Dark Souls is a thing that passed me by, but I’m on board seven years later with the new Switch remaster. There is even an amiibo to celebrate such an occasion, the Dark Souls of Dark Souls amiibo, one might say. Continue reading
ACA NeoGeo: The King Of Fighters ’97
Release Date: 26th July 2018 (UK Nintendo Switch Release)
NeoGeo
Hamster Corporation
Was King of Fighters the first non-sports annual franchise? If it wasn’t, it was at least the first to admit such a thing, with the year hanging at the end of each new entry (they don’t do this anymore, but then, it’s no longer a yearly tradition. It hasn’t been for quite some time.). I always wondered why people grabbed the latest FIFA or Madden day one for what seemed like minuscule updates, but then I’ve been loving my trip through the past, to see a series slowly push its way into the future. And ’97 was certainly a good year for KOF. And myself, for I was touring California that year. Ah, to be seven again in 97… though I didn’t have access to Neo Geo games back when. Thank Hamster for being able to live the past in the present.
And now I’m tangled up in a barrage of words, rather than the beautiful brawl which is this here fighter. So… fight!
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Pokemon Crystal Version
Release Date: 26th January 2018 (Virtual Console)
Nintendo
Like most twenty-somethings, I have very fond memories of the Game Boy Pokemon games. I remember squinting my way through Pokemon Gold’s early hours whilst waiting for an injection at the doctors, and sitting in the garden over summer with friends, all trying to find the best spot under the sun so they could see their Johto adventure. Ah, youth, ah, the lack of back-lights.
The third version, Crystal, came as I transitioned from primary to high school, and once that transition had been made, no one really cared all that much about Pokemon in my year. We evolved, I guess.
Similar memories abound with the second generation as an adult too, Gold was a game I played last Christmas into January, the game helping me through my big city move, filling in those empty hours without wi-fi or friends. Of course Crystal popped up on the 3DS virtual console once I had both of those absent things… time is a circle. So they say.
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Arcade Archives: Double Dragon
Release Date: 18th Janurary 2018 (UK Nintendo Switch Release)
Hamster Corporation
The memory most share regarding Double Dragon is how it ends. The combat, levels, and enemies might be a little fuzzy on the mind, for there were plenty of side scrolling brawlers to sink coins into back when, packed with street gangs and baseball bats to pick up and swing against their skulls, but the ending was something else. If you made it through with a friend, it became a fight to the death over the damsel in distress. It was either you or your friend, what a twist. Perhaps it’s for the best that such a memory remains as that. 1987 was a long time ago, you know…
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”Why is it that we stand so still? People gonna start thinking we’re statues.”
Oops, wrong ‘Off The Hook’! But it kind of works for these two new amiibo, right? Right! Continue reading
Axiom Verge
Release Date: 26th January 2018 (UK Nintendo Switch physical Release)
Bad Land Games
There was a time, a time between 2010 and 2017, in which the beloved Metroid series seemed to be just a little bit dead. Other M put the franchise into a deep sleep, and the other series which loved to throw the player into huge labyrinths of goodies and galore, Castlevania, was also sleeping, at least on that variant of play-style. So entered the indies, so entered Axiom Verge. Metroid may have returned since, and Castlevania is on its way back in some form thanks to Vania vet Iga’s Bloodstained, but one mustn’t forget the games that kept the Metroidvania in our hearts. And on our screens.
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ACA NeoGeo: World Heroes 2 Jet
Release Date: 22nd March 2018 (UK Nintendo Switch Release)
NeoGeo
Hamster Corporation
It wasn’t so long ago I was talking about World Heroes 2, March in fact, but here we are with World Heroes 2 Jet, the update, not the sequel. You see, back in the 90’s things like download content and patches weren’t possible, so if you wanted to add new things, it was either a sequel or this. It worked for Street Fighter II, and considering World Heroes is the off brand Street Fighter for the NeoGeo, it made sense for the series to follow suit. Like a jet. Continue reading
For some reason Pikachu is now a detective. He loves coffee as much as Agent Dale Cooper, talks like a chain smoker, and loves seeking clues, and ‘skirt’. Adulthood hits everybody hard, it really does. Continue reading
Rocket League
Release Date: 26th January 2018 (Nintendo Switch Physical Release)
Psyonix
Football is often referred to as the beautiful game, and I can see what people mean when they call it so. There is nothing more moving than seeing a team work in harmony, minds in total sync, as they pass and shoot for the opponent’s goal. When a goal happens with such precision between players, well, it can reduce a grown man to tears, that’s what they say, that’s what I see. And hearing those engines roar, witnessing paint jobs grind up against one another, and smelling the burning rubber, yes, that’s the beautiful game right there. That’s Rocket League football, indeed.
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ACA NeoGeo: World Heroes 2
Release Date: 25th January 2018 (UK Nintendo Switch Release)
NeoGeo
Hamster Corporation
It’s easy to drown on the NeoGeo. Fighting games are stacked on every corner, they pile up high, till you can no longer see the sky. The King of Fighters, Art of Fighting, Samurai Shodown, Fatal Fury, Waku Waku 7,Sengoku, World Heroes, and this is just a surface scratch. It’s easier just to break on through the lot with a Tiger Uppercut, and head to well-worn roads with the likes of Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat, but climbing those suffocating walls often leads to new horizons. World Heroes 2 isn’t one of them, but it tries, oh, it tries.
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