CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN - DAY 1

The Christmas Season is here! And with it comes a slew of old games thanks to the Collection Chamber. We begin with something creepy... and crawly. It's also Christmassy too with Creepers + Christmas Creepers (1993 Psygnosis). If you take Lemmings and mix it up with The Incredible Machine, this is what you'll get. A fun puzzler with some bonus festive levels too!

On another note, there is one update to rattle on about. Most likely the only one in December. Disney's Hercules: Hades Challenge has now gone back to using DOSBox emulating Windows '95. This is instead of ScummVM which - unbeknownst to me - hasn't fully implemented a lot of the mini-games. Perhaps this is the better way to play!

Bon Noël everybody!

MONTHLY 5 - June 2023

Summer is here, and after a scorching hot June, it's time get out of the sun, stay indoors and play some ancient PC Games! Pick of the month is Synnergist (1996 Vicarious Visions), an adventure game with a history as fascinating as its neo-noir plotline. If you haven't had enough of last month's Bug!, how about it's sequel Bug Too! (1996-1997 SEGA). Both now also include the Saturn originals ready to play for you SEGA-loving entomologists out there. Next up, play the classic board game with some nifty graphics and computer-animated FMV sequences in Clue: Murder at Boddy Mansion (1998 Hasbro Interactive) or Cluedo: Murder at Blackwell Grange as its known for us Brits. For something a little more high octane, play Hi-Octane (1995 Bullfrog Productions), a futuristic racing game for PC-DOS, PlayStation and Saturn. Is it a WipEout beater? Lastly, The Reap (1997 Housemarque Games) is a great-looking early shoot-em-up from the folks who gave us Super Stardust and Returnal.

There's also a few updates to talk about. Ripley's Believe it Not: The Riddle of Master Lu has not only had its DOSBox updated and tweaked to fix a bug, but now also includes a manual and mini player's guide. Dust: A Tale of the Wired West also adds a maual while utilising the upgraded features of DOSBox-X. Finally, in addition to last month's Bug! for PC, Bug! for Saturn is now available. See their game pages or the Game Updates section for full information.

Head on past the jump and click on those links to read my full thoughts and make up your own mind by giving them a play them yourselves.

MONTHLY 5 - May 2023

A lot has happened in blighty this past month. Not only have we regained our rightful place as almost last in Eurovision, but we've only gone and crowned ourselves a new King! To commemorate this fact, I've been playing a game where one such monarch pillages his kingdom and sends his subjects to their deaths by fighting each other. That game is King's Bounty, and I've collated most of its ports and revisions in a compilation I call the King's Bounty Classic Collection (1990-1994 New World Computing).

That being said, my personal pick of the month is a blatant yet highly enjoyable Myst clone called Alida: The Enigmatic Giant (2004 Dejavu Worlds). Also available is one of the earliest stabs at a 3D platformer in the unfairly forgotten Bug! for PC (1996 SEGA). For the more adventurous among you, the hack-n-slash RPG NightStone (2001 New Horizons Studios) is worth a play and to cap out the month, we enter an educational fantasy land with beautiful art in Woodspell: The Enchanted Forest of Learning and Fun (1996 Mediola SRL).

As for the updates, we have three. Disney's Hercules: Hades Challenge and Chewy: ESC from F5 have been given the ScummVM treatment while Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace has had some tweaks for those with AMD cards. Head on over to their game pages for full details.

For this month's games, head on over past the jump. Enjoy!

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.

MONTHLY 5 - MARCH 2020

Hello fellow humans. We've got a plethora of out-of-this-world treats this week with a quintet of alien-themed gems. This marks our 400th game on the site (have you checked them all out?)! Don't panic with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Collection (1984-2010 Various), a four-game package including the classic Infocom text-adventure and the fanmade remake. Solve some pre-algebraic equations in Math Blaster Mystery: The Great Brain Robbery (1994 Davidson & Associates). Then have a game of intergalactic air hockey in Shufflepuck Cafe (1989 Brøderbund Software Inc). Filter fact from fiction in the educational CD-ROM all about aliens in Sightings: The UFO Encyclopedia (1997 Paramount Pictures). Lastly, shoot some alien bugs in the real-time-strategy Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendancy (2000 Blue Tongue Inc).

BANZAI BUG

Out of all the concepts for an action flight-simulator, that of a flying insect it perhaps the most inspired. Released in 1996 by Grolier Interactive, Banzai Bug took the gameplay from the likes of X-Wing or Wing Commander and plonked it into the miniature, colourful surroundings of a bug's adventurous life.

5 GAMES FOR FEBRUARY 2019

Keep your ball inflated so you can keep on bouncing in the isometric puzzle platformer known as Airball. Destroy a bunch of mutated insects in the first-person shooter Blam! Machinehead. Spray an army of clones with bullets in the Iron Maiden themed arcade shooter Ed Hunter. Uncover an intergalactic drug ring in the classic adventure Omnicron Conspiracy. Pile drive a bunch of muscled men in spandex in WWF: Wrestlemania. All are experiences you can now have this February thanks to the Collection Chamber.

TRIO OF DISNEY GOODNESS

   

The quality of Disney's edutainment titles vary quite a bit, but even the least successful of them offer something for your average Disney-phile. Here's three more games from the late 90s: Tarzan Activity Centre, A Bug's Life: Active Play and Winnie the Pooh & Tigger Too: Animated Storybook.

SIMANT: THE ELECTRONIC ANT COLONY

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be an ant? Probably not, but Maxis attempts to answer this question in 1991 with SimAnt, one of the many lesser known games in their Sim franchise.