If the Victorians played games, they'd play...

 I was really struggling to find something to review this week, as evidenced by the fact that this review is three days late. I started playing a whole bunch of different games, but none of them really spoke to me. So I said to myself, "Braeden, you've got to get back to basics." And games don't come much more basic than Solar Striker.

A home-grown Nintendo title that came out around the Game Boy's launch, Solar Striker was a reminder that the Big N made arcade games once upon a time, and it's one of the few genuine vertical shooters in Nintendo's first-party library. There is really not a lot to this one. You fly upwards, you shoot things, and you fight a boss. That's really all there is, and therefore there's not a lot to talk about. Even the power-ups are underwhelming: you go from having one shot, to two shots, to three shots. With each life you lose, you drop one level of power-up, and each P icon is only half an upgrade, for some strange reason.

So, while this game is very, very simple, it's also deeply compelling. Much like Tetris or Alleyway, it's fellow GB launch titles, Solar Striker's main appeal is in the almost hypnotic state you get yourself in while playing it. Another favourite of mine is 1942 by Capcom, and it shares a certain something with Solar Striker - there's not a lot going on in either game, they're both terribly simple, but you eventually end up in a trance where you're not even thinking about the game and you're just pressing ever-onward, determined to do it better each time you die. Other shooters add glitz and glamour and bigger and better weapons and bad guys but if anything, I like these kind s of games better because all there is to it is me and the game, and the knowledge that when I die it's because I did something stupid or because I let the enemy pattern trick me.

Solar Striker isn't on the 3DS Virtual Console yet (a criminal oversight) but can typically by grabbed pretty cheap on Ebay. If you ever feel like reminding yourself that it's not graphics that make the game, then be sure to pick it up and give it a go.

Retro or Rose-tinted: Jill of the Jungle

One of the very first games I have any memory of playing, Jill of the Jungle was a shareware title made by Tim Sweeney of Epic MegaGames. It was, indeed, Epic's first really big hit title, building from the success of ZZT and paving the way for classics such as One Must Fall, Jazz Jackrabbit, Traffic Department 2192 and, eventually, Unreal and Gears of War.

As a kid, I'd have called this game a classic. But does it hold up today? I thought I'd play it and check it out.

The first game in the trilogy is Jill of the Jungle and it's the one I most associate with childhood. I had the shareware version from the time I was six to about the time I was sixteen, at which point I stumbled across a copy of the full version at a Cash Converters somewhere. There is no real story to Jill of the Jungle, other than it's a day for Jill and she's adventuring in the jungle. The game opens with Jill on a map screen which plays, functionally, the same as the levels - it's a platformer, with the levels represented by numbered bricks which you can jump down into. The map level is great - well designed, offering you a choice of what level to tackle next and hiding several secrets and bonuses. You don't need to finish all the levels, but it's much better if you do.

The levels are amazingly well designed - highly creative and varied. Some, like The Castle, test your platforming prowess and host no enemies, while others, like The Boulders or The Hut, require you to also take an active role in combat, armed with knives (which are more functionally boomerangs) or spinning blades (a much better, if somewhat less precise, weapon).

The first game starts off as a fairly regulation, if somewhat pretty, post-Keen platformer. The point that turns it around, however, is level 7, The Forest. This level is one of my favourites to this day. It seems relatively straightforward at first - but then you get the extra jumping power. This level introduces you to the game's love of opening up new areas as you access new abilities/weapons/items in the level - and, most importantly, to Jill's ability to transform. Toward the end of the level, Jill transforms into one of the phoenix enemies, granting her the power of flight as well as a flamethrower projectile (that the real phoenixes mercifully have to do without). Suddenly, the game changes, and you can explore the level freely, opening up new areas - including a treasure trove that you could see, but not access, in level 1. Many of the levels are linked in this way - hinting at things that you might find later.

The second episode, Jill Goes Underground, largely offers more of the same, albeit with something of a change of format: the map level is gone, and instead the game plays out in a linear fashion, albeit one that still encourages exploration to a degree. The level design here is excellent once again, opening with a challenging trek up the mushrooms seen in the first game's epilogue, before plunging you into the underground and working your way through devilish mazes, gauntlets of enemies and some outright strange areas, peaking with the eye-hurting Land of Eternal Weirdness. The game reaches an incredibly satisfying conclusion as, after your exhausting trek through the underground, you finally break through to the surface again.

The third episode - Jill Saves the Prince - suffers from a stunning sense of disconnection against the fist two. For a start, the map is back, but this time it's overhead. Where the first two games were connected - the second started at the end of the first - there seems to be no link between two and three. Also, the plot of a kidnapped prince comes out of absolutely nowhere - this isn't what we've been working toward for the last two games or anything, just suddenly - Jill is going to save a prince, the same way she might go down the shops, or do her taxes. The levels are well enough designed - and very challenging - but not quite as memorable as the first two. Nothing on the level of The Forest or Montezuma's Castle here, or even the Depths of Heck (I will never get over the fact that Americans seem to find the world hell so illicit). The level design will push you to your limits, however - culminating in levels 12 and 13, the former being on the border of impossible due to an overabundance of instant-kill spikes while the latter contains countless traps, including a false exit that leaves the game unbeatable. Odds are, however, that you'll never see it, as level 12 will sap your will to live. If you see the screenshot above, then it's already too late for you.

 
As the three episodes are all technically parts of the same game, they share a lot of assets, although each episode introduces some new stuff. Most of the graphics are exceptional for their time, and still look nice today, however, in episode 3 you will find the Ship of the Giant Lizard Men (which comes out of absolutely freaking nowhere), with the titular lizard men serving as enemies. Their sprites are the absolutely pits, the worst looking thing in all three games. I initially thought this level must be a joke, but as it turns out they're the ones who kidnapped the prince to start with. The sound is good, and the music was always bearable but not really memorable - there is nothing here that you'll be humming afterwards.

The gameplay is solid - run and jump, basically, with the knife being the only game mechanic that requires any mastery (the in-game help refers to using the knife as an art). The platforming is a bit dated - Jill is as stiff as a board and locks to grid quite nastily - you can actually have her frozen mid-running animation, if you time it right. This can make some tricky jumps even more ridiculous (seriously, level 12 of episode three can go suck it) but it's nothing that you can't get past with some practice.

I would have said I'd gotten worse at video games as I've gotten older, but I knocked over all three episodes in a little over 3 hours. Given that they're meant to be taken as one game, I think that's not an unreasonable length for the type of game in question. After Episode 1, you've pretty much seen everything - gameplay wise - that the games have to offer, but the subsequent episodes find new ways of using those mechanics and to get through episode 3 you will need to draw on everything you've learned thus far.

All in all, I think Jill holds up. Commander Keen it ain't, and many console fans of the time may turn their noses up at it, but it's a fun adventure that constantly challenges you to try new things and rarely throws up the same challenge twice. Not perfect, but still fun, and a
title I would happily recommend to anyone after a 2d platformer with which to kill an afternoon.

Life. Advanced.

It was freezing, and raining, and just generally one of those grey, dreary Melbourne days that just make me miss the old place so much. It was June 2001, and we were on a school trip of some kind that had taken us from Shepparton all the way into Melbourne City. What were we doing there? Couldn't tell you. National Gallery of Victoria? Italian Poetry Reading Competition? Whatever it was, we were Year 9 students, and once the event we were brought there for was over with, we were turned loose on the city. And when I say turned loose - well...

I remember a lot from that day. Riding elevators up and down with some friends of mine, because the elevators in Melbourne Central had a power-point and one of them needed to charge his phone. Traipsing the city high and low and marveling at all the crap we didn't have in Shepparton (which probably included power-point equipped elevators). We had no money, so we occupied ourselves with window shopping, racing from the top of Daimaru to the basement of the Little Collins St. David Jones (getting stopped by security was immediate disqualification), and, if I remember correctly, scouring several shops in which we'd wasted time for my backpack, which I had absentmindedly left somewhere.

And standing in front of Myer Bourke Street, hiding away from the freezing rain, staring at the TVs in the windows and watching this.

Anyone who read my first post will know how I feel about game commercials, and this one immediately spoke to me. It said: Doesn't this just look so cool? Aren't there people you'd like to throw vegetables at? Don't you want a Game Boy Advance? And by god, I did.

It was the week the GBA came out - actually, it was a Friday, so I'm willing to wager it was the day the GBA game out - and Myer had dedicated a good chunk of their AV department to the new handheld. There were interactive displays playing F-Zero, Kuru Kuru Kururin, Konami Krazy Racers and, of course, Super Mario Advance.

I had owned a Game Boy Pocket for about two and a half years at that point, and loved it to death, but the Game Boy Advance was one of those moments when you could sense the whole game was going to change. And I realised that the instant I picked up and played Super Mario Advance on that rainy, dismal day.

Mario Advance was a conversion of Super Mario Bros 2, the Western version anyway. (The Japanese version, known in the west as The Lost Levels, was ported to the Game Boy Color in 1999 as a pack with the original Super Mario Bros, the excellent Super Mario Bros DX). I knew the game - I had played Super Mario All Stars at friends' houses, I had even played the NES original once or twice, and it just rammed home the fact that here, on the GBA, we weren't in Kansas any more. The game was beautiful, in that way truly great 16-bit 2d games always will be, because they're timeless. But what this added - giant sprites, bright and bold colour graphics that were so superior to anything on the old Game Boys, both mono and colour. And the sound.

Oh, the sound.

The Game Boy's sound chip has its fans, and in the right hands, some great soundtracks have been produced (Link's Awakening is a particular favourite of mine). But, suddenly, from this pocket sized device, we had real, actual sound. Voices. Music - SNES quality music. Great sound effects. It was a revelation and it was what immediately hit me about the system. The step from Game Boy Pocket to Color was big, but the step from Game Boy Color to Advance was worthy of Neil Armstrong. I got a Game Boy Advance that Christmas, along with Mario Kart Super Circuit, and never looked back. Except, obviously, to play old games on it. Because, y'know, retro gaming and all that.

The GBA's launch line-up had some familiar games amongst the originals and it would become a hallmark of the system to feature ports of classic SNES and Mega Drive games, as well as a bevvy of Nintendo-published ports of NES and (more desirably) Famicom classics. Even when it was new, the Game Boy Advance was a retro gamer's dream, hosting enhanced conversions of all six of Mario's 8 and 16 bit adventures (alright, so SMB1 and The Lost Levels weren't so much 'enhanced' but they were good ports nonetheless); remakes of Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts; the entire Mickey's Magical Quest and Donkey Kong Country trilogies; R-Type III; the best ever portable versions of Doom, Doom 2 and Wolfenstein 3d; the first Rayman; a 4-in-1 cart featuring Afterburner, Space Harrier, Outrun and Super Hang-On - and countless others - far too many to list here. They weren't all perfect (and some, like Sonic Genesis in particular, were god-damn awful) but there is so much great stuff that any retro gamer will be in heaven with a GBA.

Of course, there are also many, many great originals for the system. As well as the system-launching Konami Krazy Racers, Konami also brought a trilogy of Castlevania games to the system - all of which are A+ caliber games - and Hideo Kojima's Boktai series that included a solar panel in the cartridge to encourage kids to get outside into the daylight (it's about vampire hunting, so hoarding sunlight is good). Elsewhere, Nintendo were willing to get creative with the system themselves and while they never made an original Mario game for the system, we did get Mario vs. Donkey Kong; the brilliantly written and downright hilarious Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga; Wario Ware Inc. and the incredibly fun and innovative Wario Ware Twisted. Kirby and the Amazing Mirror took the Kirby series in a bold new direction. The Minish Cap offered up a great new adventure in the Zelda saga that tried new and different things. Poke'mon's advanced generation - Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald - stumbled a little but should be applauded for trying to innovate within the formula, and LeafGreen and FireRed are both all-time classics, remakes the way remakes should be done. And though Sonic didn't get the same remake love that Mario did, it's made up for with a superb trilogy of brand-new Sonic games that always seem to get glossed over when people complain that Sonic lost his way in the mid-2000s.

Along with all of the above, more game studios than the mind can comfortably comprehend released more triple-A titles for this system than you would believe. There's a lot of shovelware, sure, but there's also so much good stuff that building up a library of quality titles is dead easy, especially now, with the games all played and tested by the community so thoroughly. GBA games - even really good ones - can still be found quite cheap. For playing them on, I would recommend either a GBA SP or DS Lite (the GBA SP has the added benefit of playing classic Game Boy games, though the DS Lite, of course, also plays DS games). Both can be found at reasonable prices online. GBA games are also available on the Wii U virtual console (although not, for some reason, the 3DS).

The GBA is a console anyone with an interest in retro games should own. Just remember to play it loud.

Have you played Atari today?

I was sitting in a cafe playing a game of Donkey Kong on my Game Boy Advance when a friend of mine commented he used to play that all the time on his Atari 7800. Which made him the first person I'd ever met in real life who owned one.

The Atari 7800 is a console I hold a deep soft spot for, for the same reason I have a soft spot for the Atari Jaguar, the Sega 32X and the 3DO - they were all consoles with great potential that was never really fulfilled. The Atari 7800 was meant to be released in 1984 - a potential way for Atari to break out of the video game crash and return to dominance. For 1984, the games were impressive - breathtaking conversions of Pole Position II, Xevious, Ms Pac Man and others would have kickstarted the next generation.

What happened next - the arrival of Jack Tramiel and the shift of Atari's focus, the dealy of the system's launch for two to three years - is well documented. The point is, however, that by the time the 7800 finally made it out there, the NES was already on sale, dominating the market, and in the US Atari had to settle for a very distant second. In Europe and Australia, it trailed even further behind, beaten out by the Master System, which dominated both territories.

If, like me, you're intrigued by the curio that is the Atari 7800, you will be interested by EMU7800, available now on the Windows Store for both touch-screen and key-driven devices. A fantastic compilation of classic 7800 games, along with a handful of Atari-published classics for the 2600 for good measure, all emulated perfectly.

To be frank, there's not a lot to be said about the emulation. Both the 7800 and 2600 could be comfortably emulated on a modern slide rule, really, so the more interesting element is the interface. Tapping or clicking on the settings button in-game will bring up the on console controls, including difficulty and game select toggles, colour and b/w and the ability to switch which input the controller is plugged into. The game supports XBox 360 controllers with several convenient mappings (including Game Select/Reset on the triggers - anyone who has played a 2600 will know how helpful that is - and the right analogue stick being set to player 2's control, rendering Raiders of the Lost Ark - one of the included games - playable). I haven't tested the touch screen controls as I don't have a touch-screen compatible Windows device, but the simple controls of many of the games (the 2600 only has one fire button, after all) means it should work well, I would hope. Light gun games can be played with the mouse. All in all, it's quite intuitive and anything you can't work out should be sorted after a quick glance at the help menu.

The selection of games is impressive, and they can be selected from a fairly simple (if clearly touch-screen oriented) menu that breaks them down by system, by publisher and finally by designer. The games included are almost all Atari-published titles for both the 2600 and 7800, and - impressively - a large handful of homebrew titles that give a really good sense of what the 7800 could have been capable of. Classics such as Ninja Golf (yes, you read that right) , Donkey Kong, Ms. Pac Man and Galaga populate the 7800 list while Yar's Revenge, Combat and the all time classic E.T. The Extra Terrestrial wave the 2600 flag (yes, that's right, this title includes the worst game of all time(tm) (c)). You can apparently add ROMS to it, but I haven't yet tried it (the obvious missing pieces would be the Activision classics like River Raid).

The love for the source material that has gone into this project is clear and the quantity and quality of the content is excellent. While far form a comprehensive selection of games, what is on offer is very good. The 7800 ports of games like Xevious and originals like Alien Brigade (in both light gun and controller mode) are good fun and 2600 games like Adventure and Yar's are a fantastic example that sometimes it's the simplest things that work best. If you have a windows compatible device, I can't think of a reason why you shouldn't get EMU7800. It's a quality product from top to bottom and will provide hours and hours of good clean fun.