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Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster’s Hidden Treasure (Mega Drive): COMPLETED!

Posted on 23/12/2024 Written by deKay

Since I had my Retroflag GPi out for the Mandatory Playing Of Mega-lo-Mania, I thought I’d play something else afterwards. Perusing those Mega Drive games I’d not really played before, but I remember having reasonable reviews, I came across Buster’s Hidden Treasure and gave it a punt.

And you know what? It’s alright actually.

The 8 and 16-bit console eras were drowning in character platformers, and yet none really touched Mario or Sonic. Even the big games like Dynamite Headdy or Rocket Knight couldn’t really compete, and licenced games specifically generally fared badly, especially on the Mega Drive and SNES.

Turns out that this Tiny Toon Adventures game isn’t anywhere near as bad as most similar platformers. Sure, it’s never going to be in anyone’s favourites list, but it manages to get the physics right (have you ever played Bubsy the Bobcat? Oh my) and have some genuinely fun levels and bosses. It’s by the numbers, but does it well. Even if Buster is trying very hard to be Sonic.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: completed, Diary, Mega Drive, retro

Mega-lo-Mania (Mega Drive): COMPLETED!

Posted on 23/12/2024 Written by deKay

Once more I was in the mood for some Mega-lo-Mania. I’ve gone into why I love the game before, but I just can’t stop playing it every so often. It is still The Best Game.

This time, I chose Oberon (the camp yellow guy), and when I reached the final level not one but two other gods managed to squirrel away some people for me to fight! Which took about ten seconds as I had loads and they had very few. Ah well.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: completed, Diary, Mega Drive, mega-lo-mania, retro

Hellfire: colour coding

Posted on 20/11/2024 Written by Xexyz

The box of Hellfire is etched in my mind, as it sat on the shelf of the Computer Leisure Centre in Orpington for many months, unobtainable due to the expense but tempting due to the artwork. I had played R-Type, of course, and any number of lesser scrolling shooters on the CPC, but this looked fantastic, and the reviews in Sega Power and Mega did nothing to quell my enthusiasm.

Then, I recall, Colin got it, and I played it at his house, and it was fantastic. But since I could possibly borrow it, I no longer needed to buy it. I borrowed it a couple of times, and never got very far. See, I’m rubbish at shooters.

That’s present tense too. I’m still hopeless. Hellfire’s gimmick is that your ship can fire four ways – forwards, backwards, up and down, or to the four diagonals. You cycle between these on the B button while A fires; your ship changes colour depending on the gun direction. To get through the stages, particularly when you get to the bosses, you need to have the right weapon selected. I find this tricky.

The stages are colourful but the backgrounds never intrude

I’m playing on easy, and have got to Round 1 Stage 4 before meeting a section I just can’t get past. It really is a great game, it’s just that I’m pants at it.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: Emulation, Mega Drive, PC

Aero the Acro-Bat: completed!

Posted on 26/06/2024 Written by Xexyz

The museum turned out to be the last level, and it was indeed significantly more difficult than the rest of the game. Much of this difficulty came in the narrowing of platforms, which would ordinarily be easy to land on but required the awful diagonal jumps to get high enough. It reminded me of the Dizzy games, where you had to work out which pixel to jump off in order to land in the right place, except more frantic and (often) with death awaiting if you fell.

Despite the setting and the increased difficulty, there were few innovations which set apart the last levels. There was an annoying obstacle which saw a laser shooting around a frame which you had to avoid, and flames shooting out of gargoyles at seemingly random intervals, and circular saws embedded in many platforms. Some of the enemies were immune to my diagonal attacks, or rather were sometimes immune (but at other times they popped, for no discernible reason). It was getting a bit frustrating and boring.

I quickly realised that it was pointless spending hours waiting for appropriate windows in obstacle attacks, since there were normally multiple life pickups – the As in the bottom-right corner – following any difficult section. As a result I often just barrelled straight through and dealt with healing afterwards. This wasn’t always the case, but due to the beauty of regular save states I had sixty-odd lives available anyway.

And then I got to the final level. The boss came in three stages, and before each battle there was a frantic vertical platforming section, with an ever-rising laser beam ready to cut the climb short. This took a fair while to do, even with saving, because of the awkward placement of platforms and the inaccuracy of Aero’s jumping. In the third section there were countless spikes and other enemies to avoid while also trying to land on minute platforms. Whenever I caught up with the boss, there was fight where he put out floating clowns to get in the way, and also streams of water coming from his giant clown face flying vehicle; while I tried to know his jaw off.

At the end of the second fight, the lower jaw came off, but that didn’t stop him from spawning clowns and generally being a pain the posterior. Instead of the jaw I had to hit his red nose, and after doing that 32,977,421 times he admitted defeat.

This wasn’t a great game. It was tolerable, and there was a nice fluidity to it – but there was perhaps just a bit too much inertia to allow for accurate jumping and platforming. Whoever designed the diagonal attacks should never have worked in the industry again. The jankiness with the controls may well have been an emulator problem, but I did see at least one review mention it.

Will I replay it, or play the sequel? I’ve got quite a lot of other stuff to do first.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: completed, Mega Drive, PC

Aero the Acro-Bat: leaps of faith

Posted on 16/06/2024 Written by Xexyz

I got some variety in the setting, after defeating the boss at the end of the circus levels. Maybe I should say bosses; there were two stilt walkers who sat on opposite sides of the screen, throwing things into the middle. There didn’t seem to be too much of a pattern to where these went, so it seems difficult to avoid them, particularly given the need for the diagonal attacks at their feet. Having built up a good stock of lives (about 20) over the previous levels, a good few of them were lost here. It feels like the designers of the game knew this, since when you die during a boss fight you respawn immediately without the boss’s health regenerating.

So, circus down, and onto a couple of new locations outside. There were some new mechanics introduced here, with pendulums to jump on and roller coasters to ride. One of the rides was a rocket sled that either sat on top of rails or hung beneath them, and I had to switch between the two states to avoid obstacles that appeared with minimal notice. Again, save states made this much more bearable.

The level-boss mechanics continued here. Multiple lives built up over the levels; multiple lives lost during the boss.

The controls still don’t feel that great, particularly shooting stars. Oh, yes, shooting stars, another way of attacking the enemies, which I hadn’t previously discovered because it seems that sometimes you will throw a star out and sometimes you won’t. You have to collect them first, but even when I had multiple stars in stock, I would stand still, press A, and nothing would happen. No idea what is going on there.

Anyway, I’ve just got into the museum and the difficulty has increased significantly. Let’s see if I ever get around to completing this.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: Mega Drive, PC

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94: Secrete Yellow Ooze From Their Knees
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Another period of time has passed, bringing with it news of both digital wonders and corporate woes! Join us as the ugvm podcast team unpacks the latest in gaming, from unexpected purchases to industry shake-ups. That was a terrible pair of inaccurate sentences brought to you by an AI analysis of our podcast and we’re very sorry.

In this episode, deKay, Toby, and Orrah are on hand to guide you through a fresh batch of discussions. We talk about the news that Everybody Is Fired At Microsoft, have a riveting and detailed Switch battery replacement chat, and someone pops their Battle Pass cherry. Plus, Subnautica 2 Drama, deKay Has A Switch 2, and these games!

94: Secrete Yellow Ooze From Their Knees
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94: Secrete Yellow Ooze From Their Knees
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93: A Playdate In The Back Room of Ann Summers
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92: You Do Realise You Can Take The Discs Out
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