HIDDEN GEMS - TOP 10 STRANGEST RETRO ADVENTURES

 

Have you ever picked up a random game bought from the local game shop or downloaded from a random abandonware blog and be confronted with some of the craziest shit you've ever seen? I have. More than once. In fact, I actively go seeking for them. Some of the strangest games I've ever played fall into the point-and-click adventure category so for your entertainment I've collated 10 of them and arbitrarily rated them from worst to best.

Out of the 10, there are 4 games newly escaped from the Chamber. Placed somewhere on list is Bad Milk (2000 Dreaming Media), DEVO Presents Adventures of the Smart Patrol (1996 Inscape), Who's Fat Lou? (1996 Mediola SRL), and the English translation of Eastern Mind II: Middle Heaven Chu-Teng (1995 Sony Music Entertainment (Japan), Osamu Sato & OutSide Directors Company) . There's also a fair few updates too so check them out after the jump and stay tuned for the rather lengthy video coming very soon...

WATCH THE VIDEO!

MONTHLY 5 - AUGUST 2021

It's the August Bank Holiday Weekend and that means music! Whether you're slumming it at Reading Festival or tripping around one of the many smaller events, the sounds of Summer is here. So, I've dedicated this month's quintet of quality games to top tunes. Accompany MTV's resident music video commentators on their trip to university in Beavis & Butt-Head Do U (1998 MTV Networks & GT Interactive), their second point-and-click adventure. Defy the devil with a magic guitar in the tough as leather 2D platformer Johnny Bazookatone (1995 Arc Developments & U.S. Gold). Destroy the overlords with a little help from Aerosmith in Revolution X (1994-1996 Midway), their classic light-gun shooter and some no-so-classic ports. Play as the frontman  of a metal band as he plays another game within a game in the third-person-shooter Virtuoso (1994 Motivetime Ltd). Finally, rock out with the Rolling Stones in their Voodoo Lounge CD-ROM (1995 Virgin Benelux) dedicated to the late Charlie Watts. Enjoy!

I also want to plug an app a good friend of mind is developing for players of Dungeons & Dragons. The Goblin's Notebook is a single-pane view of your tabletop RPG campaign notes for pre-session planning, in-session note taking and post-session recapping, all direct from a web browser! I've been using it as a DM in my recent campaign and it's become an incredibly invaluable tool. Check out The Goblin's Notebook for free by visiting this link now!

Before I forget, there are a few updates too! Last month, I forgot to tell you all that Bermuda Syndrome got a new version that works natively on Windows. It looks better too! Also, the underrated futuristic racer, Scorcher, got an update. Head on over to their game pages to find out more.

WATCH THE VIDEO

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.

QUEEN: THE EYE

With Bohemian Rhapsody winning all kinds of awards, the awesome musical stylings of Queen are again on everyone's minds - if they ever left. But on the outskirts of their rock anthems and operatic concept albums sits a band with a keen interest in science-fiction. We all know Flash Gordon, and some may have seen the Orwellian We Will Rock You on the stage, but most fascinating is Queen: The eYe (yes, that's how it's spelt), a little-known action-adventure published by Electronic Arts in limited numbers back in 1998.

KISS: PSYCHO CIRCUS - THE NIGHTMARE CHILD

A first-person-shooter is not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about Kiss, but that's exactly what Third Law Interactive created way back in 2000 with Kiss: Psycho Circus - The Nightmare Child. When you realise it's based more on the graphic novel by Todd McFarlane's production company than any one Kiss song, it begins to make a little bit of sense. And only a little.

MOTORHEAD

Out of all the intellectual properties to turn into a side-scrolling beat-em-up, a British hard rock band is not the first thing to come to mind. Motörhead (1992, Virgin Interactive) was that very band to get their fists punching on the Amiga, and Lemmy's hellraising antics in the lead role proves to be a surprisingly good choice.

PETER GABRIEL: EVE

Festival season is gearing up in the UK, so I'd thought I'd play a few music games because there's no way I can afford to go to any of them. Peter Gabriel's Eve, created by Real World Multimedia based on the musician's own concepts, was released in 1996 in the middle of a 10-year hiatus between studio albums. Along with a couple of soundtracks, it's proof that the visionary wasn't idle during that time.

PRINCE INTERACTIVE

2016 is shaping up to be quite a depressing year. There's so many icons we've lost and we're only a third of the way in. Last week saw the passing of a charismatic songwriter and performer who gave us many three-minute wonders to listen to. Prince has never struck a chord with me as much as David Bowie, but when he did he was damn good. Like Bowie, there was also an interactive CD-ROM in the early 90s...

JUMP: THE DAVID BOWIE INTERACTIVE CD-ROM

Like many of you, David Bowie had a profound presence in my life. As a boy of the 80s, I first came to know him as Jareth the Goblin King in the brilliant family film Labyrinth (still my go-to film whenever I need cheering up), but over the years his infinitely inventive entertainment became just as important. In the world of video games, most would cite Omikron as a major piece of work - and rightfully so - but that was not his first stab into the digital world. That award goes to JUMP, Bowie's 90s stab at the in vogue CD-Rom multimedia disk.

FLASH GAMES: MUSIC

There are some highly interesting games that are playable in your browser. For the most part, they may be casual fare but that doesn't mean that they're not good. In fact, the only downside to them is that they must be played while online. I have found five of the most interesting free flash games that were inspired by music and put them in a handy browser free package. Let's take a look.

TIMES SQUARE

Disenfranchised youth movies became ubiquitous with the rise of punk culture and alternative music in the 70s and 80s culminating in in the slick Hollywood classics of John Hughes and the Brat Pack. Times Square, an early directorial effort from Pump Up the Volume and Empire Records' Allan Moyle, is a rougher take of the subject. And, like those later films, music plays an an important role in the plot.

OSU!

Are you disappointed by the lack of a new Guitar Hero or Dance Dance Revolution game? Well, look no further than Osu!, a free rhythm game for both Windows and Android that take the features and game-play styles or other staples in the genre and combines them into one fun package.

THE RESIDENTS: FREAK SHOW

The Residents are one of the most fascinating bands ever to appear. Formed in 1969 with eye-ball masks, their anonymity allowed them to cultivate a unique brand of experimental music freaky art aesthetic in their videos. With the boom in multimedia technology in the early nineties, they even turned their hand at interactive entertainment with two adventure games; Freak Show and Bad Day on the Midway...

A ROCKSTAR ATE MY HAMSTER

In 1986, the UK's Sun tabloid who has a habit of running news stories with outrageous headlines ran an article declaring 'Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster'. Such was the inspiration for lone developer Colin Jones to create A Rockstar Ate My Hamster in 1988. It was so good that Codemasters took it upon themselves to release it on several home systems popular in the UK including the Amiga