Family friendly, informative and entertaining, Retro Reviews with The No Swear Gamer contains plenty of retro goodness. I've reviewed games for the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Atari Jaguar, NES, Nintendo GameCube, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis (Mega Drive), Sega CD, Sega 32x, Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation 1 as well as covering plug n play systems, retro toys and other cool retro stuff. Check it out and subscribe today!
It's a bit easier to understand the choices made here if you've played the classic, brilliant Atari 8-bit computer game it was a port of. Activision's Starmaster probably did a better job of capturing the depth of Star Raiders, with its light strategic element. And Imagic's Star Voyager instead decided to pare down the worldbuilding and concentrate on making the basic combat loop as fun as possible. But one thing this version does do is as good a job it can of reproducing the look and sound of the computer game. The original Star Raiders was basically a hybrid of the text-based "Star Trek" games that were big on 1970s mainframes, and the first-person space shooters that had appeared in arcades like Atari's Starship 1 and Exidy's Star Fire. Star Trek had the galactic map and damage and resource management; the arcade games provided the combat mode. The computer game predated the Atari Force comics, so there, you're piloting Star Cruiser 7 of the Atarian Federation' Star Fleet against the Zylon Empire (or so I gather from the manual and the in-game text). Yeah, I'm pretty sure the Star Trek, Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica influence was more than coincidental.
Neat that it is multiplayer! I may have to find this one. I like the skiing variation even better than the car one. Cool that there is so much variety in the levels and that it isn't just the same thing over and over.
I love the write ups in the Atari manuals! They really added to the games and are worth getting along with the cartridges. I like that you let us know how cool the manual descriptions are in games we haven't tried yet. Warlords is like the ultimate version of Breakout. So difficult! I wonder how you would play with more than two people? So cool that this one and Circus are both Breakout games that you can play solo.
Why do you not also rank the games against the complete VCS library? It's not like the Supercharger is a different system. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't add anything that bank-switching and RAM-added carts didn't also add, other than the fact that it was all RAM (which wasn't taken advantage of much past the max RAM sizes for carts, since the largest need is for storage of code and data that doesn't change), reusable RAM cartridge to save money, and cheap tape media (which was also easy to pirate). It all came down to the superior programming abilities of the Arcadia/StarPath team, who became the Epyx team after the crash.
Why did my original comment get deleted? All I did was mention the importance of the TMNT issue and ask if want to sell it since you said you have an Ebay account. Its J Scott Campbell's 1st published art work. He won the art contest NIntendo had in that issue. He's one of the greatest comic artist in the industry now. Is there something wrong with this?
The Dragon Warrior strategy guide helped me complete the game as a kid. I can safely say that I would not have gotten anywhere near finishing if I didn't have it. My copy is well worn. Great memories.
I remember playing this a lot. I didn’t own it, but kept borrowing it from someone. I just can’t remember who. I always did like Activision 2600 games. They had a great charm about them.
Not too bad. The non-Nintendo Power stuff isn't really worth much, like you said, but it is cool seeing those issues of Sega Visions. That Dragon Warrior guide is pretty cool, though. I've never seen it before. I love collecting official Nintendo strategy guides.
Could never beat this as a kid, tried again a few years ago and made it to the end but couldn't shoot all the bad guys to complete the game that part is so hard 😂
Feel privileged, feel special, u have the huge provilege to know Archon, the Archetype of the 2D old style intense first duels, Now , Seek "Mail Order Monster", U'll be of the rare real old school harcore extreme gamers..Welcome in.
Mail away for the patch! :-) Remember getting this game at Toys r Us for $5 back in the 80s, taking it home and actually really enjoying it. It is a fun game that many different ages can enjoy
In Activision's Aliens game, the flame thrower segment has some design choices which seem very weird. Like, if you touch an alien, it will retreat rather than kill you. (Everywhere else in the game, contact with an alien is deadly.) The game design of the flame thrower segment only makes sense in the context of it being based on Activision's earlier Stampede game.
Thanks for this review! One thing I don't remember seeing in the gameplay for this review is the horse tripping over the black angus or the skull. I thought that's how you'd end it, with that groan noise! I did like how you got to the minimum bump for a cow, which I never thought to do. BTW: The fast cows are galloping ahead of you; it's the slow-moving cows that you are quickly overtaking and risk passing. Once I beat 3000 for game 1 (score for the emblem/patch), I went on to try it for the other variations, though haven't made it on 6-8. After that I went back to play game 1 again, and doubled my score to 8000! I do think it costs more to get an emblem than the cart! Not too many good games in this programmer's resume; Chopper Command would probably be considered his best. You've yet to review his Casino, which is an upgrade to his Blackjack title; though I don't think gambling titles are much fun. The 25 card Poker Solitaire (variant 4) was the logbook challenge to beat 1100, and worth the effort, though. If one knows the rules & scoring, one could play with a deck of cards. I'm looking forward to more reviews of Atari games from your semi-monthly challenge like Miniature Golf (I always type "Gold"), Riddle of the Sphinx, and Kaboom.
I never had this, and haven't played it much via emulation, so I don't really have an opinion on it. I did want to note however, that Activision recycled this play mechanic for the Control Room level of Aliens: The Computer Game. You have to fend off aliens until one of your team members can cut through a door to facilitate your escape. You're positioned on the right edge of the screen, armed with a flame thrower, and aliens come from the left, both singly and in pairs. If you simply touch them, they will back up, but each time you do this, they back up less and less. You can kill them with the flame thrower, but the more aliens you kill, the faster they get. Each alien that gets past you will take one of your remaining lives. The strategy is to hold off killing them as long as possible, to postpone the aliens speeding up. With some luck, it's possible to get through it without losing any lives. Activision also recycled the flying sequences from Master of the Lamp for the Dropship level.
