Last Retro Game You Finished And Your Thoughts

gjones wrote:

NintendoLife still has some well written reviews, but I've accepted that we aren't going to see another N64 or NGamer, because they felt like close-knit clubs where all the writers had their own personalities.

I find NintendoLife reviews often quite tedious - they often feel like they're twice the length they need to be and that the reviewer had a thesaurus on hand to try and find new ways of saying "the graphics are good and the gameplay is fun". I mean, I do like Scullion's reviews and they have a few other good writers occasionally, but on the whole... Yeah, nothing anything like the glory days of N64, NGC and NGamer.

I am a bit naughty, and tend to scroll to the review score on NintendoLife, when there's one - I know that's really terrible.


I did do a couple of old games and shit:


They spelled Shadow Warrior wrong there.
I borrowed this as a young'n, but never finished it, even with the infinite continues, due to the annoying sneaky hard-ness. Being able to come back to it by saving where I'd got to, rather than leaving my NES on for a month to avoid getting back to world 6 is the sort of future we should be pleased about, ignoring all the bad shit. I did cheat a bit because the last world's "go back to the first stage if you die to the end boss" nonsense is of course nonsense. Er, yeah, it's alright. The music's ace. Doesn't really hold up, but far superior to the majority of the belt-scroller brawlers like Double Dragon and the like. Er... 7 out of 9.5.


Hey, do you remember when they used to show old Hanna-Barbera crap in the mornings because it was cheap? Well, Hi-Tec software did, and bought the licenses and made a lot of incongruous game stuff in the late 80s. Not really got a lot to do with Ruff and Reddy's... adventures? Wait, what was that show about? Reddy only appears as a face on the status bar, and you only play as Ruff. Not the worst Amstrad game, but it was blatantly another idea with the 72nd most popular animated cat thrown in. Nice to finish it after 28 years though. 5 out of 9.

gjones wrote:

Cappa, you might find a letter of mine in an NOM from that era. I remember writing in to say WCW/NWO Revenge was the bees knees and they right to praise it, or something like that. It would most likely have been an issue in 1999.

That would be quality if I did, but I don't have many 1999 issues of NOM...maybe I'll try and find it on an Out of Print Archive scan though. 

Buskalilly wrote:

I read NOM from arund 2003, and even travelled to their offices to take part in a big competition. In the period I was reading it, it had a pretty decent sense of humour, at least for a lad in his early teens.

I remember being pretty disappointed when we switched to ONM, which felt incredibly soulless in comparison. That's probably why I moved over to NGamer when I did.

Rereading my issues more recently, there's some real immature and problematic stuff, but there's a genuine love for Nintendo at the heart of it all.

Also, when I was reading, they were perfectly happy to dish out drubbings . . . to third party games.

If you're willing to tell it, I'd like to hear the story about your visit to the NOM office sometime, that must have been quite exciting.

2003-era NOM was very good in it's own right, but "incredibly soulless" is a great way to describe ONM from 2006 onwards. While I get that the art editors were probably trying to make the magazine appear more professional and mature, it was so sterile and unappealing to me. I thought a lot of the writing was dry too. Just not a good magazine, in my opinion.

Jimbob wrote:

Jimbob's old shit

I simply don't see how anybody can complete Ninja Gaiden without cheating like a right proper bastard. I enjoy it up until about the third round of levels, but then it becomes totally unreasonable. 

That's mental that there's a Ruff & Ready computer game. I haven't thought about that cartoon in about twenty years!

I only read a few issues of NOM (which I found a bit try-hard) and a few later issues of ONM (by which time Castle had taken over and was trying to make it a bit more interesting), so I'd say overall I preferred ONM; but my samples are very skewed.  I wonder if the Switch Player/Ninty Fresh variation will be like the ONM/NOM one?  

Anyway, although I've had a fair few Switch Player issues I'm very close to cancelling that subscription.  Mas is right about the proportional content, and that seems to miss the mark massively in this day and age.  When we have access to the Internet to provide us with instant opinions, games reviews aren't what anybody would look back to print journalism for in this day and age: that would be quality writing and a bit of character, which very few parts of Nintendo Life have like Rum says.  Switch Player has entirely flubbed that.

NOM was made in an era when four white men could sit around and write whatever they wanted and nobody said no. This meant you got some brilliant nonsense, but it also meant weak jokes about "fit birds" and calling bad games "gay".
It was extremely formative for me, however, as it was my first major exposure to Japan. They had a monthly segment with news from Akihabara and pictures of mad Nintendo merch and Japan-exclusive games, they idolised Shigsy and Iwata and folks, and I think maybe some of that had an effect on me . . .

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

If you're willing to tell it, I'd like to hear the story about your visit to the NOM office sometime, that must have been quite exciting.

Ideally, I'll wait until I can return to the UK and can share the scans of the issues and stuff. If I get fed up of waiting I might share before that

Quote :

2003-era NOM was very good in it's own right, but "incredibly soulless" is a great way to describe ONM from 2006 onwards. While I get that the art editors were probably trying to make the magazine appear more professional and mature, it was so sterile and unappealing to me. I thought a lot of the writing was dry too. Just not a good magazine, in my opinion.

ONM was trying really hard to lean into that all-new clean, white aesthetic around the time of the DS Lite and Wii's release, and I remember not only thinking this was a bad new direction for the magazine, but also that I was worried this was Nintendo's new direction.

The magazine did slowly develop more of a personality and a sense of humour; Scullion put in a good show, a lot of the NOM guys actually ended up doing freelance reviews and so on. By the end, with Matt Castle as editor and with Joe Skrebels and Kate Grey as writers, it was literally Nintendo Gamer reborn. I loved those guys, particularly the video and podcast content which is what got me interested in that medium in the first place.

Buskalilly wrote:

it also meant weak jokes about "fit birds" and calling bad games "gay".
It was extremely formative for me

CANCELLED

Buskalilly wrote:

NOM was made in an era when four white men could sit around and write whatever they wanted and nobody said no. This meant you got some brilliant nonsense, but it also meant weak jokes about "fit birds" and calling bad games "gay".

These magazines were at their best when their "brilliant nonsense" worked, and I thought N64 Magazine captured this lightening in a bottle so many times. They kept things fun and lighthearted, but there was always 'no substitute for cold, hard facts'. On the other hand though, CV&G and N64 Pro Magazine really laid on this sort of god awful patter on thick. I'll see if I can dig out any issues and show you the type of shite I mean.

~



N64 Magazine said: “The conversion job has done it no favours”. 71% in Issue 8, 1/5 in Issue 55.
Total 64 said: “Not bad but there’s better out there”. 80% in Issue 17.

I finished MRC: Multi-Racing Championship, an early N64 attempt at a ‘realistic’ racing game. From what I remember about its launch, this got a little bit lost in the shuffle, and it didn’t have any real hype around it in the UK gaming media. I rented it for a weekend at some point, just deciding to give it a punt without really knowing what the magazines thought. I think I enjoyed it well enough. I certainly recalled it being quite good, and eventually got a copy of my own when I was starting to rebuild my N64 collection in the mid 2000s.

The Collins Dictionary defines the word ‘Multi’ as “many times more than”. With consideration to the game’s title, I think it’s fair to assume that you’d have loads of championships to play through and cups to win. Do you buggery: you’ve got three short tracks which are then repeated in a tacked-on Mirror Mode. At least the tracks are varied though, with several alternative off-road routes in each. These diverging routes change the environment a lot, and the handling of your motor will depend on if you’re racing on tarmac, snow, sand or gravel. It makes a little bit of a difference. Yet you’ll quickly pick out your favourite type of vehicle, tinker with its tyres/suspension/brakes and then suss out the best, optimum route for racing to your style. Once you have, you’re sorted, and quickly find yourself moving up the ranks and into first place. It’s not the most interesting set-up, and the racing itself doesn’t jazz it up. It can actually resemble a Time Attack at points, because it’s easy to miss other racers across the different routes and therefore it feels like you’re playing against yourself.

By the standards of the time, MRC: Multi-Racing Championship was a reasonably accomplished racer with convincing handling and decent customisation, but it lacked speed, challenge and longevity. Nowadays, it’s nothing special. The only distinctive things about it are it’s inexpensiveness on the second hand market, and that it’s maybe the easiest N64 title to complete. All in all, it’s nothing offensive, but nothing memorable either. 5/10.



N64 Magazine said: “Not bad, just competent”. 67% in Issue 10, 2/5 in Issue 55.
64 Magazine said: “Four player racer, but not realistic or thrilling”. 68% in Issue 8.

I might as well lump my Automobili Lamborghini review here too. Even though it’s made by a different developer and they've got nothing to do with each other, my conclusions are exactly the same for this as they are for MRC. It’s fairly polished and very easy to jump into on the Novice settings, but for some unexplained reason the handling goes tits up once you move up to the Expert Modes. The track design is a bit basic right throughout, and all the cars seem to go at the same speed, even the ‘special’ unlockable ones. While there’s more going on in Automobili Lamborghini than in MRC (there’s even a four-player splitscreen multiplayer), it’s similarly unspectacular in every other meaningful regard. I don’t dislike Automobili Lamborghini or anything, but the license deserved a better game. 5/10.

I forget just how many forgettable racers there were being thrown on the N64. The one I played at the time with friends was Top Gear Rally, which was decent. Mostly because it let you draw a penis on your car.

This era saw a lot of car manufacturer-specific games didn't it? Porsche Challenge, this Lamborghini one, Beetle Adventure Racing, F355 Challenge... You're right though, Lamborghini deserves better and would love to see Lambo mods for Outrun 2.

There's an unreal percentage of the N64's total games library that are racers which tried to compete with the PlayStation's Gran Turismo, Rage Racer and Colin McRae Rally and fell flat on their arses. None of those let you draw a comedy walloper on the car bonnet though, so Top Gear Rally will be needing a review and a likely 10/10 award.

Porsche Challenge was good stuff! Might stick that on later 

F355 is part of the Outrun series there for is a banger

masofdas wrote:

F355 is part of the Outrun series there for is a banger

This is news to me. Not that there is much "canon" in OutRun, but I always felt F355 was a Sim, with ridiculously sensitive handling and professional racing tracks. It certainly didn't feel like it was part of the OutRun universe. The lass would be hurling with every spinout.

Cappa, I'm interested if you cover Top Gear Overdrive as that was a game I really wanted at the time but never ended up picking up. Roadsters as well, was one that caught some rave reviews from The Weaver, yet had poor reviews on the Dreamcast. It looked banging. But then, so did Vanishing Point. And Super Runabout. Jesus, now that I think about it, there were racing games released on a daily basis. What a time to be alive!

I think it's because you know Yu, Ferrari, SEGA that it's the sim cousin to the series

gjones wrote:

Cappa, I'm interested if you cover Top Gear Overdrive as that was a game I really wanted at the time but never ended up picking up. Roadsters as well, was one that caught some rave reviews from The Weaver, yet had poor reviews on the Dreamcast. It looked banging. But then, so did Vanishing Point. And Super Runabout. Jesus, now that I think about it, there were racing games released on a daily basis. What a time to be alive!

I think I should play through one of the three Top Gear N64 games, and Overdrive is a good shout. I really wanted it at the time too, and I only wound up getting it late last year. I've not played it much, but it seems all right. Roadsters might take a bit too much of my time though, I remember it having a massive career mode. I also remember it looking really nice but being a bit straightforward. Automobili Lamborghini reminds me of Roadsters.

I've eventually cover a lot of other N64 racers though. I'll post my Ridge Racer 64 review next week, I've got something else I want to cover on Sunday first 

EDIT: Just remembered, I love Roadsters! It played a part in my best ever swap, with a pal from primary school. I traded my copy of Roadsters (which I'd bought for dirt-cheap in Woolworths earlier that week) and a third-party Rumble Pak for a SNES with about fifteen games, including belters like Super Mario Kart, Super Pang and Starfox. I absolutely fleeced the guy there!

Buskalilly wrote:

The magazine did slowly develop more of a personality and a sense of humour; Scullion put in a good show, a lot of the NOM guys actually ended up doing freelance reviews and so on. By the end, with Matt Castle as editor and with Joe Skrebels and Kate Grey as writers, it was literally Nintendo Gamer reborn. I loved those guys, particularly the video and podcast content which is what got me interested in that medium in the first place.

I think this was the ONM I bumped into - especially because I then got to hear Skrebels and Gav on the CVG podcast (I think?) being excellent.  I have a lot of time for that bunch.

N64 Magazine said: “As different from normal tennis games as Mario Kart is from normal driving games. Another unmissable hit for Nintendo”. 91% in Issue 47, 5/5 in Issue 59.
NGC Magazine said: "Like Super Tennis on the SNES before it, this is a supreme example of racket and ball that you simply cannot afford to go without”. Ranked as the 2nd best sports game on the Nintendo 64 in Issue 63.
 
I read in the paper that Wimbledon was supposed to finish this weekend, and while I’m not arsed with that in the slightest, at least it urged me to give Mario Tennis another playthrough. I remember this N64 version very fondly. I rented it from my local Blockbuster on the night it came out, in late 2000. Although this was just days away from the PlayStation 2’s launch, the primitive graphics and dated technology it was running on couldn’t have mattered less: I was floored by how good the gameplay was. As soon as I could afford it, I bought a copy of my own.

I think it’s the control system that set Mario Tennis apart from what came before it. There’s only two buttons to use (A and B) and seven types of shot. Pressing these buttons twice, or holding them in longer or inputting them in different sequences strikes different types of shot, like a lob, a slice, a smash, et cetera. I’ve explained it horribly, but in practice it’s very easy to grasp. It’s the same control system they brought forward for all the Mario Tennis games since, and it’s what I feel continues to set Mario Tennis series apart today.

There’s an intangible magic here that I can’t quite put my finger on. If I’m to try, I guess it’s just the purity of it that I enjoy. It lacks the wealth of modes that Mario Power Tennis and Mario Tennis Aces boast for sure – it’s very basic by comparison, with none of the special shots, only a small handful of non-traditional modes and just one special court. Likewise, it’s nowhere near as technical as Virtua Tennis or Top Spin, as the computer charges your shots for you, meaning all you have to do is position yourself and (roughly) time your swing. It’s not quite as immediate as Wii Sports Tennis, but I’d say it’s easier to master than the likes of Super Tennis and Smash Tennis on Nintendo Switch Online, and they’re pretty straightforward games themselves. Mario Tennis is just a really great tennis game, but with the universal appeal of Super Mario (and the debut of Waluigi!)

The accessibility and dimensionality of the controls will help Mario Tennis stand up for another twenty years. Gameplay-wise, it’s timeless stuff. It’s still really good in every other measure too, with well-animated character models and faces, a bright, vibrant colour palate, an upbeat, catchy soundtrack, a good level of challenge, believable ball physics and a generous amount of unlockables. And although I didn’t play it in multiplayer this time round, I’ve played enough of it over the last two decades to know that it’s classic.

We’ve talked a lot about Mario Tennis games on this forum, and I think people have their own favourites. This is mine: Mario Tennis is not only the best sports game on the Nintendo 64, but it’s my favourite tennis game ever made. 9/10.

Still my favourite sports game of all time.  Cappa's got it bang on when he talks about the purity of it all: the special shots ruined it in MPT, and let's be honest, none of the rest of the series comes close (although if they'd put Open's shot system into Mario Power Tennis' framework I'd be alright with that).  If I had to niggle I'd say that it could have done with a little more Mario in it, more special courts and bonus modes like MPT, without stuffing the basics like MPT did.  The characters obviously look like they're hewn from rock nowadays too.  That's me having to niggle, though - 9/10 is correct, even in this day and age.

Also: Waluigi's disco eyes, and non-bobbins Daisy in pretty much her only 3D appearance.

Can't find it online, but I remember the Mario Tennis advert at the time. It was to do with kids eating dinner and wanting to play their N64 instead because of the cracking 4-player - which summed up life in 2000 for a young GJones.

One day I'll play Mario Tennis properly; would you say there's enough content for the lone gamer? I love Virtua Tennis, it just felt like the complete package, but have been less keen on older tennis games. I played Super Tennis on the SNES Online and could swear it was broken. You had to be laser-sharp to even hit the ball. I did play Mario Power Tennis, but it was on the Wii so it never really felt natural - less "New Play Control!" more "New Play Control?". The mini-games were top notch though - hitting paintballs at a wall a particular highlight. I'd love to see a World Tour mode from Virtua Tennis given the Mario Tennis treatment - a nice meaty career mode with an RPG system. Yes. Please.

When I was tiny I spent most of my time with the game playing through the Mario Tennis tournaments, unlocking star characters and other secrets. I certainly found enough to keep me occupied in single-player, but that was when I was young and callow and delighted in simple repetition. Might be different now.

Oddly I was looking at Tennis games yesterday as both AO and World Tour on offer, neither reviewed well when they came out but AO has been improved but still not going to pay £20+ for it, digitally.

Still a big fan of tennis games, the 6th gen with Virtua, Top Spin and Mario was a great time.

I'd say Mario Tennis has enough content for the lone gamer, aye. Multiplayer adds to it's worth so, so much though. 

I wonder why Virtual Tennis and Top Spin stopped? Did they just stop selling? Or, could they not improve upon them in any meaningful way? Especially Virtua Tennis, those 360 ones were superbly well designed.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

I'd say Mario Tennis has enough content for the lone gamer, aye. Multiplayer adds to it's worth so, so much though. 

I wonder why Virtual Tennis and Top Spin stopped? Did they just stop selling? Or, could they not improve upon them in any meaningful way? Especially Virtua Tennis, those 360 ones were superbly well designed.

I'm guessing a mix of weaker sales, oddly critical reviews and the move to PS4/Xbox One which SEGA didn't really support much at the start. They dumped a Virtua Tennis on to the Vita at launch and that didn't go too well. I need to play Top Spin as I hear good things, but guess it's more on the realistic side? Both series ended in 2011 so skipped this gen entirely A victim of the shift towards AAA or Indie - man I miss AA or A games.

I did an article awhile ago on Gintendo, and they sold okay but till the recent two games AO and World Tour not been much. Those both also didn't review well but seems with patches etc AO Tennis which a sequel came out this year is meant to be good and seems they've sold well enough for Big Ant Studios to make two games.

You make joke about Virtua Tennis on VITA but might actually be one of the better selling Tennis games and is an excellent version as well.


Finished my very first 3DO game today with Starblade which is a port of the arcade game which has two modes on 3DO. First is Arcade Mode which looks more like Star Fox with the graphical style of the low 3D polygons but really impressive for something from 1991, this is the mode I finished which takes about 30mins that I may have been pissed if I bought this new for my 3DO being that short.

Guess could go for high score but don't see the point myself. The other mode is the 3DO mode which adds textures to those low poly graphics

Which in practice looks impressive especially in 1994 but in practice everything now is grey and boring & harder to see that I prefer the low poly instead. The game itself is fun to play it's a on rail's shooter like a Star Fox but in First Person, just be nice if more than two levels.

masofdas wrote:

I did an article awhile ago on Gintendo, and they sold okay but till the recent two games AO and World Tour not been much. Those both also didn't review well but seems with patches etc AO Tennis which a sequel came out this year is meant to be good and seems they've sold well enough for Big Ant Studios to make two games.

You make joke about Virtua Tennis on VITA but might actually be one of the better selling Tennis games.

Let's have a look (using data from VGChartz.com)

Virtua Tennis

The PS3 release of Virtua Tennis 3 is the best-selling title, with 580k copies. 10k more than Top Spin 3. Annoyingly, Xbox 360 sales figures are clearly wrong (the same game sold 40,000 on Xbox, which we know is wrong as half of that number are in my local CEX). But my guess is it sold similarly - these games don't sell well in Japan. In fact, Virtua Tennis 3 sold over 50% of its copies in Europe. This is similar across all Virtua Tennis titles; us Europeans love it more than the Americans!

Virtua Tennis 2009 shifted over a million across Wii, 360 and PS3 which isn't as great, comparatively, but it was just a re-skinned Virtua Tennis 3. By the time Virtua Tennis 4 released, PS3 sales for this were 450,000 (down 57% on VT3). It also released on Wii - with a meagre 140,000 sold worldwide. This sounds a bit low so not sure I trust the numbers there. Particularly as the Vita version sold 490,000! Mas, you're right on that one, a lot of people picked that one up at launch.

The earlier entries on Dreamcast and PS2/PSP are harder to find numbers on, but the first Virtua Tennis was in the SEGA All-Stars batch of games (the equivalent of "Platinum") so would have been in the 500k-1 million range (given the other games like Sonic and Crazy Taxi are in there too). So sales have dipped, but not in a massive way. The Vita sales figure showed people perhaps enjoy the pick-up-and-play of tennis - stick it on Switch?  

Top Spin

Again, the PS2/Xbox sales may not be complete (100k on PS2, 460k on Xbox) but the game was an exclusive to Xbox at the time. The PS2 also had a bunch of tennis games on it. What IS interesting though, is Top Spin 2 apparently only sold 170k on Xbox 360 worldwide, but then the third game sold 1.85 million! Bear in mind, the game was on DS too, and the first time the series had been on the PS3 and Wii too. Top Spin 3 was to be the peak for the series, sales-wise at least.

Top Spin 4 released in March 2011 (Virtua Tennis 4 released in May 2011) and while Virtua Tennis' presence did put a dent in the sales for Top Spin, this was mainly on the Wii. It dropped from 580k to 140k. Interestingly, the PS3 version sold even better than Top Spin 3 (up from 570k to 690k). More people did have PS3s in 2011 (I think!) but it seems Top Spin 4 was a big hit in the US (notably the PS3 one):

Xbox 360
Top Spin 3 - 54% of sales were European
Top Spin 4 - 71% of sales were European
PS3
Top Spin 3 - 65% of sales were European
Top Spin 4 - 58% of sales were European <<< a lot more US sales pushes the PS3 number up. It looks like sneaking in there before Virtua Tennis 4 helped sales.

In summary

Virtua Tennis 3 likely sold 2 million copies (missing Xbox 360 data), but did fallaway sales-wise, succumbing to Top Spin. However, it is clear a lot of people love tennis games and a release on PS4/XboxOne/Switch seems like a missed opportunity. I didn't realise just how popular Top Spin was. The US in particular seemed to adopt Top Spin 4.

Did the new tennis games sell well?

It's hard to tell as there isn't any sales data. Tennis World Tour sold 40k on PS4, which isn't a lot at all.

Consider the Top 10 best-selling tennis games of all time:

1. SEGA Superstars Tennis (everything) - 5.47m
2. Tennis (NES/GB) - 4.16m
3. Mario Tennis Aces (Switch) - 2.75m a year ago (probably 3m now)
4. Mario Power Tennis (GameCube/Wii) - 2.95m
5. Mario Tennis (N64) - 2.32m
6. Rockstar presents Table Tennis (Xbox 360/Wii) - 2.01m
7. Virtua Tennis 3 (PS3) - 1.05m (probably 2m with 360+PC)
8. Top Spin 3 (DS/PS3/360/Wii) - 1.85m
9. Mario Tennis Open (3DS) - 1.56m
10. Top Spin 4 (PS3/360/Wii) - 1.24m

There is potential to sell a million copies, but are Top Spin and Virtua Tennis still the recognisable brands, ten years later?
Also, stick Mario in anything and he'll sell you games!

Top Spin I always thought of as the Xbox Tennis games, I loved 2 but did drop off the next games. I think I played Virtua on PS3, I feel it was a 1080p game much like Virtua Fighter but I could be wrong and had a push because of this.

I can get you these stats based on unlocking at least one achievement/trophy and you've been online for most games a few missing on PlayStation

Xbox
SEGA Superstars Tennis 3.4m
Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis 1.6m
Virtua Tennis 3 1.1m
Top Spin 2 1m
Top Spin 3 950k
Top Spin 4 890k
Virtua Tennis 4 700k
Virtua Tennis 2009 610k
Grand Slam Tennis 2 310k
Smash Court Tennis 3 200k
Tennis World Tour 93k
AO International Tennis 72k
AO Tennis 2 21k

PlayStation
Virtua Tennis 4 1.5m
Top Spin 4 1.3m
Virtua Tennis 2009 900k
Tennis World Tour 540k, Can see why Xbox owners moaning about the lack of updates
Grand Slam Tennis 2 340k
Hot Shots Tennis 310k, This a PS2 Classic on PSN
AO International Tennis 190k
AO Tennis 2 95k

Total
Virtua Tennis 4 2.2m
Top Spin 4 2.19m
Virtua Tennis 2009 1.51m
Grand Slam Tennis 2 650k
Tennis World Tour 633k
AO International Tennis 162k
AO Tennis 2 116k

Where did you get these numbers?