Retro News Update

Wow. The retro and indie gaming scenes have exploded over the past fortnight, with a ton of releases more than worthy of your attention yet sadly not enough hours in the day for us at RGCD to cover them all in detail. So starting with the modern indie scene, here's what we've been playing for the past few days.

Nitronic Rush (PC)

Mmmmmm, this looks just a bit like Tron, doesn't it?

Despite the 'classic' film and remake/sequel/whatever both being complete pants in regard to actual story quality and science, no one can argue the fact that Tron looks bloody gorgeous. And as you can see, the same applies to Nitronic Rush - an AAA quality Tron-meets-Wipeout futuristic stunt racer developed by a group of students at the DigiPen Institute of Technology.

When I first saw a video of Nitronic Rush in action I initially dismissed the game as being yet another title that wouldn't run on my aged desktop, but surprisingly it runs at full speed with all the settings maxed out, so don't pay too much attention to those recommended system specs. The game itself is without a doubt the best indie racer I've played for years, and I actually feel guilty playing it for free. If it had multiplayer support (or at least other AI controlled cars to race against other than 'ghosts') then it would be perfect, but as it stands it's still a contender for freeware game of the year. Avoiding giant neon buzzsaws in a flying car has never been so much fun.

Retro News Update

Yet again I've let the news build up to the point where the only way to tackle it is via a mammoth post. So without further delay, let's have a brief look over what's been happening over the past week in the retro and indie gaming scene. More detailed reviews of select releases to follow soon.

Gunlord (Dreamcast/Neo-Geo)

We originally mentioned NG:DEV's Gunlord when the game was first announced back in May this year. After months of waiting, the game is finally available for pre-order for both the Neo-Geo (AES/MVS) and Dreamcast, with a release planned between late 2011 to early 2012. If the new nine-minute game trailer is anything to go by, Gun-Lord looks to be the solid Turrican style blaster that we were all hoping for (complete with lightning-flash style cannon and familiar morphball attack). Could this be the indie publisher's best game to date? The trailer may initially seem a bit underwhelming in comparison to Fast Striker's eye-popping visuals (the voice narrating the background story over static images is particularly hammy, but give it a chance) and the price tag is perhaps a little steep (32 Euros for the regular DC edition and a whopping 400 for the MVS/AES!), but regardless - there's nothing we love more at RGCD HQ than a bit of no-nonsense run 'n' gun fun, so our purchase is already in the bag. Expect a review when the game is released.

Manical Drop (Atari ST/STE/Falcon)

[Originally reviewed by J. Monkman in RGCD Issue #05, March 2009]

Released with practically no fan-fare and winning the Game Development competition at Outline 2008, DMA-SC's Manical Drop was a real surprise and became an instant hit in the 16-Bit Atari homebrew scene. Already an established Atari musician, DMA-SC really turned heads under his ATIPYK Developments moniker by producing an superb port of Data East's classic Magical Drop without any external assistance - the code, graphics and (predictably excellent) music were all created by a one man team - and as a debut release it's really remarkable.