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’ve noticed Atari’s recent cartridge releases going up and down in price since I got my 2600+ console last Christmas and started paying attention, but having decided to focus on collecting the original carts I wanted first, I was a good boy and held off picking any of them up until I’d spent plenty of time with what I had already! Didn’t last long though, and I’ve now got three lovely boxed editions from 2024, starting with the Epyx Games Collection (which is the only one I’ve played so far), containing the Atari 2600 versions of Summer Games, Winter Games and California Games, all on one cart and selectable by four little DIP switches on the back. I’ll quickly run through them, although I did previously cover the latter in a little bit more depth here too, when I may also have picked up the standalone cartridge! Anyway, while it might not be the very best place to play any of them (try a Commodore 64 for that), what’s here is often absolutely remarkable, beefed-up 16K carts or not! Summer Games was originally released in 1985, and has seven events including hurdles, swimming, skeet shooting, 100-yard dash, swimming relay, gymnastics and rowing. There’s a bit of joystick waggling but really not much, with the action generally more focussed on timing and rhythm, which is going to be the case throughout here, as is everything being better with more than one player (with up to eight supported in each game), although there’s plenty of fun to be had solo too. The events do vary in quality a bit but I’m going with swimming as my favourite here – it’s a timing one and a real test of prolonged concentration! Winter Games is also from 1985, and features another seven events – slalom skiing, bobsled, ski jump, biathlon, speed skating, hot dog (acrobatic skiing) and luge, with the latter probably my favourite in this one, requiring a good sense of timing and positioning, although it’s really nice to see some skiing too, which never made it to my beloved C64 version. Finally, there’s California Games, with foot bag, halfpipe skateboarding, BMX and surfing, as well as one of my favourite title screens in any game ever, with a great version of Louie Louie playing over this mad psychedelic effect! The events are all impressive too, and really look great, but I’ll go with BMX as my standout, which I reckon is the best version on any platform. I’m really happy with the lot included here though!

At some point soon I promise I will stop going on about Metal Gear this or that almost every time we’re here, but in a bid to wrench myself away from The Phantom Pain (see last week), I’ve gone back to the opposite end of the series, the original Metal Gear on MSX2 from Konami in 1987. Unlike the later Metal Gear Solids though, I do have a bit of experience with one from its NES variant, which didn’t involve Hideo Kojima, and no doubt isn’t quite the same game as a result, but its success did pave the way for what followed, as well as what we’d now consider the stealth genre it pioneered too. Anyway, I’m playing the English translation of the MSX2 version included on the Metal Gear Solid 3 title screen (together with its sequel) on the HD Collection for PlayStation 3, where I’d have appreciated the save state feature being a little more flexible than mirroring the often painful checkpointing of the game itself, but otherwise plays great! Quite the narrative too, although the limitations of the 8-bit system did keep Kojima in check, and as a result we’ve got something familiar but relatively coherent, as Solid Snake – a special forces guy from an organisation called FOXHOUND – infiltrates the fortified state of Outer Heaven to rescue captured fellow agents and take down a walking weapon called Metal Gear, which can launch nukes at any target from anywhere in the world. You start without anything, but exploration will reveal weapons, equipment and different levels of keycards that will allow you to both progress through several large-scale buildings and outside areas, and also backtrack to places you couldn’t get before. The story also progresses through information from rescued prisoners and your commanding officer, Big Boss, and some other specialist agents via your trusty transceiver. It’s mostly logical if you’re paying attention, frequently very cool (like finding a parachute to access a secure courtyard from above), and there’s loads of stuff to find. Less cool is some old-school unfairness and general jank, from “how am I supposed to know that?” to repeating whole sections just to try a boss again, but even that’s all compensated when you find a precious ration or ammo, then leave the room, come back in, and it’s back again! Both stealth and combat are also understandably primitive but fun enough, and once you’re familiar with how it works, just about equal to what’s a pretty tough challenge from the outset. Still so impressive though, full of ambition and full of atmosphere, with presentation that’s of its time but also pushing the boundaries, and the same for Kojima’s trademark attention to detail. Quite the start, even coming off the back of the end of the story several decades later! 

Blimey, I went on way longer there than planned, so I’ll be quick with my last game for this week! I think I first came across a demo for Labyrinth of the Demon King in a Steam Next Fest at the start of the year, when I was immediately captivated by its very stylised PS1-era Silent Hill in Feudal Japan aesthetic. The gameplay soon had me too, to the point I quickly got rid of the demo so I could savour the real thing when it came in full, which it eventually did a couple of weeks ago on Nintendo Switch too, where honestly I’d rather be playing this kind of thing than my crappy laptop. It’s a first-person “retro-grim” dungeon crawler with a big dose of survival horror that has your lone soldier hunting down the Demon King, who’s running wild about the place with his Yokai and other abominations inspired by ancient Japanese mythology. It’s dark and foreboding from the off, as you explore every nook and cranny for the the weapons, items, armour and talismans that might just get you through the twisted labyrinths and somehow even more bleak exteriors (complete with mandatory fog), filled with unsophisticated but perfectly effective puzzles and combat, and some very uncanny characters (accompanied by some very uncanny sound effects)! Doesn’t hold your hand either, but the sense of adventure never lets up, and neither does that gorgeous art style! Top find!

I did also finish Doom: The Dark Ages this week, which was total carnage in every sense from start to finish, and without giving away too much, will definitely be in the running on my disturbingly fast-approaching Game of the Year Halfway Hotlist! A few weeks to go for that though, but in the meantime, in case you missed it last Wednesday, we had our regular trip back exactly 40 years for the very latest in video gaming in Retro Rewind: June 1985 in Computer & Video Games, straight from the pages of the original magazine! Then next Wednesday, we’re going to be welcoming the Nintendo Switch 2 with my Top Ten Favourite Mario Games, all the way back to his days as a carpenter called Jumpman… Super indeed, and I’ll 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, and also on Bluesky, which is under my real name but most it ends up there too if you prefer!