As a 1994 release, the original Earthworm Jim is a fairly sophisticated 16-bit title, complex enough that it really shouldn’t be possible to shrink its gameplay down to 8 bits. Yet somehow, that was exactly what Eurocom managed to do back in 1995. The controls are remarkably responsive. The titular invertebrate handles exactly as I would expect. While the awkward timing and sometimes obtuse mechanics are still here, they’re virtually identical to the 16-bit versions. If anything, the 8-bit version plays more intuitively, precisely because I know there are only so many ways to progress when I only have two buttons and such a simple interface.

The Game Boy version isn’t all sunshine and roses, though. I think 90s era critics who maligned this conversion were mostly on-point, they were just on-point for reasons that Eurocom couldn’t really control. Namely, the limitations of the Game Boy itself. As it existed in 1995 without a backlight, there just wasn’t any good way for the typical player to make out the game’s graphic details, which are pretty critical for trying to figure out what to do next. The Game Boy’s need for batteries was also at cross-purposes with just how complete this version of the game is. Thirteen levels is a bit much to get through in a single sitting even setting aside the fact that Earthworm Jim is a notoriously difficult game.

The Chromatic hardware solves the technical problems involved with the game being difficult to parse. But this ModRetro version also makes one critical alteration to the software that gives a solid argument to this version of Earthworm Jim being one of the best ones. There’s an unlockable level select. What I mean by this is, every time you make it to a new stage, the game’s save battery adds it to the level select. So, you can turn the game off, put it down, and start right at Pod Race without having to go through all the previous levels again.

The trouble with most portable versions of Earthworm Jim now is that it’s too easy to cheat. There’s a decent chance you’re just emulating it after all, so why not just use save states for the most difficult parts? This ModRetro version softens the difficulty curve without getting rid of it entirely. Indeed, there’s even a nasty surprise at the end, in that the final level, Buttville, won’t unlock on the level select unless you beat Elevator in the same sitting. And Elevator is an ugly mess of the level, the worst in this conversion because it is far, far too easy to get stuck on spikes.

But is it really the authentic Earthworm Jim experience if you don’t feel at least a little bit of frustration having to repeatedly guess at the exact way you need to input the buttons to get past a particularly frustrating level? This helps Buttville feel genuinely suspenseful too, since despite being one of the easier levels of the game, you really, really don’t want to get sent back to the title screen, forcing you to replay Elevator again. The experience is tough, yet not impossible, and is thus a genuinely satisfying joy to complete.

I feel that even though I did cheat a little bit, albeit not on purpose. During the Pod Race level, I somehow managed to turn my pod into a glitchy mess, most likely because I shattered the glass at the same time the timer ran out. I could still land safely though and was lucky enough to be able to beat Bob the Goldfish without having to figure out how to reproduce the glitch. At this time, I was testing the game on the Super Game Boy, if anyone else wants to try. Earthworm Jim does have a custom palette, which helps quite a bit in terms of making it easier to distinguish Jim from his environment, but no custom border unfortunately.

As a final note, the instruction manual looks pretty great! It is, so far as I can tell, mostly just the original manual but in color. Still, it has all the irreverent backstory and humor you need to get into just how genuinely weird this game is. The 8 bit demake aesthetic of this version just adds another lovable layer of strange to this title which for so many reasons, could only have been made in the nineties.

The post A review of Earthworm Jim for the Chromatic appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

So why does the Chromatic still use AA batteries? It’s not a technological issue. The FPGA’s main successor for Game Boy Color cartridge play, the Analogue Pocket, uses a built-in rechargeable battery just like nearly any other modern portable electronic device. Rather, I suspect the issue is a philosophical one. The Chromatic hearkens back to a late 1990s aesthetic, back when we owned games, instead of purchasing a license to play them.

But we also owned the devices we used to play them on. A rechargeable battery, while nice, had hidden hazards. Locked away in a device behind casing the consumer isn’t supposed to access, such batteries can go bad and even explode. This is a trivial problem for older model Game Boys, with forgotten AA batteries that might leak at worst and are easily removed. Other devices, however, be they SPs or PSPs or Wii U controllers are safety hazards. I would recommend checking for bulging batteries in such devices if you haven’t looked at them lately, incidentally.

The Chromatic power core, by contrast, is a choice. The Chromatic itself is still perfectly usable without it, and indeed, gets such great battery life off of AAs that had batteries thirty years ago been this efficient, a rechargeable battery might not have seemed like such a necessity for our portable gaming devices. It certainly doesn’t help that in addition to a rechargeable battery, the SP had a backlight, an innovation that much more unambiguously improved the gaming experience without needing to consider long-term philosophical questions like whether we as consumers should have the right to modify our own batteries. Or perhaps, more relevantly, whether a cheaper product is worth having to take on that right which sounds in practice more like a responsibility.

I won’t pretend to be able to resolve that question for us today. But I do think it’s worth noting that even buying the power core separately, the Chromatic is still cheaper than the Analogue Pocket, and comes with an exceptional version of Tetris to boot. It’s also still in stock, and comes in a much funner variety of colors. Still can’t play Game Boy Advance games though, or play rom files, which I should note, is not sanctioned by Analogue itself. All of which is to say, these are philosophical differences, and which ones you think are more important, are just as motivates by your own gaming philosophy as it is the ambiguous technical trade-offs.

The post Power Cores and the Chromatic appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Earlier this year, Broke Studio provided a physical release of The Echoes of Worlds, based on the Game Boy Studio project of the same name by TC Studio. It’s perhaps the most fiendish Game Boy release in recent memory, and I’m not just saying that because one of the many characters you play is a devil scrounging up coins in hell. This is a deviously difficult game, where even just getting across a small room can result in many, many deaths.

The Echoes of Worlds has a lot of charm. Our unnamed hero chases a mysterious portal jumping menace to try and recover his stolen cat, while his moocher of a best friend stays home and doesn’t really know what to do with himself. Every time you load up the game, we see what the moocher is up to before the action flips back to the hero. Annoyingly, the game keeps track of how many moocher cutscenes you’ve seen even if you start a new game.

Minor annoyances like this are unfortunately a fairly frequent presence in The Echoes of Worlds. Though the game does keep track of how many moocher cutscenes you’ve seen, it does not keep track of how many times you’ve spoken to characters at the police station hub world. This is important because you get skill points from reading every single dialog, but you’re forced to cycle through all of them before leaving the room, so instead of pacing yourself with the toxic office drama, you end up stuck with almost all of the exposition at the beginning of the game, through to a mostly uninterrupted stretch of gameplay leading to a mostly unsatisfying ending.

I might not have been quite so disappointed by the ending except for the fact that the characterization is so well done up until that point that the anticlimax is more than a little insulting. The game had teased all these mysteries and doesn’t really answer any of them. I did find myself wondering whether there was a better ending if I could 100% the game, but in the first place, there was no indication in or outside of the game that this was true. And in the second place, by the time I was finished with The Echoes of Worlds, I was more than a little sick of it.

The main gameplay problem revolves around the skill tree. For getting certain achievements in-game, you get skill points that make the game easier by offering extra lives or items or increasing how much money you can buy with the items. Special skills are very expensive and also tend to be the most useful. The trouble comes from the fact that getting skill points in usable quantities requires that you 100% every level, a task which is harder than it sounds because The Echoes of Worlds is a roguelite, which means you do not have control over which levels you play in the main game. They’re selected at random.

After a certain point, The Echoes of Worlds is unplayable without a hefty supply of skill points, and I had to replay Level 2 a lot in order to finally finish off the last stage and earn the majority of the unlockable skill points. By the time I finished Level 3, I was just grateful I had enough coins to unlock the checkpoint, so I didn’t need to try and 100% it too. I barely even played Level 4, I just abused the skill points I had to brute force my way to the end, an accomplishment thoroughly deflated by the lousy ending.

It’s a shame I can only really think of negative things to say about The Echoes of Worlds, because the game is genuinely a lot of fun. I loved the blend of platformer with roguelite. The worldbuilding is great, and the art is delightful. Unfortunately, none of these elements work well with the collectathon style of gameplay that The Echoes of Worlds ultimately treats as a core mechanic, and a skill system that’s clunky both in execution as well as just plain tedious to micromanage in the menus, a surprising contrast to the challenging, fast-paced gameplay that’s not unfair so much as it is unforgiving.

The post A review of The Echoes of Worlds appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Knowing what to expect makes the first visit easier. You can spend less time wondering where to go and more time finding something you enjoy.

Your first stop may be a lobby

On a network with several gamemodes, you may arrive in a central lobby with menus, signs, or NPCs (non-player characters) that help you choose where to play. A server built around one shared world may instead start you at spawn before letting you explore.

A network can make it convenient to switch between a building contest and a team PvP match. A shared world gives you somewhere to build a base and get to know the surrounding area.

If you’re not sure which kind of server you’d prefer, you can try a few possibilities from this Minecraft server list over a couple of sessions. Get past spawn and spend some time in the part of the server you’d actually use, whether that means joining a match or finding a place to build.

Familiar activities may work differently

A gamemode name gives you a broad idea of what to expect, but servers can change the details. Survival may stick to the familiar mix of mining, farming, and crafting, or add player shops, jobs, and other systems. Creative servers may give you individual plots or space for shared builds. PvP minigames can have different objectives, starting gear, and rules about respawning.

Extra systems can give you new reasons to mine, farm, or build. A player economy might let you sell materials you enjoy gathering and buy supplies for your next build. In a team game, building defenses can be just as useful as attacking the other side.

Read enough of the server’s guide to get started in your chosen gamemode. You don’t need to learn every command immediately. Start with how to leave spawn, get back to your base, and use the menus you’ll need.

If a server introduces unfamiliar items or custom mechanics, give yourself time to understand their purpose before judging the experience.

Other players are part of the experience

The people around you can be opponents, teammates, customers, or neighbors. Some gamemodes bring everyone together for a match; others leave you free to work on your own builds and meet up with people when you feel like it.

Asking a gameplay question is an easy way to start a conversation. You could ask where new players usually build, how to join a team, or where to find the instructions for your gamemode. Specific questions give other players something straightforward to help with.

Shared spaces also come with rules. A chest you can open isn’t necessarily yours to loot, and an unfinished build may still belong to an active player. Read the rules on stealing, griefing, and PvP before treating the world like your single-player save.

For server events, find out whether you can join straight away or need to sign up in advance. That matters if you’re hoping to take part during your first visit.

Progress depends on the kind of server

On a Survival server, progress might mean upgrading your gear, expanding a base, or opening a player shop. You return to continue what you started. In minigames played over separate rounds, improvement may be more about learning the maps, making better decisions, or working with your teammates.

Some servers also offer player levels, ranks, or unlocks. Find out what those systems actually give you. A cosmetic reward changes how something looks, while stronger gear can make fights easier.

If you plan to spend weeks or months on a build, read the server’s reset policy. The main world, resource worlds, inventories, and in-game money don’t necessarily reset together. Check what you’ll keep before committing to a large project.

Spend your first visit playing

Try the activity that interested you in the description. Finish a match, start a small build, or head out from spawn and explore. Notice any lag while moving or placing blocks, and see whether you can find people to play with at your usual time.

Keep the first goal modest. Learn enough to start playing; you can get to grips with the less familiar features later.

Before logging off, save the server address and anything you’ll need to find your way back, such as the gamemode, world name, or relevant home command. You’ll spend less time finding your way around when you log back in.

The post What to Expect When You Join a Minecraft Server appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Super Mario Bros SMS Title Screen

Last month, Mario Bros. added another tally mark to its growing list of modern ports to classic systems. Developer LackofTrack released a near-perfect conversion of the classic platformer to the Sega Master System. The Master System was the contemporary competitor to the NES in the 8-bit console space. No one would have imagined that Nintendo’s cash cow would ever appear on a direct competitor’s system, yet here we are, 41 years later.

The game was created as an entry in SMSPower’s 2026 coding contest, with the v1.0 release happening at the end of August. To be clear, this isn’t a reskinning of an existing platformer like Sonic the Hedgehog or Psycho Fox. SMB for the Master System is a true port of the original, using the same code disassembly used for the Commodore 64 version.

While having a superb port of the original game would have been amazing, LackofTrack went even further with this version. It also includes an enhanced version of the game. This version uses graphics based on the Super NES port for Super Mario All-Stars, taking advantage of the Master System’s expanded color palette.

Super Mario Bros SMS Enhanced Version

Along with the graphics, the soundtrack also evolved from the original. Using the Yamaha YM2413 synthesizer found in the Japanese Master System, and often added as a modification to consoles in other regions, the background music has been redone with arrangements of the music from the All-Stars version of the game.

It’s pretty amazing to not only be playing this classic game on the Master System, but also to be playing a game that, while being on hardware on par with Nintendo’s system, looks like a next-generation version. The enhanced version’s graphics are bright and colorful, with character sprites that are considerably more detailed than the NES originals. The additional background enhancements, including animated elements that didn’t exist in the original, really help flesh out the experience. And while the iconic sound effects are the same for both versions, the enhanced FM soundtrack really completes the package, making it feel like a true 16-bit experience.

From a gameplay standpoint, this is Super Mario Bros. in every sense of the title. All of the required elements are here: jumping on enemy heads, question mark blocks, pipes that can lead to other levels, and castles where you eventually find out your princess is in another castle. It is about as accurate as you can get, given that it was developed using a version of the original source code.

Super Mario Bros SMS Original Version

While it is a great port, it isn’t without its flaws, however minor they may be. Both the NES and SMS were often plagued with sprite flicker when too many characters appeared on the same horizontal plane of the screen at once. While both versions suffer from this malady, the Master System port can occasionally experience additional slowdown with too many characters on screen. The framerate drop is usually brief and generally doesn’t disrupt the game flow.

Quite often, sound on the Master System can seem more shrill than the NES, and this game is no exception. While the sound effects and original soundtrack are near-perfect recreations of the originals, you can tell the timbre is on the high side. It never got to the point of grating on my nerves, but I could tell. Turning on the FM soundtrack really helps to balance this out.

If you are a fan of Super Mario Bros., you owe it to yourself to check this out. Even if you don’t own a Master System, or were ever even a fan of the console, fire up an emulator and give it a go. The fact that this was sourced from homebrew developers is a testament to the dedication fans of these systems have, even decades after they were originally released.

Source: https://www.smspower.org/Homebrew/SuperMarioBrosSmsPort-SMS

The post Mario Comes to the Sega Master System appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Officially licensed SEGA titles. Golden Axe places the player in control of one of three warriors who must free the fantastical land of Yuria from the tyrannical rule of Death Adder.

Collector’s Item: A must-own for collectors and fans of SEGA games. Titles Included are Golden Axe, Golden Axe II and Golden Axe III.

Portable Gameplay: Powered by 4 AA batteries (not included) or by a USB-C cable (not included)

Headphone Jack: 3.5mm headphone jack lets you enjoy Golden Axe on your own privately.

Officially licensed SEGA titles

Includes Golden Axe, Golden Axe II and Golden Axe III

Released in 1989 by SEGA, Golden Axe places the player in control of one of three warriors who must free the fantastical land of Yuria from the tyrannical rule of Death Adder.

The post Golden Axe Micro Player Pro Licensed By SEGA appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

In this series, we’ll take a game that was ported to different platforms, pick five, and look at what went right, what maybe went wrong, and how they’re all related. Next up is Nintendo’s classic arcade hit Donkey Kong. We’ll look at the arcade original, the Atari 2600 version, the ColecoVision version, a 2-for-1 for the Commodore 64, and the 1994 Game Boy release.

Donkey Kong – Arcade

Arcade

Shigeru Miyamoto created the original arcade version of Donkey Kong, with veteran engineer Gunpei Yokoi supervising the project for Nintendo, and the reason is somewhat unusual. At the time, Nintendo’s most recent release in North America, Radar Scope, was a technically impressive arcade game that failed to find an audience with American arcade goers. They needed a hit that would utilize the same hardware, and Donkey Kong was the answer.

Originally, the game was conceptualized as a Popeye game, with the sailor saving Olive Oyl from the clutches of the evil Bluto. As the concept evolved, it shifted to a carpenter, Jumpman, saving his girlfriend, “the Lady”, from the top of an under-construction building from the giant ape, Donkey Kong. Of course, Jumpman would later become Mario (and change careers from carpenter to plumber), and “the Lady” would be known as Pauline. Donkey Kong would stick til this very day.

The game takes place over four different levels. Each one is a different configuration of levels, girders, and enemies. The ultimate goal of the first three screens would remain the same: get to the top of the screen and rescue your girlfriend. The fourth screen would change it up. Instead of simply reaching your girlfriend, Jumpman must cross eight rivets. Each disappears when crossed. Removing all eight undermines Donkey Kong’s platform, causing him to fall and temporarily reuniting the couple. Finish the fourth screen, and the cycle starts over.

Donkey Kong became a massive success for Nintendo, not only in Japan but in the US as well. Building the game around a story helped to draw players in. Solid platforming mechanics and a variety of gameplay mechanics kept them plunking quarters in for years.

Donkey Kong – Atari 2600

Atari 2600

It’s easy to make fun of the primitive visuals of the Atari 2600 conversion of Donkey Kong, especially compared to the ColecoVision and Intellivision versions, which were out around the same time. But the real beauty of this version isn’t the look; it’s what went into making this port happen in the first place.

Nintendo gave Coleco the license for Donkey Kong. In turn, they developed versions for the ColecoVision, as well as Mattel’s Intellivision and Atari’s 2600 VCS. Legendary programmer Garry Kitchen, who programmed the ColecoVision version, was the sole developer and programmer for the 2600 version. Kitchen recalls working on it during the summer of 1982 under an extremely short deadline. He had only limited assistance and access to an arcade machine for reference. The cartridge ultimately sold nearly 4 million copies.

Original 2600 cartridges contained only 4KB of space. This was the primary constraint that shaped the game’s design and the sacrifices it required. The detail of all graphic elements had to be turned down. Donkey Kong looks more like a giant orange gingerbread man than a gorilla. But even with the reduction in fidelity, everything is recognizable.

The other major tradeoff was fewer available screens. The 2600 version offered only two of the four original playfields: the initial girder level and the final rivets screen. While the game didn’t have the wide variety of the original, including two different screens instead of simply repeating the first screen over and over gave the game the sense of progression from the arcade original.

Even though it is one of the least faithful translations of the original game, Donkey Kong for the Atari 2600 is one of the most commercially important versions, having sold nearly 4 million copies during the life of the system. It showed that, while the system could not necessarily handle arcade-perfect conversions, it could produce versions that captured the original’s spirit at home.

Donkey Kong – ColecoVision

ColecoVision

If the 2600 version demonstrates compromise, the version developed for the ColecoVision demonstrates aspiration.

It is often thought, since Coleco had their own console to think of when developing Donkey Kong for home systems, that they intentionally sabotaged the other versions, the 2600 version in particular. In reality, the systems’ constraints at the time allowed them to develop a version closer to the arcade original for the ColecoVision than for Atari’s console.

Even though the ColecoVision port looks nearly arcade-perfect on the surface, sacrifices were necessary to bring it home. The Cement Factory level (screen 3 of the arcade game) had to be eliminated to fit the game on a cartridge. And while the graphics are much closer to the arcade version than the 2600, many elements still have reduced detail.

One of the biggest reasons that the ColecoVision version was so successful was that it was included as a pack-in game for every ColecoVision system sold. Many credit the bundle with helping drive early hardware sales. While Atari could claim that they had a version of Donkey Kong, Coleco was able to show that they had a game that actually looked the part, and a system that could provide that experience at home.

Donkey Kong – C64 (Ocean)

Commodore 64

Donkey Kong on the king of 8-bit computers is a tale of two developers. While Coleco owned the rights to home console conversions, Atari bought the rights to home computer ports. They created the Atarisoft label specifically for these types of arcade conversions.

In 1983, they released the first version of Donkey Kong for the C64 in North America. Without the same space constraints as the home console versions, Atari could include all four screens in the C64 conversion. The graphics, while nearly as detailed as the arcade version, were stretched from the original’s vertical orientation to fill the entire home computer screen. The 64’s advanced sound capabilities allowed programmers to produce sounds and music that, while obvious versions of the originals, were recognizably Commodore creations.

Three years later, publisher Ocean commissioned a new version of the game for European users, developed by Arcana Software Design. In the three years since the original’s release, developers had gotten better at creating arcade ports closer to the originals, and users had come to expect much more sophisticated versions. Ocean’s version also included all four screens. The graphics were redesigned to look closer to the originals, while the playfield had been compressed to more closely emulate the arcade’s vertical orientation.

Comparatively, the Atarisoft version is generally seen as a slightly slower, more precise gameplay experience, while the Ocean version is mechanically closer to the arcade original but sacrifices some of the Atarisoft version’s smoothness. Both versions are worthy entries in the compendium and should be experienced by any 8-bit computer fans.

Donkey Kong – Game Boy

Game Boy

This is the true wildcard of Donkey Kong conversions. Released in 1994, Donkey Kong on the original Game Boy starts out as a standard but impressive version of the arcade original. Once you make it through the fourth screen, instead of starting over at the first screen again, after Donkey Kong grabs Pauline and exits the top of the screen, Mario follows. Then the actual game begins.

It turns out the original four levels were merely an introduction to the actual game, which consists of 97 levels that, while borrowing their mechanical vocabulary from Donkey Kong, turn the game into a modern puzzle platformer. Mario must find the key on each level and unlock the exit to the next.

Mario gains a number of new abilities here, like backflips, handstands, wire swings, and the ability to carry and throw objects. The backflip and side-somersault ideas are particularly notable because similar moves would later appear in Super Mario 64.

The level mechanics are expansive. Enemies can be stood on, thrown, and used to help Mario reach otherwise inaccessible areas. Some stages let Mario temporarily create ladders, platforms, and springs to move around the level. Mastery of these tools will be important to completing each level. While retrieving the key may be easy, getting both Mario and the key to the exit may be another challenge altogether. You can drop the key temporarily and pick it up again, but if you leave it alone for too long, it will return to its starting place, and you’ll need to backtrack to get it again.

Donkey Kong for the Game Boy is also notable as the first game to support the Super Game Boy adapter for the SNES. When used with the SGB, it gains specially assigned color palettes and presentation enhancements designed specifically for television play.

Unlike arcade Donkey Kong, which is fundamentally an endless score challenge, the Game Boy version is a substantial adventure and therefore includes multiple save slots. This illustrates how much game design had advanced in the 13 years since the original’s release.

The post One Game, Five Systems – Donkey Kong appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

DAWN OF THE MACHINE

Celebrating 30 years of Quake, the award-winning team at MachineGames—in collaboration with id Software—returns with Dawn of the Machine, a brutal new episode building on their critically acclaimed work on Dimension of the Machine and Dimensions of the Past. Delivering ferocious combat, labyrinthine level design, and nightmarish realms that twist reality beyond recognition, it pushes the legacy of the genre-defining first-person shooter even further—honoring one of gaming’s most enduring icons.

END THE NIGHTMARE. ESCAPE THE ILLUSION.

Ranger is trapped in a dimension of endless illusion—reliving the same violent cycles for what feels like lifetimes, dying thousands of times in a futile attempt to escape. Wearied but unbroken, he has heard rumor of The Nightmare Machine.

Beyond the hordes of monsters—twisted by an eternity in the Elder realms—lies the Machine. It is believed its destruction will shatter the illusion, finally breaking the loop.

FREE FOR QUAKE OWNERS

Dawn of the Machine is available as a free update for Quake owners on XBOX Series X/S, XBOX One, Microsoft PC Store, Game Pass, PC Game Pass, Steam, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch 2 (via backwards compatibility), and Nintendo Switch versions of Quake. This expansive new episode features 19 all-new maps across a cohesive campaign, alongside a brand-new soundtrack, hidden secrets, a dedicated episode hub, and an all-new deathmatch map.

Check out the full announcement at https://slayersclub.bethesda.net/en-US/news/quake-30th-anniversary-update.

The post Quake Gets New Levels for 30th Anniversary appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Though clearly a fan of GoldenEye 007 herself, Alyse Knorr has a surprisingly functional depiction of the Bond Team at Rare in the late nineties. Her Boss Fight book, centered as it is around the working environment of the developers, provides a compelling argument that GoldenEye 007 may well have been the last major game completely built from scratch, a function of the Nintendo 64 classic predating Unity and modern animation rigging. It’s also one of many reasons why GoldenEye 007, the game, came out a full two years after the movie was released theatrically 1995, which you’d certainly think would put a damper on the game’s relevance but that’s obviously not the case.

The story of GoldenEye 007 is, fittingly, a very British one. Martin Hollis is the man responsible for getting the game greenlit. This is a non-intuitive story in a lot of ways. Nintendo wanted a GoldenEye game, but the Stamper brothers at Rare weren’t all that interested. Martin Hollis, a rookie in the game development industry without enough sense to realize that licensed video games had a bad reputation, heard about the offer, and somehow convinced the Stamper brothers that he could put a team together to make a genuinely great game. Everyone on the Bond Team was a rookie, the sort of people who built video games in their garage and most of them just really loved James Bond as a concept.

The book’s description of the Bond team often reminded me of this quote from an old game review I read back in the day: “Goldeneye 007 for Nintendo 64 remains the best James Bond game ever made because while you play it, you feel like James Bond.” While we tend to think of licensed games as bad, the reason why they’re bad is because they almost always operate under fairly onerous restrictions in regard to characterization and time crunch. It’s easy to see, from Knorr’s descriptions of the Bond Team, how these turned into advantages. Rookie programmers with no real development experience nonetheless have a pretty good idea what James Bond is.

Likewise, since GoldenEye 007 was being developed for the Nintendo 64, hardware that the Bond Team didn’t get to see until long into development, hardware which itself was delayed to 1996, there were ample excuses for the Bond Team to take their time and get it right. Although I should note that “take their time” might not be the best phrasing here, given that they were working punishing eighty hour weeks. Likewise, it’s not like Nintendo was insensitive to the delays. There was an entire extended period where the game was straight up canceled and the Stamper brothers avoided telling the Bond Team because they were confident that they could talk Nintendo out of this fairly extreme step, given time.

Factors like this led to the Bond Team having remarkably good morale, to the point they even managed to shove the game’s legendary multiplayer mode in last minute. GoldenEye 007 is a game of unusual influences, with the likes of Super Mario 64 and Super Bomberman having a more direct thoroughline than Doom. What made GoldenEye 007 such a big deal was that no one had any concept of even attempting a four-player split screen shooter. Never minding the technical challenges, why would anyone want to play a game that way when the standard of games like Quake was having a nice monitor all to yourself while shooting other players over a LAN connection?

Part of the recursive charm of Xibalba 64 to me was how it envisions the Doomclone aesthetic existing alongside the deathmatch polish of Goldeneye 007. It’s a fun contrast because Doomclones as a genre were largely killed off by Goldeneye 007. Although ironically enough, despite its influence, the GoldenEye 007 style itself didn’t last too long, being supplanted by Halo in the short term and Xbox Live in the long-term getting rid of the split-screen entirely. Part of the problem was the Bond license itself, which paradoxically became so valuable thanks to GoldenEye 007 that none of those original programmers could feasibly work on it again.

Not that they really wanted to. As rookies, they needed the guiding principle of James Bond, but as experienced programmers responsible for the biggest gaming hit of the late nineties, having to draw within the lines of that mythos was just too restricting. In all these regards, GoldenEye 007 is an artifact of its era, and its story in this Boss Fight book, one of those legends that’s unlikely to recur.

The post A review of GoldenEye 007 from Boss Fight Books appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Roguecraft GB Title Screen

For the uninitiated, the basic formula for a Rogue game, or “roguelike”, is pretty simple. You are presented with a procedurally generated dungeon. As you make your way through each level, slowly descending deeper into the dungeon, you will come across items to pick up, potions to use, and monsters to defeat. The original Rogue game has been ported to many systems since its 1980 release for Unix terminals.

Roguecraft is a variation on the Rogue formula, originally released on the Commodore Amiga. The lineage of this particular version begins with the Commodore 64 game Rogue4k, developed by Ricki Sickenger of Badger Punch Games. The “4k” stood for the fact that the entire game fit into just 4 kilobytes of RAM. The game was then expanded into Rogue64 with custom graphics and additional features.

Both Rogue4k and Rogue64 were presented in the standard top-down perspective of most Rogue games. When the decision was made to bring the game to the Amiga, one of the major changes was to swap out the top-down graphics for a three-quarter isometric view, similar to games like Head Over Heels and the original Fallout games. The graphics were given a full 16-bit overhaul, with more colors, more animation, and more variety.

Roguecraft GB Above Ground

Not long after the initial Amiga release, a new version of the game, dubbed Roguecraft DX, was released for Blaze’s Evercade retro console ecosystem. It quickly became one of their most popular single-game cartridge releases. This expanded version of the game was back-ported to the Amiga and brought to the Mega65, with a Windows version and even a ZX Speccy version planned.

Amongst those versions was a new release for the Game Boy Color. Instead of attempting a straight port of the game to the system’s tiny screen, it was rewritten to exploit the console’s limitations. Given the portable’s reduced screen resolution, it would have been extremely limiting to attempt to replicate the original’s isometric view, which would have forced the graphics to be incredibly small to fit an entire dungeon room on the screen. Instead, the view was switched back to an overhead perspective, similar to the original Commodore 64 game, but retaining much of the color and detail of the Amiga version.

The game itself is pretty straightforward. You start out above ground for the first level of the game (a change that was made for the DX version of the game). Each screen can be exited in one or more of the four cardinal directions, advancing you to the next screen in the level. Each screen has the potential to contain treasure, potions, the key to exit the level, and any number of different monsters. Starting off, you will face chickens and green tentacled monsters. As you descend through the levels of the dungeon, you will face different, stronger creatures to defeat. You’ll need to tread carefully, because if you run out of health, you’re dead. No extra lives. No continues.

Roguecraft GB Dungeon

Fortunately, you have a number of tools at your disposal during your journey. Three different colored potions will appear randomly throughout the game. The green potions will always refill your health and heal any poison you may have encountered. The red and blue potions are assigned random effects at the beginning of the game that persist for the remainder of the play session. The effects range from showing all of the rooms on the map (accessed by holding down the B button) to temporarily increasing your character’s strength or turning all of the monsters in the room into chickens. You will also encounter red and blue crystals that will increase your maximum health and strength, respectively. These will appear after killing a certain number of creatures. Hearts will refill your health and heal any poisoning. And the final pickup is the key that unlocks the level’s exit. Keep in mind, you will need a free inventory slot to hold the key once you find it.

The original Roguecraft contained a ten-level dungeon leading to a final encounter with the boss creature. In DX, that number was increased to 15 levels plus the introductory above-ground level and final boss. For the Game Boy version, the number of levels was decreased to 10, including the initial ground level, plus the final boss. The first run I successfully completed took me nearly an hour. Given that each dungeon is procedurally generated, there is quite a lot of gameplay to be had here.

Roguecraft GB Final Level

Additionally, there are three different characters to choose from at the beginning of the game. The Warrior is the default character and the easiest of the three. They start with the most health but have no additional abilities. The Rogue is the next hardest. They start with less health, but have the ability to teleport, and after teleporting, they receive a backstab ability that will kill most creatures with a single hit. The Wizard is the hardest character to play. They start out with very little health, but are the only character that has a ranged attack. This can allow you to clear a room without ever coming into contact with a monster. Thus, the different characters serve as difficulty levels for the game, providing additional challenges to complete it. There are even three separate achievements for completing a run with each of the different characters.

I have absolutely adored this game ever since playing the original Amiga version a number of years ago. I have effectively purchased the game 5 times: after buying the original, I bought the Evercade version, the DX on the Amiga, the Mega65, and now this version. And I have every intention of purchasing the Windows version when it releases next month. It is just fun. The gameplay is simple and straightforward; it is easy to pick up for a gaming session, but the challenge is real. While the graphics aren’t quite as impressive as the 16-bit versions, they are very good in comparison to other Game Boy Color games. And the fact that Badger Punch and Thalamus are supporting a system that was discontinued 23 years ago is just amazing.

If you’re looking for a good dungeon crawl, or just want something to make your aging Game Boy Color feel new again, definitely check Roguecraft GB out. One caveat, though: you will need a flash cart to play this game on your original hardware, as it is currently digital-only. While they did take pre-orders for physical copies of the game earlier this year, it is not clear whether any will be available for sale once they are released.

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