MONTHLY 5 - May 2025

May is here, and much like the variety of weather conditions in ol' Blighty, I've gathered a variety of gaming curios for your enjoyment too!

Pick of the month is a classic 3D platformer that I played the heck out of when it first came out on the PlayStation 2. But this Windows version of the Namco-published I-Ninja (2003 Argonaut Games) - complete with true Widescreen support - is perhaps the best way to play. Also rather interesting is the first-person sci-fi adventure Zero Zone (1998 Cryo Interactive) which is one of Cryo's better attempts at the genre.

Next up is the first-person tactical squad-based shooter Mortal Coil: Adrenaline Intelligence (1995 Crush, Ltd). While it pre-dates Rainbow Six by three years, and is full of jank and glitches, it's actually a rather fun time once you get to grips with it's quirks (and I spent a lot of time doing so, so you don't have to).

Lastly, there's a couple of classic Amiga games and their lesser PC ports. Abandoned Places: A Time for Heroes (1992 ArtGame & Electronic Zoo) is an old-school computer RPG in the best possible sense. Le Fetiche Maya (1989-90 Silmarils & Digital Integration, Inc) - also known simply as Maya - is an ambitious action-adventure that has you searching Mayan temples for hidden treasure.

One game on the update list this month: Urban Runner. I've updated ScummVM which will hopefully help with some compatibility issues that some have mentioned, but I wasn't able to replicate. There's also some updated manuals in there too!

Until the summer rolls in in June, have fun with this eclectic batch by clicking on the links after the jump!

MONTHLY 5 - April 2025

April was a busy month. Between the Easter holidays, personal moments and a cornucopia of birthdays, the only real celebration of note the fact that I turned another year older! As did the Collection Chamber itself the month before (it's 10-year anniversary flew by unnoticed in March). So, to mark our aging selves I put my mark on a bunch of aging games from my genre of choice; the point-and-click adventure!

My personal pick of the month is a surreal and thought-provoking dive into the afterlife with Next Life (2007 Future Games) from the Czech team behind The Black Mirror and Alter Ego. With it's ancient Aztec mythology and out-there B-movie plot, The Crystal Skull (1996 SOME Interactive & Maxis, Inc) comes in at a close second.

Free D.C! (1991 Cineplay Interactive) is an early attempt to use claymation in its art style to tell a pulpy tale of a dystopian future where the world has been taken over by robot overlords America's capital has been turned into a human zoo for their amusement. It's from a team of ex-Cinemaware developers (Defenders of the Crown) so expect great graphics for its time. Private Eye: Philip Marlowe (1996 Byron Preiss Multimedia Company, Inc) also has a unique art-style with high-contrast animations to retell the classic Raymond Chandler noir novel The Little Sister as a deceptively complex interactive movie. Lastly, there's an educational adventure for younger players called Rumpelstiltskin's Labyrinth of the Lost (1995 TerraGlyph Interactive, Inc).

Just the one update this month. Disney's Animated Storybook: Hercules has been brushed up with the addition of a scanned PDF manual and a migration from DOSBox to DOSBox-X. See the game page for more info.

And for the rest of this month's adventures, click that little "Read more »" button you can see just below this sentence. Adventure awaits...

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN - DAY 5

Our good pal Tintin and his dog Snowy returns for a new adventure in Tintin in Prisoners of the Sun (1997 Infogrames Multimedia), another decent DOS port of a cinematic platformer. Professor Calculus has been kidnapped so it's off to the far reaches of the earth in search of the Incas to save him. Check out my review after the jump...

'Tis the season for rampant consumerism, so join me tomorrow as we chase that capitalistic ideal.

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 - FEBRUARY 2021

 

February's games are here and we start with the last remaining game in the Animani-verse with Animaniacs: A Gigantic Adventure (1999 SouthPeak Interactive). This one's a platformer, so read read on to see if it lives up to Konami's 16-bit classics. If you want something a little more serious, then check out the incredibly obscure Death by Dark Shadows (1994 William R. Fisher III), a dark and spooky cinematic platformer that has you play as a black panther. Following on from last month's educational adventure comes EcoQuest II: The Lost Secrets of the Rainforest (1993 Sierra On-Line) which sees you befriending an Amazonian bat as opposed to dolphin royalty. Still, I'm sure there's still enough litter picking to keep an average ex-con out of trouble. If you're a racing fan, why not try the first NASCAR Racing (1994 Papyrus Design Group)? It pits up to 38 stock cars against each other in an early polygonal crash-fest. Then, in a blatant move to be topical, there's Vaxine (1990 The Assembly Line) which has you throwing multicoloured balls around in the psychedelic brain of patient zero. I'm glad real-life vaccines don't work that way, otherwise we'd be screwed.

On top of all this, there are a couple of updates to mention too. Alice: An Interactive Museum (1991-94 Synergy Interactive Corp) and the cancelled WarCraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans (Blizzard Entertainment) have received new versions. Check out their pages for more details.

Watch the video round up below before checking them out yourself by following the links after the jump.

MONTEZUMA'S RETURN

Platforming in the first-person is usually a very bad idea. Anyone who has played Half-Life knows that the platforming sections are the most frustrating thing about an otherwise genius game. Released in 1998, the same year as Half-Life, Montezuma's Return by Utopia Technologies based the entire game around this mechanic. And is actually the best example of it I've ever seen.

EVEN MORE DISNEY ACTIVITY CENTRES

   

I'm back with even more Disney goodness to keep your inner child at bay. They may not all be called Activity Centres by name, but they are in spirit. Here's The Emperor's New Groove: Groove Centre (2000), The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride - Active Play (1998) and Toy Story 2: Activity Centre (1999).

INCA I & II

The Inca series is a weird one to categorise. I first came to know them as adventure games - at least that's what Home of the Underdogs described them as - but there's just as much action. Perhaps even more so. It is set firmly in an ancient Inca setting, yet a large portion takes place in space with all of the futuristic sci-fi trappings. So which kind of game is it?