Super AiG Screenshots of the Year: 2011

No new game today, instead I thought I'd use New Year's Eve as an excuse to be lazy and post a few old screenshots from some of the games I've played this year. I've chosen the ones that caught my attention or stuck in my mind; the good, the bad and the ugly. Mostly the bad and the ugly. It's like a Super Adventures in Gaming clip show!

By the way every time you see a highlighted game title, it's a link to the original post. It's not going to take you off to MobyGames or something. Not that there's anything wrong with MobyGames.

JANUARY:

The Earth's greatest champions strike a heroic pose in the title screen to Defenders of the Earth.

Some cryptic dialogue from the intro to Amiga platformer Cedric and the Lost Sceptre.

As far as I know this is actually the only art in Fish!, as the game's a text adventure. And yeah, you do play as the fish.

To be honest I was kind of expecting better art from the Amiga port of Super C.


FEBRUARY:

I can't say anything about F-22 Interceptor on the Mega Drive/Genesis, because this screen is all I can remember from it. Probably a flight sim though, I'd presume.

I had to include this screenshot from Quad Challenge just in case anyone was wondering why I keep naming my characters 'Rad Air'. It's because they never give me enough letters, dammit.

An animated screenshot from the intro to super-deformed hack and slack platfomer Syd of Valis. I can't actually remember what these two are even talking about any more.

You know, the first time I played Big Sky Trooper I was so distracted by this guy leaning through this kid's giant TV, that I never actually noticed just how giant his TV is. Also his living room has metal walls, pipes running everywhere, and not a single piece of furniture except for a solitary seat situated in the center of the room. All very sinister.

Okay, there's nothing really amazing about this shot, but it's the most viewed screenshot I've got by a mile so it must be doing something right. I guess a lot of people have had reason to run an image search for Dragon Age 2's character class and gender selection screen.


MARCH:

David Wolf: Secret Agent was mecha-neko's first game post, and he was already digging up gold.

The game over screen from Home Alone is amazing, because it comes from a real licensed SNES game that was actually sold in shops for money.

This one I think is actually six screenshots in one, as mecha-neko decided to assemble the cast from 3DO FMV racer Crash 'n Burn.


APRIL:

Oh shit it's a raptor, from Jurassic Park Interactive.

The malevolent Nemesis from ancient first person shooter Catacomb Abyss 3D


MAY:

Space Dude. I don't even know.

A Jurassic Park employee finds to his horror that he's absentmindedly wandered right into an illegal dinosaur fighting tournament in Warpath.

Meanwhile in Trespasser I caught the raptors practising their new advanced T-rex takedown techniques.

I found this surprisingly nice artwork in the background of the mission briefing screen in DOS first person shooter Last Rites.

While poor mecha-neko was surprised by this level complete screen in DOS first person shooter Rex Blade.

I've thought about posting more ZX Spectrum title screens like this one for Nightbreed, but then I'd feel compelled to actually play the games and find out what they're like. And I don't really want to.

This is actually who you play as in first person shooter In Pursuit of Greed. Aldus Kaden, meanest cow you'll ever meet. He destroys an entire city in the intro sequence before the game even starts.

It may actually be impossible to take a bad screenshot of DOS fighting game Xenophage.

I have no idea what Sonic Team were thinking when they made Knuckles' Chaotix. It's like the artists were so used to the Mega Drive's limited palette, that when they moved up to the 32X they had no idea what to do with all the extra colours and went mad with power.


JUNE:

I had no idea what to expect when I started up edutainment dungeon crawler I.M. Meen, but it definitely wasn't a fully animated musical intro. With singing!

For a 16 colour image, this art from Batman: The Caped Crusader on the Atari ST really doesn't look bad at all. I wouldn't be shocked if it turned out to be taken straight from one of the comics. Shame the game wasn't so great.

I don't even need to mention that Mazer is a 3DO game, you can tell just by looking at it.

It looks like the poor artist doing the backgrounds for Oscar on the CD32 snapped while drawing the final level.

This is what you get when you fail Mutant Penguins.


JULY:

And this is what you get when you finish Batman: The Arcade Game. I defeated the Joker, saved Gotham, and this was my reward. Bruce Wayne and Vicky Vale standing in front of a bookcase. Awesome.

A.P.B. on the Atari Lynx has a harsh penalty for failure indeed. Which is a shame because failing is pretty much all I ever did in it.

The Gel'zibar stone reveals the sinister side of the Covenant family in Clive Barker's Undying. Which is actually a pretty damn good first person shooter. Actually.


AUGUST:

Here's the incredibly expressive Toon Link looking a little stoned from ZXLink's playthrough of Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. I was as cynical as anyone about the art style of this game when I first saw the previews, but damn was I wrong. The game still looks great even now.

It was hard trying to pick just one screenshot from Pu-Li-Ru-La, the whole game is amazingly weird.

It's the level of screaming heads from space shooter Interpose.

It'd be fair to say that PC RPG Bastion is a fantastic looking game. The music's actually just as good as the artwork, though that's a lot harder to screenshot.

Super Tempo on the Saturn is also a fantastic looking game, and a single screenshot sadly does not do it justice. Have a picture of an undead animal band raising a house into the sky via clown hand using the power of music anyway.

Man, Cobra 2 on the Atari ST is a train wreck of a game. A beautiful terrible looking train wreck.


SEPTEMBER:

I want to love Amiga RPG Perihelion just because of the fantastic artwork. All grey and amber years before it was cool to tint games entirely brown. But damn it's really not an easy game to like.

First person shooter adventure survival horror thing Isle of the Dead was doing the zombies on an tropical island thing way before Dead Island. Arguably not as pretty though.

It's Sanpei the kappa from arcade Mortal Kombat wannabe, Blood Warrior! Every single character from that game is a winner in their own special way.

PlayStation game Legend of Mana is apparently not one of the better jrpgs, but damn is it pretty. Every background is a work of art.


OCTOBER:

There were a lot of video games with terrible FMV in the 3DO era, but only the developer of Off-World Interceptor had the self awareness to actually add a pair of comedians riffing over their cutscenes, Mystery Science Theater style (and another pair to pretend to be them in silhouette, apparently). It's just a shame they couldn't riff over the terrible gameplay too.

It's a shame nothing even remotely like this happens in Gloom Deluxe.

This cutscene from Donk! The Samurai Duck is strangely hypnotic. But mostly just strange.


NOVEMBER:

Just when I'd managed to finally forget I ever saw this picture from NES shoot 'em up Airwolf, someone had to suggest it for this post. Well I hope they're happy now.

Mario finally cracks after being brought in to save the Princess again in Mario & Luigi's Superstar Saga, and just starts dancing in the throne room. His arch enemy is in the castle, his girlfriend's in tears, her staff is panicking and Luigi looks like he's about to faint, but Mario just wants to dance. And who can blame him, really?

My only regret about quitting 3DO FMV adventure game Hell only a few hours in, is that I was never able to find a way to kill this little rhyming bastard. And then steal his master's pool cue.

Contraption Zack's co-workers are real creepy assholes.


DECEMBER:

I might not be good enough to get anywhere in the damn game, but I can't help but love Flashback all the same. I'm probably just suffering from a bad case of nostalgia.

One last picture. This isn't actually a screenshot from Hybrid, but the picture's on the game CD, so it totally still counts!


Right okay, that's 2011 done with. Back to playing games then.