better himself or falling victim to the allure and pitfalls of street life. Between the encouragement and tutorship of a security guard named Shep (Leon Robinson) or the manipulations of a local hustler named Birdie (Tupac). It’s a tug of war over the soul of a young man learning to become his own man.

Above the Rim was filmed on location in Harlem with some locations as Manhattan Center for Science & Mathematics in East Harlem, Howard Bennett Playground on 139^th street and the legendary Rucker Park. With a soundtrack featuring hits by SWV, the Dogg Pound, Nate Dog & Warren G, the Lady of Rage, AL.B. Sure! and Tupac Shakur.

A basketball movie that was made during the second wave of Black Exploitation cinema, also known as the Hood movie craze of the nineties, after the success of John Singleton’s Boyz in the Hood (1991) and the Hughes Bros’ Menace 2 Society (1993). It was during this time that we were blessed with Cult Classics like New Jersey Drive, Juice, Fresh, New Jack City, Belly, Clockers, South Central, Deep Cover, Sugar Hill, Hangin with the Homeboys, and you get the point. It was a great time for variety with stories about US, the sons & daughters of the ghetto, with no pandering and no ulterior motives or tokenizing. Hollywood was eager to green light new auteurs and stories while profiting from black dollars at the cinema. That is until the 2000’s came and well let’s try to forget that nosedive; I’m looking at you No Limit films and SOUL PLANE.

It’s a time capsule of Nineties nostalgia and HipHop culture. It was the last film released during Tupac Shakur’s lifetime. It is a story about US about US.

Other remarkable recommendations: SUGAR HILL (1993), JUICE (1992), Cooley High (1975), He Got Game (1998), Fresh (1994), Straight Out of Brooklyn (1991).

This movie reminds me of nothing less than my classmates from OUR LADY of LOURDES School on W. 143^rd street (Sugar Hill, Harlem) class of 1996. I Love Yous all.

Stay fresh, Stay Fly and always keep that finger on the REWIND button.

Heretic (Raven Software, 1994)

bryan.eddy@newretrowave.com — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 13:14:53 +0000

It’s October, and I believe I promised you RetroFiends some spooky shit. Well, let’s ease into it, since it’s so early on in the month… we’ll start with one of the creepiest FPS games of the 1990s, one that took good advantage of the legendary Doom Engine – a tale of magic, evil, destruction, and revenge.

Here’s the absolutely sick-nasty box art by Gerald Brom again… Corvus’s eyes are mad with rage as he hurls ruin into some trick-ass skeletons in the dark. Everything Gerald Brom draws looks like it’s channeled right out of Robert E. Howard’s id. I love it.

Heretic was first released in December of 1994, and was published by id Software through GT Interactive. The game used a modified (one could say “expanded”) version of the Doom engine, featuring advances such as ambient sound, an inventory system, and the ability to tilt the player’s view up and down. Though they published Heretic, id didn’t make it… that credit falls to Raven Software.

Raven has become a big name in modern gaming, having worked on games for Marvel as well as the Call of Duty series. Their first title, an RPG called Black Crypt, was released in 1992. Raven garnered more attention with the following year’s ShadowCaster, a first-person adventure game that utilized an engine somewhere between Wolfenstein 3D‘s and Doom‘s in terms of capability. John Carmack of id wrote the engine and licensed it to Raven, establishing a working rapport that led to the production of Heretic a year later.

1992’s Black Crypt, Raven’s first game. I’ve never played it, but this is making me want to. It looks metal as fuck, just like Heretic and Hexen. Nothing wrong with sticking to a formula.

Heretic tells the story of a doomed world called Parthoris. Three entities called the Serpent Riders have possessed the kings of this world and corrupted its people. Only a clan of elves known as the Sidhe have dared to stand against the Riders, who have retaliated by declaring the entire race “heretics” and waging brutal war on them. In the end, the Serpent Riders’ grip on Parthoris is weakened… but at the cost of many elf lives. The Sidhe retreat, but one remains, intent on vengeance – Corvus, the character controlled by the player. Corvus is intent on destroying D’Sparil, the weakest of the Riders who has stayed behind to rule Parthoris. To reach the evil overlord, Corvus must make his way through three episodes (plus two in the expansion) of fantastic horror. Lucky for him, he’s not some soft-ass Keebler bitch. Forget all you know about the stereotype… this elf is a streetwalkin’ cheetah with a heart full of napalm, to quote one of the world’s purest poems.

The “barrels” in Heretic grow back when you destroy them, crowding tight areas and presenting just as much of a hazard to Corvus as they do to anything else. One upside to them is that you can move them around by pushing them, if you’re willing to risk a stray shot ruining your day.

While gameplay is very similar to Doom at the ground level, Heretic boasts additional capabilities not present in the original game format. You can fly, look all around, and save powerups for careful use when needed. Heretic has an extra layer of play that is a solid improvement on an already legendary engine. Instead of boomsticks and rocket launchers, Corvus blasts his way through the evil armies of D’Sparil with potent spells and relics. You start out in a dockyard with nothing but a simple wand and the butt of your staff to defend yourself, but do not despair – enchanted crossbows, jolting gauntlets, and fireball-hurling staves can be found and used to wreak havoc on the enemy. Most of these implements are noticeable analogs of their Doom counterparts; for instance, the electrifying gauntlets behave very much like Doom‘s chainsaw, while the Phoenix Rod is clearly a rocket-launcher wearing a different skin. Corvus also picks up items along the way that he can carry with him and activate later on, as inventory. These tools include wings for flight, masks that render the wearer temporarily hazy and near-invisible, and even rings that give you a few moments of indestructible invulnerability. Learning to conserve these relics and not waste them is a key part of the game’s strategy… and strategy you will need.

Beatdown in Spookytown. Unlike you, the forces of evil never run out of ammo. These guys in particular hit unreasonably hard… who am I kidding? Everything hits hard in Heretic.

The rank and file monsters you encounter range from the bizarre to the downright terrifying. Mummies, skeletal warriors, scorpion-men, mutant reptiles, and ghostly enemy warlocks hound your every step. Not only are these creatures visually impressive, but the sound effects for Heretic bring them to ghastly life as they shriek and howl for your blood. The soundtrack is pretty middle-of-the-line, but E1M1’s music stands out, as well as the tracks for the boss fight levels. The boss-type monsters are also impressive; perhaps the most visually striking are the Iron Liches (hovering steel skulls bedecked in grand helmets, spitting elemental ruin from their mouths) and the Maulotaurs (think minotaurs, but fucking huge and armed with hammers capable of launching flame). Even the environment itself will work against you – not just in the familiar ways (lava, etc), either. In Heretic, you take damage from falling too far, and rushing water and push you into such chasms as well. The walls can crush you in new ways, and gaseous puffballs the size of a human being fill certain areas (behaving much like Doom‘s barrels but respawning rapidly after their destruction). Parthoris is not a safe world, not in the clutches of D’Sparil.

The Maulotaur and an Iron Lich. In true video game tradition, the huge terrible asshole boss monsters become regulars after their first climactic appearance. Happy Birthday. (click to enlarge.)

An expansion, Shadow of the Serpent Riders, was released in 1996, the game’s first actual retail release (the original full version was available only by mail after registering the shareware demo). The expansion adds two more episodes as an epic epilogue to the defeat of D’Sparil, packed with even more peril and adventure. The game’s formal sequel, Hexen, was released in 1995. Hexen features non-linear gameplay and in-depth puzzle solving as well as multiple player-character choices. Both of these titles would receive numerical sequels in the latter part of the 1990s, more conventionally 3D with polygon-based graphics running in an engine based off of Quake II‘s.

I give Heretic a solid 8 out of 10. It’s a solid improvement on a game engine that had already shocked the world, its dark fantasy theme is a novel flavor for an FPS, and it packs an addictive challenge. If you’re into classic FPS games and you’ve never played it, please treat yourself.

Spider-Man Video Games: A Look Back

bryan.eddy@newretrowave.com — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 20:24:56 +0000

It’s time for us to cross the streams, true believers.

There’s a lot of talk about comics here on NRW, and rightly so. Joey has his own awesome strand of articles wherein he sheds light on the old and exposes us to the retro-new, and we love it, because Joey is to the medium of comics what I am to sitting on my ass in front of a CRT monitor with a controller in my hand: he’s a passionate expert on the subject. It’s worth diving into; when done well, the comic book or graphic novel is an art form capable of deftly transporting the reader to new worlds – some like our own, and some realities away from it.

What can’t be overlooked is how the comic book multiverse has been thrust into the colored-light beams and binary rows of the VG grinder time and time again in the plodding quest to juice franchises for more revenue. Here’s the dolorous stroke, folks: We’re going to take a look at how they’ve done this with one of Marvel’s undisputed icons, their bread-and-butter household name… Spider-Man. Peter Parker, the world’s most beloved wise-cracking web slinger, has been dipped in silicon and code frequently throughout video gaming’s history, with results that I will be kind and describe as “varied.”

I mean, he’s an icon. Some comics fans think he’s a pussy. Honestly, I do too. I’m more of a Punisher guy. No one can deny, however, that Peter Parker is one of the most luminous stars in comic book history. (Artwork by Michael Golden)

Everyone’s pretty familiar with Spidey’s origins and powers. He got bit by a radioactive spider, got some powers, lost his uncle to crime, and got serious about cleaning up the Big Apple (and sometimes beyond). The wall-crawler has made tons of friends and enemies since his appearance in the 60s, from goblins to murderous hunters to symbiotic aliens that abandoned him and sought out his unstable and disgruntled colleagues for revenge (Venom is the man!) Pete’s powers, coupled with his nifty web-shooting devices, make for the possibility of great dynamic gameplay if translated creatively into digital form. Right?

Ah, shit, kids… let’s just do this. I’m not gonna look at every game, but we’ll examine the prominent titles that most of us may have seen or played.

Spider-Man (1982)

Platform: Atari 2600

Culprits: Parker Brothers/Atari

Eh. It’s not great, but everything looked like this in 1982. At least we can tell which one’s Spider-Man.

You’ll probably expect me to be cruel here, because I do lean on the side of bastardry when it comes to the 2600. I mean… eh. Let’s stay in context… this isn’t bad for a 2600 game. Considering the limits of the system graphics- and sound-wise, you get a good representation of the key elements. Gameplay consists of getting up on top of the building and kicking Green Goblin’s ass, which to be fair, ate up a lot of Peter’s logged superhero hours in the 70s/80s either together or as separate activities. Using your web shooters is a little tedious, but once you’ve got the hang of how to do it in a rhythm and pull yourself up, it’s pretty fun. I suppose my only knock on this one is that it’s not enough to do. But then, not every 2600 game can be Burgertime and crush your soul with raw chaos.

The Amazing Spider-Man (1990)

Platforms: Amiga, Atari ST, PC Compatibles

Culprits: Oxford Digital/Paragon Software

Let me start off with something nice before I put my hands under the table and fucking lift. The Amiga has always stood out for its time as a system capable of audiovisual richness, and this game really turns her out. The ST and PC versions are decent in that regard too, although the audio quality varies.

“Shut down all the garbage mashers on the detention level!” I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself.

Now, let’s talk about HOW they chose to turn her out. The controls are pretty fucking far from intuitive; while I expect translating Spider-Man’s iconic means of locomotion to be a challenge for a game developer, this shit is just abyss you’ll keep falling into until you start being meticulously careful… which isn’t prudent in 90% of the situations you’ll be navigating. Move fast? Move really carefully? The answer to both is usually no. Again, I can’t knock the graphics, but there’s something inherently wrong about this image, seen during the intro. Something that reminds me of “non-Euclidean shapes,” “lightless gulfs across time and space,” and “red-haired woman being forcibly abducted by a fishbowl-headed mannequin.” Poor Mary Jane.

somebodys_fetish.jpg

Almost as bizarre is the choice to represent your life bar as a picture of Spider-Man that turns skeletal from the feet upward as you move closer to death.

He looks a little embarrassed. I don’t blame him.

Last gripe: the game is, at least to me, unreasonably goddamn long considering the tedium it is to play. You can watch a longplay here, and be sure to listen to the entire intro music, or at least sit through it for as long as you can before reaching for that little red track-bar to skip through it and save your sanity.

Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six (1992)

Platforms: NES, Game Gear, Master System

Culprits: LJN (OF COURSE), Flying Edge, Bits Studios

This game is mercifully short, but still feels like being hurled into a black hole and somehow kept alive to slowly lose one’s mind via time dilation. Spider-Man, despite being fully human height, has the same general proportions as Wee Man from Jackass. His ability to leap through the air is admirable, and the controls aren’t too bad… until you try to do any of the shit Spider-Man is known for doing in terms of movement. The graphics are candy-colored palettes of pure hell wherein men are depicted universally as shoeless mongoloids and no light seems to penetrate anything (despite the garish coloration of everything).

It’s like Willy Wonka took a massive shit all over everything, and really wasn’t feeling well when he did. I bumble forth, capable of great feats of agility but barely able to keep my goose neck from dropping my pumpkin head onto my barrel chest. As Spider-Man, I am the monster, and I belong here.

A small handful of farty, tooty pieces of music cycle as you penetrate deeper into the Sinister Six’s criminal kingdom, presenting a strange yet totally-LJN mix of jazzy swing and “I ate so many tabs I can’t even tell what genre this is.” The drums punch at the listener’s mind, almost as if they are intended to pummel you into accepting the rest of this musical affront as tolerable. It’s like a rave in a Civil War graveyard, and someone invited Dizzy Gillespie. Actually, fuck that… that’d rule. This doesn’t.

Again, I can’t flush this game completely; it’s a decent effort overall, but LJN had a tendency (with a scant few exceptions) to attach its name to something and then pile drive it into the floor until no amount of reconstructive surgery could fix it.

Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage (1994)

Platforms: Genesis. SNES

Culprits: LJN, Acclaim, Software Creations

We’re ending on a positive note. We have to. We owe it to ourselves.

I really liked the Maximum Carnage story arc in the comics. It’s held high by some and shit on by others, but there’s something about a villain so terrifying that two bitter enemies (not to mention a wild cross section of Marvel’s 90s line-up) combined forces to defeat him as he rampaged across New York with his own wrecking crew. I love big events, and I LOVE villains. And Carnage… well, he’s one burning hell of a villain.

Really, if anyone deserves this shit, it’s JJ.

This effort did decent justice to the source material. I’ll keep this simple and just tick off some pros and cons.

PROS

-Venom is a playable character

-Morbius shows up, along with Deathlok, Black Cat, Iron Fist, and a few other underrated Marvel good guys

-it’s a beat-em-up, and not a bad one, either

-comic book style cut scenes, and they’re not done poorly

–pretty damn good music

-LJN didn’t set this one on fire and stand back playing pocket pool while it burned to slag

Really cool audio-visual presentation all around. It keeps true to the comic feel without burning that candle at both ends with a welding torch.

CONS

-The music did not sound as good in the Genesis version

-This game is also long; why the hell does Spider-Man mean “long fucking game” almost uniformly to game designers

-It’s incredibly unfair to put bad-ass characters like Black Cat, Iron Fist and Morbius in here and not have them as full-on playables

-I feel like a lot of the villains get undersold in terms of their powers and badass-ness

-Still, to make an understatement, a bit fucking cumbersome to do the web slinging thing, although it must be acknowledged that it’s better in this than in any predecessor

Overall, Maximum Carnage is fun as hell. I owned the Genesis cart as a kid and got a lot of replay value out of it. It’s a net win due to presentation and the choice of formatting it as a beat-em-up, which makes it approachable on a level far beyond its ancestors in Spidey’s video game library.

That brings us to 1994, folks, so I guess I’ll put the brakes on it here. Thanks for reading, and before I go, I suppose I owe you some number ratings on these hunks of pop media history.

Atari 2600: 6/10

Amiga: 5/10

NES: 3/10

Genesis/SNES: 7/10

See you at the end of the month, RetroFans! Excelsior!!!

Hall of Shame: NES 1992-94

bryan.eddy@newretrowave.com — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 00:43:01 +0000

The Nintendo Entertainment System hit US shores in 1985. It wasn’t just a success, it became its own little matte-gray pop culture icon. From 1985-87 was arguably its glory era; it had no meaningful competition outside its native Japan, well over half the market’s share in hand (65% by ’87), and Nintendo was such a household name that moms would often just call any game console a Nintendo when referring to it.

1989 saw NEC try to sell its PC-Engine in the States under the name TurboGrafx-16, and that same year Sega followed suit with their Mega Drive. As the 90s went on, these new threats were headed off by Nintendo’s own next-gen system, the SNES. The NES just kind of puttered in the background.

The Nintendo Entertainment System died a slow and quiet death… but during that death, they kept developing games for it. It is needless to say that quality control (or even interest in it) flagged a little. By 1992, with the big consoles taking shit to the street, the NES got a moderate to slow trickle of pretty terrible games with a few acceptable ones thrown in. This would continue until August of 1994, when Wario’s Woods – the last game released for the NES – hit shelves. In 1995 they finally did the NES a favor and gave it the Old Yeller treatment.

You’ll notice that all of these are titles that were released for multiple platforms. That means a version of each game exists that’s actually closer to good. Or at least, less shitty.

RoboCop 3

(Ocean/Probe, 1992)

I’m about to say a few things it almost physically hurts me to say.

They should not have done any RoboCop sequels. The second one was watchable but the third has a 3% rating on Rotten Tomatoes as we speak. They definitely should not have made 3. You know what else they shouldn’t have done? Taken a film that made $10m on a $22m budget and tried to make an NES game out of it in 1992.

The title screen has RoboCop cradling a small child on one shoulder; both he and the child are brandishing guns. Where the hell are we going with this? When I saw it, I was speechless. Where does this leave us?

Well, it leaves RoboCop on a Detroit street getting the shit shot out of him by guys in windows because it takes you two very deliberate actions to aim upward. Different parts of his body take damage and can stop working, so it’s entirely possible to just lose control of RoboCop in the least rock-n-roll way possible. The controls are about as fluid as smashing a compact car into a sturdy brick wall. Don’t try to duck while shooting or aim your gun quickly or really anything a real cop could do, let alone RoboCop. I’d even say the graphics are okay but they’re not.

Last Action Hero

(Teeny Weeny/Sony Imagesoft, 1993)

He isn’t last action anything. He isn’t even action anything. Not in this game, anyway. Maybe in the movie where shit just works. I’m not gonna sit here and say I remember or even saw the movie, but if this is the game we got out of it, maybe that’s better off.

My first big complaint about any game where I don’t have some kind of gun: Don’t make my punch, etc. so short-range that I have to choose between pacifism and getting myself hurt. You can’t hit jack shit without getting thumped yourself. You have short, thick little arms no one thought about during development. You also do this odd shuffle when you punch, like you’re trying awkwardly to hug someone. Eventually I figured out how INCREDIBLY PRECISE you must be with those fat little hams, but by then I was tired of playing the game.

AND ENOUGH WITH THIS DIGITIZED PHOTOGRAPHY SHIT. The loss of color depth, especially in a dark shot, will make someone in ¾ profile look like a goofy bird person.

Incredible Crash Dummies

(LJN, 1994)

Here’s a huge low-res image because people hated this one so much I couldn’t even find a decent scan.

I don’t even know where to start with this one. One thing I simply ADORE is how you keep moving for a second after you release the D-pad. What, the Mario 3 ice world effect, but forever? Awesome! Also, the very first level is full of situations where your little wheel-leg is a liability: inclines, little segmented areas, and things that will hit you if you don’t stop on a dime. Which you can’t.

I understand the SNES version of this one isn’t much better, which doesn’t surprise me. The NES one is difficult past the point of fun, that point where you just have to know you’re abusing yourself by playing it. Then your eyes meet this symbol of quality the very second you turn it on… and it all makes sense.

Well fuck you, too.

It’s a shame the NES died this way.

Nosferatu (Seta, 1994)

bryan.eddy@newretrowave.com — Mon, 26 Sep 2016 15:36:20 +0000

So, the first SNES I owned was in 1999. I was a Sega guy during the competing time period, but eventually I got a used SNES from a friend. He threw in a handful of games… Super Mario World, F-Zero, Zelda… Nosferatu? You can guess which one I tried first when I got home. I still consider it a top note for the SNES, and a great topic to usher us into October.

Published by Seta in October of 1994, Nosferatu wouldn’t be released in America for another year. It got mixed but mostly positive reviews, many citing its dark, cinematic atmosphere and challenging gameplay as strong points. Nosferatu caught some heat for its controls and its combat system; they took some getting used to but could be used to good effect once mastered.

Japanese cover reveals an unedited version of the artwork. Slightly less “K-A,” but whatever.

Now, what comes to mind (and rightly so) when the term “Nosferatu” gets thrown about is the 1922 FW Murnau silent film, perhaps specifically Max Schreck’s awe-inspiring portrayal of Count Orlok from said film. Sadly, we’ll find this to have nothing at all to do with the film, but it is almost as classy. I say almost because our protagonist in the game does a good deal of fighting the living dead with his hands and feet. It’s not classy, but it’s insanely badass.

If a trope ain’t broke, don’t fix it… Nosferatu took your gal. That’s the entire plot. Apparently he’s really bad about this kind of thing. While you’re up there, see if you could talk to him about all the bloodsucking.

After you fall into some kind of trap door right inside the castle gate, you’ve got a timer ticking down and little gargoyle men after you. Naturally, you fell in a dungeon, so there’s pits and ledges, and of course, TRAPS. So you can see what kind of game this will be right from the start. Everything’s a puzzle, but you’ve got your blood and guts, too; our hero has a surprisingly fast set of hands and is in very good shape. So the job of the day (night?) is to reach where Nosferatu’s got your lady friend, getting there in one piece. Needless to say, his whole realm is a hellish place. There’s the undead trying to add you to their ranks, and there’s away to deal with them, but it’s easy to get carried away and hurt. The game requires careful strategy and a bit of thought as you pick your way through.

The graphics are pretty amazing, especially the bits of cinematic we get. Lots of high quality background and animation work, especially on little baddies and the like. I feel like in places, the music falls short. Most of the tracks are good horror music; they build tension and convey stress. Some of the tracks just sound… dated, I guess, but it’s good where it counts.

I give Nosferatu for the SNES a 7 out of 10. It was an underrated but forward-thinking title that came out at a weird time for the console, but like the (unrelated) 1922 silent film, it still has its fans to this day. There was a great adventure game in there, and they did a lot right. Don’t let this one slip through the cracks.

RBI Baseball 94 (Namco/Atari)

bryan.eddy@newretrowave.com — Sun, 29 May 2016 23:12:28 +0000

Hey folks! I know we’re video game nerds one and all, but here’s a little secret about me: I love baseball. I’ve enjoyed watching the Cubs this season, and I’m a perennial Dodgers fan through thick and thin. I even played little league when I was a kid, and had a pretty good time doing it. There was a span of time in my youth, in fact, when I was obsessed with the sport. I was always bothered about how there didn’t seem to be any really good baseball video games… until I got RBI ’94 for my Genesis.

The RBI series was well established by the time this title came around, and ’94 was like the final casting of a design that got better each time. To touch on the series as a whole, it was a joint effort between Atari and Namco, which began in 1986 on the NES/Famicom as a Japanese title called “Family Stadium.” Since the Japanese love baseball as much as we do, it was a big hit there, which earned it a release in the USA. The series has been published here in the USA by Atari’s subsidiary Tengen, who are probably more infamous for the black-cartridge copy of Gauntlet almost every NES enthusiast has.

RBI ’94 was the last entry released for the Sega Genesis, and arguably the best one all-around. A lot of the basics were left unchanged from RBI 93 the year before, but things were cleaned up and the game was given a graphical once-over. New sound and music was also added, taking full advantage of the Genesis’s killer sound suite (I know you guys grind your teeth every time I praise it, but come on, it’s great). The entire MLB roster, as usual, is represented, as well as a few iconic historical teams from years previous. Players can engage in a good old fashioned game of 9 innings, try for the home run derby trophy, do some quick-play scenarios called “game breakers,” or even build their own teams from the rosters represented. (If you want to have some fun, throw a team together from the heavy hitters on the American and National teams from 1990.) My personal favorite is the home run derby, which I usually go after with Cecil Fielder circa 1990. That was always the cool thing about RBI‘s games for me; the game would take yearly and career stats into account when determining a player’s capabilities.

One place the 1994 edition really shined was the new sound and music. The soundtrack is groovy as hell, and revisiting it through a nice low-end heavy set of speakers was really something else. When one takes the time to look, the graphics are really improved as well. Even the stadiums are more faithfully represented.

Embedded below are two videos I made myself. The first one is normal gameplay, while the second is me taking a crack at the home run derby as 1900’s Cecil Fielder and doing okay.

Tengen and Namco released RBI titles for the SNES and 32X in 1995, and I was pleased to learn that modern consoles are seeing a run of RBI titles directly oversen by the MLB. This most recent run started in 2014, and the 2016 edition for Xbox One is supposed to be really good.

Thanks for taking this trip to the stadium with me, folks! We’ll be delivering more videos and articles in June, so stay tuned!

So long, suckers!

The Elder Scrolls: Arena (Bethesda Softworks, 1994)

bryan.eddy@newretrowave.com — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:50:19 +0000

For the past couple of years, all I hear about from my friends is how great Skyrim is.

I mean, they’re right. It’s a graphical and gameplay masterpiece. It outshines the previous two installments in the Elder Scrolls series, and even screenshots of it are breathtaking. It inspired me to buy Morrowind again recently, off of Steam, and play it through from the start. I was glad I did; It seems that Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls saga is consistently incredible.

But did you ever play the first one?

A modest beginning for what would become one of fantasy video gaming’s iconic franchises.

In 1994, 3D and first-person were really hitting their stride. These concepts were being applied with a wide brush, and all kinds of games were being developed to exploit the new jump in technology. It only stood to reason that someone would develop an RPG using the scope popularized by games like Doom and Quake; First-person 3D worlds simply begged for exploration. Bethesda Softworks, then a small company in Maryland, decided to tackle the task. Though they’d been around since 1986, Bethesda’s biggest notoriety up until then had been developing the first physics based sports simulator, Gridiron, for the Atari ST. They had also made DOS and NES games based on the first Terminator film, and the DOS version contained some 3D elements.

Some kickin’ box art, in the glorious tradition of classic fantasy. Babes, wizards, knights… you knew you were in for a fantasy epic when you grabbed this off the shelf.

Elder Scrolls: Arena is an oft-overshadowed ground breaker in terms of both first-person RPGs and the “open world” concept. The player creates a customized character using the now-familiar races and classes, and can pursue the game’s main plot while also doing side quests. There is also the (then) novel option of just poking around the land of Tamriel and seeing what turns up. But first… you must make it out of the initial dungeon.

Hunting MacGuffins, hobnobbing with royalty, battling wizards and skeletons… welcome to Tamriel.

Arena‘s plot involves the betrayal of the Emperor by his battlemage Jagar Tharn. Tharn imprisons the Emperor in a pocket dimension, and uses magic to assume his form. Tharn also kills his apprentice, Ria Silmane, because he knows she cannot be corrupted. Silmane sends her spirit to you as you languish in the dungeons beneath the Imperial City, and sets you free by helping you find a key to open your cell. You find a smattering of helpful equipment and progress through what seems to be a set of sewers, slaying rats and goblins as you seek the exit. You then emerge (if you are lucky) in a random part of the Empire… and the story begins. The objective is to assemble the parts of a magic staff that can be used against Jagar Tharn, and confront him in the Imperial City once you have become powerful enough to stop him. There are many other quests you must undertake in the meantime: rescuing people, delving into ancient ruins, and other typical (but exciting) fantasy adventures.

Arena presents you with literally the entire Empire, and you can visit each province. While the graphics are understandably limited, it is a vast game for its time. A great deal of information is packed into one game world, and while the taverns and shops all look the same, everything is worth exploring and there are tons of unique locales dotting the world of Tamriel.

All this could be yours… well, not really, but you do get to explore it all.

And they are full of monsters. Orcs, skeletons, monstrous hounds, minotaurs… there are even vampires and undead wizards (called liches) running around in some of these forsaken places you’ll discover. And of course, you’ll occasionally run into rival adventurers and agents of Jagar Tharn. Tharn himself will occasionally harrow you in your dreams, once he knows you’re assembling the magic staff.

You can also steal things from people and generally be an asshole, if that’s what you’re into. That’s kind of what I’m into.

Almost all of the well-known class choices are available for you during character creation, and while the Argonians and Khajit look far more human than you may be used to, the only race missing is Imperial. You can go for stealth, magic, brawn, or a combination thereof. I had the most success as a melee bruiser, but it’s fun to throw around magic fireballs and float in midair too. It also helps to be able to pick locks. Finding good loot is half the fun when poking through the places your quest will take you; gold can only buy so much, and everyone knows the best toys are lying undisturbed for centuries in the ruins.

Blue means it’s probably magical. Sometimes it behooves you to mismatch armor, or wield a sword that looks like it’s made from uranium. Just do it. Heroism is never easy.

The game’s soundtrack, while a far cry from its sequels’ scores, is still rich and appropriate. It is a little repetitive, but one hardly notices. The graphics are perhaps more grainy and pixelated than something like Doom; with so much to pack into a game world (and a disc), the detail had to be a point of compromise. Nonetheless, you’ll find that the textures and sprites are adequate. The only other point to pick at is that Tamriel, in its first incarnation, is quite a flat realm. No inclines, hills, or soft curves exist. Again, one must remember that this is the grandpappy of what became a legendary set of games. Some gentleness must be shown in judging what really is a stellar release for 1994. Besides, the cinematic cut scenes are obscenely cool. Especially the ending.

I give Elder Scrolls: Arena 8 out of 10. I do so through the gilded lens of hindsight, and to acknowledge that its genetics are very much alive in games like Skyrim. I spent many an hour plugging away at the Quest to assemble the Staff of Chaos, and while I never finished that mighty undertaking, it was worth all the time invested. As a man who adores the fantasy genre, it has always stood out in my mind as a game all too easily forgotten. Especially since it spawned such incredible sequels and helped jump start a now monolithic company!

And thankfully, there were many more. Thanks for reading, RetroWizards!

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