Tired of killing creatures such as goblins, elves, druids, etc.? Then do I have a game for you. Fallout 2 is a game that’s totally revolutionary; with a post apocalyptic world, violence, and a lot of side quests.There’s an infinite amount of things to do in this game, which will make you want to play through it several times.
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Super Real Basketball (known in America as ‘Pat Riley Basketball’) is a game that I remember fondly. Developed by SEGA and released on the Genesis and Master System, it features 8 fictional teams complete with fictional coaches (you wanted Pat Riley to be your coach? too bad, he isn’t in the game) and 2 modes. In 1990 NBA Jam and NBA Live were a few years away and basketball games were in their infancy. The interesting thing about Super Real Basketball is the way it attempts to be a simple arcade bball game while including some realistic features, and it plays pretty well too.

The main gimmick of SRB is the quick time events that occur when you try to shoot from close range.

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For the first edition of Retro Thursday, I will be talking about one of my personal favorites for the Atari 2600: Kaboom.

The game was released in 1981 by Activision and designed by Larry Kaplan.  It used the special paddle controllers to control the game, which consisted of catching falling bombs dropped by the “Mad Bomber”. Moving the paddle’s knob moved the buckets from side to side, and pressing the button after a round starts a new one. Each round the bombs drop faster and faster, and if you miss you lose a bucket (you have three).

This gem featured a sort of two player mode where the each player takes turns to play the game. If you had the system’s game selection to a, the buckets are smaller, and the game becomes harder. Because of its simplicity and addictive like gameplay, Kaboom was a huge success, and sold over one million cartridges by 1983. It spawned a remake for the Atari 5200, as well as one planned for the SNES, but was never released. Kaboom even had a small electronic handheld keychain around 1998.

If you ever come across this and have never played it, please do so. It has aged a bit, but will never lose its charm.

Kaboom is free to play here

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is the third game in the Zelda series and the only game in the series to be released for the Super Nintendo system. It also saw two re-releases recently: The first of which was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past & Four Swords, released in 2003 the game was almost a direct port save for some minor changes and the addition of a multiplayer mode that contained randomly generated dungeons. The second was for the Wii Virtual Console with a January 22nd 2007 release, this was however identical to the SNES version. A Link to the Past also has a direct sequel which was only released in Japan, The Legend of Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets, however because this game was only playable through BS-X (A peripheral used to download SNES games over satellite only released in Japan) it is no longer avaliable and was only playable for a month.

The story revolves around a character known as Agahnim, a dark wizard who takes the throne of Hyrule by force whom intends on freeing Ganon from his prison in another realm. The only way to defeat him is by collecting three magic pendants obtained by beating the first three boss’s in the first three dungeons. Once he is defeated, you are subsequently sent to the dark realm where you must free the seven descendants of the Seven Sages in order to face Agahnim again in Ganon’s Tower. After defeating him for a second and final time Ganon rises up from Agahnim’s body, turns into a bat, and flies away. He can then be found in the Pyramid of Power, where the games final battle takes place.

Some would have found this difficult in the good old days…

A Link to the Past was the second game in the series to use the overhead style of play after Zelda II’s venture into the realm of side scrolling, the decision to do this came about from the poor reception Zelda II got for this very reason. The game has a very basic combat system in that one button is used to slash your sword and one button can be used for an item; these vary from cross bows and and boomerangs to bombs and wands. You can also hold down your sword button for a charge attack which swings your sword 360 degrees. Item collecting is also an important part of the game in that, without certain objects such as flippers for swimming or the Master Sword you can’t finish the game. On top of Link’s regular gear you can also find stronger versions of most items in the later parts of the game. Link to the past uses the heart health system which has been a main stay of the series, through out the game you are also rewarded (Or will find) pieces of heart which, when four are placed together, adds to your health bar.

Puzzles within dungeons also return from the first Zelda game. They can range from simple things such as pushing a certain brick in a room to unlock a door after defeating one or two enemies; to the more annoying like having two lasers being fired at you every few seconds while you lift up 10 or so pots to find a button. They do add some spice to the game though as I will admit dungeons would get rather boring if it was just hack and slash the whole way through. On top of that secret rooms also play a big part through out the game as they can be a good source of health or arrows/bombs, alot of the time there’s also alot of rupees to be found. These are usually accessed via the use of a bomb to a cracked wall.

It looked good back then, and still does today!

It’s hard to judge a game on graphics this old, with a title like this it’s more about game play then what the game looks like. However in this case the game does look rather presentable and is probably the best example of a top-down perspective RPG game of this style for it’s era. Beyond the fact that it uses cartoon’ish style graphics and well done 2D sprites, there’s not a hell of alot you can say about it besides the fact that it’s a beautiful, albeit, old game.

While this might be a bold claim i’ve said it quite a few times in the past. Alot of people ask or get asked the question, “Which Zelda game do you think is the best?”. Majority of the time the answer is Ocarina of Time, however i’m not so inclined to agree. Going off game play alone and looking past how old the game is, the top-down style and the fairly average graphics; I find Link to the Past to be the best game in the series bar none and easily one of the greatest games of our time.