Home Gaming Fiddling with our joysticks…

Fiddling with our joysticks…

3 min read
0

Alabama_Arcade_2

While recovering from some fantastic, and authentic, Chinese food on the Sunday after rAge, Geoff and I took the time to play some of those there popular vidjeo germz. Grabbing a PC, some fightsticks and hooking up the equipment to his TV, we plonked our magnificent asses down for a buffet of 16 bit nostalgia. Here’s what we twiddled our sticks at.

Altered Beast

3993066717_d3bef90463

A classic of the Sega Megadrive era, one which spawned the meme “RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE” and has furry undertones hidden within it. Altered Beast is a classic that every gamer has played at some stage in their lives.

It’s also a bigger turd than Bono.

Geoff and I teamed up to fight wolves and kick ass, but we were all out of decent gameplay mechanics to give when we tagged in for this. It’s hard to believe, but I spent dozens of Rands on this back in the day, outside the local Greek cafe. But compared to other games, this one has aged horribly,

Characters are sluggish, attacks are slow and have the range of a quadruple amputee, while overpowered enemies enact their right to prima noctis your health by being in your general proximity.

Man, Altered Beast was a classic a few years ago, but time has not been kind to it, judging by the amount of swearing that Geoff and myself used as we finished it within one painful half hour.

Plus, that princess at the end? Totally creepy animal love vibes.

altdbest

Street Fighter 2

Street_Fighter_2-Champion_SS1

Taking on Geoff, with fight sticks, at Street Fighter? It’d be safer to rip the heads off of pigeons in front of Mike Tyson. That being said, Street Fighter 2 is one game that has still retained quite a bit of charm, even if the majority of it revolved around Blanka humping my torso during a match.

But the core concepts,that shaped a generation of fighting games, are still relevant today. Combos, special moves, fluid animation and varied characters, those things never go out of style.

sf2-s2

Plus, I totally beat Geoff using cheap mid-punches from Chun Li, which would explain why Port Elizabeth now has sunshine. [Geoff’s note: It was a sympathy win..I told him I wouldn’t take him to the airport unless he beat me. I’m sticking to that story.]

Caveman Ninja

Joe & Mac - Caveman Ninja-2

Caveman Ninja? What’s that? Oh right, the Americans named it Joe and Mac when they localised it. Still, the platforming tale of two cavemen with green and blue hair out to rescue cave-damsels in distress from everything that Jurassic Park could throw at them, is some damn good and hilarious fun. And it’s the little touches, like a character being pancacked flat or a Pterodactyl reacting to damage that really made this game stand out.

Also, Geoff stole all the hot cave wimmens from me. None of them would go near me, ‘sob’.

But there is one scary bit in the game, when fighting the end boss. An amalgamation of man and dinosaur, the only logical conclusion was that somewhere, somehow, someone had unprofessional relations with one of those beasts, resulting in the bastard that you fight at the end.

joeandmac-arcade-boss

Truly scary stuff.

Aliens VS Predator

62_1

For me, there is only one true AvP game, and it wasn’t developed by Rebellion. This was the game that I would throw tokens into, a side-scrolling action adventure that would allow you to play as one of two Predators, Arnold Schwarzenegger in a cyborg suit or the obligatory female character with low health and fast attacks.

avp-1

And my word, the game is still fantastic. Xenomorphs swarm you, weapons can be lost and gained and the action just never lets up. It’s pure, unadulterated fan service, but dammit man, we need more games like this!

Even if it does revolve around me imitating Arnie during stages while Geoff twitched.

 

 

And with that, our brief sojourn into some retro gaming was over, because I had just realised that my plane flight was leaving in the next hour, resulting in a mad scramble to reach the airport.

Last Updated: October 11, 2012

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Check Also

Preorders for the crank-powered Playdate open in July, games and accessories revealed

This week isn't just about Ratchet and Clank, but also ratchet and crank as the Playdate h…