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. It’s been another week of building noise, dust and general mess here too, as demolition and renovation had continued outside our back door, but it is now completely clear of the three grabber trucks and four skips of crap that have somehow got out via our tiny driveway… Bad enough driving a car down there! Lots more to come but don’t worry, I won’t go on about it too much, and for now at least, will switch to gaming!

As is usually the case right about now every year, I’ve been enjoying the ten hour trial of Madden NFL 26 on EA Play (via Xbox Game Pass), which once again seems to have been just enough to get my fill until it goes fully free on there in a few months! There are lots of other “once agains” I could apply here too, from the outrageous authenticity of the match-day presentation to the ongoing problem of getting anyone not playing the game to look like they weren’t created on a PS3! The grass looks alright this time though, and while I’m not sure that much has been changed on the gameplay front beyond noticeably more realistic player movement and collision physics, it’s so slick and intuitive, and literally every element you can think of and more besides is as deep or not as you’re ready to take it. Loads of new stuff in the main Franchise mode too, which might also be the case elsewhere but this game is full of modes I’ll never play, trial or not, and that’s fine as long as what I do play is still fun, and it really is! Great back and forth to the games, heightened by the most natural commentary to date, and weather effects are as realistic as I’ve ever seen in a game, and there’s just the most spectacular attention to detail, to the point that what you’re experiencing in every single stadium for every single team is exactly what you’d experience if you were there in person… Except, maybe, your weird-looking fellow spectators! 

In other news this week, I’ve decided I don’t particularly like the original Tomb Raider games! Just like my experience with these at the time, the first Tomb Raider on the recent remastered collections started out well, but a few hours in, I slowly started to lose interest and eventually didn’t come back. Never one to not get the most out of my money though, the best part of a year on, I’m now having another go at 1997’s Tomb Raider II, which, if I had to pick a favourite in the series, would probably be the one. It’s still alright in many respects too, as long as you switch those weird new controls and horrible dark remastered graphics off! And why wouldn’t you anyway, when we’re talking peak original PlayStation in all its jagged and uniquely textured glory! Seriously though, I love how this looks, especially the Venice canal section pictured above… So atmospheric and so cinematic too, which also goes for the sound design. Lovely animation as well, supporting Lara’s slightly expanded movement repertoire, which also includes vehicles this time! Gameplay is mostly similar to its predecessor otherwise though, as you platform, puzzle and shoot your way around the world, racing to another ancient artefact before some Italian cult gets their hands on it. The controls aren’t much improved either but you’ll soon get to grips with them well enough, and puzzles are well-designed, and the action parts mostly fun once you’ve also puzzled out where you’re going and what you’re supposed to be doing there! Just all goes on a bit though, and I think even more so than the first game, which was that one’s downfall for me, and no doubt means I’ll run out of steam with this one at some point too… All over again! 

There are quite a few parallels between that game and another I’ve also been going back and forth with over almost as many years, Alpha Storm, which was actually first released by Psygnosis around the same time as Tomb Raider II back in 1997, but I wouldn’t get to until I went a bit FPS-mad when I got my first PC a couple of years later. God, the money I spent on that thing in PC World in Barking… Anyway, it’s another visual showstopper (dreadful enemy graphics aside) that never held my attention for the duration, but I love everything else about it, so I’ll probably keep coming back whenever I think of it until it does! Although I just alluded to it being an FPS, it’s quite a lot more besides, with the action split between that and strategic space sim, as you travel the galaxy in your Eradicator Prototype ship, looking for the six pieces of a Stasis Device that will remove you from time and allow you to escape the Dark Beings’ flagship after your set off your Nova Bomb on it, thus restoring galactic peace…  Or some such sci-fi nonsense! It’s so cool though, as you manipulate elegant navigational charts reminiscent of Elite, before engaging in this kind of live-action Battle Chess-style ship-to-ship combat on 3D grids, when once the shields are down on your enemy’s ship, you can go first-person, teleport onto it and cause all kinds of mayhem, looting upgrades for your ship and for yourself along the way, as well as essentials to keep everything operational. This dual-edged setup is almost as decadent as its setting – think Jules Verne in space as opposed to 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea! It’s all so luxurious, part-steampunk, part-gothic and totally DOS, where you can almost feel the crushed velvet behind the wild colour schemes and wonderfully blocky environmental detail! And the slightly out of place music and sampled sound effects are just awesome! There’s really not a huge amount to any aspect of the gameplay though, but the variety means lots to enjoy for a while – it’s alright, and more people need to know it is! 

It’s been a while since I played anything as hard to put down as Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, and it knows it, and it makes sure you know it knows it too! It’s back to the series’ side-scrolling 2D roots in this new instalment, which I’m playing on PC, and it’s a stunner in every respect, from the densely atmospheric modern pixel art, to the perfectly suited oriental synth-rock soundtrack, to the most intensely fluid gameplay that just keeps on giving! It’s by The Game Kitchen (the team behind Blasphemous) in partnership with Dotemu, and they absolutely nail that old Tecmo-spirit and then some, as we join a young ninja called Kenji Mozu from the Hayabusa Village, gallantly standing in for his absent teacher (and series protagonist) Ryu, but soon forced into a forbidden alliance with Kumori, another ninja from their centuries-old enemy, the Black Spider Clan, convinced that combining their souls and skills is the only way to protect the world from the latest demonic threat. It’s all pretty forgettable once you get stuck in to the relentless run and gun-esque action, but two ninjas in one does mean you’ve got some very cool Ninja Fusion powers to uncover and unleash, which just about stay the right side of overwhelming at times, and that’s fortunate because by the time you’re done, that’s about all that is the right side of it! It’s never unfair and is rarely frustrating though, and as said, makes one more go far too easy! And you’ve got so many tools so effortlessly at your disposal, and it’s all so precise and there to be mastered… Which reminds me, the boss fights are very cool too, but so is everything you massacre so stylishly, and every rich and varied environment you glide through, and this is just one hell of a fun game! 

I really can’t get enough of that one – proper game of the year contender right out of the blue – but that’s it for us this week. And yes, I had noticed I’ll have done two hundred of these this time next week too, but don’t get excited because I barely even acknowledge my own birthday, so it’s very unlikely I’ll be going wild for that! Anyway, in case you missed it last Wednesday, there was another instalment in an ongoing genre-spanning series that I’ve had so much fun putting together over the past couple of years, when this time we were counting down my Top Ten Favourite Multidirectional Shoot ‘Em Ups! I’ve actually started putting the next one together this week too, which is going to focus on 3D shooters, if I ever work out some boundaries for what’s in and what isn’t… Think Gyruss rather than Space Harrier and I think we’re somewhere near though! Anyway, that’s not coming until after Christmas, so in the meantime, do check back next Wednesday, when we’re going to be having a look at all the retro-related stuff I shouldn’t have been buying over the past three months in my Retro Arcadia Gaming Pickups Summer 2025 Recap! Hopefully see you then!

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