Continuing our regular feature with quick-fire reviews and impressions of what I’ve been playing this week, old and new and a bit of both…

I’ve spent most of the week on the Halo Infinite campaign on Xbox Series X. I have to admit to getting a bit weary of metal corridors leading to metal doors by the end, but up until then all I wanted to do every evening was play a bit more Halo! I mostly stuck to the main story, but it’s very easy to take it off script and stay there, then it’s way past your bedtime and you should know better at your age! It’s still not the best looking game you’ll ever see, but it’s near enough, and playing it is as good as it gets – so fluid, and that upgraded grappling hook is a beast! And now I’ve found Halo I’ll definitely be exploring some of the others!

I’ve now also made my way through the 29 games on the Taito Legends compilation on PlayStation 2 for another upcoming epic here! Actual arcade games at home, unbelievable! I am very easily distracted by Elevator Action and Bubble Bobble, but as well as old favourites, classics like Space Invaders and New Zealand Story, and a few stinkers like Gladiator, I found a couple of new old favourites too! They’re both rail shooters, they both translate to a PS2 controller way better than Operation Wolf also on there (after a bit of tweaking), and they are underwater future war shooter Battle Shark and closer future Alien-esque shooter Space Gun. Top stuff, and a fantastic compilation!

Apart from those, I did find time to play through my favourite game of all time, Feud on the ZX Spectrum again. Reckon I’ve more than had my money’s worth out of that £1.99 I spent on it in 1987, but the setting and the pacing and just the overall rural medieval wizardy vibe will never get old to me! And I will finally be covering it in unnecessary and potentially record-breaking detail here in the New Year!

Finally, speaking of money’s worth, I know everyone else hated it, but playing the Contra Rogue Corps demo when it came out told me it was worth sticking on my wish list until it was £1.50 like it was the other week! It’s not the best Contra, and it’s barely even Contra at all, but it’s a fun, mindless twin-stick shooter and I’ve not played one of those for a while. And with that we’re about done here for today, but there’s a festive review still to come on Wednesday, and then right after Christmas there’s the Retro Arcadia Top Ten Games of 2021 and a self-indulgent rundown of everything I’ve played and completed this year, so stay tuned!

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