RetroRaided

                               Why is Vexx (for O.G. Xbox) a better game than Rayman 3? Well let's investigate shall we; about a year ago I bought both of these games at the same time on Ebay and Vexx happened to arrive a few days before Rayman.  Having liked the original and Rayman 2 I was looking foward to Rayman 3 more. My expectations for these two games were based on their reviews from my favorite magazine: Play(US) formerly Gamer's Republic. (well favorite until I discovered Retro Gamer anyway) The Review for Vexx was done by Dave Halverson known to long time readers as far to generous to crap games. He raved about it and awarded it a 4.5/5. While the review for Rayman 3 was done by Brady Feitcher, known to long time readers as a lover of FPS's, gave R3 a B+ but it was clear from his review that he was disappointed by it and thought it was nowhere near as good as Rayman 2. I immediately started playing Vexx a lot and compulsively, which is not something that ha

A Review for a modded Sega Saturn A modded Sega Saturn is a system that can play CD-Rs with ROMs burned onto them. I got one from someone advertising it on the net, He did it for around $65 ($24 of that was shipping it back and forth) the PCB board itself only cost $38 if you have a soldering gun and know how to use it. If you want to buy a Saturn and mod it, I would recommend buying some cheap games first as your unlikely to fork over cash for stuff when you can get it for free. Good sites to download from are emuparidise.com,(Best) doperoms (malware free but not a great selection) coolroms.com (full of spyware but good selection). I can't recommend doing this enough as too many of the best Saturn games are infuriatingly expensive, especially if you already have a Saturn but are missing out on classics like Radiant Silvergun, Soukygurentai, Guardian Heroes, Panzer Dragoon Saga and oh so many more. The prices for most of the best imports and complete domestic releases is fucki

                                                              Motocross Maniacs (GB) Why is Motocross Maniac's for the humble little yellow and green wonder so fuckin good? Well for starters it plays like a Dr. Frankenstein mash up of racer and a platformer, it has great visuals with splendid animation that conveys just the right amount of kinetic motion (without a wasted pixel), it's freaking fun and it's pretty goddamn  long with 24 tracks of dirt bike chicanery . (oh and it's challenging too, providing extra hours of game play) Then you have the ability to select any track at anytime; making it perfect to pick up and play or put down, all day long. Then you have the power ups scattered vertically all around the tracks. Sometimes slowing you down, providing you with more nitro than you''ll ever need, or giving you more time you desperately need. Ah, the time limit, adding suspense and frustration in equal measure. Add to all this terrific level design

                                                       HaVen: Call of the King First let's begin by analyzing the, mostly awful, character design: We have the red headed main character sporting cornrows and a yo-yo as a weapon whose design is quite good (aside from the yo-yo as a weapon thing, which is frustratingly fiddly can't hit what you aim at, thoroughly lame, goddamn freaking yo-yo) and then there's every one else in the game. While the ancillary models are dreadful and strangely their super deformed while the two leads a proportional. These two, as well as the tinker owl, mark the high point of another example of appalling American character design, worthy of joining the infamous ranks of anything put out by Midway or Acclaim at the time; which is to say it is spectacularly poor. Moving on, the bulk of the gameplay is of the action-platform variety which is something I thoroughly enjoy and it is quite good despite some tacked on for diversity's sake hover bo

What's Sonic Team's best game? Sonic 2, Nights, Sonic Adventure, Sonic heroes ? Sonic CD, OK it's definitely not Sonic CD. The definitive answer, for me,  is the GameCube's hidden gem: Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg. The GameCube game I played the most by far back when it came out, Billy Hatcher is wonderfully inventive and joyously playful with the only negative being the gratingly annoying sound design. These annoying sound effects were, unfortunately, symptomatic of Sega games at the time. Dashing, jump slamming, and throwing the giant eggs just hasn't gotten old. This game just makes me smile, zooming and swinging through the giant hoops, hatching rare items, slaloming around hazards, fighting baddies: this is Sonic Team humming at top gear. The graphics still look great especially the vibrant color palette. This is inventive, compelling and time tested gaming that may have disappeared from today's consoles but is not forgotten, not yet anyway. A-

Super Magnetic Neo (DC ) Why is Super Magnetic Neo my favorite game of all time? Well, for nostalgic reasons mostly: it was my favorite Dreamcast game and for a long time the Dreamcast was my favorite console. It is a 3D platformer and those are my favorite genre, it stands tall in a generation crowded with good to freaking great games.(Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, Mario Sunshine, Voodoo Vince, I-Ninja, Vexx, Tork, Sonic Adventure 1 and Heroes, Sly Cooper and the Theivius Racoonus, Ratchet and Clank 2 and 3, Jak and Daxter, as well as Daxter [PSP]) But mostly I still love it so much because it keeps pulling me back, something the exceptional Rayman 2 unfortunately has not done. First things first Neo is HARD as fucking nails, especially the last 40% of the game. Something that obviously caused the nancy boy who reviewed it for IGN to give it an unfair 6.9. Just head over to Youtube to get a glimpse of the bright, vibrant visuals and the wonderful score. What that won't tell