RODNEY GREENBLAT'S GAMES OF WONDER

   

Why is it that entertainment made specifically for young children feels like an insane acid trip? Teletubbies, In the Night Garden, Yo Gabba Gabba - each are nightmare-inducing to anyone old enough to know what LSD is. Rodney Greenblat, the Californian artist behind the PlayStation game PaRappa the Rapper created a trio of CD-ROM oddities in the 90s: Rodney's Funscreen, Rodney's Wonder Window and Dazzeloids. And each will keep you awake at night.

BLACK DAHLIA

The infamous unsolved murder of the aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, dubbed the Black Dahlia, has become one of Hollywood's biggest true-life stories. Over forty years after the tragic death, Take 2 has taken the mystery and mixed it with mythology to create an epic FMV adventure.

POLAROID PETE: THE GEKIBO COLLECTION

Gekibo, a portmanteau of Gekisha Boy (translation: Photograph Boy) is at first glance just another of those weird Japanese games that YouTubers love to rag on about. First released on the PC-Engine in 1992, Irem's short-lived series is a satisfying mix of a shooting gallery with a platformer. It's a rather unique concept with only Pokemon Snap coming to mind that bears any kind of similarity to the gameplay on show. So why didn't we see this in the west?

DC ANIMATED COMIC BOOKS

     

DC's Justice League movie is almost here so what better time than to look at some CD-ROMs of superheroes' past. In 1996 Inverse Ink released a slew of interactive animated comic books. Four were released based on Aquaman, Batman, Superman and Superboy. Read on to learn more about them.

NIGHTLONG: UNION CITY CONSPIRACY

Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy (1998, Team 17) is a science-fiction adventure game created by the Italian developers at Trecision. It's neo-noir leanings and futuristic city setting evoke the likes of Blade Runner, but how does it compare?

SPECIAL FORCES

While most strategy titles ask for Mensa levels of thinking and concentration, I tend to get the most enjoyment out of the simpler games in the genre like Cannon Fodder. Special Forces (1992, Sleepless Knights) looks like it could have been one of these simpler titles, but to actually play it is anything but.

THE MUSEUM OF ANYTHING GOES

by Austin Brewer

Surreal and sometimes unnerving, The Museum Of Anything Goes is an obscure “edutainment” CD-ROM project that was left in the shadows of 1995. Developed by Michael Markowski and Maxwell S. Robinson under the development name Wayzata Technology, this interactive showcase for PC and Mac is truly a relic of multimedia past. Having little to no web presence, it only makes this strange project even eerier.

SILVERLOAD

The Wild West was a treacherous time in American history, but imagine if werewolves and vampires were thrown into the mix. Well, imagine no more because the 1995 adventure, Silverload by Millennium Interactive, did just that. And the PlayStation port did it too, only way better.

HURLEMENTS

Before Ubi Soft were the powerhouse publisher they are today, the long-running French company was mainly known in its country of origin. It developed and distributed some neat games, including Zombi (found elsewhere on this site). In 1988, a spiritual sequel by the name of Hurlements swapped the gruesome groans of zombies with the high-pitched howls of werewolves.

RULE OF ROSE

Why are creepy kids so disturbing? From The Omen to The Exorcist, the perverted innocent trope has always been a controversial one, and Punchline's 2006 survival horror, Rule of Rose, is no different. Like The Exorcist before it, this twisted tale of juvenile depravity was banned in the UK.

GOOSEBUMPS: ESCAPE FROM HORRORLAND

Between 1992 and 1997 over 60 books were released in R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series. During this time, a television show, a board game, several gamebooks and as much merchandise as a Disney movie came to market. In 1996 at the height of that media blitz, Dreamworks Interactive in partnership with Microsoft gained the rights to develop a video game for Windows. The result is Escape to Horrorland, an FMV adventure that boasts Hollywood production value and the involvement of Steven Spielberg.

PSYCHO

It is now officially Halloween season, it's time to indulge in the horrors video games can bestow upon us. One of cinema's greatest scare-fests is Alfred Hitcock's 1960 thriller Psycho. The film remains evergreen, but what of the 1988 computer game adaptation by Starsoft Development Laboratories?

UPDATES - SEPTEMBER 2017

It's been a while since I've posted an update, so before October creeps up on us (literally and figuratively), I thought I'd take the time to tell you what's new around here. Read on to see what games have had updates, what's been added, and what's been changed.

MONSTER TRUCK MADNESS

Other than the sport of Football that's such a misnomer the rest of the world puts the country of origin in the name, there's nothing as quintessentially American as monster trucks. It's loud, supersized and full of competitive spectacle. In 1996, Terminal Reality in partnership with Microsoft developed Monster Truck Madness for Windows '95. If you though world of trucks with really big wheels couldn't get any crazier, you've not seen nothin' yet.

THE ORION CONSPIRACY

To my developing young mind in the 90s, there was something alluring when a game proclaims itself to be 'adult', and not in the Lula: The Sexy Empire kind of way. With its adult themes, dark subject matter and propensity for swearing, the sci-fi meanderings of Divide by Zero's The Orion Conspiracy peaked my pre-pubescent interests when I saw the adverts around its release in 1995. As a fully formed adult, I can now get my hands on the adventure game without the threat of warping my mind. So is it any good?

MAGESLAYER

With the rise of indie developers we are all used to a release that thrives on nostalgia, but the 90s was a different matter. If a game took inspiration from an old classic, it was often seen as derivative. Case in point: Mageslayer. This top-down action-fest from Raven Software was an obvious retro throwback to the likes of Gauntlet but reviews at the time tended to see this as the game's biggest flaw. Would we be kinder to it in 2017 than we were in 1997?

VILLAINOUS GAMES FROM DISNEY

   

Disney's gaggle of villains are probably just as memorable as their heroes. Or princesses. At around the turn of the millennium, the entertainment giant tried to morph them into their very own brand. And with their need for cross-promotion, a few games came along too. Among them were Disney's Villains' Revenge, Disney's Hades Challenge & Disney's Arcade Frenzy! Check them out after the jump.

HITCHCOCK PRESENTS: THE FINAL CUT

Of all the licenses to base a computer game on, director extraordinaire Alfred Hitchcock wouldn't necessarily be the first choice. I'm not talking about a specific movie license like Psycho or The Birds but the man himself. Arxel Tribe's 2001 effort, Hitchcock: The Final Cut, confounded game-players and did just that. But can such an unconventional subject matter make for a compelling game?

GROSSOLOGY

by Austin Brewer

All throughout the 80s and 90s, edutainment games were at their prime on PC and Mac. Series like Reader Rabbit, Jumpstart, and Carmen Sandiego truly shined out of the slew of kids’ titles. Most were quite tame in their content, to obviously be appropriate for children. Although, there was one title released in 1997, under the name of Grossology.

9: THE LAST RESORT

What do you get when Robert de Niro, Aerosmith, Superman, Jim Belushi and Cher collaborate with the twisted art of Mark Rydan to make a point-n-click adventure? The answer is one of gaming history's most notorious financial bombs. Nevertheless 9: The Last Resort (1996, Tribeca Interactive) is still a fascinating surreal head-trip of a game.

KRONOLOG: THE NAZI PARADOX (AKA RED HELL)

You don't need a president to tell you Nazis are bad, but the big 'what if...?' has haunted many an author, historian or citizen of Planet Earth. What would our world be like had Nazi Germany won the war? Kronolog: The Nazi Paradox, a graphic adventure released in 1993 by Castleworks Gameware, attempts to do just that.

FORSAKEN

Acclaim's answer to the short-lived - and often missed - 6DoF (Six Degrees of Freedom) style of shooter is often denigrated as simply a clone of Descent. The truth is that Forsaken had - and still has - a lot going for it beyond the similarities in gameplay. So strap in, get your sick bags ready and let's get dizzy.

BATTLE BEAST

Until fairly recently, fighting games for computers have had a pretty bad reputation. For some reason, the arcade thrills of a fighter battling it out on the streets or a virtual arena didn't translate so well. That's not to say desktops went without a number of system exclusives in the genre. Battle Beast, a 1995 game for Windows from 7th Level, was one of them. Does it change the tide for melees on a monitor? Or will it continue on the trajectory of terrible tussles?

THEATRE OF DEATH

Theatre of Death may sound like a macabre game going by the title alone, but this Psygnosis published game from the early 90s is as lighthearted in tone as it's light in gameplay.

HELLBENDER

With the success of the Windows '95 launch title Fury3, a sequel to the MicroSoft published space shooter was not far behind. Hellbender (1996, Terminal Reality) sees very little changed from the DOS days of Terminal Velocity but what it lacks in originality, it certainly makes up for it with sheer bombast.

THE X-FILES GAME

There was a time in my youth when I was obsessed with The X-Files. I had all episodes on VHS (official and recorded from TV), then later on DVD and now Blu-Ray. I had the comic books, the novels, the episode guides, the action figures, the collectable card game, two board games and - as is the topic today - the video games. Coming out at the height of its popularity in 1998, The X-Files Game was an epic FMV adventure spanning a whopping 7 discs. But does it do the show justice?

SPIDER-MAN - THE SINISTER SIX

With Spider-Man: Homecoming in cinemas now, what better time to revisit one of the superhero's most obscure PC Game tie-ins. Spider-Man: The Sinister Six (1996,Brooklyn Multimedia) is a simple adventure aimed toward young children. It features some nice animations and a branching storyline, but can the gameplay offer much for anyone over the target age group?

THE BOOK OF WATERMARKS

The Book of Watermarks is a Japanese adventure game for the PlayStation that's been heavily inspired by the works of William Shakespeare, The Tempest in particular. For a game that never made it out of its native country, it's surprisingly all in English, save for the easily decipherable menus, making it very playable for western audiences.

UPDATE - JUNE 2017

Those who follow me on Facebook or Twitter will know that this past month has been dedicated to reader requests. I have an ever-growing list of requests, of which many have sadly not been so successful in getting them to work. If you haven't seen your suggested game in the last month, keep reading after the jump to hear if it was one of my failed attempts. There's also the usual site news and a couple of game updates in there too!

THE DAME WAS LOADED

There was a great mini-resurgence of classic noir in the mid-90s. While Devil in a Blue Dress and L.A. Confidential hit out cinema screens, the computer monitor saw a couple of gems come to light (or dark as the case may be). I've already covered Noir: A Shadowy Thriller from 1996, but a year earlier The Dame was Loaded unearthed from the underrated Australian developer Beam Software.

EASTERN MIND: THE LOST SOULS OF TONG NOU

Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou, a Japanese adventure that came to the west in 1995, was developed almost entirely by one man - Osamu Satu. If you're unaware, he's the man behind the trippy PlayStation game LSD: Dream Simulator. Consider that a warning - things are about to get weird...

VIRTUA COP 1+2

   

SEGA are the king of the arcade, and they were on a high in the golden era of the 90s. Virtua Cop (or Virtua Squad in some territories) was their magnum opus for the on-rails light-gun shooter. Arguably the best home conversion at the time was not on the SEGA Saturn - their own console hardware - but the impressive 1997 PC ports.

MORPHEUS

What would you do is your explorer father disappeared on an arctic expedition 30 years ago? Well, if you're the nameless hero of Soap Bubble Productions' 1998 adventure game Morpheus, a content and normal life is not an option. Time for a life-threatening adventure!

HOLIDAY ISLAND

After all the events that's been happening in my little country known as the United Kingdom (in you're unaware there's been a lot of terrorism and politics), it sure would be nice to have a holiday. A quick look at my bank balance would suggest that Sunflower's 1996 management sim, Holiday Island, is my best bet at having one.

GENDER WARS

In the ultimate battle of the sexes, The 8th Day's Gender Wars pits men and women against in each other in a tongue-in-cheek action strategy game. Let's just say that 1996 was a different time.

DAVID WOLF: SECRET AGENT

Ah, the 80s. Everything was bigger in the 80s. The hair. The fashion. The action movies. Developed by Dynamix and released in the last year of the decade, David Wolf: Secret Agent encapsulates all of those things and more besides.

ALIEN RESURRECTION

The videogame adaptation of Alien Resurrection really missed the boat. The movie came out in 1997 but it wasn't until the new millennium that the tie-in came out on the original PlayStation. Was the additional 3 years in development well worth the wait? Hell yes it was!

ALIEN TRILOGY

It's been a long time since the Alien franchise was known as a trilogy. And with Alien Covenant hitting cinemas (not to mention Prometheus), we can throw away the made up word of "quadrilogy" too. But way back in 1996, Ridley Scott's seminal sci-fi horror was still three movies and this was when Acclaim Entertainment published a FPS decidedly known as Alien Trilogy.

TEMUJIN

History buffs among you should know who Temüjin is. Everyone else knows him as the feared warmonger Genghis Khan (that goofy guy from Bill & Ted). In 1997, SouthPeak Interactive released Temüjin: A Supernatural Adventure. It threw history out of the window and made the warlord into some sort of practitioner of dark magic. It's an alternative facts version of our past.

UPDATES - APRIL 2017

There's been a couple of minor changes to the Chamber of late. As well as some upgrades to some installers, I've begun to improve a couple of things to the site itself.

Full details after the jump...

PLANET'S EDGE: THE POINT OF NO RETURN

Released in 1991 by New World Computing, the folks behind the Might & Magic franchise, Planet's Edge: The Point of No Return was certainly a unique game for its time. With its non-linear gameplay, free space exploration and an epic RPG storyline, one could even consider it to be the Mass Effect of its day. And with the huge number of planets to explore across the universe, it certainly rivals it in scale.