We’ve reached another add-on with a fairly substantial library, and that means it gets a list of its own. The SEGA-CD, or MEGA-CD, wasn’t a smash success by any means, but it wasn’t the failure it’s sometimes painted as either. The libarary has a couple hundred games or so in it, and while its lows are very low, the highs are nothing to sneeze at. As usual, these are just my favorite games and may not reflect what I would put in a “Best Games” list. I’m also only including games...| Post Game Content
Right, I probably should have seen this coming. When Hamster does publisher-specific Arcade Archives sales, they usually come in two waves. Well, here’s the second wave of its Taito sale. You can still pick up the games from the first wave on sale, and I’ve already talked about those games in an earlier post. We’ve got ten more games to check out here, and while local prices may vary you should be seeing something in the neighborhood of a 30% discount once the sale kicks in. These games...| Post Game Content
In many ways we are living in a golden age for retro game rereleases. It used to be that only the biggest and most beloved of hits had any real guarantee of getting brought back. We are now in an era where even the likes of Nickelodeon’s G.U.T.S. for the Super NES is getting reissued. That makes it totally fine that the Jaleco IP’s current owner, City Connection, has given a relatively high-effort treatment to some Famicom games that Nintendo probably wouldn’t even take for free on Swit...| Post Game Content
Time for the Super NES edition of my Favorite Games series. Nintendo’s 16-bit console arrived later to the party than some, which gave it a fair few technological advantages. Curiously, it fell short of the competition in a few ways too. But it’s games that make the console, and Nintendo and its third-party partners didn’t rest on their laurels here by any means. As usual, I’m only including official releases from the console’s original commercial lifespan. Also, these are just my f...| Post Game Content
This is basically just a tradition at this point. It’s been a hot minute since the last Arcade Archives sale, and the time has finally come to blow some money on more old arcade games. The last sale was in May and centered around Namco titles, and this one follows that pattern with a focus on Taito games. It’s a 30% discount this time around, which is modest but meaningful. Ten titles, some of which have been on sale before. Adding another twist to the shopping decisions, many of these ha...| Post Game Content
It feels like just yesterday that Boulder Dash was celebrating its 35th anniversary, and only a couple days ago its 30th. Time, folks. I have fond memories of playing the original Boulder Dash on my Commodore 64 back when it was new. It’s quite a game, and one that is actually pretty difficult to build on directly apart from adding new levels. That’s largely what BBG Entertainment has been doing since it acquired the rights to Boulder Dash, along with applying various new (and sometimes t...| Post Game Content
SEGA was the last to arrive to the handheld battle of the early 1990s, with the Game Gear launching the year after the Nintendo Game Boy and Atari Lynx made the scene. The Game Gear shared a lot with the SEGA Master System, and that extends even to its software library. Still, some of those games played better on one format than the other for various reasons, so don’t expect this list of favorites to map exactly to my Master System list. And hey, the console had plenty of exclusives of its ...| Post Game Content
Sometimes one’s memory plays tricks on them, and that’s what happened here for me. I remember the NEOGEO releasing after the Super Famicom/NES, not before. It actually came out several months before! That makes it the next console for me to list my favorite games for. A reminder that I will include multiple entries from a series, even if that means they might dominate a list. I’m mentioning that because it’s a very real possibility with this console. House rules on this list are the u...| Post Game Content
The Atari Lynx did not have a massive library, particularly if we only look at what was made available during its original commercial lifespan. With that said, unofficial releases started almost immediately after Atari dropped the handheld. The Atari Lynx was far from a success back in the day, but it has become a cult favorite of many handheld gaming fans. This was an easier console to pick my favorite games for in some ways, but a challenging one in others. Like usual, these are my favorite...| Post Game Content
ININ Games is taking its time bringing out the five volumes of Irem arcade games that it initially announced. We’ve just recently seen the the third set release, and it offers up three different shoot 'em ups from the prolific arcade game creator. Not that one that everyone associates with Irem, though. No, here we’ve got the relatively well-known Mr. Heli and the lesser-known but still not invisible Mystic Riders and Dragon Breed. Well, let’s dig in and see how these fare on the Ninten...| Post Game Content
The next gaming platform on my timeline for these rankings is Nintendo’s Game Boy. It launched in 1989 and had an incredibly long retail life, which translates out to a very large library. I’ve picked my favorites from that selection, and it was not easy. A couple of rules, as usual. Only games released during the original commercial life of the platform count, but all regions are fair game. No modern homebrews, though. I’ve made one tough executive decision, too. Only original Game Boy...| Post Game Content
It took me a little while to decide what to do about the PC Engine. It felt wrong to not include the CD games at all, since they’re a huge part of the console’s identity. But if I included the PC Engine CD games with the Hucard games, then surely the only fair thing to do would be to include the SEGA-CD and 32X games in the Mega Drive ranking. That didn’t feel right either. So in the end, I split everything up. That means this list is just my favorite TurboGrafx/PC Engine CD games. I al...| Post Game Content
Time for a big one, at least as far as classic consoles go. The Mega Drive/Genesis was a very successful machine globally, and that means its library ended up having a lot of interesting angles to it. As a result, I think people’s lists of favorite games on the console will vary wildly. I am here to share mine. Similar rules apply here as for the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16. No SEGA-CD or 32X; they’ll have their own time to shine. All regions are acceptable, but they have to be games that rel...| Post Game Content
Once again, I have to apologize if I’m skipping a platform you love. I did a Commodore 64 list because I owned one back in the day, but I don’t feel like I’ve experienced enough of computers like the Amiga, Spectrum, Apple II, PC-8801, Atari 8-Bit, and so on to make similar lists. Perhaps one day? For now, I’ll be trucking along with more familiar turf for me. Following the timeline along, the next console is NEC’s PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16. This is going to be a fun one. As ever, I h...| Post Game Content
I perhaps don’t talk about it as much as I should, but the first thing I had in my home that was capable of playing video games was a Commodore 64 computer. We got one when the price had hit near rock-bottom, and while I really wanted an NES or even a Master System, I was appreciative for what I had. It’s with the C64 that I discovered my love of RPGs, and also learned the valuable lesson that the same game could be very different on different platforms. This list more than most will be e...| Post Game Content
I sure do love those Arcade Archives releases from Hamster. I grab old favorites or games I’d heard about in the past and wanted to try, plus pretty much every game that ends up discounted during sales. Every once in a while, a game I know nothing about shows up. If it seems interesting, I’ll often take the punt. That’s what I did this week with the latest release, Ryukyu. This game apparently saw release on Japanese home computers first, developed by ASCII and Login Soft. It then got p...| Post Game Content
Okay, let me say this one up-front: I apologize to all the Colecovision fans out there, but I won’t be doing a list like this for that console. I just don’t have enough experience with it. The next list will be the Commodore 64. Anyway, the Intellivision. It’s a rather neat console, one that had a rollercoaster life. As a would-be rival to the Atari 2600, it brought the requisite sports and arcade ports to the fight. But it also tried to do a little more, incorporating ideas from more c...| Post Game Content
I know, I don’t really do news here all that much these days. Still, I like to mention these Arcade Archives sales just because they’re somewhat rare and easy to miss if you aren’t paying attention. For the last few years, Hamster has dedicated the month of May to Namco. That usually translates to some highly-requested releases and a sale on some games, and 2025 is following suit. Many of these have been on sale before, but it’s still worth having a look. As usual, you get 30% off the...| Post Game Content
This is a Jeff Minter game for people who like Jeff Minter games. I’m saying that because I think whatever else Jeff Minter’s games do, whether they be originals or remakes or reimaginings, they are first and foremost in the Jeff Minter genre. Have you enjoyed a Jeff Minter game before? Then you will probably enjoy I, Robot well enough. It has the psychedelic imagery. It has braying farm animals. Random words sometimes appear while you’re playing. Even though the main game doesn’t hav...| Post Game Content
Before I get into this, I should mention that I haven’t had the opportunity to play the original version of Nikoderiko: The Magical World. That means I can’t speak to the differences, so I’ll just cite what I was told here. The Director’s Cut apparently offers “all-new levels, more treasures, and new challenges to master in Hard Mode”. If you played the original game, your progress will carry over to this one. So there you go. That’s as much as I can say about any of that. I’l...| Post Game Content