Christmas is a magical time for gamers, and for retro fans it always brings back memories of large boxes under the Christmas tree, gaming treats ready to be unwrapped on a chilly December morning. We’ve all got special Christmas gaming memories – to celebrate this year, we at Antstream Arcade are again sharing our nostalgic recollections of retro gaming in the season of goodwill. Happy Christmas, everybody!

Steve, CEO

“My best Christmas memory has to be opening the Amiga 500 on Christmas day – little did I know then how I was tearing the wrapping paper off of my future. Coming from the MSX, I was utterly mesmerised by what, at the time, seemed like life-like graphics and the sound of Rocket Ranger. And this was no ordinary Amiga! I had the 500KB memory expansion, and I spent most of Christmas day trying to explain to bewildered family members the sheer power available at my fingertips. 1 MB was enough to change the world – it certainly changed my world. The rest of the day was spent trying to learn pixel art on Deluxe Paint, a skill that still escapes me to this day.”

Steve spent a whole Christmas tinkering around with Deluxe Paint on his brand-new Amiga.

Sacha, QA Tester

“Before the Nineties console wars between Sega and Nintendo, I owned a Commodore Amiga 500, which was my official gateway into gaming. I’m a huge Indiana Jones fan, and after getting into point-and-click RPGs with The Secret of Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was high on my Christmas list in 1992. I’d read the four-part comic book series by Dark Horse comics a year beforehand and loved the story, so to be immersed in the hype was real. I spent about a year on it before completing the game (no hints!) on the team path and would spend a further six months on the Fists and Wits paths. It’s a game I played over and over as I also had to get the PC-CD ROM version years later just to hear Indy’s voice, although I was disappointed that the voice actor sounded nothing like Harrison Ford! It was a great joy to test it for Antstream Arcade, as this game is my true Indy 4.”

Sacha’s love for Indiana Jones continues to this day.

Aisha, Senior Community Manager

“The Sega Saturn was my first-ever console, and I lovingly cared for it. It lived in a cabinet, never caught dust, and would be placed onto its mini table and treated like the crown jewels. Being a massive JRPG fan, I liked to take my time making decisions, and the one game that broke the mould was Nights Into Dreams. This game is so unusual, with its iconic art style and great controls as you fly around, doing somersaults to collect balls and battling the ethereal monsters. At Christmas, the one game I wanted was Christmas Nights which didn’t receive a regular release and was only available for promotional use. I found a random shop, enquired about a Sega Saturn magazine, and saw a flyer for Christmas Nights, boldly asking if I could buy it. They told me no, but gave it to me for free! The bells of the Christmas levels still sound out at my house in December.”

Aisha’s suitably Christmas-themed love is Sega’s Christmas Nights Into Dreams.

Chris, Customer Service Manager

“My father purchased my Amstrad 464+ three weeks before Christmas one year. I had an Amstrad Action demo tape (with Turrican 2), and the Burning Rubber cart slammed firmly to the side of my new computer. I had looked longingly at the magazine articles and adverts for the colourful Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Coin-Op, and the promise of kicking the shell out of the foot clan had my seven-year-old self painfully excited. I was finally allowed to unwrap my present from Santa on Christmas morning. A big, heavy box filled with a poster, several stickers, a manual and, of course, the game. The loading screen impressed me; all the Turtles were there, and in the background was the imposing Technodrome. I picked Leonardo and set off through the stages, little knowing that this was to be my first case of video game addiction. After that day, I knew I wanted to be involved with gaming for the rest of my life.

Additionally, the moments between playing that game on Christmas day are peppered with good memories, specifically my father taking my hand as we wandered through the streets of my home town, the pavement covered with snow. I remember craning my head up and looking at the lights. It was my favourite Christmas as a kid.”

Part of the Turtles advertising campaign that bewitched Chris.

Darren, Senior Developer

“I suppose my next Christmas gaming memory was some years later, when I had an Amiga. It was afternoon on Christmas day, I’d had Christmas dinner at home and was visiting a friend’s house who also had an Amiga. We’d both got hold of Leisure Suit Larry and were convinced it must be really saucy since it was ‘adults only’ – pre-PEGI ratings, of course. There was a quiz at the start to prove you were over 18, but it was easy to get past it with a bit of trial and error (that quiz is the main reason I never forget Spiro Agnew was Nixon’s vice president). Anyway, I’d put in some time and completed the game, gradually realising it was much tamer than the stuff we watched on TV. I’d made a saved game just before the final cutscene, so I brought it to show my friend. The crude, pixelated animation of the hot tub followed by fireworks played out, and he was suitably disappointed that there was no actual nudity. At that point, I suddenly felt my dinner rising. I stood up and rushed to their bathroom, where I projectile vomited *almost* into the toilet. The family were very understanding, but it couldn’t have been much fun for them to clean it up after I’d been packed off home. Moral of the story: Spiro Agnew was Richard Nixon’s vice president.”

A man Darren will never forget: Spiro T. Agnew, 39th Vice President of the United States.

Graeme, writer

“When I finally began gainful employment at the age of 18, one of the first things I did – obviously – was rush out and buy a Sega Mega Drive to replace my crusty old Sinclair Spectrum +2. Suddenly, a wondrous world of amazing arcade conversions and fantastically colourful games was available to me – and I had the money to buy games! That was in October 1991, and by Christmas that year, I had built up a brilliant selection of games that kept me entertained for many months to come. That December, I have fond memories of playing Streets Of Rage, Alien Storm, Gynoug, Strider and The Revenge Of Shinobi, all superb games that outclassed anything I’d ever seen on the poor old Speccy.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed reading our Christmas memories – if you want to share yours or just chat games in general, head over to the Antstream Arcade Discord channel.

(The five games that helped Graeme fall in love with the Sega Mega Drive.)

The post Christmas With Antstream Arcade appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Become an alien seeking revenge in Alien Rampage, or build burgers and avoid hot dogs, pickles and eggs in BurgerTime.

The post New To Antstream This Week: Alien Rampage & BurgerTime appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Continuing to add great games to the Antstream library, this week’s newly added titles are the arcade fun of Food Fight (Arcade) and the isometric adventure Raffles (Amiga).

Atari’s Food Fight originally came to arcades in 1983. The game was later released for various Atari systems and was previously a VCS exclusive until now.

In Food Fight, players take on the role of Charley Chuck, whose objective is simply to eat a slowly melting ice cream. However, four angry chefs, called Oscar, Angelo, Jacques and Zorba, are determined to stop Charley. Chefs will appear from holes on the screen and then chase Charley. The level is also filled with various foods that can be used by both Charley and the chefs as projectiles, and Charley will lose a life if he is hit by thrown food, touched by a chef, falls down a hole or fails to eat the ice cream before it melts.

Raffles is an isometric action-adventure game, launched in 1988. The game, released by The Edge, started out as Inside Outing when the game was released for ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64, but was changed to Raffles in 1989 for launch on Atari ST and Amiga.

In the game, the widow of an eccentric millionaire hires a professional thief, the player, to locate the gems hidden in the Manor. The player must explore each isometric room, interacting with all of the usual furnishings, to find the often clever hiding places of the treasure. Unfortunately, the late millionaire had an interest in genetically engineering his pets, so it may not be the easiest job. The player has only three lives and will lose one on contact with any of these strange creatures. Good luck!

When it comes to challenges, this week players can try their hand at “Ho Ho Ho, I Got A Machine Gun” in The Super Spy (Arcade). Explore the building and shoot as many enemies as you can. Get a high score before the time runs out, or you sleep with the fishes.

It is also nearly time to enjoy the Summer 2024 tournament, played in Zombies At My Neighbors (SNES). Starting on August 13th at 2pm GMT, the challenge is called Neighborhood Watch.

We’ll be back next week with more games to play anytime, anywhere.

The post New On Antstream This Week: Food Fight & Raffles appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Another week means yet more games added to the Antstream library. This time we have the classic arcade shooter Centipede (Atari 8-bit) and the just as classic strategy/RPG The Lords of Midnight (Spectrum)

Previously a VCS exclusive, the Atari 8-bit version of Centipede joins Antstream this week. An iconic game that proved incredibly popular in the arcades, Centipede originally launched in 1981 before being released on multiple platforms. The game is a fixed shooter where the titular centipede moves left and right across the screen, getting lower with each crossing.

The goal is to shoot all of the centipede segments before it reaches the bottom. Mushrooms litter the screen, increasing as the player advances through the levels, but they can also be shot and destroyed. The centipede will move until it hits the edge of the screen or a mushroom, and will then turn around. Shooting the middle segments of the centipede will cause it to split in two, and the player is scored depending on what they manage to shoot. A true classic from the golden age of arcade games, Centipede is not a game to miss.

The Lords of Midnight is a fantasy strategy/RPG hybrid game that launched originally for the ZX Spectrum in 1984, before being converted to other home computers. The game proved to be very well regarded by the players and spawned a couple of sequels in later years. In The Lords of Midnight, players are charged with destroying the Witchking Doomdark and bringing about the end of the perpetual winter that hangs over the Land of Midnight.

Played very much like a graphic adventure, The Lords of Midnight employed an innovative 3-D effect to immerse the player in the fantasy world. Players initially begin with four characters, but can recruit many other characters to their cause as they progress. The game has two different goals that change how the game is played. Players can either choose to destroy the source of Doomdark’s power, which plays as an adventure, or raise enough armies to storm Doomdark’s citadel, which is more wargame. For the most adventurous players, combining both objectives into one game is the way to go. The Lords of Midnight is a classic example of early strategy games and still has a devoted following even now.

This week’s challenge is for Double Dragon players who think they are hard enough. Titled “C’mon Then, If You Think You’re Hard Enough”, players must earn the highest score possible on the highest difficulty. Good luck!

We’ll be back next week with more games to play anytime, anywhere.

The post New On Antstream This Week: Centipede & The Lords Of Midnight appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

While it revolutionised video gaming when released back in 1994, the Sony PlayStation, unlike the popular home computers of the previous decade, was way beyond the reach of most individuals interested in creating games for the console. The official Sony PlayStation game development kit cost thousands – then, seemingly out of nothing but a well-intentioned attempt to bring programming to the masses, Sony launched the Net Yaroze console in 1996 (Japan) and 1997 (rest of the world).

The concept was simple. A PlayStation console with some unique tweaks that connected to a PC or Mac, allowing fans to make their own games. The idea harked back to the bedroom coder phenomenon of the Eighties, solitary individuals creating whole games in their spare time. In a neat echoing of this and the early home computer scene, many Net Yaroze games were clones of popular arcade machines such as Defender and Pacman

It’s hard to discern Sony’s ambition with the Net Yaroze; maybe they really did want to give their console to the world, empowering anybody to create games on its machines. Well, not exactly ‘give’ – the Net Yaroze cost £549 in the UK. For that considerable sum, you got the sexy black PlayStation and two controllers, a serial cable for connecting it to a computer, a disc containing a limited set of PlayStation dev libraries, tools (including a C compiler and debugger) and full support for wannabe coders with access to exclusive forums.

Of course, Sony had to differentiate somehow between the kit that big developers paid thousands for and the Net Yaroze. The most significant difference was the Net Yaroze’s inability to use the CD to store data, restricting developers to the console’s 2MB of primary RAM. This is likely why, despite many imaginative games, there were no commercial releases of Net Yaroze games, despite some games, most notably Devil Dice, being confused for Net Yaroze titles. Today, we may pile scorn on pointless FMV, but back in 1997, it was obligatory for many commercial games.

With Net Yarozes available via mail order and sent to universities and schools for students to dabble with, it seems Sony had a long game plan after all. “Our view was that we wanted to allow people to have a grown-up development system at home,” Sony Europe’s Paul Holman told Official PlayStation UK magazine back in March 1997. “… if people are getting involved and doing some good work, they can go to a publisher with a great demo of what they’ve been doing.” Consequently, Sony had no intellectual right over Net Yaroze games – developers were free to do what they wanted with their efforts. Many of the games ended up magazine cover discs, most notably on the aforementioned Official PlayStation magazine.

Eventually, the Net Yaroze helped form the notion of indie developers via services such as XBLIG and now Steam. Without this sleek black unit, which allowed fans to create games on the best-selling console of the time, the development landscape today could be very different.

Antstream Arcade’s Favourite Net Yaroze Games

Blitter Boy: Operation Monster Hall

Developer: Chris Chadwick

Blitter Boy is one of the Net Yaroze’s better-known games, unsurprising when you realise it won awards and netted its creator a serious amount of cash. The objective is to guide the eponymous lad around each level, rescuing babies before the enemies get to them. It’s a smooth and playable game that could have easily satisfied as a PlayStation budget title.

Haunted Maze

Developer: Ed Federmeyer

Even by Net Yaroze standards, Haunted Maze is an uncomplicated game. It is, however, remarkably fun, considering all you do is glide through each maze, collecting items and avoiding the clay-like zombies. It also features some cool classical tunes.

Total Soccer

Developer: Charles Chapman

Inspired by the 16-bit classic footie game Sensible Soccer, Total Soccer is a fast-paced, top-down action football game that eschews fancy visuals for compulsive gameplay. Watch out for some hilarious team and player names.

Developer: Matt Verran

This neon twin-stick shooter (even though the original PlayStation controller didn’t have sticks) is a furious experience with an ethereal look. It’s easy to pick up, but the enemies soon come thick and fast.

Developer: Gerhard Rittenhofer

Mah Jongg is an excellent version of the ancient Japanese tile game. Its tiles are impressively ornate, and while it lacks any extra gameplay, it’s still a great little puzzler.

Terra Incognita

Developer: Team Fatal

This platform/RPG hybrid from Japan proved that the Net Yaroze could produce more complex games in the right hands.

Manic Miner

Developer: Andy Noble, Matt Simmonds and Lee Tonks

The original Spectrum classic by Matthew Smith is recreated here with a loving sheen – the developers are clearly fans of the platform legend. There are even some new levels, but beware: they’re just as tricky!

Rocks N Gems

Developer: Gerhard Rittenhofer & Manfred Tucmandl

Boulder Dash has inspired many clones (you can play the originals on Antstream Arcade), and this Net Yaroze game is tougher than most when it comes to the rock-dodging gem-collecting genre. From the very start, each cavern is devious and deadly – tread carefully!

Developer: Ben James

Fans of Team 17’s Alien Breed will find much to love with this Net Yaroze game, a top-down shooter with a grim futuristic aesthetic.

Developer: Tuna Technologies

If there’s one thing time has taught us, it’s that Namco’s ghost-chasing arcade game from 1980 has a particular gameplay that inspires developers and gamers alike. This Pacman upgrade features more power-ups and diverse mazes and is a real Net Yaroze gem.

Thank you for reading the latest Antstream Arcade Retro Gaming History feature!

Did you play any Net Yaroze games? What were your favourites? Let us know on the Antstream Arcade social channels: @AntstreamArcade on Twitter/X, our Facebook group and Discord server. Finally, to learn more about Antstream Arcade and our mission to bring retro gaming to all, head over to our website.

The post Antstream Arcade Retro Gaming History: The Net Yaroze appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

An action platformer and a vertical shoot ‘em up join the Antstream library this week.

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As one of the cornerstones of arcade gaming, Namco has produced some of the most famous arcade video games of the last 50 years. Join Antstream Arcade as we celebrate the life of this legendary coin-op manufacturer.

Formation

The history of Namco stretches back to the middle of the 20th century. Formed just ten years after the end of World War II, Nakamura Manufacturing Ltd began at a time when video games didn’t exist, and it took whole rooms to house your average computer. The company focused on mechanical entertainment, specifically fairground-style rides.

Throughout the 50s and early 60s, Nakamura continued in a similar vein, becoming famous for its rocking horse rides and inking a deal to create a Disney character range of amusements. As the world of electronics began to blossom, coupled with Japan’s emergence as an economic power, calculators and other small digital devices became synonymous with the country. Nakamura created electrical mechanical games and, while the origin of the groundbreaking arcade machine Torpedo Launcher/Periscope is muddy, Nakamura was certainly involved in its conception and initial manufacture. The sub-sim was admired, and a pre-cursor to the imminent videogame age.

Transformation

Then, in 1972, Nakamura Manufacturing changed its name and, crucially, its business model, shifting from physical rides to coin-operated videogames, acknowledging the change to digital entertainment. Namco was born, a snappier name for a new generation of fun, pixelated gaming. Furthermore, in a move that stunned many in the industry, Namco acquired the rights to distribute Atari games in Japan. This relatively small competitor in the entertainment industry suddenly became a big player, showcasing Atari’s famous arcade games throughout its home country. However, it wasn’t until the late Seventies that Namco began developing its own games, and after a slow start, it soon struck gold.

Released in Autumn 1978, Gee-Bee was a curious Pinball-Pong hybrid that failed to ignite a market dominated by Space Invaders and shoot-‘em-ups. Namco took note: its next game, while an unashamed homage to the Taito hit, thrust the company into the Golden Age of Arcade Videogames.

A Namco Legend – Part One

Released in 1979, Namco’s Galaxian took the template laid down by Space Invaders and improved upon it in various ways. In came scrolling – albeit just the starfield behind the action – multi-coloured sprites, and dramatically active enemies, swooping down on the player’s lone Galaxip starfighter. Galaxian was a smash in Japan and the West, cementing Namco’s position as a premier arcade game manufacturer and initiating one of the platform’s most famous series. It was an excellent start for Namco’s arcade game division, and things were about to get even better.

A Namco Legend – Part Two

Few arcade heroes come as recognisable as the round and yellow creature known as Pac-Man. Created by Namco’s Tori Iwatani, the dot-chomping maze game came from a reaction against the prevalence of shooting games in the wake of Space Invaders. Pac-Man’s simplicity, welded to a highly addictive template, ensured its outstanding success, aided by a then-unique universal appeal. Everybody loved – and loves Pac-Man.

A Namco Legend – Part Three

While not as well-known as Galaxian and Pac-Man, Namco’s Xevious proved another innovative entry in the company’s catalogue in 1982. Like Galaxian, Xevious was inspired as a reaction to a previous game, this time Konami’s Scramble. Notably more grounded than previous shoot-‘em-ups, Xevious became famous as one of the first vertically-scrolling arcade games, the player journeying up the screen in their Solvalou spacecraft. A detailed backdrop, very different from the inky black depths of Space Invaders, dual weapon system and stunning boss fights – the mammoth Andor Genesis Mothership – combined to form another massive hit for Namco.

A Namco Legend – Part Four

Also in 1982, Namco entered the arcade racing genre with the driving game Pole Position. Inspired by Namco’s earlier electric-mechanical game, F-1, the Pole Position arcade cabinet came in two forms: a fully enclosed sit-down version and a stand-up machine, both featuring a steering wheel and gear stick. As in F-1, the player controls a Formula One car, racing against computerised opponents around a track based on the Fuji circuit in Japan. Namco also built on the fame of Pac-Man during 1982 with Ms Pac-Man and Super Pac-Man, and its Galaxian follow-up, Galaga. This was the time when the company truly established itself as one of the greats of arcade gaming.

Out Of The Arcades

While Namco continued to produce several popular arcade games throughout the 80s – notably Rally-X, Rolling Thunder, Dig Dug and Motos – it also had the foresight to branch into home video gaming, developing games for the emergent Nintendo Entertainment System. This shift continued into the 90s, as Sony, enthused by Namco arcade games such as the brilliant Ridge Racer, signed Namco’s arcade games to its incoming home console, the PlayStation. But while the release of beat-‘em-ups such as Tekken (1994) signalled a hugely successful period for Namco, the displacement of arcade games by home consoles was becoming clear – with the gap in technology practically non-existent, the incredible sales of Sony’s console helped usher Namco away from the area upon which its reputation had been built.

Namco Today

Through its theme parks and dedicated arcades, Namco has always been a company that reveres its roots, simultaneously looking forward to developments in the fast-moving videogame world. As such, its history compares to the industry: pioneering development, outstanding commercial success, and a technological revolution after the technological revolution.

Namco On Antstream Arcade

We boast several amazing Namco games on Antstream Arcade, including Xevious, Rally-X, Dig Dug, Galaga, Rolling Thunder and the gore-tastic Splatterhouse. Play all of them for free at ,www.antstream.com.

Do You Want To Know More?

For more information on Pac-Man and its series of sequels, check out this earlier feature on the Antstream Arcade blog. We also gave the Super Six treatment to the famous arcade game manufacturer.

And don’t forget, to discuss Namco’s games and more, head to the Antstream Arcade Discord server.

Namco Trivia

• Namco began life in 1955 as Nakamura Manufacturing, based in Tokyo.
• It changed its name to Namco in 1972.
• Namco’s first internally developed arcade videogame was Gee Bee.
• There have been over 40 Pac-Man games over the years, making it one of the most enduring series in video game history.
• However, Atari’s port of the original Pac-Man game was a particular disappointment to fans.
• Today, the company is known as Bandai Namco Entertainment following a merger with toy and videogame multinational, Bandai.
• Several Namco characters appear in films and TV. There was a short-lived Pole Position cartoon in the 80s; a movie based on Tekken; and of course a gigantic Pac-Man in the 2015 Adam Sandler film, Pixels.

The post The Story Of Namco appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Retro games can sometimes be tricky and puzzling – in a good way! But if you’re struggling, we are here to help with a new feature on the Antstream Arcade blog. Each Antstream Arcade guide will include tips and help on how to play and beat a particular game on the service. We have over 1500 brilliant retro games on Antstream Arcade – so we’d better get cracking!

The Game: Adventure

Developer: Warren Robinett

Publisher: Atari

Year: 1980

System: Atari 2600

 

 

Background

Atari’s debut console, the Atari 2600, first appeared in the autumn of 1977 and became a worldwide smash. Many of its games were either official arcade conversions or simple shoot-‘em-ups. However, despite the technological restrictions, talented developers were pushing the boundaries of gameplay to produce relatively complex and thoughtful games. One such person was Warren Robinett, author of another Atari 2600 game, Slot Racers. A fan of the original text adventure game, Adventure by Don Woods and Willie Crowther, Robinett loved the concept of a network of rooms, many of them containing objects to pick up or enemies to fight. For his second game, his objective was to translate the text adventure format to the Atari console.

Did you know? Robinett co-founded The Learning Company, specialising in educational software. Its best-selling game was the logic circuit simulation Rocky’s Boots.

 

 

The Aim Of The Game

An evil magician has stolen the enchanted Chalice and hidden it inside the kingdom. As a courageous hero, your task is to locate the Chalice and place it back inside its rightful home, the Golden Castle. Inevitably, the magician isn’t going to let you wander around unhindered. Three aggressive dragons patrol the kingdom along with a pesky bat that has a penchant for shiny objects.

 

 

Getting Started

The game begins outside a castle. A small square represents the player and can move in four directions. Each screen has a gap or gaps around its edges – moving through these takes you to another location. There are three difficulty levels which we’ll go into more detail about shortly.

 

 

Objects

When it touches an object, the square automatically picks it up. Touching the relevant piece of the game activates the held object while pressing fire drops it, and the square can only hold one item at a time. The objects in Adventure are:-

Keys: the keys in Adventure are colour coded and open the portcullis’ to each corresponding castle.

 

 

Sword: used to slay the chasing dragons. Make sure it’s pointing at the dragon!

 

 

Magnet: pulls items towards the square – useful if they’re stuck in a wall.

 

 

Bridge: this can be picked up and placed over walls, enabling passage. Essential for levels two and three.

 

 

Chalice: your objective, and must be returned to the Golden Castle.

 

 

The Enemies

Adventure has four enemies: three prowling dragons and a rather annoying bat. The dragons chase the player relentlessly, although you can use the sword to slay them. Should they eat the player, pressing return revives the player back outside the Golden Castle, an early example of a videogame ‘continue’. This, unfortunately, also revives slain dragons while objects remain in their current position. The bat is harmless physically but will constantly swap or steal items, depositing them randomly elsewhere in the maze.

 

 

The Difficulty Levels

Adventure has three difficulty levels, selectable at the start by pressing F12.

Difficulty Level One

Level one is the easiest and, therefore, the best place to start. The adventurer begins at the Golden Castle, and its key is nearby. Grab it, and you can enter the castle and acquire the sword. Make sure you hold the key above your avatar and push it against the portcullis. The objective is to collect the Chalice from the Black Castle. Go down, right and down, and you’ll find its corresponding key, guarded by the green dragon, Grundle. Go back up, left, left and up, and you’ll find yourself in the labyrinthine maze. Somewhere to the north lies the Black Castle. Get the Chalice, head back to the Golden Castle and fortune and glory are yours! There is no bat or red dragon in level one.

 

 

Difficulty Level Two

As in level one, the player begins outside the Golden Castle. There’s no key, however, and the irksome bat soon absconds with the sword. This is a much more complex adventure, containing three castles and a set of catacombs bottom right from the Golden Castle. You can only see a short distance ahead of you in these – to get the gold key, go down twice, making sure you use the middle path. Taking the key back to the Golden Castle unlocks another path in the catacombs leading to the White Castle. But first, you’ll need the white key, situated in the maze to the west. Once in the White Castle, the northern area is only accessible with the bridge. Here is the key to the Black Castle, home of the Chalice and situated north of the maze.

 

 

Difficulty Level Three

Level three is identical to level two, except that all the items are placed randomly around the kingdom. Sometimes this makes things easier, but usually trickier! The randomisation can also render the game unsolvable – for example, if the white key is inside the White Castle, there’s no way to get in save for the slim hope that the bat will come in useful for once and pick it up.

 

 

Did You Know?

In addition to being a remarkably complex game for the Atari 2600, Adventure also contains one of the earliest examples of a hidden Easter egg. Annoyed by Atari’s insistence on designer anonymity, Warren Robinett ‘signed’ Adventure using a secret room. Inevitably, a keen gamer located the room. “A 15-year-old from Salt Lake City wrote to Atari, explaining with a detailed diagram how to get into the secret room,” explains Robinett on his personal website. “By then, I no longer worked for Atari, so they had a couple of their designers track down the part of the game program that produced the secret room. Brad Stewart, who located the offending code, said that if he was assigned to change the program, he would replace ‘Created by Warren Robinett’ with ‘Fixed by Brad Stewart’.” In the end, Atari embraced the idea of hidden content, thus creating the concept of the ‘Easter egg’.

 

 

We hope you’ve enjoyed our first Antstream Arcade Guide – stay tuned for more helpful hints soon. If you’re still stuck on Adventure, why not head to the Antstream Arcade Discord server and see if someone can help you? You can find us at: https://discord.gg/antstream.

Farewell, adventurer!

The post The Antstream Arcade Guide #1: Adventure appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

As Antstream prepare to launch their retro streaming service on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, two PS1 titles join the Antstream library, bringing top-down racing and quirky turn-based strategy. Worms Armageddon (PS1) and Motor Mash (PS1) will both be available to play this week.

Worms Armageddon was launched originally for Microsoft Windows machines in 1999 by Team17, before being ported to other systems, including the PlayStation. The third instalment in the hugely popular Worms series, Worms Armageddon was developed as an expansion for 1997’s Worms 2 before being launched as a stand-alone. Acclaimed by critics, Worms Armageddon was very well received and remains popular to this day.

In the game, players control a team of up to eight earthworms with the goal of wiping out the opposition with a wide array of different weapons and tools, from a simple shotgun, to the well known Holy Hand Grenade. Played in 2D, the destructible environments create as much of a hazard as opposing earthworms, as falling into the water below will mean an untimely death. Alongside the standard deathmatches, Worms Armageddon also features a series of training missions and a single-player campaign.

Motor Mash is a top-down cartoon racer from Eutechnyx that was originally released in 1997 for PlayStation.

Choose from a selection of different cars and drivers before racing against opponents over six worlds, each with eight courses. The tricky courses span different environments, from the Amazon and Arctic, to the Wild West and a bustling city. The game features different modes to play, including single race, league and beat-the-clock.

This week’s challenge is Chopping Away in Battle Chopper (Arcade). Help Mr. Heli get the best score possible with one life by taking out enemies and upgrading your aircraft.

We’ll be back next week with more games to play anytime, anywhere.

The post New On Antstream This Week: Worms Armageddon: Motor Mash appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

A quirky robot run and gun platformer football team management sim are this week’s newly added titles.

The post New On Antstream This Week: B.O.B. and Premier Manager 98 appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.