Back again for our regular Sunday roundup of quick-fire reviews and impressions of everything under the spotlight at Retro Arcadia this week, old and new and a bit of both…

We’ll start with something new, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which arrived on Xbox Game Pass and elsewhere last week. It’s one of those asymmetrical multiplayer games where you can play as a member of the Slaughter family (including, of course, Leatherface) trying to stop their hapless victims escaping, or vice versa, so it ends up three on four. I can see the appeal but unfortunately the gameplay just isn’t for me, so as much as I love the groundbreaking and iconic horror movie it’s based on (the events of which celebrated their fiftieth birthday a few days ago), a few games to say I’d played it is about as far as I got. Everything is very authentic, and the source material is clearly dear to the developers’ hearts too, but I don’t think it looks anywhere gritty enough (or particularly current-gen) and, combined with not especially threatening minute-to-minute gameplay, there’s a decided lack of tension – and certainly little horror – as a result; it’s just all too video-gamey, so I’ll be sticking with the movie and a couple of the sequels, and games more in my generally single-player wheelhouse…

Next up this week, and in total contrast, I’m really thrilled to have a working Game Boy again! Bit of an unplanned extravagance but I’ve been hankering after a new one since my launch day console died back in 2017, and after the Mario Land chat in this very feature a couple of weeks ago, I was an easy target! The contrast wheel is a bit temperamental and there are a couple of specks of dust under the screen glass but everything else is working perfectly and the unit is in good cosmetic shape overall. I’ve had a blast playing through my old cartridges again too, and there are a few more I’ve got my eye on, so watch this space! In the meantime, I’ve played so much Tetris I can’t be far off seeing falling blocks in my sleep again – not quite my favourite game ever but if I had to name the perfect game then I can’t think of a better candidate!

Still Game Boy-related, while thinking recently about how Mario’s Picross really needs to make an appearance in the Nintendo Switch Online library, I was reminded its 1995 successor, Mario’s Super Picross, has been available in the SNES one on there for ages, so I jumped back in to my save file from when it arrived. Despite being Japanese only this time (because I seem to be in the minority thinking the original is one of the best games on the system!), there’s absolutely no language barrier to enjoying this sequel from 1995 and it’s mass of logic-based picture puzzles. You’ve got increasingly large grids of squares, and alongside each row and column containing these are number clues that tell you how many squares need to be filled-in on each, worked out using some very simple rules (for example, there is always a gap between two sets of numbers) and comparing both horizontal and vertical as you go to make sure both correspond to their clues. Get them all and you’ll create a picture in the grid, which is then animated and coloured in before moving to the next. Way easier to enjoy than I’ve just described too! I love these things and will usually get properly in the mood to puzzle them out somewhere or other a few times a year, just like now. Still want the original on Switch though!

The Atari ST version of Millipede might not be the best of them but it’s probably the best looking! After playing a load of the 1982 arcade original last week, I wanted to give this 1986 port a go too, and it’s really good fun… For a while! It’s all familiar, with the millipede you need to shoot to bits before it gets you travelling horizontally from the top of the screen until it meets a mushroom, when it will go down a row towards you at the bottom, until it can go across again. Everything’s here, and it’s nicely frantic very quickly, but the problem is it’s way too generous with giving you extra lives, and games go on and on to the point of outstaying their welcome, as well as putting you off trying to beat your score when you eventually do die. And as early as it was in the ST’s life, I’m still not sure it’s what I’d have been looking to play on my new 16-bit piece of science fiction back then! And I wasn’t, which is why I’m only playing it now, and I’m glad I have regardless!

As much as I was once really good at Hard Drivin’ on the aforementioned Atari ST, and in theory it remains one of my favourite games on there, in reality driving a car with a mouse isn’t something I’m terribly proficient at anymore! Likewise, I’ve got the arcade original on various compilations but that’s never felt good with a controller either, which is why my preference nowadays is usually the Mega Drive or Genesis port from 1990 or 1991, depending on where you’re playing. It’s a decent port too, understandably running slower (but not as slow as the ST one) and with less 3D polygons making up the race environment, but apart from that, everything is there, right down to the cow mooing angrily if you run into it on the first corner! The nature of the graphics make it far less of a stunner now than it was at the time but that loop-the-loop will always be impressive to me, and once you’re proficient at either the stunt side of the single course or the more traditional speed side, racing your ghost to keep the game going provides more than enough longevity. Good car physics too, and really at home with a Mega Drive controller… In my opinion, at least, as I no doubt side with the minority for the second time here today. As usual!

And that’s a good place to close proceedings for this week! In case you missed it last Wednesday, I hadn’t done a top ten of anything for a while so be sure to check out a look into each of the games in my Top Ten Favourite Horizontal Shoot ‘Em Ups. And next week, it’s the regular end of the month double-header, starting on Tuesday with our usual look ahead to all the retro-interest (and more) new releases for September, complete with trailers for everything, On The Retro Radar. Then on Thursday, assuming the embargo for a bunch of forty-year old games still allows (and I’m not joking!), I’ll have a review of the brand new Taito Milestones 2 compilation on Nintendo Switch, out that very day. See you there!