CGE 05 demo impressions

[le geek]

I thought it might be fun for people to post their impressions of different games that were demoed at CGE this year...

I'll start with OPCODE's Colecovision demos at the NWCGE booth.

Pac-man Collection - played Pac-man (not Ms.), and aside from some minor flicker, it seems Arcade Perfect! I was very impressed by the frame rate. This will most likely be the best 8-bit version available when it gets released.

Road Fighter - reminds me of Spy Hunter, but a straight up racer. Played well and as a fan of racing games I'll probably pick it up :)

Magical Tree - I can see how this might be a hard sell, but this is a pretty fun game when you give it a chance. The fact that you can hang off of tree limbs as well as stand on them as you climb adds a nice bit of strategy to the game...

More to come...

Cheers,
Ben

[chrisbid]

just from the screenshots and the work opcode has put in to make the patterns arcade perfect, PMC looks godly

i just hope their coleco controller will make it market to go along with the game :)

[opcode]

I thought it might be fun for people to post their impressions of different games that were demoed at CGE this year...

I'll start with OPCODE's Colecovision demos at the NWCGE booth.

Pac-man Collection - played Pac-man (not Ms.), and aside from some minor flicker, it seems Arcade Perfect! I was very impressed by the frame rate. This will most likely be the best 8-bit version available when it gets released.

Road Fighter - reminds me of Spy Hunter, but a straight up racer. Played well and as a fan of racing games I'll probably pick it up :)

Magical Tree - I can see how this might be a hard sell, but this is a pretty fun game when you give it a chance. The fact that you can hang off of tree limbs as well as stand on them as you climb adds a nice bit of strategy to the game...

More to come...

Cheers,
Ben

Hi Ben!

Glad to hear that you enjoyed them.
I don't want to hijack your thread, but let me give you a small update about each game. Hope you don't mind: :)

- Pac-Man Collection - I don't know if you read about it, but Ms Pac-Man was playable at vgXpo last weekend. So why wasn't it at CGE? Well, Ms Pac-Man was demoed at AtariAge booth, and they are able to burn and build their own CV cartridges. With NWCGE I was required to ship assembled cartridges from Brazil, and since I worked on Ms. Pac-Man till the last minute, it wasn't possible to have the game ready in time for CGE. The good news is that both games (Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man) are now completed. Next step is to adjust both games to work on a new bank-switched PCB which will be announced in a few weeks. Of course I will add a nice intro, option screen and an extra Plus. ;) Probably the final game will be demoed at PhillyClassic6, this November.
- Magical Tree - Will get a release this November at PhillyClassic6. Indeed it seems to be a sleeper hit, as I have got a lot of good feedback on this game. I attended some gaming conventions here in Brazil last year and people reaction was very positive. And it also seems to be a hit among more casual and female players. In a convention where I had just a sigle CV console running games, that was the most played game, with lots of people standing around and laughing at the other player's misfortune. In my opinion MT has really good graphics and sound for a CV game, and gameplay is classic gaming in its finest form: a climbing game, easy to get into and very addictive! :)

Eduardo

[le geek]

Thanks for the update Eduardo!

Another demo I tried out is Midway Arcade Classics 3. As you probably know, this is a racing themed arcade collection.

The first game we tried out was Hydro Thunder and it's better than the Dreamcast version in that even in two player it supports full transparency in the water. San Fransisco Rush: The Rock is also looking good, but appears to be One Player only (at least on PS2). I hope the cheat from the N64 version allowing you to stay where you are after blowing up is still available, as it allows you to explore the shortcuts like the hidden skate park.

Off Road Thunder looks pretty good too, but again One Player only and the frame rate was a little low (on PS2 at least). STUN Runner seemed to play pretty well, but may actually be faster than the arcade (going from memory here). Badlands was a nice surprise, as it is obviously built on the Super Sprint engine, but features weapons! Control with the Analogue stick was excellent.

I didn't get to play the other games, but Rush 2049 looked to have a smooth frame rate and supports two players. Also included are Race Drivin' and Super Off Road.

Overall as a fan of racing games, this seems to be a well put together package. I'm looking forward to it.

Cheers,
Ben

[le geek]

And finally, I'm very excited about the upcoming Intellivision Lives for Nintendo DS. While I didn't get a chance to try out the DS version (got to work on getting over being shy at these things LOL ) I did finally understand the appeal of the Intellivision via the console versions that were playable there.

You see I never really played Intellivision as a kid, and just having screenshots to go by, the Intellivision seemed to add shapes but lose color compared to the 2600. But now having seen and played the games in motion, I see how highly animated everything is and how frantic the games can get!

So anyway, what makes the DS version so appealing is that the touch screen will be used to simulate the keyboard overlays that came with every game, getting as close as you can to gameplay of the real thing!

Did anyone else get some play time with the DS Intellivison Lives? Or for that matter, try out the demos at Packrat Games? I heard that A-VCS-tec Challenge was demoed. :)

Cheers,
Ben