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 knew absolutely nothing about Blue Prince when it turned up on Xbox Game Pass a few weeks ago but since then, it seems like I was in the minority, so I thought I’d see what all the fuss was about… And I’m glad I finally did because it’s fantastic! Your recently deceased uncle has left you his huge, forty-five room mansion but there’s a catch – you need to find the hidden forty-sixth room before you can get your hands on it! Then there’s the real catch – the layout of the mansion changes every (in-game) day, so apart from what you’ve learnt along the the way (and probably want to record in a notebook), you’re just about starting from scratch every time. The mostly first-person perspective gameplay then involves laying out rooms onto this blank blueprint, where every new door brings a choice of three to draft onto it, which you can then explore for stuff, uncovering all kinds of intrigue and solving all manner of puzzles (upon puzzles) along the way. And that’s all I’m saying because a lot of the enjoyment here is slowly muddling your way into what’s going on and what you’re supposed to be doing. Controls are pleasantly minimal, puzzles are revealed and designed brilliantly, and the pacing as the game emerges over many thoughtful hours is superb, as are the enigmatic soundtrack and kind of cel-shaded, richly illustrated visuals. A remarkable achievement! 

Mullet Madjack also appeared on Xbox Game Pass a few weeks back, and although I knew absolutely nothing about this one either, as an anime-drenched first-person shooter with a bit of the rogue-lite about it, I also had zero expectation I’d still be playing it ten minutes later… But here we still are! It was all about the art-style to begin with though, with a very nineties, slightly-Warhol vibe full of the boldest solid colours on clean, repeating patterns and textures, and filled with exaggerated, retro-futuristic sci-fi characters and themes. Plenty of neon too, and an insane amount of cartoon carnage and stuff exploding and bullets flying everywhere, and it’s all moving at 100mph, and your eyeballs might never be the same again! Same for your ears with the relentless supporting noise, and the gameplay then ramps up the intensity even further, with you playing a Moderator in the dopamine-fuelled dystopia of 2095, where evil Robillionaires rule the world, and you need to rescue a guy called the Influencer from the top of a skyscraper filled with them, all in exchange for a new pair of shoes. And you have ten seconds to clear each level before you die and have to start all over again! Chaining kills will extend that time, and as you go you’ll collect new weapons and upgrades to help you out with that, and it’s just totally bonkers and so much fun to gradually get a bit further each time! Really nice surprise! 

I’ve not done it for a while, so quick shoutout to my friend Nick Jenkin, who not only runs a wonderful retro-gaming YouTube channel right here, but a couple of weeks ago also introduced me to a ZX Spectrum homebrew called Dead Flesh Boy (which he did right here), that I then played all the way through in one go, and it was great fun! Very impressive too… It actually came out in 2015, and is a demake of the brutal cult platformer Meat Boy on Xbox and PC from 2010. It really captures the essence of it too, from its delightful blood splatters to all those deviously-placed saw blades to precariously negotiate, as you attempt to get to your girlfriend on the other side of each of twenty screens concocted by the mad scientist who’s kidnapped her. I’d say about half of those are doable in a few goes, while the rest are (intentionally) ridiculously hard to puzzle out, let alone get across, demanding crazy timing and precision, which about eighty-perfect translates over to this version from the effortlessly pixel-perfect original, so it’s not as fluid, it’s occasionally unfair, and you’ll die and reset a dozen times more than you might have otherwise on every level, but that’s all fine and soon becomes part of the appeal in itself. There’s not much to the sound, even on the 128K version, but the Spectrum’s garish colour palette really comes alive here, adding a new level of sinister to the simplified but authentic visuals. Very impressive, very addictive, and I think I’ve just talked myself into a second run-through! 

By the way, you can grab that one from Spectrum Computing here if you fancy trying it for yourself. In other news, I finished South of Midnight on Xbox, which I covered the other week so wont get into again but it kept getting better and better throughout – great look, one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard in years, and the modern Southern Gothic folk tale it (literally) weaves is fantastic! Xbox Game Pass is really doing alright at the moment but that said, I wasn’t so keen on the new Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on there this week – too turn-based, too many button presses, too French… Elsewhere again, I think I’m close to the end of Metal Gear Solid 4 on PS3 (also covered in that link just above), although given the time I’ve spent watching cutscenes so far, that could still mean many hours away! If you follow me on social media (see just below for all that stuff), you might already know I was given a bit of a Holy Grail present this week too, but I’ve not really had a chance to get into it yet so we’ll save that for next time! In the meantime, in case you missed it last Wednesday, do check out my deep-dive into Alcatraz Harry on the Spectrum, which was as good a way to spend £1.99 back in 1984 as you could ever hope for! Then next Wednesday, join me again to discover Demon Attack on the Atari 2600, which not only comes with my favourite box art for a game ever, but is still a very good time too! Hopefully see you then! 

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