Saints Row IV (PC)

Sometimes on Super Adventures I play ancient retro games, sometimes I play obscure indie titles, but for the next two weeks I've decided to play nothing but semi-recent story-driven sandbox shooters beginning with the letter 'S', because I can. First up is Saints Row IV.

There was a bit of a incident in early 2013 where the game's original publisher (THQ) kind of exploded, and seeing as they also owned the developer (Volition), that could've been the end for Saints Row right there. Fortunately Deep Silver stepped in to save the day, purchasing Volition and ensuring that the Saints Row saga continued with the developer's vision intact.

The game was released on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows, and I'm playing the PC version. If the graphics look a little blocky around the edges, that's because I had an issue with the anti-aliasing and decided to turn it off entirely. It's probably the fault of my ancient graphics card rather than the game itself though, so don't judge it too harshly. All other settings are on the highest they go up to, surprisingly

(Click the images to view them at 1280x800).

Rocket Knight Adventures (Genesis/Mega Drive)

Today on Super Adventures I'm spending an hour or so playing Konami's Rocket Knight Adventures, released exclusively on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. This is the first game of a series, though Sparkster here wasn't really the most well loved mascot hero of his time. Sure three games is a lot better than many of his rivals managed during the Anthropomorphic Mascot Wars of the early 90s, but after 1994 he was left forgotten for sixteen years before landing his fourth (and possibly final) starring role in Rocket Knight.

I've seen his other games but I've never really had a go of this one before, so I can promise that I'm coming at this entirely unburdened by nostalgia or foreknowledge. Though I admit that I'm always going to be a little biased towards liking games with 'Super' or 'Adventures' in the title.

This is the final 'R' game I'll be looking at this year before I move on to the letter 'S', and to be honest it's one more than I'd originally planned to play. But it was requested, and I felt bad for not having one single 16-bit Sega game on the site since early February, so here's a bonus platformer for you. Though of course this does mean that one of the other letters is losing a game.

Rise of the Triad: Dark War (MS-DOS)

Here's a genuine classic first person shooter for you: Rise of the Triad: Dark War (probably no relation to Rise of the Robots). I have to stick that 'Dark War' bit on the end or else you might assume that I was talking about the 2013 remake with the same name, as that's the kind of thing that happens when two things are labelled the same.

This was the last game developed by Apogee before they switched to using the name '3D Realms' for their first person shooters with 1996's Duke Nukem 3D. In case you're wondering, the last title that 3D Realms finished creating themselves before letting the development team go in 2009 was apparently the original 1997 Shadow Warrior game. But in a strange case of serendipitous timing, the company was officially relaunched today by the new management, so chances are good that they'll be able to finish a third game under the name someday!

So Rise of the Triad is definitely old, but is it any good? I don't know, I've barely played it and can't remember, but I'll put it on for a bit and find out for you. One episode should be long enough to form an opinion I reckon... assuming that the game even has episodes. I know, I'll just keep shooting things until I hit a boss fight.

RoboCop 2 (NES)

Okay, that's how you do a title screen. Shame they had to squash up the title a bit to fit it all in though; that poor letter 'B' has ended up overlapped and mangled.

Today I'm taking a look at RoboCop 2 on the NES, obviously, and I'm amazed that it's taken me this long to get a RoboCop game onto the site. Well okay my associate, mecha-neko, wrote a guest post a few years back about the 2003 PC game, but that thing's more of an eldritch abomination trapped in a crude video game form, and knowing too much more about it could drive you mad.

I've played a couple of the old RoboCop platformers in the past, but I've never seen this one before so it's all going to be new to me. If it's anything like the others I've seen though... we're not going to get on.

Star Wars: Rebel Assault (MS-DOS)

Today's 'R' game is Star Wars: Rebel Assault, part of my ongoing efforts to get a few more Star Wars games onto the site so the Trek games can't be so smug.

This may well have been the very first game I ever bought for PC, I honestly can't remember. It was almost certainly this or some other LucasArts game like Sam and Max or TIE Fighter, because back when I got my first rig those guys pretty much defined PC gaming for me. So yeah I think there's a fair chance I'm going to be incredibly biased by nostalgia here, but then again it's been a few years now since this disc has been anywhere near a disc drive.

Wikipedia claims that the game also came out on Mac, 3DO and Sega CD, and I can believe it. This is definitely one of those interactive multimedia kind of action game experiences only possible due to the power of the compact disc (ie. it's got a lot of video in it).

Realms of the Haunting (MS-DOS) - Part 1

Today on Super Adventures I'm switching over to 'R' games, starting with a look at classic DOS adventure/shooter game Realms of the Haunting. Because someone asked me nicely (and paid for it).

Often when I play a game blind I'm coming into it with some foreknowledge; maybe I've seen someone else play a bit of it, maybe I've read a review, maybe my friend won't stop sending me gifs from it etc. But this time around I have absolutely no clue what I'm getting out of this beyond the flash of spoilers I got downloaded into my brain when I made the dumb mistake of glancing at the wikipedia page for half a second (I just wanted to know when it came out, damn you wikipedia!) I've definitely heard the title before but beyond that this is all new to me.

I'm guessing it's closer to Myst than it is to Quake, but then I haven't played Myst either so I should just shut up and put the game on.

Realms of the Haunting (MS-DOS) - Part 2

Click to journey back to part one.