#7 Parodius Deluxe Pack (Sega Saturn)

I started blogging on this topic with a shmup and here's 2 more. The 1st two games in this great and criminally ceased series are on this disk. This landed on my doormat this week - however I'm still gaining ground on covering my collection as this is a bit of an indulgence. I already have a PAL copy of this for my PAL Saturn but this Japanese copy is for my white Japanese Saturn. With an Action Replay 5-in-1 I can play the PAL version on my white Saturn but its nice to have the true 60Hz version - the intro sequence is slightly different but the main reason is the rumours that extended use of an AR 5in1 damages the Saturn expansion port as the PCB is too thick.

These are 2 great games - the first one is showing its age now but the second game is still an auditory and visual overload. Parodius is a spoof or parody of the Gradius games - the gameplay is the same but the graphics look drug inspired and the music is made up of weird remixes of classical and other well known tunes. I posted a fairly hefty review of this series on the original AA site which can still be found there as the staff here have kept that up. Here's the link : http://www.armchairarcade.com/aamain/forum_viewtopic.php?7.8391

Being shmups they suit the middle-aged gamer on a time budget and the kids like this series too due to the visuals but also the large array of characters you can choose to play with. I'm still chasing the 1 credit kill on these though - I find these games just as tough as the Gradius originals but somehow they aren't as annoying due to the overall oddness of these titles and the obscure Japanese cultural references they are stuffed with.

These games are also available on lots of other platforms including the SNES, PSP, PC Engine and PS1 (there's even a GameBoy port) - but I stick with the Saturn versions as it has a better reputation for handling 2D.

Looking at these games and considering my age I sometimes wonder if I'll ever really grow up.

RetrodeJust a quick bit of breaking news that the Retrode (formerly: snega2usb), a USB adapter for playing Super Nintendo/Famicom and Sega Mega Drive/Genesis cartridges legally on your PC, smartphone, laptop, network router, Wii, Pandora, etc., will soon have N64/GB/GBC combi and Atari 2600 plug-in adapters. Great news for a product with an ever expanding feature-set.

Check the official update below for more details or simply visit the Website:

A brand new episode of my Clone Wars-series. This time I take a look at the Yobo FC3 Plus. It will be a multi part video so be sure to check out all the parts if you don't want to miss out.

This week's Matt Chat is on Tomb Raider, one of my favorite games on the PS1. It was my first 3D platformer, and I still vividly remember the experience. Core did an excellent job really demonstrating what was fun about 3D and what the third dimension could add to the genre. Of course, the game also introduced Lara Croft, the most famous female avatar.

There's a great history piece up at Gamasutra on the history of the Dreamcast. It has lots of quotations from interviews with key people and is well worth checking out. It's always fascinating to think of "what might have been" if certain decisions had gone the other way.

Mark plays.... Sega Genesis - Virtua Racing 32x & Virtua Fighter 2 Genesis.

I went ahead and got myself the 32x extension to the megadrive and show it of with Virtua Racing 32x. Then I play Virtua Fighter 2 Genesis which is a regular Genesis/Megadrive cartridge. The latter being an excellent 2D fighting game.

Today's casual photos, taken with the Panasonic digital camera, are: Denial Computer's Mega-Cart (2009) for the Commodore Vic-20 (VIC 20), and Sega's Ghostbusters (1987), Zillion (1987) and Captain Silver (1989) for the Sega Master System (SMS). Images and brief commentary below:

This video is 'part one the Wiz review prequel' and it just contains some quick caps of games and emulators running. All emulators - except for the original gameboy and sadly the Vice emulator - run full speed zero frameskip.

The first part truly shows of the OLED screen in full splendor. The latter part of the movie was taped in a rather dark environment with the camera in Macro so there is actually a moire effect visible and the image is over exposed. Ah well just a quick 'Mark plays'... Read more to view the video. Be sure to select HQ or HD to view the video in the best possible quality.

As requested, here's Chatty Cathy's (aka, Bill Loguidice's) casual, single take look at the official TRS-80 versions of Frogger and Zaxxon, shown on a 128K TRS-80 Model 4 with a black and white monitor. Of course I talked too long yet again, so yet again it won't fit on Youtube.