This week Fred flies solo to discuss the shoot-em-up (shmup) series Salamander, better known as Life Force in the United States. He discusses the various games from the arcade titles to the NES/Famicom port, to even the MSX and PC-Engine (Turbografx-16) ports. Additionally the connections to series Gradius are discussed and the various ways to play the games today. He also announces April's game club title.
I just had to re-blog this amazing post from Gaming History 101. It contains a podcast episode about Salamander/Life Force, one of my all-time favorite games.
Please spend some time listening to the podcast, as it contains a lot of interesting information on the game. :) Highly recommended!
I used to play the MSX-version quite a lot in the past and I still have my old cartridge in my collection. It is like a Holy Grail for me. ;)
Hope you'll enjoy it and that you'll pay Gaming History 101 a visit and support them with a comment.
A screenshot of the website called Blow the Cartridge (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
Hi guys,
Just found out about an awesome website called Blow the Cartridge. It contains a ton of retro gaming comics, inspired by your old favourite (or possible non favourite) games. You can even request the author to draw a comic for the game of your choice.
If you’re interested in checking out, please click on the link below:
First of all, I’d like to wish you all a Happy New Year! Hope you’ll have a great 2013!
As you can see from the logo above (thanks to The Heretic for making that one for me by the way), this is another piece about my collection of old-school games.
This time I’d like to present a true gem in my Amiga collection. The name of the game is Colonization and it was created by none other than Sid Meier/MicroProse. The Amiga version was released back in 1995 and it came on three floppy disks. It requires 1MB of RAM to run. You can install it to a hard drive if you want.
Here’s a photo of the box. They sure knew how to make inviting box art back then. It is in pretty good condition as well (photo by Old School Game Blog).
Here’s the back of the box. “Be there at the Birth of a Nation!” (photo by Old School Game Blog).
So, what kind of game is Colonization? It is a turn-based strategy game where the aim is to colonize a new world and later on secede from the country you came from, just like what happened to the United States in our own history. You’ll have to wage war, build towns and cities, be a clever fox in the art of diplomacy and earn resources and gold through trade to succeed in your quest.
The game is quite complex, but it’s not too difficult to learn, since it contains a decent tutorial. If you’ve played one of the Civilization games on the PC or another platform, you should feel right at home with Colonization. As you can see from the photo below, the game comes with a ton of manuals and instructions.
The manuals and disks. All in good condition. On the far left, you can see the official strategy guide for the game (photo by Old School Game Blog).
Colonization received favourable reviews in several Amiga magazines back in the 1990′s. Amiga Format gave it 95%, Amiga Power 93% and CU Amiga 91%.
One thing which I think is great with the Amiga version is that it utilizes the OS of the computer to the full. When you play the game for the first time, it is immediately clear that the developers have made an Amiga specific version tailored to suit the OS and hardware. I’ve embedded a few screenshots below, so that you can see for yourself.
I’ve had a lot of fun playing Colonization on the Amiga in the past. It is a great strategy game, featuring nice graphics and very atmospheric colonial music. Speaking of music.. I’ve included the theme song from Colonization (Amiga version) for you to listen to below. Isn’t it nice? The screenshots in the video are from the PC version by the way..
Any other fans of Colonization out there? Would love to hear from you and your memories of the game. Thanks in advance for commenting!
Back in April last year I wrote a review of the Amiga CD32 version of Rise of the Robots. While browsing YouTube, I found a video review of the SEGA Genesis (MegaDrive) edition of the game by Stan Burdman. I’ve only played ROTR on the Amiga, so it was interesting to see how it looked on the SEGA. Apparently the game wasn’t very playable on that platform either..
I’ve embedded it below, so that you can check it out yourself. Hope you’ll enjoy it!
What is your opinion about the Rise of the Robots? Hope to hear from you.
)!
The screenshots in the video are from the PC version by the way..
