Super Adventures in Delisted Racing Games Part 2: Need for Speed: Undercover

This week on Super Adventures, I'm still writing about racing games you can't buy digitally anymore. I was inspired by The Crew being shut down earlier this year, as it got me thinking about all the other racing games that have just disappeared over the years. Well okay, most of them are still in someone's game library, they still work (unlike The Crew), but you won't find them on the PlayStation store or on Steam.

It's a problem that affects this genre more than most because of all the licenced cars and music. Those licences have a time limit and when that's up the game can't be sold anymore. As far as I can tell, the first 18 Need for Speed games are all either gone now or never were, unless you can find them on disc, with only 2010's Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit getting a remastered rerelease. And playing PC games off a disc has only become more of a pain in the ass over time.

Fortunately, I was able to buy a few of them before they vanished. In fact, I've already written about the first 10 years of Need for Speed games, going from Need for Speed to Underground, so now would be a good time for me to cover the absolute highlight of the sixth gen console era: the original Need for Speed: Most Wanted from 2005!

I can't be bothered going through the hassle of installing it though, so instead I'm downloading one of the most hated games in the series: 2008's Need for Speed: Undercover!

StarFighter 3000 (MS-DOS) - Guest Post

This week on Super Adventures, heroic space reviewer mecha-neko has returned with a quick look at another classic game. It's Star Fighter 3000, by the people who made Stunt Racer 2000 (no relation to Stunt Racer 64). It came out on a few systems and on most it's kind of obscure, but on the Acorn Archimedes it was an actual big deal. I was browsing an Acorn owner forum called StarDot and it's in basically everyone's top 10 lists for the A3000... possibly because there aren't too many original games on the system to choose from.

Hey everyone! While rooting through all my old DOS stuff like Fade to Black and Halloween Harry, I've found another game I'm familiar with but haven't played in a really long time.

Developer:

FedNet

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Release Date: Acorn Archimedes: 19th September 1994 MS-DOS: 8th October 1996 Iyonix: April 2008

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Systems:

Acorn, 3DO, DOS, PS1, Saturn, Iyonix

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It may sound like a boxing game about robots in the future, but it's actually about spaceships and lasers! Wanna see?

Grand Theft Auto IV (PC)

Developer:

Rockstar North

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Release Date:

2008

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Systems:

Windows, Xbox 360, PS3

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This week on Super Adventures I'm having a quick go of acclaimed crime 'em up Grand Theft Auto IV. Though knowing what these games are like, I'll have to put 20 hours in before I really get how it works, maybe more! So I hope you appreciate the sacrifices I make for your entertainment.

Actually I've got a vague memory of playing this once before and not liking it much. I've beaten Vice City and San Andreas (and I came so damn close to finishing GTA 3) but I didn't get on with this one for whatever reason. Probably something to do with the combat; I've got another vague memory of arguing with someone about the shooting being the worst thing ever, while they tried to convince me that the driving physics were worse.

The game came out the same year as sandbox rival Saints Row 2 (which I really liked) and one difference between the games I've already noticed is that Volition know how numbers work. Rockstar on the other hand have given their sixth game the Roman numeral for 'four'. Well really it's the eleventh game on the Grand Theft Auto series, if you include the two GTA: London mission packs, the Stories games on PSP and Grand Theft Auto Advance, but I'm happy enough to consider them outside the main series.

Unlike its predecessors GTA IV has multiplayer, which I'm not going to even try. I'm not going to use iCEnhancer to prettify it either; this is pure, straight out of the box, vanilla single player GTA.

(Screenshots can be clicked to view them in their original resolution, but I'm warning you now it's not great.)

Legendary (PC) - Guest Post

Today on Super Adventures, mecha-neko makes a rare return from his self-imposed exile to write a guest post about a critically unloved 2008 first person shooter. If this isn't the most words ever written about Legendary in one place at one time, then the internet needs to stop writing so much about Legendary already. I mean seriously guys, give Zelda or Dark Souls some attention for once.

Hiya, guys.

Ray bought me a game that I've been curious about for the longest time, so I thought I'd better show you folks what it's all about! Say hello to Legendary, a first person shooter by Spark Unlimited.

(Click the images for super high resolution!)

Fallout 3 (PC)

Today on Super Adventures I've decided to have a look at RPG heavyweight Fallout 3, take a few screenshots from it, maybe put a bit of text under them as well. If I can think of anything to say.

Interplay had a good run with the Fallout franchise, getting four games out of it in the end, but after a few bad decisions (like making Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel for instance) they found themselves suffering from a wee bit of bankruptcy and in 2007 Elder Scrolls developers Bethesda presented them $5.75 million to take the whole thing off their hands. So this is the first Fallout of the Bethesda era, with a new immersive first person real-time approach to gameplay and combat that seems precision engineered to piss off the existing fan base. It was also developed with consoles in mind this time, which was made blatantly obvious to me right away by the fact that I couldn't use my mouse on the menus until I'd disabled my Xbox 360 pad!

Oh, like the Elder Scrolls games, this has all kinds of user made mods available for it, which I won't be touching. I've got nothing against mods, much the opposite in fact, I just like to play games vanilla when I'm showing them off on this site.

(Click the screenshots to double their resolution.)

Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden - Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa (PC)

Whoa, is this playing the actual Space Jam theme?

With Magical Realms of Tír na nÓg: Escape from Necron 7 - Revenge of Cuchulainn: The Official Game of the Movie - Chapter 2 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa uh... Barkley 2 getting kickstarted, I thought it'd be a good time to finally play Barkley 1 and find out what the hell a 'Hoopz Barkley' actually is.

I know I swore a sacred oath to never play an RPG Maker game for the site, but this is an exception; mostly because it was actually made in GameMaker, just like Hotline Miami.

Super Boink-o-Doink (PC) - Guest Post

Super Boink-o-Doink! (Also called some other name, but I can't remember it) by Lazrael.

I remember playing this years ago when it was released on Gaming World (now called Salt World).

The Spirit Engine II (PC) - Guest Post

RPG expert Ocean is back with another freeware game, which you can download for yourself here.

The Spirit Engine 2. By the name I thought it'd be some type of train game or a new game making engine or something. But it's a side scrolling RPG, without platforming parts.

You can change the difficulty and also even change it midgame if you want, but you can disable that too if you don't like that.

Rondo of Swords (DS) - Guest Post

A shiny new guest post from first time contributor Nessiah.


I decided to try out the interesting game, Rondo of Swords.

Nice map but boring text, press start/select to skip gogogogogogogogo.