Retro Spectives

During the era of the PlayStation 2 three iconic series defined their generation of 3D platformers: Jack and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, and finally - Sly Cooper.  
With its strange cell shaded graphics, light stealth elements, and old school level design, it never quite hit the level of popularity that the other two enjoyed.

Is Sly Cooper secretly the best of the bunch? Or should it stay hidden in the shadows where it belongs?

On this episode, we argue about:

• How best to structure a system of collectibles?  Sly demands an all or nothing approach.  Would a more gradual system have been preferable?
• Is Sly Cooper really a stealth game? Or is there merely a thin coat of stealth paint splashed across the platformer’s surface?
• Are the platforming mechanics in Sly engaging?  The game features a lot of ‘lock on’ platforming, where you press a button near an object to grab it.  Is this a fun and forgiving way to zoom through the game, or does it disempower the player?

We answer these questions and many more on the 34th episode of the Retro Spectives Podcast!

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The game worked well for us following this guide except for some occasional slowdowns.

Is the first Sly Cooper game the best game in the franchise?  Is Pat a complete moron for refusing to pick up the collectables?  Are there any other platformers we should play?  Let us know on our community discord server! 

We’re a text based community so feel free to lurk in the shadows if that’s more your style.

The Tribes series has always delivered a unique and high octane multiplayer experience, with players zipping along at breakneck speed across massive maps.  The combination of jetpacking, skiing, and terrible weapons led to a fast paced kind of fun that you can have nowhere else. In 2004 Irrational Games, of System Shock 2 fame, decided to change things up and delivered a full fledged single-player campaign alongside its multiplayer offerings in the form of Tribes Vengeance.

But can Tribes Vengeance hang with its multiplayer brethren?  Is transposing the mechanics of a multiplayer shooter into a single player experience really the recipe for a good campaign?  Or is it simply another multiplayer shooter with a fancy tutorial?

On this episode, we discuss:

• How good is the much lauded story of Tribes: Vengeance?  Is it as good as all those journalists said, a horrific mess, or something in between?
• To what degree does the single player capture the essential fun of the multiplayer experience?
• Just how much variety is there throughout the game?  Does broader context lead to varied combat encounters, or is the lack of enemy variety and dynamism inherently repetitive?

We answer these questions and many more on the 33rd episode of the Retro Spectives Podcast!
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Tribes Revengeance Download Page

Official links to Tribes: Vengeance are unfortunately dead.  The 100% FREE unofficial fan repack works great though!

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If you enjoyed the episode then come and join us on our discord server! Whether you want to hang out, suggest a new game for us to play, or simply call us idiots for our terrible opinions, we’d love for you to drop by!

Archimedean Dynasty takes place in a dystopian future where mankind has been forced to retreat deep underneath the Earth’s oceans.  A literal crust of dead organic matter coats the surface of the oceans, trapping the scant remnants of humanity beneath. In this grim world, all that is left to mankind is a precarious existence within the fragile mining stations that pepper the ocean’s floor. Yet despite these harsh realities, money still rules supreme. And it is your job, as legendary mercenary Emerald “Dead Eye” Flint, to make as much of it as you can while navigating the political turmoil of the far (wetter) future.

And what a job it is, piloting your single person submarine in flight-sim fashion, destroying enemy vessels, escorting vulnerable targets and defending important locations.  

But has the gameplay and story of this 1996 title truly stood the test of time?  Is it still fun to pilot the ocean’s depths with basically zero draw distance? With the fourth entry in the franchise due to release soon, is the original title even worth playing?

On this episode, we discuss:

• How should background lore be delivered to the player?  Archimedean Dynasty has a huge manual with its world history that should be read before playing the game.  Is this better or worse than having the information gradually dispersed in game?
• What are the consequences of having a story presented almost entirely in dialogue between characters?  Should this game also have had descriptive text to better set the scene?
• How well is information presented to the pilot of the submarine?  WIth very low visibility on the ocean floor, you need to rely on your sensors and radar to properly navigate your environs.

We answer these questions and many more on the 32nd episode of the Retro Spectives Podcast!

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Archimedean Dynasty Augmented Mod

Includes a bunch of bug fixes, translation improvements and balance changes.  Highly recommended!

Game Manual

Archimedean Dynasty’s game manual features 30 pages of some of the best alternate history that either of us have ever read.

If you are in anyway interested in this game, be sure to check it out!

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Are Aquanox and Aquanox 2 games that are also worth playing? Is the kickstarted sequel going to live up to the originals? Come join the discussion and let us know what you think on our community discord server!

When Sonic the Hedgehog was first released in 1991 it blew everyone's minds.  Featuring gorgeous graphics, fast paced gameplay and an iconic mascot, Sega finally had a title that could compete with Mario.  Sonic the Hedgehog was the reason to own a Sega Genesis, on a console that had otherwise failed to impress.

But how well has the original Sonic held up by today’s standards?  We’ve made vast strides in refining 2D platformers in the past 30 years, not only in the Sonic franchise, but across the board.  Can the original really stand up to the test of time? Is Sonic The Hedgehog still a game worth playing today?

On this episode, we discuss:

• Just how fast do you actually go in this game?  While it’s theoretically possible to reach ludicrous speeds, levels are filled with trolls and traps.  Can a new player have any reasonable expectation of going fast?
• Which is the more enjoyable platforming experience?  Using memorisation to perfectly navigate a level? Or relying on reaction speeds to deftly thread the needle?
• Sonic was originally designed to be played from start to finish with no checkpoints or saving.  Modern iterations and ports, however, have both. Is having saving a strict improvement, or is there some merit to the iron mode of original Sonic?

We answer these questions, and many more, on the 31st episode of the Retro Spectives Podcast!

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If you enjoyed the episode and are in need of more Retro Spectives, then head on over to our website for more episodes and articles, or you can tell  us directly what you think of Sonic on our text based community discord server!

Originally released in 1990 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Crystalis was not a smash hit upon release.  It was considered just another action rpg, another zelda-clone. But in the years that followed, it slowly developed a cult following, many of who now believe it to be one of the strongest titles that was ever released for the NES.

Join Pat and James as they travel further back in time than ever before in their quest to separate the all time classics from titles that have aged like milk. Does Crystalis still have what it takes 30 years later or has modern game design left it in the dust?

In order to answer this question, Pat and James dive deep on the following topics:

• Does Crystalis’ story hold up to the hype? Post-apocalyptic settings have evolved greatly since its release and videogame writing even moreso.
• Can a strong sense of progression fill the void of fun left by the simplistic and repetitive gameplay of the NES era?
• Grinding: The good, the bad and the extremely ugly. Just how much is too much?

We discuss these topics, and many more, on the 30th episode of the Retro Spectives Podcast!

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If you enjoyed the episode then come and join us on our discord server! Whether you want to hang out, suggest a new game for us to play, or simply call us idiots for our terrible opinions, we’d love for you to drop by!

First released in 1999, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 is widely considered to be one of the best turn based strategy games ever made.  To this day it has a fanatical online following who strive to understand all the intricacies of the title. There are layers upon layers of complexity on display here, from the economic management to troop compositions and how you manage your various heroes.

But is it still fun to play today?  The strategy genre has had 20 years to refine itself into something a lot more sophisticated.  There are millions of different takes on 4x strategy games, from Endless Space to Civilization.  And that’s to say nothing of the other 4 Heroes titles that have come out since then. Has this third entry in the series, more than 20 years later, actually stood the test of time?

In this episode, we discuss:

• How does the economy of the game actually work?  Heroes 3 has a different set of economic chokepoints than typical strategy games.  Do they create interesting decision points, or do you just slam your econom production into overdrive?
• Does Heroes 3 have diversity in general gameplay experiences?  The game boasts an impressive 8 factions, 16 hero types, a diverse skill tree and hundreds of spells and artifacts, but does translate more significant strategic divergence than a 3 faction approach like in Starcraft?
• Is the lack of balance in the game a problem?  Heroes 3 features some absolutely off the wall insane magical spells and abilities that break the game in half.  Is this a problem, or does the random chance of going off add to the experience as a whole?

We answer these questions, and many more, on the 29th episode of the Retro Spectives Podcast! 

If you enjoyed the show and would like to continue the conversation, feel free to head on over to our Discord which you can  find here or on our website. Thanks for listening!

In 2004, an insane man named Keita Takahashi was given an enormous bucket of money and was told he could make a video-game with it. He decided to make a game about God getting drunk and destroying each and every star. The obvious fix for this silly mistake was for his son to roll up objects on Earth into a sticky ball using something called a Katamari, which he could then turn into stars...somehow.

And that's the entire game of Katamari Damacy. You roll things up into your Katamari, allowing it to grow and roll up increasingly larger objects. You go from hoovering up paperclips and thumbtacks, to soda cans and dog bowls and eventually even chairs and fence posts! After that, well...it starts to get a little out of hand. But for all its novelty and weirdness, is Katamari Damacy actually a fun game to play?

On this episode, we discuss:

• Should Katamari Damacy’s levels have a time limit? Is this best enjoyed as a purely zen experience, or does an element of anxiety add to the experience?
• What’s the deal with the control scheme? Why does up go left and down go right? Is this a controller nightmare or does this weird setup have its advantages?
• Speaking of weird, this is the one of the most bizzare games we’ve ever played. Is it off putting and random, or thematically cohesive and charming?

We answer these questions and many more on the 28th Episode of the Retro Spectives Podcast!

If you enjoyed the episode then come and join us on our discord server! Whether you want to hang out, suggest a new game for us to play, or simply call us idiots for our terrible opinions, we’d love for you to drop by!

In 2019 we played a lot of games. Some of them were brilliant classics that easily stood the test of time. Others were mediocre and outdated, and deservedly forgotten. Most of them, however, fall somewhere in between - excelling in certain areas while failing in others.

On this episode, we seek to highlight the absolute best aspects of these games...but also the worst, most soul crushing parts. Which game had the best graphics? Which game had the worst music? What was the most soul crushing individual moment? These are the highs and lows of Season 1 of the Retro Spectives Podcast.

On this episode, we discuss:

• What is it that makes a good story? Good characters, plot, theming, or just plain old fun?
• What is it that constitutes gameplay? Something purely mechanical, or something far more holistic?
• Is there any topic that we can respectfully disagree on, or do we always insist that a given opinion is superior to another? (of course we do, duh)

We answer these questions and many more on the 27th episode of the Retro Spectives Podcast!

If you enjoyed the episode then come and join us on our discord server! Whether you want to hang out, suggest a new game for us to play, or simply call us idiots for our terrible opinions, we’d love for you to drop by!

Over the past year, the Retro Spectives Podcast has started to see a small community of gamers join up to our discord server.  We talk old video-games, new video games, and tend to get into a lot of arguments over exactly which ARPGS suck and why.

As we end this year, we thought it would be fun to open up our mailbag for questions from these users.  And they all delivered with some fantastic questions! We got to talk in depth about games and their mechanics, both from the show and 2019.  We got to revisit old arguments and even got into entirely new ones! Thanks to everyone who submitted questions, keep ‘em coming!

On this episode, we discuss:

• What are the worst opinions of both James and Pat according to the other person?  It took hours to narrow down from the available possibilities, but we got there in the end.
• Is there anything that games of the past used to do that new games no longer feature?  Were they changed for the better, or has something been lost in the process?
• How many times can Patrick mention Dark Souls in an hour and 40 minutes?  The estimated over/under is 10.

We answer these questions from our listeners, and many more on the 26th episode of the Retro Spectives Podcast!  We’ll see you in a fortnight to conclude our 2019 wrap up with our GOTY episode!

If you enjoyed the episode or wanted to submit questions for future episodes, then come and hang out with us over on discord  and for everything else, checkout our website at rsPodcast.net for all sorts of articles about the games we love and hate!

From Software is amongst the most critically acclaimed software developers of all time. Since 2009’s Demon’s Souls, they’ve released nothing but incredible titles and Dark Souls 2. But long before Hidtaka Miyazaki joined the company, From was mainly known for a completely different series: Armored Core.

First released in 1997 for the Playstation 1, Armored Core was an immediate hit, letting players fly around and destroy other enormous robots in short and intense bursts. But is it still a joy to play, with the advent of better control schemes and more refined graphics? Does Armored Core do its descendants proud in being a brilliant title?

On this episode, we discuss:

• Are you the bad guy? You work for a mercenary group called the Ravens, who accept contracts from all sides. Is any of the work you accept morally...dubious in nature?
• How well implemented is the customisation? Can you construct your mech in whatever fashion you choose, or are you railroaded into certain builds?
• Who designed this control scheme, and what's the easiest way to shoot them in the head? Spoiler: It ain’t in a mech!

We answer these questions, and many more, on the 25th episode of the Retro Spectives Podcast!

If you enjoyed the show and would like to continue the conversation, feel free to head on over to our Discord which you can  find here or on our website. Thanks for listening!