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 know I’ve said previously that I’d got my Atari 2600 cartridge buying addiction under control…. Well, it’s only a few more, and they were real bargains! All the same, while not wanting to devalue any of them, I’ve gone a bit 2600-mad of late, so this time I’m limiting myself to a sentence or two on each, starting with 1987’s Kung-Fu Master, which is another of those arcade ports that shouldn’t exist on this thing, but while it’s scaled-back, it also captures the spirit of the original, original beat ‘em up perfectly, and has all the fun too. Like that one, Millipede is another port that came well after the arcade game, and is one of the best on the system! It also arrived in 1987, and while the delay didn’t do much for the very simplified visuals, the high-energy gameplay is still spot-on! Chopper Command from 1982 isn’t a port but is effectively Defender in a helicopter, protecting a convoy of trucks from enemy aircraft across a left and right scrolling desert. It’s fast-paced, smooth-moving and one of my favourites on the system, so I couldn’t resist!

Another excellent port and the grandaddy of arcade shooters next, Space Invaders. This is from 1980, and while there’s a bit less happening on the screen in this version, there’s no doubt what it is and how it plays, and it does also offer over a hundred of its own game variants on top, with moving bunkers, invisible invaders and all sorts more! Megamania is a fixed shooter from 1982, with wave after wave of different aliens hitting you with a bunch of different and increasingly fiendish attack patterns from all directions, against a dwindling energy meter that’s also worth big points. I’d actually never played this before but it looked well put together and it certainly is! Last up is Solaris (pictured above), the spiritual follow-up to Star Raiders, and quite possibly my number one favourite game on the 2600! Released in 1986, it’s a more focussed, more arcade-like take on that pioneering Atari 400 space epic that’s way more suited to this machine, and is simply astounding to boot, and perfectly rounds off another decent haul! 

After finishing Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops on the PlayStation Portable last week (and covered here previously), I dived straight into its 2010 sequel, and what I think is the fifth MGS game, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. This was also originally for PSP but got the HD treatment on PS3 a couple of years later, so having recently picked up the collection that version is on for a proper bargain price, that’s where I’m thoroughly enjoying it so far, and I think more so than its predecessor, which did grow on me a lot but remained a bit clunky throughout. Anyway, this one sees our man Snake in Costa Rica in 1974, running his own mercenary organisation and taking down yet another rogue paramilitary group with typically convoluted plans to disrupt world peace. That’s all relayed in some typically lengthy but sometimes interactive cutscenes, and is played out through relatively bitesize (and often very linear) primary missions, with a load of secondary ones available too. These did originally support co-op and multiplayer on both platforms but are also built for solo play, which I’m sure is far more refined on a PS3 controller than I experienced with its predecessor, and actually, it plays fine! It mostly looks good too (unlike my rubbish photo above!), with excellent performance and camera movement, and clearly a huge resolution boost, but there are times it’s noticeably PSP (or PS2) through that very clinical PS3 filter! The cutscenes are once again that dynamic illustrated PSP style from the original interactive comic of the first game on there, but excellent voice work and all the familiar stealth and combat mechanics are there with a few new ones besides. Which reminds me, not really my bag so I’m keeping it to the minimum necessary, but there’s an entire army management mode pretty seamlessly bolted-on to the between-mission hub too! I’m a good few hours in to what I understand is a good few hours more, but so far I think this is a surprisingly strong MGS title, and I’m having a really good time with it! 

Last week here we looked at our very first game of the year contender for 2025, Lonely Mountains: Downhill Riders (which I’m still having a great time playing!), and would you believe this week we’ve already got another?!?! Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector just arrived on Xbox Games Pass and elsewhere a couple of days ago as you possibly read this, and building on its superb predecessor, which was number four in my game of the year countdown in 2022, it takes the same unique, not nerdy in the slightest, dice-driven, text-heavy, sci-fi RPG template, then adds even more depth to all of the above! Once again, you’re in control of an escaped “Sleeper” android, but this time it’s all gone bigger scale too, with you not just worrying about yourself and your immediate environment, but commandeering a ship that’s going to need a crew, who you’ll then need to manage, while balancing contracts across the entire Starward Belt against the demands of your own decaying body as well as staying one step ahead of your past. And there’s all the adventures, characters, intrigues and seat-of-your-pants decisions along the way you’d expect from this follow-up, and this is where the real joy of the game once again lies, all so well written and crafted, behind a slick and vibrant interface that almost gives it a futuristic board game kind of feel, albeit one with a great soundtrack and relentless narrative to enjoy! Stunning game that I’m really trying to avoid giving away too much about but I’ve barely stopped thinking about since it arrived. Totally hooked and totally fantastic!

And that sounds like a very good place to finish for this week! In case you missed it last Wednesday though, do check out my deep-dive into Snowboard Championship, Gaelco’s hidden arcade gem from 1997 that’s so much more straightforward than the real thing, as you’ll find out! Then next Wednesday, it’s the first one of the month, so as usual, we’re heading back exactly 40 years for the very latest in video gaming… It’s Retro Rewind: February 1985 in Computer & Video Games, straight from pages of the original magazine! Hopefully see you then!

As always, I’ll never expect anything for what I do here but if you’d like to buy me a Ko-fi and help towards increasingly expensive hosting and storage costs then it will always be really appreciated! And be sure to follow me on Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) or Threads for my latest retro-gaming nonsense!