Here is the story, according to John himself:

“After killing the Spiderdemon at the end of E4M8 (Unto the Cruel), your next stop is Earth — you must save it from hellspawn that is causing unimaginable carnage. But Baphomet glitched the final teleporter with his hidden sigil whose eldritch power brings you to even darker shores of Hell. You fight through this stygian pocket of evil to confront the ultimate harbingers of Satan, then finally return to become Earth’s savior.”

Sigil’s opening screen. KVLT ANTI-HVMAN BLACK METAL

I am a pretty well-seasoned DOOM player, and can usually handle the original 3 episodes on Nightmare or at least UV. This shit is turning my guts inside out on Hurt Me Plenty. You will not see health much at all. You will need to be extremely careful. Yes, there are horrible monster traps everywhere. Inescapable pits too. You will die. You will know death again, Marine. You can never truly rest. But Space Marines are made for this shit. Let’s hit it.

E5M1 is a true gauntlet-run involving the elevation of platforms in order to find your way through a winding path of hitscanners and imps. The maps are very dimly lit, and instead of switches, Romero has us shooting the demonic eye symbols to activate/open things. I’ll save you the five or so seconds it’d take to puzzle it out. Sheol (E5M2) continues to incline the difficulty in a steady fashion. Breaking a sweat yet? You often find yourself with little room to move one way or another, measuring moments and shots, clinging to cover while whittling away at potentially deadly ambushes. I hope you like seeing barons and cacodemons up close, because you fucking will be. E5M3 is called Cages of the Damned, and it looks slightly more “conventional” as a map when you first start blasting through. Vaguely castle-like, with great run-and-gun action and a few open spaces (finally!) to use in combat. I’d even call E5M3 “classical” because of how true parts of it are to the original feel of the trilogy. You’re still, however, finding very little health. And yes, you’re still in horrible peril on a constant basis. Paths of Wretchedness (E5M4) is another hectic rim-grabber over pools of magma as you battle your way through a shooting gallery with you as the turkey. Movement is again limited, and you find yourself getting pummeled in bottlenecks – sometimes caught with your fucking pants down – and perishing if you’re not on your LeBron “Leatherface on Mars” James A-game. This level has a splash of that old alien-mechanical feel to it reminiscent of Knee-Deep in the Dead. Probably another of my overall favorites of the episode. While health is scarce throughout this episode, you will find enough ammunition if you are thorough, frugal, and keep your eyes open.

Pictured: One scrub (yours truly), pre-tenderized.

Abbadon’s Void (E5M5) hits us with the sound of a cyberdemon right out of the starting gate, and we don’t clearly see it, but we know it’s aware of us and it’s pissed off. Great. More indoorsy, wood-paneled infernal décor, peppered with monster closet ambushes and tense high-wire acts. I particularly enjoy the MIDI OST track for this map (more on the music below); it’s atmospheric and rich and it reminds me a little of Blood’s great theatrical-style music. E5M6, Unspeakable Persecution, has the exit to the secret level E5M9 (Realm of Iblis). I’m not going to spoil where the door is or what the secret level is like; if you want that shit you can find it easily online. (I admit that I had to look it up. My skills have gotten mad rusty.) I will say that E5M9 is as hot and nasty as you’d expect Sigil’s secret map to be. Buckle up, buttercup. E5M7 is the Nightmare Underworld, and it was originally meant to be the fifth map, but it belongs here in spot #7. It is an expansive and adventurous map, and it pounds me into hamburger at an embarrassing rate. John’s work in Sigil is the work of a man who intimately understands the tools he is using to engage the player. It is the work of a methodical, gifted, calculating psychopath. E5M8, Halls of Perdition, presents the final obstacle in Sigil. Like E4M8, it is not just a straight boss fight; you must find your way through one last intense firefight against the full host of DOOM’s baddies intent on beating you down. The finale has a marathon-like feel and is almost joyful (I only beat it once using equipment cheats on Hurt Me Plenty).

decino’s entertaining and thorough playthrough of Sigil. He is a much better player than me. Props.

Hi. <3

Let’s talk about the absolute fucking banger soundtrack. If you don’t know who Buckethead is, you should, and he wrote the CD soundtrack for Sigil. Apparently, he’s a long-time DOOM fan. Who’d have thought a dude like the immortal Buckethead would have good taste. It is busy, atmospheric, haunting, and it fits Sigil’s gloomy theme of desperation perfectly. The episode also features a fantastic MIDI soundtrack written by James Paddock. It’s a little more action-themed but fits the game every bit as well as the Buckethead score. E5M1 and E5M7 stand out to me as highlights, and you should have a listen.

Ol’ Johnny R. goes hard in the paint with Sigil, reminding us longtime Space Marines that while our blood may smear every hallway and elevator from Phobos to Mt. Erebus, we can never die. Besides, who the hell else is going to keep the demons down? You know they’ll just be back . They always come back.

Sigil gets a 9 out of 10 from me. It’s difficult, but that’s not a complaint at all. It’s a brutally refreshing shot in the arm for a game that’s been loved for over twenty-six years. Devastatingly crisp, well-executed, and effective. John Romero has given us more to love about DOOM… and a new way to get our asses kicked and GET GOOD.

See you later for more articles in October. Stay spooky as hell… and Stay Retro.

BONUS: Of course there’s a Zero Master speed run of 9:32 for it already. Hallelujah.

We’ve talked about DOOM. We’ve looked at Wolfenstein 3D. We’ve even touched on some left-field shit like Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold. The formative history of the first person shooter is no new topic to us, RetroFans…

So why the FUCK have I put off talking about Quake for so long?

As I’ve pointed out in previous articles, Quake‘s predecessors (notably 1992’s Wolfenstein 3D and 1993’s groundbreaking DOOM) create the impression of a fully 3D environment… but they’re not really 3D. Wolf3D rendered its faux-3D point of view by way of a technique called raycasting, while DOOM expanded upon that idea significantly by allowing for differences in floor and ceiling height. What we were seeing, as cool as it was (And still is), amounted to 2D information being cleverly jury-rigged into a “3D enough for me” experience. Here’s another hair to split, while we’re talking like total assholes: the monsters and items were still very much 2 dimensional – the same type of sprites one might see in a 2D title like Super Mario World.

Don’t go thinking I’m just here to take a shit on Wolf3D and DOOM; far from it. I have a point, and I’m about to get to it. Please stop throwing furniture at me.

I’ve showed you this before, but there’s no reason why I can’t show you again. Hell, I love repeating myself. A visual explanation of raycasting, wherein a two-dimensional space is given uniform height/depth and roughly translated into what a dog or a 5 year old kid might consider 3D.

In 1994, John Romero saw Sega’s Virtua Fighter, and a thought occurred to him: “We could do that. Except we could do it better. Nastier. With hatchets and demons and shit.” Thankfully, Johnny R. happened to know one of the pimp-pioneers of game development, a man whose brain runs on twelve white-hot macho cylinders… John Carmack. The man who masterminded the DOOM engine, Carmack began hatching this next golden egg not long after DOOM II was released. But a funny thing happened on the way to the release; John Romero (who, let’s be real, has been known to toss some dogshit ideas at the wall and see if they stick) wanted to make Quake a third-person game… at least partially. Seemingly hung up on Virtua Fighter, Johnny R. wanted there to be hand-to-hand fights in the game that were presented just like the Sega fighting game. This turned out to be a huge time sink, not to mention a bone of contention between Romero and pretty much every other person working on the project. Long story short, Romero left id shortly after Quake‘s release. He went on to make Daikatana, which we won’t talk about because it’s terrible enough to put on the books as a felony.

Back on subject… when Quake hit the game shelves in June of ’96, it rendered all its predecessors obsolete. Fuck “obsolete,” it made them look like some Flintstones shit. Paleolithic grunting and biting. Most immediately, it was clear that Quake was fully 3D. Not “smoke and mirrors and two-dimensional SS officers.” Not “2D wearing 3D’s stolen hat.” The environment and models were fully polygonal, you could go under and over shit, the lightmapping was lush, and to top it all off, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails did the sound and music.

Our hero. A man of coughy grunts, constant grimaces, and what looks like the world’s least comfortable helmet.

In this dark, bloody and immersive escapade, you step into the shoes of a Ranger who finds himself the last man alive after a disaster involving prototype teleportation technology. It’s unclear if the dude’s proper name is Ranger and he just had colorful parents, or he’s meant to be nearly anonymous like the Space Marine from DOOM. Anyway, the situation you find yourself in bears a close similarity to DOOM‘s: an entity code-named “Quake” (TITLE REFERENCE) hacked the fuck out of the experimental Slipgate and used it to flood your world with nightmarish horror and death. In the grand tradition of brave but questionable decisions, you decide the best way to burn a few hours is to charge recklessly into the abyss.

During your journey through overrun military bases, hellish lavascapes, and Lovecraftian vistas, you’ll meet all kinds of new friends. There’s mostly “re-programmed” soldiers and dogs at first, and a new player might get to thinking this shit’s kinda tame… until you run into your first chainsaw ogre.

There’s also the Shambler. He’s probably my favorite, because he’s a gigantic eyeless ape that gallops after you Gunnar Hansen style and slaps you with electricity so hard your goddamn point-of-view shakes. Like most of the game’s monsters, if you don’t tread carefully around the Shambler, you’re fucked.

We’ve got gear to deal with these bloodsoaked, screeching assholes, though. Ranger had the good sense to bring a shotgun with him, and he even showed a little artistic flair by choosing a short double-bitted axe as a backup. After a while, these toys don’t cut the mustard, so it’s a good thing you find new toys all over the place. Who doesn’t enjoy the ponk-ponk-ponk a weaponized nailgun, or the sheer sporting joy of bouncing a few grenades out of your launcher into a room of unsuspecting restless dead?

Back on that soundwork by Trent Reznor for a second: While a lot of the OST is minimalist, it’s hauntingly effective. The main theme is really something else, though, evoking images of darkness, rust, throbbing pain, and grit. It almost makes me think of what Coil would sound like if they were a little less “experimental” and way more aggressive.

Quake isn’t all just murder and pants-pissing fear. There’s a handful of thinkin’ man’s challenges throughout the game, and even the bosses at the end of each episode require a bit of brainwork to defeat. Even now, 22 years later, I still like to jump into the Slipgate now and then. The only difference is, I use a source port or client (much like I do when it’s time to blaze up some DOOM or Heretic). There are several decent ones being maintained by diehard fans, but the one I use is GLQuake. I feel like it offers the most authentic single-player experience. Others, like Zquake or fodQuake, lean more toward facilitating network play, which was so astounding in the vanilla product that it ended up being the direction the Quake franchise went.

It goes without saying that Quake was hugely successful, not to mention the tremendous impact it had on the gaming world. It was the phenomenon that ushered in the dawn of “modern” FPS games, and subsequent efforts by other developers were aimed at meeting or exceeding Quake‘s standard. Two aftermarket expansions were released for Quake in 1997; Hipnotic Interactive’s Mission Pack No. 1 featured three new episodes, and was followed within a month by a second mission pack by Rogue Entertainment that added two more episodes to Ranger’s gore-drenched saga. No less than five sequels were spawned from the red wreckage; even now, Queakeaholics await the 2018 release of Quake Champions, id’s latest entry into the series.

I examined this game inside and out via the clarity of hindsight, and still can find no significant fault with it. Like the id Software titles that preceded it, Quake is a big bad daddy. It was a shot of heavy adrenaline in the arm of PC gaming, shotgunning the FPS and the concept of multiplayer to new heights. It also finished what things like Virtua Fighter and the PS1 started; it held its gib-covered banner high and roared out loud that a new age was upon us. If I don’t give Quake 9/10, then someone should probably come euthanize me.

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.

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!!!

In the years between 1989 and 1997, the earliest strong attempts at 3D “first person” games were being fired at the wall. As 1992-93 rolled on, this fire reached a machine-gun rate due to the success of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. Even now, in the year 2017, I set out on the Internet to research this stuff and unearth titles I’ve never played (or even seen) from that era. Some were surprisingly good, but escaped notice for some reason or another. As can happen all too often, poor timing or not enough publicity may have nailed them to the floor; in other cases, they are simply eclipsed by other releases that blow all competition out of the water.

Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold fell victim to all three of these blights, but is still a solid example of the early first-person shooter template put to creative use. The game uses the same engine as Wolfenstein 3D, notable for its orthogonal game-spaces and its ray-casting technique of point-of-view rendering. The game was conceived and developed by JAM productions, a short-lived enclave formed in 1993 by Jim Row and Mike Maynard. Apogee (developers of the engine used) published Blake Stone, and also lent JAM the services of their legendary music man, Bobby Prince.

The game even came with a little comic book! It wasn’t incredible but it was at least cool.

In Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold you play as the titular character, recruited by British Intelligence in the year 2140 after distinguishing himself in the Navy. Your assignment is to scuttle the operations of an insidious organization known as STAR, which is led by the nefarious Dr. Pyrus Goldfire. Goldfire plans to conquer the world using an army of expert soldiers combined with a heavy complement of his own genetically engineered monsters… and things are looking like that might not be a pipe dream.

Thanks, Dr. Goldfire. You asshole.

Just like Wolfenstein 3D, the game has separate episodes, played one at a time. Each has 10-11 levels in it, usually representing some building or compound belonging to STAR. Blake begins with a simple sidearm when he steps in the door, but can find all kinds of futuristic weapons to beef up his offensive capability. In addition to health items lying on the floor, Blake can also pop tokens into vending machines for a small pick me up. All of this will prove to be extremely necessary, since each level of each episode is crawling with security officers, as well as a taste of Goldfire’s genetic engineering “miracles.” There are also robots, both ceiling-mounted and mobile, that await the chance to shred you with their integral weapons. One cool thing about Blake Stone is the element of ambiguity among the scientists you encounter; some of the men in lab coats are spies who will offer you info or food tokens, and some will just call for help and start shooting you.

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At the end of each episode, you face off with Dr. Goldfire briefly. Each time, he has new tricks up his sleeve, but eventually teleports away before you can finish him off. He’s nice enough to drop the keycard you need to get to the actual boss of that episode, though… and let’s just say they’re locked up for a reason. The end of the final episode lets you finally bring down Pyrus Goldifre, but it’s then that you discover what he really is…

One of the end-of-episode bosses. Apparently just some creativity applied to bread mold. Mix in one part ugly and two parts angry and voila! Run for your life!

The game’s graphics are about on par with those of Wolfenstein 3D, but they are very colorful and varied. Nothing technical was stretched in terms of visuals, although you can tell a lot more creativity went into them, likely by necessity since this game offers mutants and aliens instead of Nazis as antagonists. A mix of 16 bit and digitized sound is used, with the digitized bits being mostly combat and enemy sound effects. As with most of his work, Bobby Prince borrowed a hook here and there from a rock song but produced a masterful soundtrack of very fitting music. The intro theme and Mission Music #6 are two favorites of mine, but the whole thing is very good. It’s very rich for a SoundBlaster-16/AdLib soundtrack.

Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold was released only a week before id Software released Doom in 1993. As one may guess, Doom completely covered it and most similar games with a mighty shadow, and Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold sold poorly after a good start. It was received well when it was reviewed, however, and was praised especially for its additional gameplay elements and its sound. JAM released a sequel, Blake Stone: Planet Strike, in 1994, and then closed its doors. Its three members found work at other software companies. 3D Realms owns the rights, and has included the game in a couple of compilations as well as a standalone version on their site. It has a gently improved HUD but is otherwise true to the source.

I give Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold 7/10. In hindsight, it stands toe to toe with its peers, and it has a kickin’ soundtrack. It fell victim to poor timing and the shadow of a giant, but it can’t be called a bad game by any means.

See you around the next corner, kiddos! So much planned for 2017!

Lately I’ve been playing all these old games using DOSBox. It’s been like a time warp back to one of my formative experiences as a video gamer. I can still remember playing my first PC games when I was 8 or 9 years old in the early 90s. My dad worked for a company that contracted long-term network projects for airlines and airports, and he worked with the kind of dudes who always had some shareware (or more) sitting on bootleg floppies waiting to be spread like a plague. One of the cooler software companies back then was Apogee, who eventually split into id Software and 3D Realms… but when they were all still on the same team, they made some great games. Duke Nukem actually made his first appearance in an eponymous side scroller, and most people have heard of the Commander Keen games, at least second- or third-hand. Apogee developed several other titles, less well-known now but every bit as good. My mind wanders to one particular strain they developed… one called Bio Menace.

“Scores of hideous mutant turds leering at me and groping me? I love it. This is my kind of night. Now hold still.”

Bio Menace is a platformer when you look at it from orbit, but up close, I prefer to describe it as follows: It’s a lot like Contra, except you’ve got a life bar and a lot more shit to do than just shoot things. You control Snake Logan (whose name is pretty obvious in its inspirations), a CIA agent who crash landed in Metro City while doing recon to confirm reports of it being overrun by mutant monsters.

Well, let’s just say you’ve confirmed them. The thing is, now you’re stuck here, so you figure you might as well see who’s behind the plot and give them a good machine gun spanking, right?

Gore abounds as you explore various locales looking for survivors and vengeance.

The levels are part action/survival, part puzzle, as you navigate the ruined and mutant-flooded parts of the city looking for a way out of each one. Many times, this involves finding some kind of crystal or keycard to free a survivor stuck behind a forcefield. For some reason, these people usually hold the key to the level’s exit. In the spaces between, you’re usually either blowing bad guys apart or opening doors that contain items. Sometimes the item inside is even the key you need! Snake can also find power ups for his gun, as well as different kinds of explosives and even a flask that makes him impossible for monsters to kill.

“Hey. Talkin’ to you over here. Yeah… now I see how a guy like you could get caught in a forcefield and seem surprised about it.”

And the monsters will definitely be trying to kill you. There’s an alarming variety of mutant creatures; from little blobs to big dino-men to little horned acrobats on fire, you’ll see enough different kinds to keep you wondering what’s around the next corner. The bosses of each episode are no joke either, and in fact are as dangerous as they are visually impressive:

It looks… irritated. Is it because I’m in here, or because its legs have been fucking de-fleshed? Maybe both.

The graphics, for their time, are a really fun compromise between detail and cartoony fun. It’s especially cool that even though most of the game is represented in a low-resolution VGA comic-book style, the gore you see is fairly on-the-spot. Some of the larger things (like some boss monsters) have a surprising amount of detail. The music and sounds are 16-bit (AdLib/SoundBlaster of the time period) but the soundtrack is pretty addictive.

Once all the mutant blood is hosed off the streets, I give Bio Menace 8/10. Some of that’s out of nostalgia, but some of it’s just a hand up to a great DOS game that not enough people hear of. It will hook you once you get into it, though… you’ll want to get to the bottom of the evil plot.

I got a top ten list and one more article coming in 2016, plus some videos! Stay tuned!

OH, ALSO… If you want to play Bio Menace, 3D Realms made it freeware a while back. Here is the link. Consider it a holiday gift from me, because I was too cheap to get you anything!

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to preface this article by telling you all how wonderful it’s been doing the NRW Gaming thing. I started out reviewing albums here at NewRetroWave, a duty I enjoyed well enough, trust me… as fate would have it, assorted conversations and brainstorming bouts (not to mention the calm, collected guidance of our fearless leader) launched me from synthwave reviews to the rambling, manic diatribes you now see me publish about 20-30 year old console titles. Ever since small times, I have loved the classics, so getting to hurl homages to them across the Web has been a true “busman’s holiday.” Now and again, though, I get taken aback by a modern title or two… an artful, elegant blend of today’s do-anything design and the 8-16 Bit Era’s timeless aesthetic. The phenomenon has grown steadily in popularity over the past decade, and venues like Steam have provided these games with something of a podium. I am pleased to finally discuss a few of these titles – the cream of 2016’s crop – in the form of a “top ten” list.

Without further ado… let’s bite into it!

#10 Halloween Forever

Definitely cute… but far from friendly!

Let’s start with this classic-style 8 bit platformer. In the game, you play as a dude with a jack o lantern head who can spit candy corn as his weapon. You jump and struggle your way though chainsaw maniacs, undead monsters, A LOT of bats, and even skeletal wizards. The effort is truly authentic to the original style, and you can even play with a game pad if you have one. The visuals are fantastic, with twinges of Castlevania here and there. The game also features a custom chiptune soundtrack that really delivers. Halloween Forever did very well on Steam, and has established Imaginary Monsters as a firm worth watching.

#9 Cursed Castilla

nudity->death.”/> You get a life meter instead of just armor->nudity->death.

Upon seeing this, my first thought was, “oh, another Ghosts & Goblins clone, they should put this developer in prison.” I was very wrong. It’s like someone took that dubious title from decades ago and forged it into precious steel. It’s almost entirely different; it’s just got the same basic theme. What I liked the most about Cursed Castilla is that you can customize how the screen looks, giving it scanlines like an old TV, etc. There’s tons of different monsters, lots of power ups, and even multiple endings. Definitely worth checking out if you like a challenge and were actually a fan of G&G.

#8 Stardew Valley

It’s a farm game, and people certainly seem to love it.

Okay, this is one of the titles I haven’t played, but I had the resource of both friends and online game footage to supplement what I already knew. Apparently it’s one of those survival/crafting games, with a heavy focus on agriculture. It also has a lot of RPG elements (I’m told you can even start a family in it). It’s very SNES-looking, and there *is* a lot of detail to the game play, so I’m not surprised this game did extremely well on Steam and elsewhere in 2016. This general style of game is certainly a trend these past few years, and Stardew Valley has really capitalized on it. Daily life includes not only farm work, but mail, interaction with other characters, and mercantile ventures. Reviews from most players were glowing.

#7 Owlboy

People ask you a lot of questions even though you can’t talk.

I gave this one a spin. For a game that was in development for so long, they really used that time to create and perfect a detailed world. Owlboy is an action-adventure type game, with very lush graphics and a lot of story. The controls are nice, I like the way combat works a lot, but my only major knock for this one is THERE IS A LOT OF TEXT AND DIALOG FOR A MAIN CHARACTER WHO IS BORN MUTE. Other than that, definitely worth checking out if you like a good tale interwoven with your gameplay. Parting thought: the background graphics remind me a lot of those Sierra point/click story games from the mid 90s… except nicer.

#6 Enter the Gungeon

KA-POW!!!

Ever wanted to get into a knock-down, drag-out, pixelated gunfight? Enter the Gungeon allows you to do just that, plus it satisfies your dungeon-crawling needs as well! Pick a character and guide them down into the depths to find the treasure they all seek: a gun that can kill the past. A staggering array of monsters await you, in case you though this would be easy. Some of them are kind of cute. Some of them are a little disturbing. All of them are dangerous enough to warrant blowing away. There is, of course, an in-game economy (like any good dungeon!) in the form of merchants who’ve made the dubious decision of setting up shop in the Gungeon, so you’re not without allies. They’ll hook you up with the best they’ve got… for a fee. There’s also good stuff laying around just waiting to be found, as well! The graphics are not only retro but adorable as well, and this one’s got a playability built into it that’ll keep you coming back. In fact, the coolest thing about Enter the Gungeon is how the difficulty reactively adjusts to your skill in addition to scaling as you progress. In other words, the better you’re doing, the more the game considers really kicking your ass. Lots of homages to fantasy in pop culture, including old school D&D. Definitely worth a look!

#5 Neon Drive

This “Future 80s” themed title isn’t so much a driving or racing game… it’s more like a dodging game. Not to say that this makes it any less addictive. The visuals are absolutely breathtaking, and the soundtrack fits perfectly into the whole thing like a puzzle piece. I won’t sully this one with too many words, I’ll let some video speak for me.

#4 Starbound

“But Bryan, Starbound has been out forever.”

Correction. Starbound was in open beta forever. 2016 has finally given us the final release! Now it’s implemented all the delicious changes they kept testing in the unstable build, and the game is actually a game. For those of you who got tired waiting for this, COME BACK! There’s actually a story (that you can pursue more or less at your leisure), certain craft/achievement trees have been restructured in a sane fashion, and the graphics and sound are still wonderful. Explore planet after planet in pixelated glory! One of the most popular titles in its class on Steam even before it was finalized, Starbound continues to get rave reviews. Consider me one of them.

#3 Bit Blaster XL

NUCLEAR CHAOS!!!

I’ve expressed before my love of shoot-em-ups. I don’t review many of them because they tend to be linear, heavily focused on gameplay instead of any plot, and hard to summon up words for. Not so for this title. Bit Blaster XL is a homage to the old school titans of the genre, with plenty to offer on its own. In its basic format, the game is Asteroids. You zoom around busting things up. That’s where the similarity ends. All kinds of power ups pop out to grab, way more stuff shows up, and it’s madness for as long as you can take it. The old school graphics are perfectly complemented by a nice hybrid of new and old-style sound. Definitely worth it if you like your little spaceship shooters, and it’s not expensive at all on any platform I’ve seen offering it.

#2 Devil Daggers

You’re a badass if you even get this far within the first couple weeks of playing.

Oh man… THIS GAME… I got this the week it was released, and I was hooked. It’s incredibly simple: the game plays like an extremely confined first-person shooter. You fire little magical “daggers” out of your hands at creatures who approach you from the darkness and gradually begin to overwhelm you. It’s not about beating the game… it’s about how long you can survive. Graphics are simple but beautiful, and really capture the desired atmosphere. I’d say they remind me of the early Quake-style games more than anything. The sound is minimalist, but that works well for the horror vibe. You can see how you stack up against other players in terms of score, or you can just enjoy the mayhem. One of the best concepts to see the stage this year: simple, enduring, entertaining, and addicting.

#1 Hyper Light Drifter

Firstly, this one easily generated the most buzz online, even being featured on media sites like Vice. It’s been overwhelmingly popular on Steam and elsewhere since its early pre-release phases, and there’s a lot of understandable reasons why. Alex Preston and his team at Heart Machine have crafted a real masterpiece, using pixel graphics and a color scheme reminiscent of old CGA computer games as the basis for a world with great depth and character. HLD is definitely an RPG, though it has action elements throughout; fans of the Zelda series will love this just as much if not more. You guide the Drifter around a seemingly ruined world, finding sources of power and defeating dangerous foes while unlocking bits of what may have happened in the past. There is no spoken dialogue; HLD tells an amazing story simply with its music and breathtaking visuals. The game truly is a work of art, and was worth waiting for.

—

We’ve seen a lot come and go in retro gaming these past few years, and needless to say 2016 has been a busy one. As it nears its end, we can only look forward and hope that 2017 holds as much for us… if not more. Happy holiday season, RetroFans.

Special thanks to D.J. and B.H. for comparing notes with me and sharing your knowledge. With your input, I was able to work more swiftly and thoroughly than I could have alone. 

One last doom & gloom-themed game for October, RetroFans, and we can get back to the usual variety fare. This one’s a good example of how we can gauge a title’s success by how readily it was ported to other platforms, and it’s also a standout in its style of play. Shadowgate isn’t a run-and-jump platformer or a fast-paced shooter… in fact, players are well-advised to take their time while wandering through this game, lest they die in one of the countless ways possible within the warlock’s fortress.

Originally released for the Macintosh in 1987, Shadowgate is a point-and-click “adventure” game. I put “adventure” in quotes because what “adventure” really seems to mean here is “puzzles that kill you out of hand for getting them wrong so you have to start over.” The premise of the game is that some wizard named Lakmir has sent you to stop a warlock from calling up the Behemoth, which is some kind of bad-news demon. No one really asked you; you’re “the seed of the prophecy.” In other words, you’ve been thrust into this position (and this creepy castle) regardless of your feelings on the matter, and it’s your problem to solve.

The NES (left) and Amiga (right) box art.

You’re expected to do this by solving a series of puzzles, all interlocking and complex. Normally, that’d be fun, right? Lots of people like puzzle games. They’re stimulating and grant a sense of triumph when you succeed. Here’s the thing: If you do pretty much anything but exactly what you’re supposed to do while engaging any of these puzzles, you’re probably gonna die. Not only that, but the game will describe, in detail, your death. Sometimes, it’ll even mock you. No matter what, you always get to see this guy:

You son of a bitch.

Some of the deaths are comical, some of them are strange, and plenty of them are just gruesome. Nonetheless, it IS possible to finish/win the game… you just better be ready to find a guide or go through a lot of brutal trial-and-error to do it.

Shadowgate was ported to pretty much all other computer platforms of the time, and the NES saw a port of it the same year (co-developed by Kemco). It has also been ported to the Game Boy, mobile phones, modern operating systems… even the Philips CD-i got a port of Shadowgate. For all its heinous and punishing difficulty, the game was successful and grabbed itself a place in pop culture that endures to this day.

Death and futility are your closest allies in Shadowgate.

The success and positive reception of the NES port led ICOM and Kemco to port over previous games produced using the same interface: Deja Vu and Uninvited. Both have a similarly dark tone and uncompromising punishment for mistakes. In the late 90s, sequels were released on the TG-16 and N64. In 2012, a company called Zojoi funded a remake of Shadowgate via Kickstarter, which was successfully released in 2014.

Now you can kill yourself over and over with better graphics!

Personally, Shadowgate isn’t my cup of tea. That said, it’s immensely popular and I can view it objectively with a fair amount of appreciation. I give it 8/10. It’s iconic of its genre, legendary for all the right reasons, and it’s entertaining even if you (I) suck at it.

God DAMMIT!

Well folks, it’s been quite an October… but we’ll be back to our regular tricks and treats starting next month. We look forward to what’s left of 2016… and what’s beyond? Well, that’s probably even cooler. You wait and see.

I’ve got another one for you Retro Fright Fans this October, a cult favorite for the PC. Dark Seed is one from back in the DOS days, although it saw release for the Amiga as well. Released in 1992, the game is a point-and-click graphical adventure, and features the artwork of none other than HR Giger. I’ve included my usual wealth of images and links, but don’t expect a rainbow of colors, folks… Dark Seed is more of a shadowy rollercoaster ride through the macabre and the unearthly. 

Mike has a killer dream and wakes up with a headache to match.

The story follows Mike Dawson, a well-to-do man who purchases a mansion whose previous owners are now deceased. His first night there, Dawson has a dream that something shoots an embryo into his brain. Mike wakes up with a monster headache, but explores his new home after doing his best to set himself straight. He finds several clues that reveal not only the fate of the previous owner, but something more sinister (and unbelievable)… a second world accessible from within his house. Mike uses the mirror in his living room to travel to this place, called the Dark World. It’s in this bizarre realm that Mike finds out his dream was real… and has dire implications for humanity. An entity known as the Keeper of the Scrolls tells him he must destroy the power source of the Ancients who rule the Dark World.

You’ll notice a lot of things that look vaguely like dicks. That’s… that’s Giger for you, rest his soul. The man was extremely talented, but you always knew what was in the back of his mind. Weird robot sex stuff. There but for the grace of Mario go I.

All of this strangeness is brought to creepily vibrant life by the art of Giger, who insisted that the developers use a higher resolution than was normally employed for DOS games at that time. The proposed plan by Cyberdreams was to use Mode 13h, a low-detail but color-rich display setting for VGA graphics during this time period. By using a higher resolution (640×350 instead of 320×200), the developers of Dark Seed lost color depth, in fact reducing it by a factor of 16 to just… 16 colors. What ensued was a low-key conflict between the dev team and the art team as they were given access to nearly all of Giger’s work to assemble the macabre visuals seen in the game. Six extra months, in fact, were spent hand-coloring the scanned art after the dev team said the images weren’t adequate for use.

To be fair, they really did a lot with so little. Sure, the end result was drab, but that ended up working really well for Dark Seed’s overall tone.

The controls in the game aren’t unlike Willy Beamish or other click-adventure games of the era. You simply click around to move Mike from place to place, and see how the cursor will let you otherwise interact with things. As you hatch your clever plan to save humanity from within the Dark World, you’ll want to leave no stone unturned, but be careful… there are things (and beings) down there that you may not wish to see…

Oh, this oughta be good. Making friends down here seems like a great idea.

The game was received pretty positively, getting a little bit of flak for a clumsy control interface but making up for it with an incredible story and a rich (terrifying) game environment. The graphics and sound were steadily praised, and Dark Seed’s horror factor was touted as first-class skin-crawl. In fact, in 2006, GameTrailers ranked Dark Seed the seventh most frightening game of all time. There isn’t much music, but I did find a rip of the Amiga version… it’s a good set of atmospheric tracks, but sometimes a bit too busy or over-the-top to be truly scary. It’s still worth a listen, and I’ve included it below.

Dark Seed was ported to the Mac, and Japan received ports for the PlayStation and Saturn. There’s even a Famicom bootleg from China, with surprisingly decent graphic detail (but only half-assed translation into English, at least that I found). Dark Seed 2 was released in 1995, and was also very well-received.

I would like to stress “surprisingly decent,” as in “pretty good for a bootleg 8-bit muzzle load of a VGA DOS game.” I’d label the pictures, but I’m sure you’re observant enough to tell which one’s from the Famicom version.

See you around Halloween for one more, RetroFiends… keep it spooky and Stay Retro.

NRW Gaming… Welcome to Your Doom!™

I can’t tell if I’m reviewing a game or a movie with this one, RetroFans. I’ll leave that up to you.

When the CD-driven generation of consoles and console add-ons hit in the early 90s, they offered unprecedented opportunities in terms of home console gaming. More data, better data, could be stored on the new medium. This included actual video footage and live-recorded audio, not just pixel-mapped images and digitized sound effects. One of the less esoteric devices on the market was the Sega CD (called the Mega-CD overseas), which hooked up to your Genesis or Mega Drive and lent it astounding capabilities. At least in theory, that’s how it worked.

After a while, it got to be more like playing with Transformers than hooking up a video game system.

The vast majority of titles released for Sega’s CD ROM attachment were simply gently-retooled incarnations of Genesis titles, usually with expanded gameplay options, slightly better sound, or touched up graphics.

Then we had games like Night Trap, which blurred the line between console and cinema.

You left the screen door open again, the house is full of bloodsuckers, and Dana Plato is pissed.

Night Trap was originally filmed in 1987 for Hasbro, who had something called Control-Vision in development at the time. Codenamed “NEMO” during its development, the system was to use VHS tapes instead of cartridges. The quiet death of NEMO is its own fairly boring story, but it resulted in Night Trap‘s footage being shelved for four years, until it was bought in 1991 by a company called Digital Pictures… who just happened to know what to do with it. Some extra trimmings were added and the final product was released in 1992, quickly followed by a version that also utilized Sega’s 32X attachment for even better graphics. The title was eventually ported to the 3DO and the PC later on.

The film footage stars two notable Hollywood names (at least, notable to us Retro nerds): Dana Plato, whose notoriety comes from Diff’rent Strokes and her tragic end; and Andras Jones, known to horror fans as Rick from the fourth Nightmare on Elm Street installment. The third notable star is you, the player. You star as the pivotal member of the SCAT (Sega Control Attack Team). Your job is complicated, to say the least; you see, girls have been disappearing at the Martin house (which is described as a winery as well as a residence). A new group of young ladies will be arriving soon, one of whom is an undercover agent (played by Plato). You must watch through a set of cameras (one at a time, or how would it be challenging?) to keep an eye on them, find out what’s happening to them, and neutralize threats using a strange set of Scooby-Doo style booby traps throughout the house that you’ve covertly been given control of. It’s possible for the hosts to find the cable connecting you to the trap system and unplug you, so you have to defend against that as well. Your hands, literally and figuratively, are full.

I never want this dude as my boss in real life.

I will straight up tell you: this game is not a casual one. Gameplay is borderline stressful, but it can be very fun. Constant vigilance (or elaborate memorization) is required. If you’re off by even a few seconds, you get the privilege of watching helplessly as the young women are kidnapped and drained by Augers. 

What are Augers, you say? Well, they’re sort of like vampires, but decidedly less pleasant, if that’s possible (it is).

Those dudes in the right-hand picture? The ones all done up like Dracula’s Olympic fencing team? Those are Augers. 

And what does the Martin family have to do with this? Well, I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s just say if they unplug your trap control cord, it’s not just because they think someone’s stealing their cable.

Oh. Good.

Along with Doom, Mortal Kombat, and other video games from the time period, Night Trap figured strongly into the early 90s Senate hearings on video game violence that eventually brought us the ESRB. Night Trap was cited as having, among other qualities, “an unprecedented level of realism” and as depicting “an effort to trap and kill women.” Sega went so far as to take it off the shelves after its initial release, making the original version a relative rarity to this day. The CD/32X and subsequent ports were released after the outcry had died down, along with a reissue of the base Sega CD version.

In 2014 the original producers made an effort on Kickstarter to reinvigorate Night Trap, claiming they’d even look into doing sequels if the project was successful. To keep that story short, it wasn’t. However, the original footage remains popular on YouTube and elsewhere on the web, and most conversations among gamers that touch on the Sega CD inevitably involve Night Trap. Other games in a similar vein followed, such as 1994’s Double Switch, but by then these elements of gameplay were more commonplace. Night Trap was the one that made the waves.

As one of the more innovative and memorable titles for the Sega CD, not to mention an overall decent game, I give Night Trap 8 out of 10. It’s worth taking a look at, and it’s definitely worth playing if you find yourself so fortunate as to get a chance.

 

 

]]> https://newretrowave.com/2016/08/09/night-trap-digital-picturessegahasbro-1992/feed/ 0 https://newretrowave.com/2016/04/05/the-elder-scrolls-arena-bethesda-softworks-1994/ https://newretrowave.com/2016/04/05/the-elder-scrolls-arena-bethesda-softworks-1994/#respond Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:50:19 +0000 http://new-retro-wave.com/2016/04/06/201645the-elder-scrolls-arena-bethesda-softworks-1994/

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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It is worth sharing that Bethesda made TES: ARENA public domain and free to download. You can get it from their site here. You may also need DOSBox to play it on most modern PC setups. Enjoy!

]]> https://newretrowave.com/2016/04/05/the-elder-scrolls-arena-bethesda-softworks-1994/feed/ 0 https://newretrowave.com/2015/07/16/doom-id-software-1993/ https://newretrowave.com/2015/07/16/doom-id-software-1993/#respond Thu, 16 Jul 2015 17:45:42 +0000 http://new-retro-wave.com/2015/07/16/2015716doom-id-software-1993/

Wolfenstein 3D was a commercial success, as well as a new standard for 3D action gaming. It prompted developers, including id Software, to ask themselves, “what can we do next?”

The very next year, id answered its own question and made gaming history.

I was ten, not much older than I was in the previous article’s flashback. I had a buddy in school (we both liked video games) who handed me another set of blue 3.5” floppies one day. “Don’t let the teacher see,” he said softly under his breath. “It’s doom.” Little did I know this was a proper noun, not just some dire warning. I played the shareware version through in two days, out of both grim fascination and obsession.

Welcome to Phobos. We hope you survive your stay!

Released in December of 1993, Doom is still played today by more people than you’d think. Once again, pioneer John Carmack devised a versatile 3D game engine from scratch. id’s team used this game engine to tell a grim story, a tale of pyrrhic victory in the face of demonic horror. Doom came under fire often for its intense level of violence, even being tied to the infamous Columbine shootings. However, even 22 years after its release, the original game still has a loyal following and a lively community.

The id team began working on Doom even as they were putting the finishing touches on Wolfenstein 3D. Carmack had already begun work on an even more advanced rendering engine, one with far less limits and far more detail than what had come before. Floors and ceilings could be on different elevations, even rising and falling during play if programmed to do so. Walls no longer had to be at 90 degree angles, either. This was done by dividing the map into “sectors,” each of which had its own set of data (floor/ceiling levels, lighting, etc.). In addition to more dynamic lighting options, the engine also boasted the capacity to texture all surfaces visible in the game, adding a new level of immersive detail. While the enemies and objects in Doom were still represented by 2 dimensional sprites, the art team created many of them by photo-scanning sculptures, resulting in some truly impressive monster graphics. All this art was painstakingly produced by the team of Adrian Carmack (no relation to John, believe it or not), Kevin Cloud, and Gregor Punchatz. The game had much richer sound and music, as well; Bobby Prince made a return as the composer, borrowing licks (within legal boundaries) from some popular heavy metal bands to fill out a soundtrack that is still hailed today as one of the most lush scores in 1990s gaming.

Doom’s story is split up into three episodes. You play the role of a marine sent to investigate strange messages coming from Mars’s twin moons, Phobos and Deimos. The UAC has been developing teleportation technology there, and recent messages indicate that something’s gone terribly wrong. In the first episode, “Knee Deep in the Dead,” you arrive on Phobos, only to find out that the messages were right on the money; the UAC base is crawling with undead humans and what can only be demonic creatures. By fighting your way to the source of the infestation on Phobos, you are transported to the other moon, Deimos… and “The Shores of Hell.” In this second episode, your marine must forge through increasingly ominous and Hell-like landscapes to reach the Tower of Babel, where the cyberdemon awaits. At the end of this struggle, you discover that Deimos floats above Hell itself. In “Inferno,” you seek nothing less than to cut the head off the invasion; you must reach Dis, the capital of Hell, and destroy the spider mastermind. As you move through the last two episodes, you see less and less of the possessed humans and many more of the various types of demons.

Between levels, you are shown your percentages of kills, items, and secrets. you are also treated to a bird’s eye view of the region you’re in.

Speaking of the monsters, they take various forms… and present a variety of threats. Your stock enemies are possessed human soldiers, some of whom carry shotguns that make them significantly more dangerous than their bottom-tier cousins. The first demonic foes you encounter are the imps. Not the little red men of folklore, these big brown bastards hurl fireballs and possess claws like Ginsu blades. There’s big pink-skinned demons, whose bite can put a serious hurt on any marine who lingers too close. The bosses of the first episode, the Barons of Hell, become rank-and-file heavies in the other two chapters of the game. They behave much like the imps do, but these massive goat-headed thugs are much more adept and both dishing it out and taking it. Some enemies fly, making them even more of a pain in the ass; the pumpkin-like cacodemons belch electricity, and the flaming skulls known as Lost Souls simply launch themselves at you like maniacal little cannon balls. The cyberdemon at the end of episode 2 is a sight to behold, and he’s also quickly lethal if you don’t watch out for his constant barrage of rockets. The spider boss in episode 3’s last hurrah is slow and ponderous, but if it draws a bead on you with its massive multi-barrel cannon, you’re toast.

Top row, left to right: Barons of Hell, Cacodemons, Lost souls. Bottom row: Demons, Imps, and the two varieties of possessed soldier.

Don’t go thinking that the monsters are the only thing that can kill you in Hell… Various environmental hazards present themselves, from acidic chemicals to lava to the incredibly unpleasant crushing ceilings that pepper the game’s corridors. Walls and surfaces can also shift, trapping you in hopeless ambushes that pit you against superior numbers. Doom is one of the most entertaining games I’ve ever played, but it is not a friendly game. It’s actively trying to kill you. All the time.

Not pictured: the turds falling into your marine’s pants during this final moment.

You start each episode with naught but a wee pistol (which looks to be modeled loosely off a Beretta M9, but I’m not a firearms expert). However, some of the zombies drop shotguns, and there are even better weapons waiting to be found. Chain linked machine guns, rocket launchers, and even experimental plasma weapons like the BFG 9000 can be discovered. They appear both conspicuously and in the secret areas that dot each level. You’ll also want to keep an eye out for a chainsaw, which not only beats your puny fist in terms of damage output but drags the targeted enemy into it while you carve up some meat. Since you’ll also be hurt on a regular basis, it helps to look around for medical kits… and there’s also a big blue ball that does more than any doctor could ever do. Armor will help too; it comes in two varieties, and absorbs a fraction of the damage you take from certain sources. There are also various powerups and tools to help you, like night vision goggles and hazard suits. If you find a black medkit, it not only fills your health, but gives your punch the force of a rocket as you blitz out on the adrenaline high. There are even green spheres that render you temporarily invulnerable, at the small cost of forcing you to see in high-contrast monochrome for the duration. Another sphere turns you temporarily hazy, almost invisible. I stress “almost.” This makes it slightly harder for the enemy to target you, but it’s more effective in multiplayer deathmatch against actual humans.

Some military men are stone-faced, but your marine is very expressive. Rage, horror, and even a little grim joy. All in a day’s work. This concept was a carry-over from Wolfenstein 3D.

Doom also pioneered the multiplayer deathmatch. Via modem or other means, players could face off not against demons, but one another. Much of this is self explanatory, but suffice it to say that even a rookie deathmatch opponent presents a much more tangible threat than any demon. Players could also progress through the normal game together, but deathmatch was (and is) considered much more fun.

Doom’s success was monumental, but the game also fell under the same crosshairs so many violent games do; public outcry over the gore and (vaguely) Satanic imagery led to widespread controversy. Doom was even implicated in the 1999 Columbine shootings, as both shooters were not only avid players but also dabbled in editing it and creating maps. Harvard, the Secret Service, and the US Department of Education all did studies that eventually showed no real correlation between video games and real-life violent crime, but the stigma remains. Overall, this didn’t hurt Doom’s popularity; if anything, it boosted its signal.

“This is an adult situation.” Another pre-mortem screenshot from some fool about to get ground into red mist.

In response to fan-made editing tools for Wolfenstein 3D, id purposefully made Doom’s content easy to access and edit. To this day, a diligent Internet search will turn up great vaults of user-made maps, graphics, and even sound effects for the game. In more recent years, Doom even got a loving overhaul when ZDoom was developed. Along with its direct descendents Skulltag and Zandronum, ZDoom added modern FPS elements to the game, such as bots, better multiplayer functionality, and (in the case of Skulltag) more game-types. Skulltag also added new weapons and enemies, most of which are variants on the original content. To this day, the game is modded, added to, and expanded.

Doom spawned a sequel, which itself is considered the standard for fans of the series. Doom II features additional types of enemies, a double-barreled shotgun, and 32 new levels. Doom II was used to make Final Doom, two more 32-level installments that ramp up the challenge for hardened marines ready to test themselves. There was also The Master Levels; I’ll admit that I never played them, but by all accounts, they are insanely difficult. The original Doom was re-released in 1995 with an extra episode, “Thy Flesh Consumed.” The game engine was used to make many other titles, which I will not attempt to list at length. Notable among them are Heretic and Hexen, dark fantasy spins on the FPS experience. In 2004, Doom 3 hit the shelves, and while it was considered a very good game, hardcore fans (including yours truly) felt like it wasn’t really a Doom game. It just lacked the distinctive feel.

The dim lighting in certain areas made this a lot scarier than it probably seems to us now. I can’t tell you how many times I muttered “oh, shit” playing through all three episodes.

A new reboot looms on the horizon, and if you’re into gaming, you’ve seen the trailer, the E3 gameplay, and everything else. I, for one, can’t wait to dive into Hell again. Doom was a world-shaker back in 1993, and I have no doubt it will shake 2016 just as violently. That said, nothing can beat that initial rush when I ran into the hangar on Phobos and fought my first zombie soldiers. The original Doom can be outdone with more modern technology, but it can never be truly eclipsed in terms of impact or quality.

Every time I try making a bulleted list on here, it refuses to show the bullets. Below is a “bulleted list” of neat stuff for you to check out if you’d like.

• Designer Tom Hall had a far more grandiose vision for the game, and outlined it in a document. Conflicts over the direction of the game led to Hall resigning.
• The name of the game was inspired by a scene from the film The Color of Money.
• Some of the weapons are scans of toy guns. The plasma rifle’s barrel is actually part of an M-60 machine gun toy that come apart, turned backwards.
• I didn’t go into a lot of detail about the game’s engine this time, but if you’re interested in the technological bits, here’s another big chunk of what made the game work like it did.
• Level 4 in the first episode originally contained a structure that lowered to display a swastika symbol on the floor. This was later removed.
• Someone created isometric views of every map. Enjoy.

Thanks for reading, RetroManiacs!

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