Darkwing Duck (Demo) (PC)

Developer:

Headcannon

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Release Date:

2019 (or never I suppose)

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Systems:

Windows, Mac, Linux

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing Darkwing Duck! Not the NES game, I played that already way back in the first year of my site. In fact it was so long ago that I'm scared to check what I wrote about it. Probably best to forget I told you about it actually. (It's not the Game Boy or Turbografx game either by the way.)

What this is, is a 1 level prototype demo thing inspired by the NES game, developed as a pitch to Capcom and then released to the world for free last month when that didn't work out. There's so many amazing AAA games in my Steam backlog, so many indie games fighting for exposure on Steam and Itch.io, and yet I'm spending my time playing a game that won't ever exist.

The demo was developed by at least one of the people who worked on the similar Sonic Mania, though it uses the Headcannon Game Engine instead of the Retro Engine. Incidentally the original Darkwing Dark on the NES was basically built on Mega Man's engine, so there's some Wikipedia trivia for you I expect my past self completely neglected to mention in his article back in 2011. In fact I bet that article is just him spending like 30 minutes failing to beat the first stage, whining a bit about it being too hard and then quitting.

Speaking of running into unexpected challenges, for classic platformers I usually display my screenshots at exactly double the resolution to keep them sharp, but the game has too wide a resolution for that so I had to decide whether I wanted to leave the screens tiny, make them a fuzzy mess, or crop them. Or make the site wider. I figured that cropping them would be the least painful of those options so I went with that, but if you click an image the original uncut screenshot will pop up.

Metroid Prime (GameCube)

Developer:

Retro

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Release Date:

2003 (2002 NA)

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Systems:

GameCube, Wii

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I'm trying to figure out what the game's moody title music reminds me of. I think it might actually be Deus Ex, but I feel like it could turn into Perfect Dark at any moment. Not a bad place for a theme to be.

This week on Super Adventures I'm playing Metroid Prime, the sequel to the legendary Super Metroid! Well, kind of. It came out the exact same day as Metroid Fusion and I think that's considered to be the older twin (it even claims to be "METROID 4" when it starts up.) So I guess this is Metroid 5 then?

It's definitely not the fifth game in the timeline as they've slotted it in between Metroid and Metroid II for whatever reason. I didn't realise the Metroid games had enough of a story to require making interquels, but that's probably because I rarely finish the things. Plus it's been six years since I've played any of them and my memory's pretty fuzzy. Though at the time this was released fans had actually been suffering through an eight year gap between games, as the series skipped the N64 era entirely. The series also skipped the Wii U afterwards, fading away again despite the run of continuous Metroid Prime sequels and spin-offs.

Developer Retro Studios were responsible for the three main Metroid Prime games but after putting out the non-HD remake compilation Metroid Prime Trilogy for the Wii in 2009 they've been keeping themselves busy making Donkey Kong Country sequels instead. Though it was announced last month that they're taking over development on Metroid Prime 4! Is that a good thing? I wouldn't know, I haven't even played this first one yet.

Okay I'm going to play Metroid Prime for an amount of time somewhere between 'barely giving it a fair shot' and 'enough to bore the hell out of everyone reading', and take screenshots along the way. There will also be writing under these screenshots because... I don't know. Maybe I like writing about video games? No, that doesn't seem right.

Populous (Amiga)

Developer:

Bullfrog

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Release Date:

1989

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Systems:

It's been on a few

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing the legendary god game genre pioneer Populous, by equally legendary developers Bullfrog!

It's one of Bullfrog's earliest games, only the third one they made, which you can tell from that old school frog logo in the bottom left. I don't remember ever seeing that before, but I've played this game so I must have. Unless it was Powermonger that I played... they're pretty similar looking and it's been a while.

One thing I'm sure about is that whatever it is I played, I couldn't figure out how to play it and I turned it off after 10 minutes of frustration. I guess I was too busy not seeing the cute little frog logo that I didn't notice that big 'Tutorial' button over on the right either. This time though things are going to be very different! I'm going to stick with it for at least 20 minutes before giving up in frustration.

Populous started out as an Amiga game and I've always assumed it didn't stray much further, as it seems like the kind of game that would be considered too mouse driven and weird to make it onto consoles. But nope, Populous was ported to absolutely bloody everything. Well, the Acorn Archimedes, Apple Mac, Atari ST, FM Towns, PC-98, MS-DOS PC, IBM PCjr, Sharp X68000, Master System, Mega Drive, SNES, Turbografx-16, Nintendo DS and Game Boy anyway. Makes me wonder what the NES did to be left out.

Just listing all those systems took long enough so please don't expect screenshots of each of them. Or screenshots showing off any actual gameplay either. I can promise you only a title screen and shots of all my little dudes getting wiped out for reasons I can't even comprehend.

Giant Machines 2017 (PC)

Developer:

Code Horizon

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Release Date:

2016

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Systems:

PC

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This week on Super Adventures I'm playing Giant Machines 2017! At least I hope that there's something in it I can play and it's not just a virtual museum dedicated to really big trucks. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just wouldn't give me anything to write about (because I'd turn it off after two minutes).

Whatever it is, it seems to be the very first title by Polish developer Code Horizon, who are apparently better known for making Gold Rush: The Game (the first realistic gold-mining simulator, according to their website).

The game(?) was a Christmas present from a friend, and by that I mean he bought a mystery bundle and gave the contents away to anyone who wanted them. Sadly no one wanted Giant Machines, but I've adopted it and given it a home in my Steam library where I hope it'll be comfortable. Neglected, but comfortable.