Posts Tagged ‘Game’
Retro Review: Alex Kidd in Miracle World
Posted by Dimitri | Filed under Featured, Retro Games
Let’s start this year with a retro review of the probably most famous Master System game: Alex Kidd in Miracle World. This is a classic 8 bit platformer where the player controls Alex Kidd, who is on a quest to free his home country, Radaxian, from clutches of the evil Janken.
At a first glance, the game appears to be just like any other one in its genre: the objective is to reach the end of the level, enemies move in predefined patterns and jumps have to be timed to avoid pitfalls, gaps, and other hazards. All similarities stop there. Alex Kidd in Miracle World has much more gameplay depth than a standard platformer.
Game Programming Basics: Moving an element
Posted by Dimitri | Filed under Programming
This post explains some of the most basic game programming techniques: how to move elements on the screen. If you already know this, please skip it, or add something to this post in the comments. Since these lines of codes are trivial to game programming, it may be one of the reasons why it is so hard to find a post or a website explaining them. The code presented on this post isn’t the only way to move objects in a game and certainly there is a lot more information out there. The intention of this post is to serve as a starting point.
TA3D: Total Annihilation in 3D
Posted by Dimitri | Filed under Retro Games
Total Annihilation is a strategy game released back in 1997. It is one of those games that can make you forget about the time, even if played today. The original version is fun and complete, but what if you want to play it with 3D graphics? That’s why there is TA3D, (Total Annihilation 3D) which is a source port of the original game.
TA3D, as you might have guessed, makes it possible to play Total Annihilation with 3D graphics and some other improvements. For comparison, here are two screenshots, one is from the original game, and the other is from TA3D:
Retro Review: Shinobi (SMS)
Posted by Dimitri | Filed under Featured, Retro Games
Shinobi is an action game released by Sega in 1987. In this game, the player has to control a ninja called Joe Musashi, which receives a mission to rescue children hold as hostage by the ‘Ring Five’ terrorist organization. The game was originally released in the Arcades, and later ported to Sega’s 8 bit home console back in 1988.
The Master System version is much more slower and the action more paced than it’s arcade counterpart, but that doesn’t make the game any easier. In fact, the difficulty is the first thing one notices while playing Shinobi. The learning curve is steep and the game is ruthless: your timing has to be almost perfect to defeat the enemies on the screen or just avoid getting hit by bullets, boomerangs and other enemy attacks. The Bonus Stages are also very hard but can give Joe a new spell to aid him. It is a hard game even for the 1988 standards.
Retro Review: Death Rally
Posted by Dimitri | Filed under Retro Games
Death Rally is one of those games that appears to be simple, until you realize you have played it for hours. It is a racing game with a top down view and cars equipped with weapons used to destroy other racers. The player earns money for each completed race, and the more difficult the race is, more money the player gets. This way, an easy race pays a lot less than a hard race, although is difficult to survive til the end of a hard race with the first available cars. The game has also a global difficulty setting, if you feel it is too easy or too difficult. Money earned from the races can be used to fix your vehicle or upgrade it with engines, tires and better armor, or even buy a new car.