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!
Click on the images below to head on over to the game page.
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1990 Matt Gruson
DOS
Adventure-Science Fiction-Space!
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1994 Open Planning Co., Ltd
DOS
Action-Fighter-Bloody Politics!
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1999 Young Genius
Windows '95
Adventure-Horror-TV Show-Ghosts!
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1998 Cryo Interactive, Arxel Tribe & Carrière Multimédia
Windows '98
Adventure-Fantasy-Vikings!-Weird!
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1995-1996 Taito Corp
Windows '95 + PlayStation
Arcade-Shoot 'em up-Science Fiction
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Well I'll be darned, my dream really did come early. I've actually been wanting to play this myself ever since Mandalore's review. I can tell just watching the gameplay gave me the impression this game is imperfect at best, but I do think this is something people deserve to actually experience for themselves.
ReplyDeleteMinerals for Glug everybody!
Stay tuned for next month ;)
DeleteHey, any chance of the following:
DeleteOutpost (1994), only the sequel is publicly available
Adventures of Pinocchio (1996)
Hi! First of all, thanks for everything you've been doing this whole time. I'm a great fan.
ReplyDeleteThis doesn't have to do with this post exactly, off topic: I tried to play the game Midnight Nowhere on PCem and I could not make it run properly. I got some video glitches and some stutters. VM doesn't work either. I came here to ask for you help or if you could take a look.
I have an original copy of that game, and tried to get it working a few years ago with little success. I have been thinking of trying again though I can't tell you when it will be or whether I'll be successful. I remember liking it a lot back in the day.
DeleteI bought the original CD back in the day, my PC fried and I could never play it. Now I can't make it run properly. It's my white whale. Hahaha
DeleteBut no worries. But thanks for replying 🙏 I'll keep trying and if I come up with something I'll come back here to let you know. 😃
@Anonymous - I got it running on Windows 11 with dgVoodoo v2.82.3. Try that out, I had numerous issues also, now it runs flawlessly. (hope that helps you out and points you in a good direction).
DeleteThanks. I'll try it out. I'll report back when I can. You all rock. ☺️
DeleteThanks for another months of great games Biffman!
ReplyDeleteAlthough this month's selection is less within the purview of games I know or that trigger a nostalgia firestorm every game rendered functional again through your magic is another win. Thank you!
Is there still a change you could release a US version of Fable (1996)?
ReplyDeleteAlways looking forward to your posts, Biffman. I was wondering if it is possible to make a little corner for us readers to give suggestions about games we'd like to see ripped from oblivion next...
ReplyDeleteThanks for Greveholm 2 too :D Are you gonna publish Greveholm 3 too?
ReplyDeleteBiffman 101 thank You for games :D
ReplyDeleteHave a good summer time !!!!
Greg
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oh no, the bots got in
ReplyDelete