MONTHLY 5 - September 2024

I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to the summer quite just yet, so while September brings autumn with it, it will also bring some summery fun thanks to the Collection Chamber.

Pick of the month is a sunny racing-game sequel; OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast (2006 SEGA Corporation) but if skinny-dipping in the sea is more your style, play the obscure cinematic platformer The Lost City of Atlantis (1995 Noch Software, Inc) - warning: there will be nudity.

I suppose the scorched sun of an alien apocalypse is kinda summery too and that's where the uber-obscure ( and uber-cool) Amiga action adventure Codename Hellsquad (2000 Digital Dreams Entertainment) mostly takes place. The point-and-click adventure purists of you will get a kick out of Martin Mystère: Operation Dorian Gray (2005 Artematica Srl), a fantastical murder mystery based on the classic Italian comic book.

Lastly, we have another slightly flawed yet unfairly forgotten real-time-strategy game by the name of Rival Realms (1998 Activ Pub). I would say it's a lot more enjoyable than last months pick-of-the-month (Rising Lands), but I reckon I've put together a stronger line-up this month, putting this in fourth place. Discuss in the comments where you'd rank them.

Next month is the annual spooky season, so I'll be playing with the other side of the brightness spectrum with some dark and horrifying titles. Until then, cling to the warmth of summer just a little while longer. Enjoy!

MONTHLY 5 - August 2024

The month of August was the month of the Olympics, and outside of an enthusiastically happy blue man in drag, I didn't watch a single second of it. I did celebrate it in my own way by uncovering some officially licenced DOS games based on the 1996 event held in Atlanta. Atlanta 1996: Olympic Games + Olympic Soccer (1996 U.S. Gold Ltd & The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG)) bundles the first 3D game based on the event with a rather standard football game which began a yearly series that would later take on the UEFA moniker. 

If you're not much or a sporty person, I've gathered some other games to keep your limbs from moving excessively. Continuing on from last month is the final mystery at Greveholm. The Mystery at Greveholm 3: The Old Legend (2000 Young Genius) returns to the first-person adventuring roots of the first game and is all the better for it. Ring II: Twilight of the Gods (2002 The Arxel Guild) on the other hand foregoes this style that defined its janky forebear to become a tank-controlled action adventure. At least the absolute weirdness of it all is still intact.

For something a little less fantastical, try the movie tie-in for Fantastic 4 (2005 Activision Publishing Inc, Marvel & Twentieth Century Fox), a flippantly entertaining beat-'em-up for a flippantly entertaining blockbuster. And if flippant doesn't cut it, check out Rising Lands (1997 Microïds), a real-time-strategy game that surprisingly crept up to become my personal pick of the month.

Enjoy!

MONTHLY 5 - July 2024

Politically speaking, July has been quite the wild month. France narrowly missed out on a sharp veer to the far right before the many Olympics snafus took over headlines, and the too-close-for-comfort Biden v Trump race took a swing to the Democrats as Biden stepped down in favour of his Vice President Kamala Harris. Better yet, 14 years of Tory rule has finally ended in the UK with Labour winning in a landslide (or more accurately the Tories lost rather than Labour won; the unfairly vilified Jeremy Corbin earned more votes in each of his previous elections). Time will tell on how our new P.M. fares, but surely it can't be worse than the Conservative chaos we've endured.

To commemorate such turmoil, I thought I'd go back to the mid-90s and see how other countries viewed our world leaders. South Korea to be precise, and I did so by playing a satirical one-on-one fighter that came out of their gaming industry called Hello, Mr. President! (1994 Open Planning Co., Ltd). I promise I won't talk about elections too much in the review, though no promises about Bill Clinton's wrestling undies.

Brighter times may be ahead right here on Earth, but until then let's leave it behind for some space-faring excitement starting with the on-rails shooter called Zeitgeist: Laser Fighter (1995-1996 Taito Corp), also called Jupiter Strike when it later hit the PlayStation (also included). With gameplay that has more than a hint of StarFox in its DNA, it's quite the hidden gem in my humble opinion.

Beyond that, I've been hankering more of my favourite genre; the point-and-click adventure. The oft-requested Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen (1998 Cryo Interactive, Arxel Tribe & Carrière Multimédia) is a poorly designed yet artistically impressive take on Wagner's infamous opera. Except in space. And that's where we'll be going in The Mystery of Greveholm 2: Journey to Planutus (1999 Young Genius), a the sequel to last month's surprise pick of the month though with the drastic change in gameplay it won't hold that title this time round. That would go to yet another space adventure; Earthrise (1990 Matt Gruson). It's a neatly-designed independent take Sierra's early graphic adventure game design complete with the familiar cursor-based character controls and a slightly wobbly text parser.

Enjoy!

MONTHLY 5 - June 2024

So, the end of June is here, meaning that half of 2024 has passed by! And with that, the Collection Chamber has set free a further five prisoners  filled with fun times.

My pick of the bunch hails from Sweden; The Mystery at Greveholm (1997 Young Genius) a spooky first-person adventure for all ages based on a TV show beloved by all Swedes of a certain age. Beyond this, we have the next entry in Don Bluth's edutainment series with All Dogs Go to Heaven 2: Animated MovieBook (1996 MGM Animation, Inc & Sound Source Interactive). Instead of watching the fourth movie in cinemas, reenact the second in Bad Boys II; Miami Takedown (2004 Blitz Games Ltd, Empire Interactive Europe Ltd & Columbia Pictures). Join the rebel force against a conquering alien race in the FMV-heavy action-packed The Raven Project (1995 Cryo Interactive) before heading back down to earth with the high-speed XCar: Experimental Racing (1997 Bethesda Softworks).

That's all for now! I'll see you next time for some more retro goodness.

MONTLY 5 - May 2024

So, April may have been a bust - in terms escapees from the Collection Chamber that is - but there's plenty of newly uncovered convicts once again seeing the light of day in May. Life tends to have a way of getting in the way of life, but I've managed to gather five more games to see you into June.

Pick of the month is a classic point-and-click adventure from the folks behind Flashback and Another World called Cruise for a Corpse (1991 Delphine Software). An American Tail: Aniamated MovieBook (1998 Universal City Studios, Sound Source Int & MCA Music Publishing) continues on from last time's The Land Before Time to provide another educational title for the little 'uns. For a bombastic multiplayer arena shooter, why not give the highly underrated Death Drome (1997 Viacom International Inc) a go. Or perhaps some wargaming is what you're after? If so, try the somewhat forgotten war strategy Offensive (1996 Ocean of America). Lastly, there's Vigilance on Talos V (1996 Square Wheel Studios Inc), a decent Metroidvania for PCs that way, way more Metroid than 'Vania.

That's it for this time. Hopefully I can get it together to post something for the end of June. Until then, happy gaming!

MONTHLY 5 - March 2024

March is the months of movies, and not just because the Oscars came about at the beginning of it. It is also the time the Collection Chamber specifically looks at movie-licenses and this time it's a doozy.

I recently saw Ghostbusters: Frozen Kingdom and I think I enjoyed it a little more than Afterlife, even though I'm still disappointed by the lack of city-wide chaos such a concept can bring. The originals did that perfectly. You'll get to try out the 40-odd entries in the Ghostbusters Collection (1984-2009 Various) to see how well they fare. Putting this together was task as gargantuan as a rampaging marshmallow man, so forgive me if I rank it my pick of the month even if includes that sucky NES port. New Ghostbusters II for that same system more than makes up for it though.

Earlier on, Denis Villeneuve finally gave us the epic Dune II in multiplexes, and it easily jumped to the top of my yearly list and I can't see it changing for a while. As the movie was delayed due to the ongoing effects of Covid and the union strikes, so was my package for Emperor: Battle for Dune (2001 Electronic Arts), Westwood Studios exceptional swansong to the franchise. I didn't have the foresight to pre-write the review so that may come a bit later depending on how I wrangle my increasingly limited time. Possibly the real pick of the month if I'm honest.

Another contender for that spot is Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (2005 Universal Studios & Ubisoft Entertainment) in both of its forms. The special Signature Edition was the version I owned back in the day on PC and was a port of the PS2 version. The Enhanced Gamer's Edition originally only came with select graphics cards, but being a port of the X-Box 360 version, it included all of the graphical enhancements that made that game stand out.

To round out the month we have a couple of interesting time wasters. The Land Before Time: Animated MovieBook (1998 Universal City Studios, Inc, Sound Source Interactive & MCA Music Publishing) takes what Disney did with their Animated Storybook series and tacks it onto the classic Don Bluth property. Lastly, a slew of movie and TV franchises take part in Sci-Fi Pinball (1998 Fox Interactive). Aliens, Predator, The Fly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer all have their own table.

Check these bad boys out by clicking on the links below. There's no massive compilation package (or Easter holiday) next month so hopefully I can get all of the reviews in on time. Until then, enjoy this bumper crop.

MONTHLY 5 - FEBRUARY 2024

So, it seems life got in the way of January's monthly five, so I've made sure I wouldn't miss out on the short month of February. It's a Leap Year so there's an extra day after all!

Coming at ya with some underrated games including Z.P.C. Zero Population Count (1996 Zombie LLC) which marks my pick of the month. It's an uber-violent first-person shooter with a cool comic-book style and a dystopian sci-fi storyline. Continuing on from this theme is ARA NGC 6397 (1998 I. Hoffmann + associates Inc & Artech Digital Entertainment), a good-looking pre-rendered actioner with some adventure elements that remind me a lot of the on-ground segments of Star Wars: Rebel Assault II. If you want a straight-up adventure try Gord@k (1997 I. Hoffmann + associates Inc) which has you hack into a virtual reality security system that just so happens to look a lot like Myst. Us Brits will surely get a kick out of Only Fools and Horses: Comedy Pack (1999 BBC Worldwide Ltd), a multimedia CD-ROM that contains a GTA clone as a mini-game; Grand Theft Peckham if you will. Lastly, the guy behind Tetris provides the handsomely produced puzzle game that is Pandora's Box (1999 Microsoft Corporation). It's probably the best digital jigsaw game out there.

That's it for this additional day. Join me at the end of March for a quintet of movie-themed games. Adios!