MONTHLY 5 - July 2025

July has been an eventful month, not least because I caught a nasty bout of Covid halfway through. We saw Dinosaurs return to the cinema screen, Wimbledon return to London and a welcome return to form for both Marvel and DC.

Jurassic World: Rebirth was a touch better than the last two movies in the franchise, but still tread old ground by being another trek through a jungle. Perhaps playing DinoPark Tycoon (1993 MECC) is the better option. If you enjoyed Fantastic Four: First Steps as much as I did, revisit the classic comic book in digital form with Fantastic Four: Interactive CD-ROM Comic Book! (1995 Pixel Technologies & Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc). Sorry, no Superman stuff (you can find a bunch in the Batman vs Superman Collection), but it's the best blockbuster movie I've seen in quite some time. The hyperbole may be setting in, but it might just be my favourite big-screen iteration of the man of steel yet. Quite the statement considering the theatre is where I likely caught Covid.

If you're wanting for some sport, you can't get much better than Virtua Tennis (2000-2002 SEGA Corporation). The first game in the series is one of the best ways to swing a digital racquet ever. It almost makes me want to take up the sport. Almost.

But the best of the month have nothing to do with the tenuous links to popular culture or current events. They are old-school adventures through-and-through. Golden Gate (1997 Ix Entertainment & Panasonic Interactive Media Company) wows as a cozy treasure hunt set in a contemporary San Francisco that has more puzzles than people. Lastly, Missing on Lost Island (2000 Mayhem Studios & Riki computer games) captures that old-school LucasArts feel that kept me glued to it until completion. And it's not just because it has pirates in it. There's also aliens.

I've a few updates to mention too. Extreme Assault has its MP3 soundtrack added as a separate download - something I was planning to add originally but forgot. Horror Zombies from the Crypt got upgraded to version 4 which meant adding a bunch of manuals, the Atari ST version and updates to the emulators. Likewise Ghost in the Shell has also updated its emulator to make use of new graphical enhancements. I've also added the Japanese artbook and US manual as well as other improvements. Check out each game's review page or the Game Updates section for more information.

That's it for this month! I'll see you at the end of August for more, unless Covid rears its ugly head again.

MONTHLY 5 - March 2023

Awards season is over (and this is the first time ever where my personal favourite coincided with the Oscars), but movies will always be on my mind. As DreamWorks have been having a bit of a resurgence of late, with both Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and The Bad Guys washing out the stink that was Boss Baby, I thought I'd treat myself to some of their earlier game tie-ins. Pick of the bunch is Gold and Glory: The Road to El Dorado (2000 DreamWorks & Revolution Software), a 3D adventure game by the folks behind Broken Sword. Antz: Panic in the Anthill! (2001 Light and Shadow Production & DreamWorks LLC) takes the movie's characters and places them in a Bomberman clone. Chicken Run (2000 DreamWorks LLC, Aardman Chicken Run Ltd & Pathé Image) is a decent Baby's First Metal Gear Solid while Shrek: Game Land Activity Center (2001 TDK Mediactive, Activision & DreamWorks LLC) mimics Disney's edutainment offerings of the past. Lastly, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003 Atari Interactive & DreamWorks LLC) is an underrated movie tie-in of an underrated movie.

There are a few updates too. James Cameron's Titanic Explorer removes the need for mounted discs completely removing one of my biggest qualms about it (I should read the readmes more thoroughly). Galapagos: Mendel's Escape has now been updated to official patch 1.2 which gives the option to save anywhere. I've also changed DxWnd to a lesser version which solves the intro video distortion, but considering that was just a company logo it's a minor fix. I had thought I solved some issues in Sanity:Aiken's Artifact by forcing a reduced framerate through dgVoodoo, but it appears not. I'm beginning to think the issue stems from the NoCD patch itself so I'll have to figure out an alternative before I update again.

Until then, check out this month's games after the jump.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN COLLECTION

It's been quite an eventful year for everyone's friendly neighbourhood arachnid. First was a tearful (temporary) farewell to Tom Holland's Peter Parker in the excellent Avenger's: Infinity War. Then came the highly addictive Spider-Man game on the PlayStation 4 - one of the best games of the year. But before the biggest cinematic surprise of Spidey's cinematic outing (Into the Spider-verse) the world grieved at the deaths of his co-creators - the ever-personable Stan Lee and Steve Ditko earlier in the year. In honour of all that has come to pass, let's have an almost complete look at Spider-Man's amazing gaming past.

DIE HARD ARCADE: THE DYNAMITE COP COLLECTION

Hollywood iconography is a big thing in Japan, so much so that SEGA's AM1 R&D Division were heavily inspired by Die Hard to create Dynamite Deka (translation: Dynamite Detective). This early 3D beat-em-up was so indebted to John McTiernan's classic actioner that they gained the IP rights for the west. Thus we got Die Hard Arcade, the first entry in an incredibly underrated yet bat-shit crazy series.