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 had a hankering for some Sonic the Hedgehog this week, and went back to the very latest game in the series, Sonic Superstars from the end of 2023, which I’ve got on Xbox Series X, although once you’re past the gorgeous presentation, it’s (mostly…) traditional 2D Sonic gameplay all the way, with all the breakneck platforming combined with fiendish exploration you could ever wish for! Less traditionally though, and a couple of dodgy checkpoints aside, this one generally wants you to succeed, and at your own level, whether that involves finding a Chaos Emerald, learning a boss, racking up points, beating a time or simply seeing the next stage. That’s not to say it doesn’t get tough either, especially for the biggest rewards, but that adds up to a lot of longevity on top, as do all the characters to play with, and I’ve also been dabbling with those this time. And there’s the fantastic, entire level homage to one of my all-time favourite horizontal shoot’em ups near the end, complete with a wonderfully reskinned but totally authentic pair of bosses! I’m not massively fussed by most of the special powers you can find, and the same for the soundtrack, and the same for playing with three other people (which I still think is where the best of the game probably lies) but it’s a blast regardless, and some of the visual effects are just insane!

It was a long time coming and I was even longer getting around to it but Monument Valley 3 was definitely worth the wait, and probably better for it too. It arrived in iOS and Android exclusively through Netflix Games at the end of 2024, seven years after its super-stylish indie puzzle predecessor, and it’s undoubtedly more of exactly the same tactile traversal through Escher-inspired optical illusions and impossible architecture as you unravel an often unspoken but engaging narrative. Which is why the gap between the two was a good thing because – maybe apart from a giant fish at one point – I couldn’t tell you how this one is any different to the last one, but that didn’t stop all the pushing and pulling and rotating and general head-scratching from being just as much fun all over again! It’s absolutely beautiful too, all clean and atmospheric Middle Eastern-inspired geometric minimalism that gradually evolves and restyles itself through ten different scenarios (apparently with more still to come), and it’s all so elegant and intuitive to interact with and manipulate. Quite the soundtrack too! I haven’t played many mobile games for a while but this is the best I’ve played in ages – maybe even since the last time I might have played it! 

Until the Atari 2600+ came along and took over, I’d just started working my way through a bit of a curated list of titles I still wanted to pick up on the PlayStation Portable, and the next of those is NFL Street 2 Unleashed, which was first unleashed in 2005 on the EA Sports Big label, and as such is fully licensed, with all the big stars from back then as well as a bunch of legends, but gives you a totally over the top and  “extreme” take on American football! That’s not to say there’s not more than enough depth to play-calling, setup and execution either, but all that stuffy stuff is only improved by this fast-paced, arcade, seven-on-seven street format, complete with wall-hurdles and other wild uses of your environment, then there’s insane Gamebreaker moves, triggered by building up a style meter, and various on-field hotspots offering temporary boosts. Loads of modes too, with regular games in various city settings, create a player where you then have to gradually try and own the city, special street events such as four-on-four and every man for himself, then challenge modes, gauntlets and tournaments, plus multiplayer modes if you can still pull that off on your PSP. You’ve got all the teams. tons of players and loads of throwbacks to choose from too, but one really interesting mechanic is that everyone is playing both offense and defense, so where there’s a bit of management involved, there’s a bit of thought needed too! The presentation is mostly hip-hop throughout, for better or worse, but it’s a very good-looking game and it moves as fluidly as the gameplay itself, which is easy to grasp but with plenty to get on top of, and altogether I couldn’t ask for much more of a handheld football game, and it’s certainly more than enough to keep me going until the third in the series comes along…

I’ve never really paid much attention to Caverns of Mars before – I knew it existed on Atari 8-bit computers and people liked it, and I’ve even owned it for the past couple of years myself on the Atari 50 compilation on Switch, as well as on The [Atari] 400 Mini since, where it was also included… Had a quick go, saw it as a down-the-screen mix of Scramble and Lunar Lander and the like, and just moved on. The thing is, it’s also now got an Atari 2600 version, and it’s on a cartridge I could get for the aforementioned 2600+, and people really like it, so I thought I’d give the original a proper go to see if it might be worth picking up, and this time I’m properly hooked! It’s a multi-phase shoot ‘em up, where you fly down into various jagged, tunnelled caverns (on Mars), shooting dual missiles from your almost-oversized ship at enemy emplacements and fuel tanks to keep yours topped up, then it opens up and you need to dodge and shoot enemy rockets flying up at you, and finally you need to land at the bottom and activate a bomb before getting out of there against the clock (and your dwindling fuel reserves) before it blows. It’s simple, primitive and derivative but the more you play, the more it becomes its own thing, and each of the caverns (of which there are up to six depending on the difficulty) evolves into its own adventure, and beating it becomes hopelessly addictive and way more immersive than the gaudy, blocky visuals and raucous beeps and blips have any right to justify! It’s taken me since 1981 to finally realise it but Caverns of Mars is fantastic, and I’m definitely sold on that 2600 version!  

I do also still have Citizen Sleeper 2 and Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker on the go, and I’m still enjoying the pair of them, but not much to add since last week, so we’ll call it a day there for this time. In case you missed it last Wednesday though, do still join me as we head back exactly 40 years for the very latest in video gaming in Retro Rewind: February 1985 in Computer & Video Games, straight from pages of the original magazine! Then next Wednesday, be sure to check back again as we go post-apocalyptic combat-racing and rediscover Overlander on Atari ST, with its iconic sights, mad difficulty and some very weird advertising! See you then!

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