I’m looking through the various features on Steam, and one in particular that is crying out for attention is the popular action RPG Dark Souls; this edition is aptly name “Prepare to Die”. Here is the tag-line;

“Dark Souls will be the most deeply challenging game you play this year. Can you live through a million deaths and earn your legacy?

Am I the only one who thinks this doesn’t sound like any fun at all? The game’s whole marketing buzz here is based solely on its unreasonable difficulty level. Dark Souls isn’t alone, of course, but it does depress me a little because it’s a game I wanted to play. There aren’t many good expansive fantasy action RPGs out there – the Elder Scrolls series is a popular one, and then you have the Witcher with it’s eleventy seven different submenus and potion brewing statistics. I like the overall style of Dark Souls more than a lot of games.

This is a game that I haven’t played, but I’ve had recommended to me several times, like it’s some kind of experience I shouldn’t miss. And herein lies the problem – if it’s something everyone should experience, it should be more accessible. By definition, a game that is more difficult will be less accessible as some people just won’t have the patience for it. I would like to play Dark Souls, but I doubt I’d be able to get very far in it. There are some games – STGs/Bullet Hell Shooters(Danmaku) for example, that base themselves around difficulty, it’s an inherently hard thing, so it’s more understandable that it won’t be as accessible. Even then, there are still plenty of STGs that the average gamer can complete on easy.

It’s not an uncommon idea to represent – games are too wimpy nowadays, how about a real challenge, that’s where the real fun lies. The problem is that generally it isn’t. “Difficulty” in video games often equates to repetition for all but the naturally most talented. How much time you can sink into doing the same thing over and over, and how you keep your cool during this repetition. Dying a million deaths might be fine if the game offered me a million new experiences – but chances are, it doesn’t. And people are slow to criticise this or point it out, because it means they’re the wimpy gamer. You’re expecting to live up to a tough guy image of appreciating frustratingly hard games. And sure enough most defences for Dark Souls blame gamers for being “stupid”. To me, that sounds like making excuses. Just admit it’s not a very accessible game.

This isn’t something new for video games, it’s just that in modern times it’s something that’s celebrated. A lot of people fondly remember the 8 bit era, and as a composer of music often reminiscent of those games, you might think many of my favourite titles are to be found there. But in reality, many of those games were of pretty poor quality and a big factor of this was using artificial difficulty to pad the game’s length – something you don’t have to do with modern titles.

I’ve heard this called the “one more go!” factor, but this only applies to those games that were actually fun and you felt yourself getting further in – which are usually the easier games like Super Mario Bros. et. all. There are games that are moderately challenging. Then there are games that just throw a lot of shit at you and expect the player to put up with it – Ninja Gaiden for example, a famously difficult game. One thing people probably miss from the retro era is games that you couldn’t clear in your first go – even the first Sonic the Hedgehog is pretty difficult, though a lot of people forget that. But again, that depends on the replay value of the game and whether you feel yourself getting further each time, instead of just frustrated by the same problems shooting you down again and again.

One game which particularly gets my goat on this is the indie title “Super Meat Boy”. It’s been called the best platformer of this millennium, etc. etc. as these hipster sort of games often are. Honestly, no it isn’t. First off, I’d be reluctant to call it a “Platformer” in the sense that we’ve come to known. It’s meant to be remiscant of NES era games – many of the ones I’ve suggested we should be forgetting. Is it a fun game in parts? Yes it is. And sometimes it does feel challenging, like you have to sit down and focus and get through this part.
But other times, it’s just obnoxious. The jump key doesn’t work half of the time, this is an acknowledged problem but it has not been patched(nor have the severe, game-breaking bugs in the Mac version on the hospital level). And this is the thing – when a game is very difficult, it often shows up the seams; makes them stick out like a meat-grinder in the face. If the player doesn’t feel in control, it doesn’t feel like their loss.

The idea that a twitch platformer can work up such an audience with such poor controls is a testament to how naive people are over “difficult” games. “When I die in Super Meat Boy, it feels like my fault” – people delude themselves with this. Maybe it was, or maybe the controls or wobbly physics engine fucked up again(it’s not just about momentum – Super Meat Boy’s physics don’t work realistically or like most 2D platformer physics engines we’re accustomed to). There are games I’ve played that feel like that. Super Meat Boy is absolutely not one of them.

People have almost forgotten that very hard difficulty levels in some video games were actually meant in jest – remember “Nightmare” in Doom? They were intended to be unfair and borderline unplayable. But in slightly more recent years, you have for example the famous Extreme mode of the European PS2 Metal Gear Solid series, famed for their “Nightmare” like difficulty. You have parody games like “I want to be the guy” – getting serious Youtube Let’s Plays/playthroughs when it was meant to troll such gamers in the first place.

On contrast, I can appreciate a difficult game like the Touhou Project series (actually one of the less maddeningly difficult Danmaku titles), even though I don’t think I’ve properly finished a title yet. When I was really into playing these games, I could actually feel myself getting better at them, instead of stroggling on to the next checkpoint. You start to learn bullet patterns, find blind spots, build better reflexes, get used to how and where you can move. That’s a really important feeling that’s lost in a lot of “difficult” games. Moreover, they have an “easy” setting, while you can’t get the true ending you can at least get to and beat the final boss in most titles. It’s a difficult game that’s made itself accessible, unlike Dark Souls or Super Meat Boy, which honestly, don’t give a shit and are more than a little pretentious in how they go about it.

Video Games should be fun. Instead of focusing on a game being too “easy” – did you enjoy the experience? Even if you weren’t at great risk of dying over and over again, did you still feel positive after playing it? IGN have said in their review of Dark Souls that it’s not one to play if you play games for fun. It’s amazing how often this can get overlooked in games – for example is the multiplayer in Call of Duty “fun” for the majority of people? Someone stepping into it just gets sniped over and over, and any complaints will be met with the same defences difficulty in video games always gets. To me, again, it’s an excuse – it’s difficult but not impossible to create a shooter that anyone can jump into – Team Fortress 2 for example. Often developers that focus on difficulty and high skill ceilings don’t set the bar very high themselves.

It’s easy to make a game that throws far too much at the player and through a strange kind of natural selection, pushes away players who can’t adapt to the stress or poor controls. It’s harder to make a game that’s genuinely fun and challenging. I think a lot of games are better at striking this balance than people give them credit. A lot of the time – it’s an issue of interface design; usability. In the world of software design, these are big issues – unless you’re Adobe and have the market sewn up, these are important issues. But in games, because of the attitude of gamers, they get overlooked – another example being the PC version of Skyrim’s UI. Gamers can get in the way of games being good because they don’t want to come off as weak or entitled.

Maybe Dark Souls isn’t quite as bad as it’s reputation – it is amusing people calling it the “hardest game of all time”; such talk makes me feel quite old. But it is marketing itself on a facade of difficult games having some kind of grand integrity to them, when often the reverse is more accurate.

Play games for fun, not to prove what a double hard bastard you are. The next time you catch a friend getting hyped up for the next big stressathon, just ask them “Are you sure? This skill level isn’t even remotely fair.”

A huge thanks to Catriona Lawless for taking these snaps for us. Also, a big shoutout to Twisted Pepper for having us down to make noise and play MarioKart. We’ll be doing this again!

As Drop-D move through some of the best classic video games, there comes a time where we must move consoles. So today, we move from cartridges to CDs, and take a look at some of the best Playstation games ever made. In the first of these Playstation nostalgia trips we’ll be taking over the coming weeks, we’re going to take a look at the classic PS1 3D Platformer, Spyro the Dragon.

Released in 1998 by Insomnia Interactive, Spyro the Dragon was one of the first 3D platform games. Where Mario left off, Spyro continued and he expanded the genre of a platformer in ways never before seen, and only copied since. Spyro breathes fire, charges and glides, as he takes you through the game’s six worlds on your way to a final showdown with the games baddie, Gnasty Gnorc (no relation to the Gnu). Moving through the worlds, you pick up your standard platform collectibles, in this case gems and eggs, as you seek to free the other dragons imprisoned by Gnasty Gnorc for insulting his questionable beauty.

Now, I’m not railing against the ‘old school’ platformers and all their glory, but Spyro was one of the first platformers to allow you to move in 3D seamlessly, while maintaining gameplay. 3D platformers had been attempted before on the Playstation, but most fell short. Unnatural controls and sub standard camera movements crippled other games (see Blasto). But Spyro the Dragon fixed all the mistakes made by other botched attempts at 3D level based gaming, and became one of the first proper 3D Platformers, on a par with Crash Bandicoot, a game with which it was often twinned.

As with any classic platformer, the subject matter of Spyro the Dragon is light-hearted and the world it’s set in is almost a Disney fairytale. Everything is brightly coloured. You’re followed by a chirpy dragonfly that protects you, and helps you collect gems. You save your games by interacting with a fairy. Spyro himself is animated in almost a feline manner, giving him an added cuteness and endears you to him as you play through the game.

But don’t think the game is childish. It’s an incredibly challenging game, despite its sugary facade and low age rating. It attracted a core group of completionists who agonised over gaining the much sought after 100% game rating. That was no easy task requiring the player to collect all the gems, eggs, and rescue all the dragons across all thirty-six diverse levels. The game’s enemies were unique to each level and grew in difficulty as the game wound through its increasingly perilous, vertigo inducing stages.

Personally, I still have a fondness for Spyro after all these years. I was twelve when I first played it, I’m twenty-three now and the game still has some serious playability despite looking a little dated. Furthermore, and as is the case with a lot of older platformers, the music in Spyro is spectacular. I’ve rarely seen a game with a soundtrack that suits the mood of the game. The wonderfully atmospheric soundtrack, crafted by Stewart Copeland of The Police, gives the perfect audio counterpart to Spyro’s character and his world.

There’s just so much to like about this game and you can’t argue that its charm has endured, whether you were a fan of the game thirteen years ago or not. The sugarplum world of Spyro the Dragon was one of the greatest triumphs for a 3D platformer game, and one that was rarely equalled. So hook up your emulator, plug in your controller, and delve back into Spyro. You won’t regret it.

In the mid-1990s, the transition between 2D and 3D gaming was far from without casualty to genres that didn’t adapt to all the flashy whizzbangs and techy voodoo that gamers were starting to demand for their buck. In that transition, a certain innocence was lost in gaming: pure playability for a while took second place to presentation, and few vestiges dared buck the trend toward the new spectacle. 2D shooters and fighters were among the last holdouts, but there remained, as does to this day, an obsessive fanhood that treasures new releases in the genre as a vinyl enthusiast would first-pressing LPs.

The hope was that new consoles’ processing technology would create a stronger, faster, more ridiculous 2D experience. While that certainly was possible, it was not the path chosen by publishers demanding to keep the masses happy with slapdash polygon-centric action titles. Konami, perhaps admirably, were initially unwilling to get sucked in to the hype, releasing a tide of quality 2D titles for 3D and CD consoles, among them the still-compulsive ISS Deluxe and rarity Policenauts. But if one title has to stand head and shoulders above the others, regards innovation, regards use of technology, and regards sheer and joyous playability, a more unlikely choice could not be found than Parodius.

Gradius was (and is) a raving success for Konami in the early ’90s, part of the hail of 2D shooters that sustained the arcades of the day in the face of home consoles’ impending affordability and rapidly advancing technology. R-Type, Axelay, Thunderforce, Darius, and later Metal Black, would stand out as examples of side-scrolling excellence, but Gradius easily ran home with the critical darling status and sequel after sequel followed. Eventually it, in grand Japanese fashion, would have to be parodied. And so it came to be. Parodius initially saw release on SNES, PC Engine, etc., but if anything those were incomplete ports – lacking in speed as the consoles were, many details were cut and trimmed down. The definitive edition, as it were, and the one under review here, is Ultimate Parodius, a two-game party pack of unadulterated lunacy so bat-shit insane you’ll need to scrape your eyes out and somehow unsee it.

Combining first game Parodius with sequel Fantastic Journey, the game does what it says on the tin. You’re flying through space, being any of several increasingly mental characters, shooting intergalactic chickens and other wildfowl, increasing your arsenal and laying a bigger smackdown on aforementioned, all the while avoiding getting hit by enemies, bullets or other foreign objects. Simple enough premise, but as you progress, the game puts more and more enemies, bullets and foreign objects in your path. This of course, encouraged repeated play and the rote learning of level patterns, an effective replay incentive if ever there was. In the case of Parodius though, what starts as the innocent bizarro-world adventures of Vic Viper and friends turns into something far more sinister.

Fantastic Journey drags you through a retina-searing opening level and lulling you into a false comfort with an innocuous first boss, before – WHAM! The submarine cats. Yes. Cats appear from the ocean with the bodies of submarines as a demented kawaii rendition of the Star Spangled Banner rings away, a happy reminder that you are indeed in fantasy land, as the sheer amounts of bullet hell you will endure are sure to bring about an all-too-real fit of rage. And then you realise you’ve signed on for a game patterned after the greats of its genre, only far more infuriating as you got suckered by that cutesy packaging, didn’t you? Parrots in red-white-and-blue top hats are frequent enemies, Easter Island tiki heads fly through the sky, and 40-foot-tall lapdancers crush all beneath them with a mighty stiletto. But as you get drawn into the game, the sheer absurdity of the game becomes secondary to the level design. The game is a joy to play, and though the initial weird factor subsides somewhat, you find yourself returning again and again, because deep down, no matter how uncool it is to admit to yourself or others, it simply eats you up that you didn’t take out that gigantic set of traffic lights.

The weirdness doesn’t just extend to enemies: it permeates everything. Power-ups range from score multipliers to level-ups to, and this couldn’t be made up, nonsense – bullshit reams from the mouths of the characters and kills all in its path. It’s touches like these that take Parodius from another shooter to a work of genius:  the effort that was put into separating it from others, and the unmitigated smart-aleckry that ensues. It’s everywhere. The soundtrack grins from ear to ear as classical and contemporary standards are put through the wringer – as mentioned, the Star-Spangled Banner gets a kawaii dressing-down, while the Mambo No. 5 gets a frankly unnecessary calypsofication. The moment when you realise this game has gone through the looking glass, though, is when you’re racing through a city centre in space through what appears to be morning traffic to the strains of a MIDI William Tell. It’s a moment that should soften the most cynical of gamers.

Parodius, the first in the series, is less about absurdities and more of a straight-ahead shooter. The soundtrack is equally as charming though heavier on originals, the gameplay is just as impulsive, and the game itself is a quality port from the arcades. Many of the series’ hallmarks are here: stone heads, silly power-ups and a grinding learning curve. But on the same disc as Fantastic Journey, it feels a bit superfluous, unfortunately. It’s no less of a classic, but feels more like a special feature.

If there’s any criticism to be levelled at Ultimate Parodius, it’s that there’s never enough of it. Clocking in at six or seven levels each and a number of difficulty levels that really just change the number of continues, the games’ natural innovation and playability isn’t given the chance to be fully appreciated past the first few playthroughs. It’s a damn shame, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a re-release with achievements/trophies on the modern consoles.

But this minor complaint is piffling for fans of the genre. Everything about the shooting genre is perfectly sent up here, from the gameplay mechanic, to the genre’s story tropes (or lack thereof). There is plenty to keep coming back for if you’re well-acquainted, but with a bit more thought to longevity, a modern casual audience reared on Nokia phones’ Space Impact would have much to enjoy.

But overall, this is pretty much it for 2D shmups. The balance between playability and challenge went to hell as specialty developers continue to fit more and more bullets on screen and mistaking this for progress. And as the genre became abandoned by the general public, gems like the Parodius series shamefully got lost in the shuffle. With the resurgence of retro gaming, it can surely only be a matter of time before this injustice is rectified.

Sony’s PlayStation saw release in September 1995, to almost universal praise from a gaming media that had marked it down as another no-hope vanity project on the part of yet another home electronics company (see also: Philips CDi, Panasonic 3DO). A major reason for the success of the grey box with the weird symbols was landing arcade stalwarts Namco to a deal for home versions of their various excursions. Namco itself was, and still is to an extent, in the shadow of its previous successes, most notably Pac-Man, and needed that something to set itself apart.

Among the company’s contributions to the PlayStation‘s launch line-up were 3D beat-’em-up Tekken, a port that showcased to brutal effect what Sony did right regards processor power that Sega hadn’t done with its Saturn console, and Ridge Racer, an effective home port of their beloved arcade racer franchise. In the days when accurate simulation came second to pumping machines full of pound coins, Ridge Racer was king. It didn’t gross as well as Sega’s Daytona USA effort by a long shot, but its adrenalised handling, superlative 3D and pinball-esque physics led to a far superior experience behind a tacky plastic wheel. Needless to say, the conversion was a complete success, with revised graphics showcasing the speed at which PlayStation could chew up and spit out polygons, and immaculately-retained gameplay encapsulating the arcade experience.

Needless to say, expectations were high for the following year. 1996 saw PlayStation take the lead over Sega and Nintendo with clever advertising that almost passed for art and aggressive marketing that saw Red Bull advertised in WipEout 2097 and the former placing cabinets of the latter in nightclubs. Gaming had done what it had seldom threatened to do: go mainstream. As such, sequels such as Tekken 2 and Ridge Racer Revolution were expected to go all-out to wow newly-won fans of gaming by stepping up the technology and gameplay. Whereas Tekken 2 is a recognised genre classic, Ridge Racer Revolution gets far less respect than it’s due, partially its own doing, but overly undeserved.

The game follows the original’s format of three tracks based in the same cityscape/beachside area. Each track is assigned a difficulty level and each track intersects with another at some point, creating familiarity and a nice learning curve. The hallmarks of the original are also intact, helping cement them in series canon: long, dimly-lit tunnels (with gammy reverb); beachside straights and inner-city concrete surrounds, often all in the same track. The emphasis on speed remains, also. Cars pace around the track as fast as their little MIDI engines can take them, and create a great sense of pace, particularly when they’re just ahead of you and rounding corners like it ain’t no thang. It just reaches into a visceral part of you and pulls out the urge to shunt the fuckers off the track. And that’s the joy of Ridge Racer Revolution, and indeed all great games, their ability to cast aside the limitations of their medium and make an emotional connection that keeps you coming back. That’s what Ridge Racer Revolution does. In short, nasty, bursts, you’ll come back looking to beat that time or pip that bastard past the finish line one more time.

However, rose-tinted shades are not good for anyone’s eyes, and the game didn’t perform as well critically and commercially as the original for a reason. The frankly barking physics of the original, are sadly lacking, and attempts to shoehorn them into the game by altering the balance of certain cars is painfully obvious, in particular RT Solvalou Yellow‘s careening and spinning out when braking. The hideous yee-haw announcing of the first game has been ramped up to ridiculous proportions, as if generic banalities are going to add to the experience. And rather than ignite a flame-war, Drop-d will simply state that we turn the background music off whenever possible, because happy hardcore NEVER improves anything, ever. On top of that, the graphics have not aged well at all, draw distance and gaps between textures clearly visible.

Regards longevity, the game was never meant for long spells of play, and the home conversion reflects this, unfortunately. The main three tracks are interesting, with Advanced in particular posing a challenge. But outside of reversed tracks as bonuses, and eight other cars to be unlocked by beating the loading game (which then can’t be saved – FATALITY) there’s little or no reason to keep at it once you’ve finally tired of the action on offer.

While it could never be accused of being perfect, though, Ridge Racer Revolution is by no means an underperformer. Many of the series’ characteristics were cemented in this game, while it definitely suffered without others. It was an experiment for sure, but deserved better treatment by fans and staff alike. The following year would see Rage Racer refine the arcade elements and add a GP mode, as well as dropping the cheaper and cheesier trappings of the series, while Ridge Racer Type 4 in 1998 would see the series hit its peak. But as far as thrills and spills, as well as being the work of developers having fun with a game, it was also one of the last vestiges of arcade racing, a genre that itself was a sad loss to the gaming sphere. And in that regard, Ridge Racer Revolution can’t be touched.

Yet, in the best sci-fi tradition, WWE‘s 60-plus years of ancestry has given it a rich back catalogue of characters, stories, matches and memorable moments that often lend themselves to fantasy talk among fans. Who would win in a match between this legend and this current star? What would happen if the tables were turned in this situation? It is on this relatively untapped mine of material from which THQ’s arcade-style wrestling effort WWE All-Stars draws. 15 current WWE wrestlers (Drop-d refuses the term Superstars, and Universe, for that matter) are pitched against 15 WWE legends, in what has to be possibly the most ridiculous wrestling game ever conceived.

All-Stars goes for the gusto with its fantasy line-up concept: the game itself is styled as a cartoonish brawler, discarding the serious simulation of its sibling, the WWE Smackdown series. As such, wrestlers possess action-figure physiques, toss each other ten feet into the air and play keepy-uppies with them as they land, and airborne attacks land from anywhere else in the arena. In short, it’s a wrestling game as imagined by a six-year-old. And it works to a point.

The roster itself is plentiful, the initially diminutive turnout of 15 quickly expanding with a bit of play. Today’s wrestlers are well-represented, with current main-eventers John Cena, Randy Orton, The Miz and Edge ably backed up by younger mid-card talent, such as Drew McIntyre, Jack Swagger and Kofi Kingston. Meanwhile, the Legends roster will more than satisfy any long-term fan, with Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Roddy Piper and more joined by stars of the nineties and noughties, such as Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, The Rock, and Stone Cold Steve Austin. The roster is compact yet comprehensive, and while many Legends in this game have been featured in myriad other games, the addition of lesser-seen legends, such as Randy Savage and Ultimate Warrior more than compensate.

Meanwhile the presentation works amazingly, capturing the bombast of the WWE spectacle perfectly. In the spirit of complete overkill, the arenas are monoliths of pyrotechnics and gaping screens, while the wrestlers themselves have, as noted, been given action-figure proportions. John Cena and Hulk Hogan are gigantic muscle-masses, while Andre the Giant is a lumbering Brobdingnagian creature. Meanwhile, the likes of Rey Mysterio and Randy Savage are lithe acrobats, easily defying gravity without a second thought.

The modes of play are also enough to please both veterans and new fans, with standard exhibition matches; a Fantasy Warfare mode that presents 15 dream matches, replete with excellently-crafted video packages compiled from WWE’s nearly-bottomless media archive; and the Path of Champions mode, an old-school arcade mode that places the gauntlet of 10 matches between you and championship glory. Three storylines are on offer, as The Undertaker issues his Gravest Challenge (in an excellently-campy rendered sequence that hams up the character circa 1994 perfectly, replete with a sleeper blinder by Paul Bearer), Randy Orton plays the current roster against each other in the lead-up to WrestleMania, and D-Generation X talk trash about being the greatest Tag Team in history (a contentious claim at best, as they rarely tag-teamed in their glory years and all their titles came as singles performers).

So while all the bells and whistles are in place, great expectations are rampant for the gameplay itself. And this is where things begin to fall short. This could have been, nay, should have been the holy-shit beat ‘em up to end them all. The urgency of Street Fighter, the ridiculousness of Mortal Kombat, the speed of SmackDown!, the bad-ass moves of the older WWE/F games. Hell, they could have even included ridiculous finishers like WWF In Your House. The potential was through the roof.

What we have here, though, is a regrettable rehash of 2007′s TNA Impact game, a sluggish beast with even more regrettable collision detection. The engine itself isn’t bad, reminiscent somewhat of the Nintendo 64′s WWE efforts, but the speed such a game is lacking definitely takes away from what’s meant to be a no-nonsense arcade basher. The physics are also lacking, with combinations most definitely underused to disappointing effect, while certain finisher maneouvres are impossible to do. As in, the game won’t let you, as any attempts at executing said moves result in a ghost dance of blocking and retreating, a fatal error in a game that revels in smashmouth, brutal action. Between this, the relative ease of landing big aerial attacks, and the resultant temptation to just go off the ropes all the time to get an easy victory, the gameplay on offer here is equally frustrating and shallow, as victory becomes a matter of going through the motions unless you’ve set the difficulty to All-Star, in which case it’s still a bit easier than is any good.

Meanwhile, matches go on far too long for a game of this kind, graphical bugs and glitches aren’t uncommon, and the unlockables system means dredging through the arcade mode over and over and over again, repeating the same motions and enduring the same problems to the point of putting the case through the screen.

In short, a wasted opportunity of a game, though a WWE All-Stars 2 would go a long way towards remedying a lot of the issues on display.

Drop-d Rating: 6/10

Streets of Rage Remake is a fan-made homage to the original trilogy of side-scrolling beat-em-ups, released on the Sega MegaDrive in the early 1990s.

And while fan remakes are far from anything new, this game has been built from the ground up, over the course of EIGHT YEARS (!) and takes in everything about the series, refines it beyond belief and spits it out in the form of:

103 STAGES: 93 stages in story mode- 5 stages in extra modes- 5 stages in the Prototype mod (separate download)

19 PLAYABLE CHARACTERS: SOR1 characters remastered with new moves- SOR2 characters with new moves- SOR3 characters with new moves- New playable characters

64 ENEMIES- All enemies from SOR1 remastered.- All enemies SOR2 (RGB color correction).- All enemies SOR3 (RGB color correction).- New enemies based on the Game Gear versions and even the cover the game!

REMIXES 83- 76 in V5.- 7 in the Prototype mod.

ADDITIONAL CONTENT- Profile Editor- Color Editor- Name Editor- Sormaker- Cutscene Viewer- Profile Viewer (and commands)- Image Gallery- 16 cheats- Battle Mode- Survival Mode- Boss Rush mode- Events Mode (16 events)- Volleyball Mode- Allied cpu mode- And more than 30 customizable options

The product of eight years of work on the part of a dedicated team of programmers and SoR obsessives has brought you this monumental testament to the greatness of the series that inspired. And for all this?

It’s free.

Download it here.

Is this 103-level epic the most insanely over-the-top fan-game ever made? (Yes, yes it is) , PlayStation 3 PS3 News | GamesRadar.

Congratulations on the development of Pier Solar, and its release, how have people found it? How have the reviews been?

Zebbe: Thank you very much! Most people have enjoyed the game a lot. Many mention the custom made packaging Fonzie has made, with the numerous details and high quality. People enjoy the game itself too, graphics, sound, gameplay and story all get mentioned, but some have troubles with the difficulty. If it is too hard, you can grind or ask on our forum for help. If it’s too easy… we can’t help you! It was intentional to make the game challenging, in many different ways and not just the battles. I read all reviews I see, which have only been about 3-4 when this is written. Their scores have ranged from “very good” to “fantastic but not perfect”.

How did the development of Pier Solar come about?

Zebbe: It started on Eidolon’s Inn, a fan site dedicated to homebrew, emulation and modding. Its forum members wanted to make a RPG starring themselves. As development progressed, the project became even more serious and evolved into a real 64 mbit cartridge game with a soundtrack disc. But the forum members do not star in the final version of the game, well, except for one guy…

Fonzie: I was reading time to time the “tavern” forum that Zebbe’s mentioned above. Then few months later, Tulio Adriano posted he was looking for people to get the thing started and I joined him. We worked several months before other people join. Then the project took more than four years to “take-off”and turn into an actual RPG.

Was there a concern that, given as how the last few Megadrive limited releases were also RPGs converted from Chinese, that retro gamers would think “more of the same”?

Zebbe: Never. It was always clear when the word spread around about Pier Solar: this is a NEW Mega Drive game, completely made by the team from their bedrooms. I’m very glad for that.

Fonzie: Pier Solar was started before those releases, so it’s just coincidence. It’s always funny to see mis-informed people saying “another RPG” while Pier Solar is the only new release since more than 10 years (laughs).

Explain the development process, then, of Pier Solar. Was it hard given everyone had jobs/college, etc.?

Zebbe: It didn’t make the development harder for me, it just took longer time and demanded the sacrifice of my social life. What made the development process hard was the different time zones we live in, people who joined but didn’t deliver any goods or even say “sorry, I’m busy, bye!”, and the constant loads and loads of work that you never saw coming until it was there. A thing that bothered me a lot were the many sacrifices of game content that had to be done about a half year before the game was completed. In the end, I think it was necessary though, because we had worked on the game for too bloody long and kept customers waiting for years. For the next game, I hope even more talented and dedicated people join us so the development process is shorter and the game even better.

Fonzie: We developed the project part-time. Some people only a few minutes per day, some a few hours per day. In the last two years, when it became sure we couldn’t finish the game without major effort, I switched to full-time, the last year being focused on bug-fixing and planning the production of the game in China. We had eight core members, but if you add the translators, testers, beta testers and other freelances, its almost a hundred of people who “did something” in the game.

Was it difficult to find a plant to manufacture the carts and cases/manuals? Where in the world still makes them?

Fonzie: At one point it got clear that given all the money invested to finish the game, the production price had to be cut by several times. It meant production in China, meant direct contact with factories. The process took about six months of research, four months of adjustments and two months of actual production, more than 10 factories involved. Since I lived in China back then, it made everything easier. The main challenge is that we made everything from scratch, firstly because some parts are not available anyway and secondly, because the rare available parts are garbage quality. Every single element of the game, from the protective blister pack to the screws are 100% made for the game, it’s a challenge not even SEGA faced back in the days and I’m very proud we could make it!

From what Drop-d has seen of the game, it’s certainly an impressive feat of storytelling as well as programming. Is there a fear of that getting lost in the novelty of it being the first new game for the console in nearly 13 years?

Zebbe: Some very harsh critics may say so, but the game is great enough to stand on its own. I don’t think people would have enjoyed it as much if it was only 8 megs for example, the huge cartridge delivers quality content and not just quantity. There are many homebrew games which are just “new games”, and they don’t have any special features like our game and don’t sell as much, obviously.

Fonzie: We made a RPG in its most classic form so it starts in a very classic way. However the way the story unfolds and all the additions make it unique and enjoyable to be played. Just try to play a classic RPG today, like Phantasy Star 2... You will likely find it unplayable, ugly and insanely difficult. It’s one of the biggest challenges we had to face… Make it feel like a classic and playable by today’s standards without any previous reputation.

A nice touch as well is that the game works with Sega/Mega CD to boost the audio and processing power required to run the game. Explain how that came about.

Fonzie: The game first started as a Mega CD project, because we imagined back then that disc were easier to copy. But the Sega/Mega CD has a lot of limitations in term of memory and makes RPG very hard to implement. So we switched to cartridge. We wanted to keep the soundtrack that was made for the Mega CD, so came the idea of the Enhanced Soundtrack Disc. As a sad side note, the sprites are small in the final game because htey were drawn with the megacd limitations in mind.

Where can we get the game, and how much would it be to get to Ireland?

Zebbe: You can order the game at our website, www.piersolar.com. It costs, same as anywhere in the world, $45 (€32), including shipping.

Any more projects in development?

Zebbe: Yes, we are always working! Maybe on several things, even. But as of now, we have nothing to announce yet.

As inspired by regular reader Darcie Nolan and Drop-D‘s Tadgh O’Connor, here’s my Top Five Videogames of 2010! Also, if you’ve suggestions for articles or want to argue any of these below, I’m on Twitter as well.

1 – CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS

It’s fair to say that COD has had a chequered career. Beginning as a cheap-as-chips Medal Of Honor rip-off, the series has progressed to the status of worldwide smash-hit. Black Ops beat all kinds of records and sold out of ships within a day. In fact, it had the highest midnight-opening sales of any videogame in history. And I should know – I queued for two hours to get it.
2 – THE FORCE UNLEASHED 2

You could argue that a good complaint of any game is that it’s over too quickly. This could be said of TFU2. Such was the intense detail and imagery of this game that you literally couldn’t tell the difference between cutscene and gaming. In fact, that was the chief quality of it – it felt like one massive Star Wars film. Non Star Wars-fans may not have greeted this as warmly, but it’s deserving of a place for the sheer quality of graphics. I have not see anything like it in years.
3 – MASS EFFECT 2

When I initially played Mass Effect 2, I didn’t like it. I felt that the first game had such deep levels of customisation and this didn’t live up to it. Naturally, this was a mistake. Where it may lack in RPG-esque qualities, it makes up for in sheer playability. These elements have been stripped back to allow for a more user-friendly experience. We forget sometimes that people are automatically put off when they hear ‘RPG’. This game is a gentle way of easing oneself into that genre. Of course, the story is so rich and detailed, you could easily get sucked in and never come back. What game would have references to Daoist philosophy AND a semi-naked Yvonne Strahovski?
4 – RED DEAD REDEMPTION

The noted film critic Roger Ebert has said that videogames can never and will never be classed as an art-form. I wrote an open letter to him rebutting this argument. Red Dead Redemption is one such game that I can think of that challenges his viewpoint. The scenery and storyline meshed with the incredibly beautiful music make for, in my mind, one of the greatest games ever. Play through the entire game, go through the story and that last scene as you hurry back to the farm. Jamie Lidell’s exquisite ‘Compass‘ plays over the sound of your horse galloping. Art is something attempts to elicit an emotional response from the viewer. This game has done so.
5 – PERFECT DARK

Yes, I’m aware the game was released years ago. That said, this is worth playing again as it was remastered for XBA this year. This game still manages to enthrall, infuriate and engross you just like it did all that time ago. For a game that can still do that, a decade later, is worth your time and effort.