martyn carroll

Primal Rage

It has been done Wil, but it was right at the beginning. Issue 6 or something. Need a revisit for sure

Could also be an early Atlantis title, but nothing seems to match there

Trying to suss out your Speccy game collection. I can see Combat Lynx (big box), View to a Kill, an Imagine Ocean-era release (Yie Ar Kung-Fu?), Zoids, and what looks like four from Creative Sparks (Orc Attack, Danger Mouse, and a couple of other I can't make out)

Bit of a treasure trove that DVD Nick! Some lovely Nintendo character art on there, plus Miyamoto wielding a plastic sword and shield to reveal Twilight Princess! But the highlight has to be show floor photos from E3 and TGS 2004. Amazing

Bookmarked

Nice little time capsule I spotted today in the one-screen cinema in Aberystwyth

Love this, looks great. Shooting backwards = essential!

Britsoft’s finest Rare was incorporated as a company on this date 40 years ago. According to the doc on Companies House, it was called Chameleon, then The Stamper Group, before they finally settled on Rare. Here is the firm’s very first logo.

I'll see your Metroid Prime 4 and raise you...

And here's the magazine ad and game packaging

Here's a larger version of the fold-out map that came with the game, showing the town of Bridgton (and THE MIST creeping in from the east)

The making of Stephen King's The Mist: "It's kind of hard for a text adventure to be scary" Tales from the Retro Crypt – Chapter One

Did you know that Stephen King’s novella The Mist inspired Half-Life? You did? But did you know that there was an actual computer game based on The Mist, released in 1985? I wrote about it for a magazine article published a few years back, which you can read online.

I've written a few pages about PS1 classic Dino Crisis and its big-ass lizards in this issue. On sale now

(Also reminded that Mandarin/Database/Europress were based in the same building that Live Publishing later occupied and Retro Gamer started)

Some background on the winner (and seller of the item), from New Computer Express (Apr 22, 1989).

(Vessel do nicely?? I'm having that)

> GO EBAY
> GET TREASURE
A 'holy grail', awarded as a competition prize to promote the 1988 Level 9 adventure game Lancelot, has surfaced on eBay.
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/26717938...

A press photograph supplied by Sony in 2000, showing the PlayStation 2 standing vertically, with the blue vertical stand attached. A blue disc is in the console's open disc tray. A control pad and memory card are also shown.

The PlayStation 2 is 25 years old today! Sony's highly anticipated second system launched on 4th March 2000 in Japan, and eventually became the best-selling home console of all time. Retro Gamer 270 will be available next week, and we'll be celebrating the PS2 and its fantastic library of games.

There's a old interview with Don here where he says Dictator is his own personal favourite worldofspectrum.net/interviews/P...

He got into games relatively late, having started out as a teacher. In the 1980s, when in his 40s, he programmed around 20 titles for the ZX81 and Spectrum. In 1989 he quit the industry and returned to teaching, believing the days of the lone programmer to be over.

His cartoon-style games came about because the licensor insisted that Popeye must look like Popeye - pipe, anchor tattoo, the lot. To fulfil this, the characters needed to be sufficiently large to include all this detail. Somehow he made it work. This would become his signature style.

Sad news: programmer Don Priestley, best known for his cartoon-style games like Trap Door and Popeye, passed away late last year after a short illness. One of Don’s friends shared the news on a Facebook comment. RIP Don (1940-2024), your games shine on.

Alien, the Italian edition 👍

Your Sinclair, Amiga Power Legend And "Funniest Living Englishman" Jonathan Nash Has Died "The only person I was ever prepared to write with"

Your Sinclair, Amiga Power Legend And "Funniest Living Englishman" Jonathan Nash Has Died.

Well this is rather lovely Readly has awarded us for being the most-read gaming publication of 2024. Thanks to everyone that enjoys the mag.

Sounds like PC Games Action from IDG Media. Came out around 1999, short-lived.

The covers of Retro Gamer issues 255-267, featuring The 90s: A Decade of Definitive Games, Crash Bandicoot, The 100 Greatest Retro Games, the Game Boy Advance, Super Metroid, Nintendo's Iconic Hardware Innovations, the PSP, The Spectrum, Ridge Racer, Sonic Generations, Tekken and the Nintendo DS.

Just before 2024 ends, we thought we'd take a look back at our covers for the year. Which was your favourite, and what would you like to see on future covers? Let us know, and we'll see you in 2025!

"This looks like the sad lad of the pack..."

As PlayStation turns 30 today, let's remind ourselves of this bold prediction by C&VG in 1992.

We may laugh, but the mag was talking about an early prototype PlayStation. Still, it's clear to see that NO-ONE saw Sony coming #PlayStation