Showing posts with label Retro Gamer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Retro Gamer. Show all posts

Friday, July 1, 2011

IG Magazine, French retro mag like Hardcore Gaming 101


A look at IG Magazine, a French magazine from France (as opposed to Canada). This one appearing to be a special one-off, focusing on various retro series. It’s titled “Hors-Serie 1” (Juillet/Aout 2011), implying there will be others in the future. Priced at 9.50 Euro it’s 268 pages long and printed on very nice paper. There are also NO ADVERTS. It manages to be entirely self-funded. Best of all, is it seems to take much inspiration from Hardcore Gaming 101 and Retro Gamer magazine. I haven’t gone over every page, but there doesn’t seem to be any developer interviews, meaning it’s not quite as good as HG101 and RG, and this is a shame, but otherwise it’s a lovely coffee table style bookazine. The 19 pages dedicated to sprite transformation moves in various beat-em-ups was a particular highlight.

YOUTUBE VIDEO pt1

YOUTUBE VIDEO pt2
Posted by Sketcz at 9:54 AM 2 comments
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Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Profile of British developer M4


In my recent Resident Evil Gaiden article for Retro Gamer (hi-res scans in this Biohaze forum topic) I profiled the developers behind the game, but due to dwindling space these weren’t able to used in the article itself. So they won’t go to waste, I’m posting them here. The above photo is from their office during better times.

Here's a web archive of their old website.

M4 was a British developer formed in 1995 by Tim Hull. Primarily known for handheld titles, it was comprised of several former BITS development staff. Although they formed to create new titles, paying the bills necessitated working with licences. Three of their biggest titles, Bounty Hunter (PC), Stuntpigs (Next Gen) and Space Cadets (GBA) never made it to market. Though Space Cadets was actually completed.

As Tim Hull explained in the RG article: “Sadly no original M4 titles made it to the shelves. Bounty Hunter, Space Cadets and Stuntpigs were all games we really wanted to bring to market. The later two are still held by us in Stuntpigs Ltd a dormant company. Who knows maybe one day they will rise.”

With backups of everything still with Tim, there is a chance that in the future we’ll see one of these unreleased M4 games.

The question then is: WHERE ARE THE DISBANDED TEAM NOW?


Elliot Curtis
Creative Producer
Making Fun Games
Elliot now runs an indie development company called Making Fun Games. They produce browser games for PC and are currently expanding their most popular games onto other platforms, including mobile and X360.
www.makingfungames.com

[Sketcz’s note: I’ve checked out the website and it’s got a nice selection of totally free browser games! I tend to dismiss them, because most browser games I see people playing are terribly uninteresting – but I had a go on Outbreak 2012 on the MFG website, and it’s actually pretty damn awesome. It’s a 2D side-scrolling survival horror with an interesting mouse-based combat system and some great atmosphere. Definitely worth checking out! There’s also a diverse range of other games on there.]

[Elliot in RG article: Bounty Hunter was in production when I joined M4 and it really was stunning. As for Stuntpigs - the best game never made. I think it was just ahead of its time... Space Cadets though, that was actually completed and it was a really good game. It was different though and it really worked best multi-player. It’s typical - generally publishers don’t like to risk money on original stuff, especially when there’s cartridges to pay for.]


Stefan Barnett
Artist / Game Designer
Rice Media
Is in Birmingham where he’s working as an Artist/Game Designer on iPhone games.

[FROM RG ARTICLE: I worked as a traditional model-maker on Pepperami adverts, In the theatre with sets, and props and also in Childrens books. I was thrown in right in at the deep end with Resident Evil: Gaiden being my first project]



James Cox
Head of Development
PlayStation Home
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe



Tim Hull
Games Explorer
Globaltimoto
One man on a motorcycle around the world in a quest for gameplay.



Kieron Wheeler

I’m not entirely sure what Kieron is doing, to be honest. I liaised with Tim and I don’t recall being told where he moved on to. Perhaps some form of top secret project?



As I've always said, it's important to know who makes your games, never mix up the publisher with the developer, and if you like a game, take a look at the credits to see who made it, since they seldom get the attention they deserve (unless they're someone like Kojima or Molyneux), and they've probably made other great games you might not know about.
Posted by Sketcz at 9:01 AM 3 comments
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Monday, May 16, 2011

Retro Gamer 88 and 89



Guess which ground breaking, vanguard pushing, demon-general-in-training journalist has written earth-shatteringly incredible articles for an award-winning magazine this month. Yes readers, that’s right, it’s me – your very own Lord Humongous. Articles for Retro Gamer magazine, which means complimentary issues. And guess who is placing scans from this magazine online – right again, it’s ME. And for those who recently posted in comments, arguing I came across as arrogant and pretentious, TOO BAD. You are tuned to radio Sketcz and there is nothing that can change the dial. I hope you’ll stay awhile and enjoy the scans anyway.

Included are full size scans of the 6 page article with shmup developer Cave – it’s so good I thought everyone should see it.




Now, let me explain what we have here, and we can all get along in peace. I'm just here for the magazaline.


Contents to issue 88, hopefully large enough after you click on it to read what's in the issue. My favourite issue in a while, mainly because of the epic Cave article. You don't often get interviews with Japanese developers in games mags, and RG seems to be getting a lot recently.

Minority report is a new series of articles looking at obscure games on obscure systems. Pretty good this one, with lots of niche shmups. There's another in issue 89, which I didn't scan, and it's good, but some of the choices are pretty known in my opinion (Baku Baku is pretty common, right?)

Another in RG's ongoing obscura machina series. This alternates with their collector's guide series, so we get one really obscure piece of hardware and then an in-depth guide on something common like the N64 or C64. This is a good idea, since it's not always easy to recover systems already looked at. My only gripe is this particular article must have mentioned shooters for the system 2 or 3 times, and what games do they showcase? Cards, a recent homebrew Pacman game, and noughts and bloody crosses! The Pacman game is OK, but I'm sure the Fairchild had more interesting games that the other two.

It doesn't mention it, but the creator of the system died recently. Now that was in April according to Wires, so it happened after the magazine came out. Sadly ironic the timing of things.


Good feature by Stuart Campbell. Looks at early 1980s clones of well known games from that time. It's a simple idea, simply executed, but I had a lot of enjoyment seeing just how many crappy Donkey Kong clones they made around the time. Heck, that along could have made a feature - 101 Donkey Kong clones over the decades. Fun read.


Missile Command making of. 6 pages. Apparently been in the works by Darran for years now.




Don't read my words, golden and fantastic as they may be, click the images and read this article for yourself. Full of great trivia, good flow, nicely written prose, plus an interview with the guys at Cave. Top design too. The perfect article.

Contents from issue 89.

The collector's guide for the C64. I like it because it covers a lot of niche stuff about the system, and I'm all about the weird and unusual. Good photos of some rarities too. It doesn't credit the author, but I have a feeling freelancer Matt wrote the piece, in which case he interviewed himself on the last page. Maybe not thought.

Has it really been 20 years? Seems like yesterday I was visiting my mate Paul and a group of us were having mini tournaments. Jeez, I'm turning into old man. :(

Ridge Racer making of. They seem to have gotten answers from Namco staff, so quite a coup. 6 pages.

FUN TRIVIA: I don't like Ridge Racer. In fact I dislike it immensely. I also dislike Virtua Racer and Sega Rally immensely. How many tracks and cars do each of these have? 3 or 4 cars and as many tracks. Now, take Mario Kart or F-Zero and count how many cars and tracks they have. Back in the day I never understood why people paid money for the home version of something which had so little content. I still don't today. I don't even find them fun to play. It's not like you can shoot a turtle shell out of the bonnet of a rally car, now can you?

Oddly enough, I really like the original Gran Tourismo. Lots of content there. Hours and hours of stuff to tinker with and do. How many tracks? Thousands probably.

Broderbund! Big feature. Haven't read it yet.

My article! Fantastic! Somebody give this man the Nobel Peace Prize.

If you want hi-res scans visit the Biohaze forum.In the article I speak with 4 members from the dev team and document some very interesting things about the game. My only concern is that the Biohaze forum has commented on the game being of poor quality - and the implication of their posts is that my claims of it being a gem were somehow spurious. Due to all the developer info I had, there was very little space to explain why the game is great. I managed to compare it to Die Hard and that was it.

I want to emphasise this: I didn't make claims of the game's excellence in order to facilitate the interview. I tried the game, and loved it so much that I was determined, absolutely determined, to document it. Every time I read someone criticise it I feel myself lost for words because I utterly cannot understand why. It's a lengthy adventure, it's got challenge, creepiness, and interesting story, absolutely beautiful visuals, and it works so well as a handheld title. I sincerely loved it from start to finish.It holds equal place with MGS Ghost Babel on GBC for me. I'm not making this up. Gaiden is golden.

Interview with Raff. I've only ever played one game of his (Last Samurai on SNES), so this didn't interest me much.

Daz old boy appears to be getting into old PC games and especially DOS. The original Half Life (Windows obviously), Jill of the Jungle, Diehard (the PC game), plus Jetpack here. This is great, because there is an incredible world of overlooked gems for DOS. The ease of publishing on PC compared to consoles resulted in a lot of cool stuff. Hope this coverage continues (hinthint: do the English DOS version of Princess Maker 2 next).
Posted by Sketcz at 9:05 AM 4 comments
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Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Retro Gamer 85

A look at the latest issue (actually it came out a few weeks ago)
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I want to say, firstly, that I don’t pay for these issues. I receive a complimentary copy when I write an article. In this issue it was a 2 page piece on Portopia, Japan’s first ever adventure game. But since I have the issue, I thought I’d share some screens since it generally quite an awesome mag. Also, they somehow managed to find hi-res Secret of Mana art, which I thought had been lost at Square. Surely that's the most gorgeous cover ever to grace a magazine?


GamesTM’s deputy editor Ash Day has an 8 page article on the Mana series, chock full of obscure information as you’d expect from the former retro ed on the mag.

Also, funny story: on my last day at RG back in January 2007, we had an email from Square-Enix's PR department saying the guy behind Secret of Mana was going to in London the next day and would anyone like to talk to him about his games? Well, with less than 24 hours notice we didn't really have time to prepare, plus I was leaving for a new job, so no one at the office was able to head down to London and see him. EDGE may have made it, but generally it was sloppy, sloppy, sloppy PR work on SQ's part. I won't name names, but he knows who he is, so well done for not informing the press in a timely manner.




There’s a two page feature on an extremely obscure piece of hardware, the Tatung Einstein, written by former editor Martyn Carroll. RG’s new hardware format is now only two pages, which I find is rather a shame. Previously common systems, where coverage is over abundant, used to have 4 to 6 pages, the really cool obscure stuff is stripped down to only a couple, which barely scratches the surface. My interest has always been the unknown, and just as I was really getting into the Einstein piece it ended. I suppose there’s an argument about there not being enough information to fill 4 pages, but I suspect it’s more to do with the always pervasive fear that the bulk of the readers will be scared off by the unknown or less mainstream (a fear which was present even when I was staff on the magazine – despite my best efforts to nix it).







What RG has always done best is its making of articles, where developers talk about their games. This elevates an article beyond superficial nostalgia into a timeless historical document. I’ve always thought there are only two sources you need for older games. RG because it has more developer interviews than anyone else, and Hardcore Gaming 101, because we cover the stuff few others do, in more depth than anyone else does (and we have developer interviews!).

This month there’s Sonic Spinball, Jnr Pacman, Where Time Stood Still and The Pit, which apparently influenced Namco to make Dig Dug, so historically very significant. That’s 4 games which have their inner secrets revealed – you won’t find that in EDGE magazine (and yes, I still begrudge EDGE’s very existence).




Another new aspect which I like is FUTURE CLASSIC. Since it gives an excuse to look at slightly older games which aren’t quite retro yet. Most places have such a perverse aversion to anything which isn’t current, and I find that sad. People talk about older films all the time, released at any time in film’s history, but with games we seem to have this mentality of either only looking at the very old (retro), or stuff which is brand new. So I fully welcome this. Sadly, there were a few readers who have been writing in to complain about Future Classic, and in my view these narrow-minded people are damaging to games as a whole. I look at RG as an almanac of all that isn't right now. So if it's 5 years or older, I'd welcome some intelligent and insightful coverage.

Overall a good issue, even if they hardware coverage is a little too brief.

I don’t have another article due until issue 88 or 89, so don’t expect another one of these for a while, readers.
Posted by Sketcz at 8:33 AM 7 comments
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Thursday, December 9, 2010

Retro Gamer issues 80 to 84



In the spirit of Christmas my friend, and ex-boss on Retro Gamer, Darran Jones sent me some copies of Retro Gamer. I praise the magazine’s many positives, but first I must share some flashbacks.
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Despite my reservations, these are actually really amazing. In fact, they kind of make me wish I’d taken a subscription, or at least accepted Darran’s offer for a monthly column, which would have guaranteed me a regular supply. Unfortunately I’ve never bought a copy, and never will, since despite having left 4 years ago, I still harbour what many would call undue psychological baggage. So although I praise the magazine’s writers and skilled designer, I do have reservations.

As staff writer I earned £12,000 per year. That’s £1,000 a month. After tax and national insurance it was more like £750 (income tax was 22% in 2006, NI was on top of this). Then I lost something like £400 on rent, plus there were utility bills on top of that: electricity, gas, phone, water, food etc. I lived on a diet of boiled rice and tinned pilchards since that was the cheapest food I could find. Each month after all the above deductions I had £100 of “fun money” to play around with. Also, working on a retro mag, I didn’t get free games like my colleagues, unless it was retro compilations. And apart from the Sega ones (which I gave 96% to once), these compilations were mostly crap. So I was poor, hungry, overworked and seldom had games to play. My average hours per week regularly reached around 45 hours. Sometimes more.

After 6 months I thought bugger this, quit, and landed a job as sub-editor at a massive corporation, doubling my salary (yes, DOUBLING it), and halving my workload. Instead of running around to meet ludicrous page quotas per week, my days were spent casually proof reading articles in an unrelated field. This is when I realised that getting a job based on your hobby is NEVR a good idea. A hobby is fun because you’re in control of it – when it becomes a job there are rules to adhere to and you’re doing on someone else’s time, to someone else’s schedule. I stopped playing games and ended up hating them – they represented the prison cell I had volunteered for. I didn’t play games again until the winter of 2007 I ended up so burned out. Also, when your job is also your hobby, there is no middle ground, everything ends up becoming AMAZING, or ABSOLUTE CRAP, and you lose any sense of impartiality.

My advice is always this: aim for a job which pays AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, because screw the hippy liberals, by the time you hit 25 money is the only thing that matters anymore. And make sure it’s a job which is EASY and which you are mildly apathetic towards, so you can do it proficiently 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year, FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. I really liked my new job and my new colleagues were wonderful and very carefree (working in games magazines my colleagues were all underpaid, underfed and psychologically abused by upper management). I gave my new job after leaving RG all my effort, because I could still leave it at the office, whereas on Retro Gamer I never left the office, my home became the office, the pub was the office, wandering the high street was the office.

Anyway, long story short, I wasn’t paid enough, I was worked too hard, and all of us were treated very badly by the CEOs at the top. It’s traumatised me somewhat – made worse by the fact that I volunteered for the position. If I had been forced into it, I could maybe forgive myself. And so although seeing these issues today makes me think it’s a fantastic looking mag, with some great written articles, I will never be able to see Retro Gamer without having really awful flashbacks of working long under-appreciated hours and only being able to afford a scummy apartment, drinking neat Stolichnaya and occasionally punching the wall with anger at life’s unfairness. Jeez, they paid me so little it’s disturbing. Never again.

If you’ve never worked as a professional games writer on a UK magazine though, and I implore you not to, then Retro Gamer is a pretty good magazine with the best design I’ve ever seen. Still, they don’t pay their staff anywhere near enough fucking money, so when you enjoy it, pause for a moment and think of the poor individuals who are burning away the best years of their life to create it.


THE MAGAZINE



The Mario cover had this neat gimmick like an advent calender, where you could lift each square to find a screen from a Mario, with a date of release and info. This must be one of the coolest covers I've ever seen on a games mag. Ever.

I'm not a fan of the author behind the Axelay article, but the design is so incredibly beautiful.

Retro Gamer also covers things like TV shows based on games - in this case it's Bad Influence, a UK TV show covering technology and videogames.

A big feature on the adventure games of Dynamix. Pretty good, with a lot of interesting inside anecdotes.

Desert Island Disks with Larry DeMar, written by the always excellent Paul Drury. These have always been a highlight of the magazine, with fantastic writing and some incredibly personal stories from the interviewee. DID is the gold standard for video game interviews I feel, and blows away a lot of the basic Q+A pieces phoned in by other magazines.

A detailed Making Of feature on Ms Pacman. This is another strong point of RG. EDGE magazine does one making a month, RG sometimes does three. In 50 or 100 years time, these Making Of articles will still be read, and will still be worth something. How many other magazines can claim that?



GamesTM's deputy editor Ashley Day wrote a 4 page on the Pokemon Mini, one of the most intelligently written features I've read in a while - a personal favourite in fact. So many games commentators today take the Seanbaby or AVGN approach, of moronic criticism, without trying to understand what's being covered. The Pokemon Mini might not be a hugely relevant piece of hardware, but it's still a fascinating topic when handled with decorum.

I like these Complete Guide To articles, since by showing every level, every boss and every enemy, it negates any need to play the game any more. For me, it helps put the game away, so I feel like I can move on to other titles.

Making of Day of the Tentacle. They like their adventure games almost as much as HG101 does.

The Mario issue featured a massive article on Mario as a character. It was OK, not badly written. But for my money I would have liked a bit more coverage on the Hudson ports, and perhaps an explanation for them. And furthermore, they claim that Hotel Mario is a bad game, when in fact it's a fantastic single-screen arcade style game, like a cross between Elevator Action and Donkey Kong. Also, for a laugh they really should have included a boxout on Mario as a communist. Maybe also some weird Mario fan-art for good measure. Still, without an author's byline it must have been done in-house, which meant they didn't have much time. So I can forgive them. They got famous games people like Carmac and Hawkins to explain what they thought of Mario, which is ingenious. I want to see more of the industry commenting on itself.


I know the artwork shown above has been discussed online across various forums, but I wanted to mention it again. The Mario 3 article was by Ash Day and, as usual, was of an excellent quality. Considering how flogged to death the Mario 3 topic is, he handled it quite well. Also, the design, look at how gorgeous that design is. If you look at the collection of sprites on page 2, you'll notice that every Mario sprite is doing a different animation. One is standing, another running, another running with his hand out, one kicking, another jumping, then jumping with hands out, and so on. It's not all standing poses, each is different. And that map double spread - oh lord is it beautiful. Every single magazine should look this good. Only GameFAN has matched this level of style.

A making of Leather Goddesses of Phobos. Very detailed, very interesting.

The Making of Gorf - RG usually has a good blend or arcade, computer and console coverage.

Parker Brothers!

Sid Meier!

The Primal Rage making of was fascinating. I had no idea they'd implemented so much copy protection. And I didn't even know about PR2.

This article is a personal favourite. It covers copy protection in games, from old computer games right up to Earthbound and its super difficult mode that occurs with a pirate copy. Six pages, and one of the best researched pieces I've read in a long time. Actually, I'm tempted to scan the entire feature and put it up - this is the kind of article everyone should read and have access to.



A big Donkey Kong arcade feature, including an interview with the guy who did the Atari 2600 port.

I love these spreads where they show a version of every port. Now, I've read every RG since it first started, and I'm fairly sure that this level of obsessive detail was done first by HG101. In which case, imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery.

Harvest Moon is a great series, and this is a great look at it behind the scenes. TRUE FACTS: Kim Wild isn't actually Kim Wilde, plus I used to live just two streets down from her after I left RG. Always does well researched features.


And that about wraps up the 4 issues I got. I didn't cover everything, because it doesn't all appeal to me. There's lots of stuff which I don't even read - but after flicking through these 4 issues, it does tempt me to start picking it up.

Interestingly, Retro Gamer recently won an award in the UK for best games magazine. Which they deserve considering the effort that's needed compared to other magazines.

Ignoring the fact that management DON'T PAY ANYONE ENOUGH, the writers and designers do a great job, a far better job than they should considering the low pay.

But perhaps I'm just a bitter old scoundrel.
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PS: they don't pay their staff enough.
Posted by Sketcz at 6:45 AM 7 comments
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