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…

I’ll start this time with the Neo Geo Mini I got for Christmas but have fancied since it first came out in 2018, when I think the was launched to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of SNK. Whatever, it’s now available for a lot less than back then, and the forty absolute classic arcade games built-in behind the 3.5” display on its 6-inch high arcade cabinet-shaped frame make it worth every penny (especially when you’re not the one paying)! That said, it’s not even in the same league as something like the Sega Astro City Mini or the more recent Taito Egret II Mini in terms of build quality, which isn’t to say it’s not perfectly functional, but the size of the screen (albeit a very clear and vibrant one) and the stick (albeit very smooth) and the buttons just don’t feel as premium. It’s way smaller than both of those too! The sound quality is surprisingly good though, and, apart from it missing Baseball Stars 2 just for me, you can’t argue with its library – loads of Metal Slug, loads of King of Fighters and its spin-offs, loads of Samurai Shodown, and my old favourites like King of the Monsters, Last Resort, Blazing Star and Super Sidekicks, plus the likes of World Heroes Perfect, 3 Count Bout, Top Players Golf, Magician Lord (with some of the best video game music ever!) and so on. The emulation seems perfect across the board, and any issues from things being a bit cramped can be mitigated by connecting to a TV and adding one (or two) control pads, which do have to be the official ones at more cost. I love this thing just how it is though, even if I’ve barely scratched the surface so far and have simply been having a few goes (and a few more in the case of original Metal Slug and Last Resort) on absolutely everything. Which is a lot of games!

I was thrilled when I heard Resident Evil 2 Remake was on the way to Xbox Game Pass, having loved it but not played it since I borrowed my cousin’s PS4 copy when it first released in 2019, but having now completed it again after it arrived on the service last week, in retrospect it was maybe a bit too soon! That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy being back there again – it was just all still a bit too familiar to make it particularly exciting second time around. That said, once The Tyrant is on the prowl, the ominous clank of his oversized footsteps every time he’s close is going to create all the tension you could ever want, whether you think you’ve got his number or not! Anyway, this all happens as your choice of series favourites Leon Kennedy or Claire Redfield end up in zombie-infested Racoon City a couple of months after the original game, and it’s up to you to get them out by means of classic Resident Evil third-person action, exploration, puzzling, creeping back and forth and general survival horror stuff! It’s a fantastic reimagining of the source material, faithful but beautifully presented in the RE Engine with slick, modern gameplay to match. Definitely give it a go if you haven’t and you can, and even if you have, playing as the alternate character on whatever difficulty you fancy is going to change things up a bit. Even if it’s not quite the same second time around!

Surprisingly, perhaps, there are no less than two ZX Spectrum budget games in my all-time favourite top ten games, with Feud taking the top spot then Olli & Lissa: The Ghost of Shilmoore Castles at number seven. And almost equally as surprising, I’ve never played the Commodore 64 version of that one, so when I saw it mentioned in something I was reading the other day, I thought I’d better put that right! It’s a flip-screen platformer where you need to collect eight ingredients for a magic spell to turn the ghost of Sir Humphrey invisible so he can properly haunt his castle and stop its sale. Unfortunately, while the premise is the same, it’s not quite the Spectrum version but is a nice example of how a couple of small things can make the difference between pretty good and all-time favourite! Apart from also demanding absolute precision when you’re jumping over something, as long as you’re quick you probably won’t need to here, so you can sail through the first few screens without worrying too much about enemies once you’ve worked out the limits of their movement back and forth, and can often just avoid them before they even become a threat. I wouldn’t say this makes it easy but certainly easier, where on the Spectrum you really need to think about timing from the outset, and then every step you take, which is one of the game’s main hooks, not to mention why you’ll probably never seen all of its eight screens! And another is the sheer vibrancy and character in everything on the screen, where here we’ve got muddy colours and blocky sprites. I can’t deny I didn’t have fun with it all the same though but, as usual, if you want the very best of brutal, old-school platforming, then the Spectrum’s where it’s at!

I’m still playing the MSX version of Sword of Ianna on Evercade, RBI Baseball 2 on Atari ST and NHL FaceOff 2001 on the original PlayStation, but not a whole lot new to say about them, so I’ll finish with Wip3out (or Wipeout 3), also on PS1 (although I’ve got the disc in my PS3 for convenience). Despite the name(s), I think it’s actually the fourth in the futuristic anti-gravity racing series, released in 1999 and for me at least, is probably still its pinnacle! Some of the best visuals to ever grace the system too, absolutely flying along with its super-smooth and thoughtfully detailed future-minimalism across all kinds of relatively grounded track environments with great ups and downs. I’m sure the soundtrack is great too if you’re into nineties techno but I’m happy enough with some really weighty sound effects, especially the hoarse whoosh of your ship as you accelerate. There’s a real weight to how your ship controls too, and after a few races you’ll really get a feel for chucking it around with just enough air-brake to start feathering the edges of the track, although it will be a while before you’re totally avoiding the momentum-killing metallic clank of pushing things too far! Power-ups are intuitive, opponents are aggressive but well balanced, and there’s loads of modes and tracks to keep you occupied for ages, and I’m very glad it jumped out at me from my PlayStation pile to be reminded of all that again!

In case you missed it last Wednesday, I finally got to the second instalment in the genre-spanning series, spinning 90-degrees to countdown my Top Ten Favourite Vertically-Scrolling Shoot ‘Em Ups! Then next Wednesday, I’ve got another all-time favourite of mine, this time from just outside my top ten, and a snowboarding series with a “feel” that’s never been surpassed… My Life With SSX 3 on PlayStation 2! Normally right about now, I’d also introduce On the Retro Radar, looking at the mostly retro-interest new games releases for the upcoming month. However, I’ve decided to put that on hold for the time being, so let me quickly explain… I like writing about old games, and while I don’t really pay much attention to numbers, they do tell me you like reading about old games too. Looking at new stuff every month is fun but it’s really time consuming and has a really short shelf life, so when I’m already struggling for time and it’s not really why any of us are here, I reckon it makes sense to give it a break. My apologies to you if it is something you look forward to though. But there’s still SSX 3 on Wednesday so hopefully I’ll see you then!

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