CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN - DAY 10

 
There's a cash prize for today's game. One Million Dollars! Or at least there would be had you solved the insanely cryptic riddles of Treasure Quest (1996 Sirius Publishing, Inc) back when it released. Starring Terry Farrell of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fame, it has quite the fascinating history for a weird multimedia CD-ROM adventure.

Only two days to go, so come Christmas Eve, expect major boobage.

MONTHLY 5 - October 2024

Rise from the grave and party with the undead thanks to a whole bunch of horrifically spooky games brought back from the great beyond. 

Your mortal soul may not be in danger, but a bunch of video game characters are in my two highest recommendations of the month. Gast: The Greatest Little Ghost (2002 Mindscape & Idol FX AB) is a macabre adventure for all ages that has the titular ghost collect souls from those who have taken over an amusement park. The highly underrated survival horror Gregory Horror Show (2003 Capcom) has you do the same to the effed-up residents of a spooky hotel. Based on an equally weird and under-seen animated show of the same name, I'd say it pips Gast to the top spot by a wide margin. 

Beyond these soul stealers we have Dracula's Secret (1996 Corel Corporation), an entertaining adventure game for kids and Isle of the Dead (1993 Rainmaker Software, Inc) an under-loved if slightly wonky first-person-shooter with classic adventure elements that makes it utterly unique for its time. Finally, you can find out your own future in the fortune-telling application called Rosemary West's House of Fortunes (1993 Villa Crespo, Inc). No serial killers included, promise.

On another note, a lot more time has been spent away from the site than normal thanks to some real life events taking up much of my time. I've decided to not do a Monthly-5 for November, instead putting my focus on completing missing reviews, updating some of the older packages that most need it and preparing for December's Christmas Countdown. No idea how much I'm able to get done, but I'll update you all at the end of the month to let you know.

Until then, keep gaming!

MONTHLY 5 - August 2024

The month of August was the month of the Olympics, and outside of an enthusiastically happy blue man in drag, I didn't watch a single second of it. I did celebrate it in my own way by uncovering some officially licenced DOS games based on the 1996 event held in Atlanta. Atlanta 1996: Olympic Games + Olympic Soccer (1996 U.S. Gold Ltd & The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG)) bundles the first 3D game based on the event with a rather standard football game which began a yearly series that would later take on the UEFA moniker. 

If you're not much or a sporty person, I've gathered some other games to keep your limbs from moving excessively. Continuing on from last month is the final mystery at Greveholm. The Mystery at Greveholm 3: The Old Legend (2000 Young Genius) returns to the first-person adventuring roots of the first game and is all the better for it. Ring II: Twilight of the Gods (2002 The Arxel Guild) on the other hand foregoes this style that defined its janky forebear to become a tank-controlled action adventure. At least the absolute weirdness of it all is still intact.

For something a little less fantastical, try the movie tie-in for Fantastic 4 (2005 Activision Publishing Inc, Marvel & Twentieth Century Fox), a flippantly entertaining beat-'em-up for a flippantly entertaining blockbuster. And if flippant doesn't cut it, check out Rising Lands (1997 Microïds), a real-time-strategy game that surprisingly crept up to become my personal pick of the month.

Enjoy!

MONTHLY 5 - July 2024

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!

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN - DAY 10

Day 10 of the Collection Chamber Christmas Countdown teases you with a mini-game-filled multiplayer party game. Teazle (1997 Global Star Software) has you playing a weird version of tic-tac-toe as you complete a myriad of mini-games to create a line before the others do. What more could you want for the season?

There's only two more days left until the big day and the best is yet to come! Make sure to keep up-to-date on my social medias at Instagram and X/ Twitter (Facebook is still being a pain). I'm actually surprising myself with how well I'm keeping on top of it!

Until this time tomorrow, have fun!

MONTHLY 5 - OCTOBER 2023

Tales of the spooky kind are in store should you choose to unleash the five releases from the Collection Chamber! October's games feature some horrifying gems perfect for the Halloween season, including the Blair Witch Trilogy (2000 Artisan Pictures & Gathering of Developers), three games that are not only based on the legend spoken about in the classic 1999 found footage feature film, but are also sequels to the highly underrated Nocturne. The first volume, Rustin Parr, is the best of the three rising to my pick of the month.

As well as these three classic survival horrors, I've also compiled a compilation called the Gremlins Collection (1984-2011 Various). While it might be a littly Christmassy in places, the PG-13 frights of Joe Dante's classic movie are very much in keeping of the season. Not all of them are classics, but with 25 games (including ports) and a plethora of extras there's some interesting stuff in there. Lastly, learn about spooky legends and myth from around the world in Weird: Truth is Stranger than Fiction (1996 TwoPointZero Ltd). You're bound to find the basis for many an X-Files episode in there.

Alas, no updates this month. Real life has won out more than usual the past few months, but I hope to catch up with missing reviews in the next few weeks. I still can't access Facebook so keep up to date with new posts on Instagram or Twitter (X). I add new games here at 8pm GMT on the last day of every month regardless.

Now, roll on November.

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.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN - DAY 10

On this eve of Christmas Eve, I posit to you a question to ponder over... Could a trout run for public office?

While that thought is percolating around your brain, take a gander at Mind-Gym (1997 Melrose Interactive & NOHO Digital) where such thoughtful quandries and more will expand one's understanding of one's self. Or you could just discover how a cucumber can save the world, it's all good in this comedic send up of self-help books. Or is it?

Stop scratching your brain and click on the links after the jump to find out!

MONTHLY 5 - November 2022

This year has flown by. You blink, and it's the end of November! I've mostly been engrossed in God of War: Ragnarok since it came out, but the rest of my free time has been dedicated to The Collection Chamber. There are 5 great games featured this month so check out the obscure movie licenced FMV adventure (with too many arcade bits) Eraser Turnabout (1996 Imagination Pilots & Warner Bros.), the many versions of the underrated action platformer Fur Fighters (2000 Bizarre Creations Ltd), the Norse-themed role-playing sequel Heimdall 2: Into the Hall of Worlds (1994 Core Design), a classic point-and-click adventure starring everone's favourite sleuth The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel (1992 Mythos Software & Electronic Arts) and Bill Plympton's Take Your Best Shot (1995 7th Level Inc) a desktop toy based on his award-winning 1991 short Push Comes to Shove.

There are a couple of revisions too. Kiss: Psycho Circus - The Nightmare Child now uses a Windows 10 patch instead of dxWnd granting it better compatibility. I've also added a scan of the manual too. The Neverhood has also been revised updating ScummVM and fixing some save-game and screenshot annoyances. If you've not played either before, give them a go. They're pretty good.

To try the others, head on past the jump and dive in.

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!

ALICE: AN INTERACTIVE MUSEUM

Before the influx of multi-media CDs flooded the market, even before Myst or The 7th Guest popularised it, a Japanese computer artist named Haruhiko Shono created a hallucinatory game loosely based on an equally hallucinatory children's book. Originally released in 1991 in Japan and 1994 elsewhere, Alice: An Interactive Museum stands as being one of the most trippy experiences ever put on CD.

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.

EGGS OF STEEL: CHARLIE'S EGGCELLENT ADVENTURE

Having now consumed so many Easter eggs this past weekend I'm pretty sure I'm contributing to the world-wide chocolate shortage, I thought I'd take a break from eating them to go play as one. So I popped in Eggs of Steel: Charlie's Eggcellent Adventure, an obscure PlayStation platformer released in 1998 by those folks at Atlus. It may be the chocolate-addled brain talking, but what followed is one trippy nightmare filled with yolk-coloured gore and a threatening industrial landscape that's as foreboding as anything conceived by Fritz Lang.

RODNEY GREENBLAT'S GAMES OF WONDER

   

Why is it that entertainment made specifically for young children feels like an insane acid trip? Teletubbies, In the Night Garden, Yo Gabba Gabba - each are nightmare-inducing to anyone old enough to know what LSD is. Rodney Greenblat, the Californian artist behind the PlayStation game PaRappa the Rapper created a trio of CD-ROM oddities in the 90s: Rodney's Funscreen, Rodney's Wonder Window and Dazzeloids. And each will keep you awake at night.

POLAROID PETE: THE GEKIBO COLLECTION

Gekibo, a portmanteau of Gekisha Boy (translation: Photograph Boy) is at first glance just another of those weird Japanese games that YouTubers love to rag on about. First released on the PC-Engine in 1992, Irem's short-lived series is a satisfying mix of a shooting gallery with a platformer. It's a rather unique concept with only Pokemon Snap coming to mind that bears any kind of similarity to the gameplay on show. So why didn't we see this in the west?

THE MUSEUM OF ANYTHING GOES

by Austin Brewer

Surreal and sometimes unnerving, The Museum Of Anything Goes is an obscure “edutainment” CD-ROM project that was left in the shadows of 1995. Developed by Michael Markowski and Maxwell S. Robinson under the development name Wayzata Technology, this interactive showcase for PC and Mac is truly a relic of multimedia past. Having little to no web presence, it only makes this strange project even eerier.

9: THE LAST RESORT

What do you get when Robert de Niro, Aerosmith, Superman, Jim Belushi and Cher collaborate with the twisted art of Mark Rydan to make a point-n-click adventure? The answer is one of gaming history's most notorious financial bombs. Nevertheless 9: The Last Resort (1996, Tribeca Interactive) is still a fascinating surreal head-trip of a game.

EASTERN MIND: THE LOST SOULS OF TONG NOU

Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou, a Japanese adventure that came to the west in 1995, was developed almost entirely by one man - Osamu Satu. If you're unaware, he's the man behind the trippy PlayStation game LSD: Dream Simulator. Consider that a warning - things are about to get weird...

THE DARK EYE

The works of Edgar Allen Poe has never really been translated successfully to other mediums. While the series of films directed by Roger Corman were pretty good, they are questionable as adaptations. The skin-crawling psychological horror missing in those 60s B-movies are here in full force with The Dark Eye, a 1995 adventure by Inscape.

WOODRUFF AND THE SCHNIBBLE OF AZIMUTH

The Bizarre Adventures of Woodruff and the Schnibble of Azimuth sure lives up to its title. Set in the post-apocalyptic world of Vlurxtrznbnaxl, this 1994 gem from Coktel Vision who created the Gobliiins series, amps up the craziness, unleashing a memorable adventure with a penchant for odd sounding syllables.