That's like a colour saturation problem right?

If it was a bit more primary colours would that do it for you?

Or is it the 2.5D ness that loses the charm?

To be honest. I think colour saturation is a big part of the problem, but I also take some issue with the more angular look of the modern version and the flatness of the texture work.

The Megadrive version is quite charming in comparision and features a lot of variation both within areas and between. It has thrown up a number of surprises along the way and featured some good level design. The boss fights are pretty decent too. Certainly worth an hour of anyones time. If I see the sequel cheap I'll probably pick that up too.

Demo of this is out on XBLA. Surprisingly not half bad based on my first run through. Tempted to buy the whole shizzle. It appears they have actually spent some time with this one. Presentation wise it's pretty rocking and there appears to be some reasonable level design in there. You can play for leaderboards too, which is always nice.

Control I think is based on Sparkster (although I've not played the second installment myself). Yep defo worth checking out. This is the closest thing to an arcade platformer as you're likely to get these days. Has a real coin-op feel about it.

Hard mode is where the game lives!

Really? Not tried that. What's different?

Apologies - It populates desolate areas with additional enemies, the added frequency works well for building lengthy combos and not quite so generous with lives. It puts the game on a level equal to any decent 90's platformer in terms of challenge I think.

Cool, that sounds much better. The original game isn't all that hard; not having taken it all the way to the end. I think there may have been harder difficulties or loops in the original too, which makes sense.

I will give this a go tonight on Hard. If I enjoy it then I'm sold. Funny as I wasn't really looking to like this, but it seems to be hitting my buttons and the graphics are nowhere near as poor as those on show in that youtube vid in my first post. Infact it actually looks pretty charming. It's colourful well animated and suitably detailed. I do find the standard enemy designs to be a little bland compared to the original, but based on the end of the demo it looks like the boss encounters could be proper old school cool.

Anyone else liking this?

So it is! SOLD!

This is awsum in Hard mode. It's a classic chain combo system; you have to work out the best way through the level to chain the multiplier as best you can. It feels like it might be possible to link entire levels without breaking combo, but that will require some experimentation.

You owe it to yourselves to download this now!

Oh yeah this game is proper old school, they've not held back at all. It's classic platforming, with some really nice enemy and pickup placements. Plus they've got a proper continue system. 3 credits only and you have to restart the level if you continue. There are mid-level checkpoints if you die.

I'm hoping that the game is going to open up a bit in terms of the enemy designs and set pieces. There were some nice touches in the Mega Drive original.

Not cleared the first world yet on Hard. I take it from the relative lack of buzz that you lot have either not tried it or think it's tosh.

Speaking of tosh, Virtua Tennis 2009 is an odd beast. I wanted to have a quick session but the live mode is deserted

They've emphasized character creation further in this iteration (the "world tour" part of the game) where you have a preset of hideous faces to chose from - or you can design your own wonky creation as opposed to just playing the game with one of the nicely modeled professionals, but no. The next step would be to grind your way through a number of mini games and tourneys that offer little challenge until your character reaches a competitive level for online play. Still with me? Ok, now you'll have to find "Online HQ" on the world map, navigate a series of submenus and finally be on your way to play.

And that's how you play VT2009 online! Moving on to Rocket Knight now.

I've got a bit of a checkered history with Arcade action platformers... I'll give it a go, but my core being isn't a fan of it.

As for VT2009, I think thats a Sumo special... so, err, they tend to be a bit under thoughtout.

Err why? What horrible event happened in your childhood to cause this to happen? This isn't Sonic the Hedgehog you know!

It's something in my genome I think.

Let me have a play, and see if I enjoy it.

It was probably too many mediocre SNES/Amiga Platformers of this ilk back in the day has really botched my world up.

Probably on the wrong genre here.

Would it make you happy if I gave you a brief run down of the controls...

Can't remember the button mapping, so I'm going to go with 1, 2, 3, 4

Platform levels

Button 1. Melee attack, Sparkster swishes his sword to deal big damage. This is all it takes to kill standard enemies, can also be used to send back some incoming projectiles

Button 2. Jump, if you press and hold it whilst Sparkster is falling he does a little boost that can be used to extend his range. Feels a bit Jetpac like.

Button 3. Shoot, a projectile attack (either to the left or right). Weaker than the melee attack and limited range, but useful to keep combo in some situations.

Button 4. Boost, When stationary this activates an on the spot spin attack, combined with any of the 8 joystick directions and he fires up the rockets and boosts off in that direction. You're on a fixed trajectory, but you can rebound off of solid objects (walls). Rebounding increases the range of the boost. Boosting into enemies deals damage, hit boost again during the boost animation and he executes a spin attack, which does increased damage.

Horizontally scrolling shmup levels

Button 1. Shoot, shoots a projectile, can be charged for a beam attack.

Button 2. Boost, tap or hold to dramatically increase speed, essential for scooping all the pickups and destroying all the enemies.

Seriously so none of these would float your boat?

Megaman
Wardner
Midnight Wanderers (Three Wonders)
Ghosts 'n' Goblins
Wonderboy
New Zealand Story

etc.

Wonderboy, I liked Wonderboy.

The rest are too much of a gut punch to my ego.

Doe Pacland count? I liked that.

Gems and enemies are all linked together, I would love to see a perfect run through the game.

OK so here's a minor niggle. The backgrounds to the levels are probably a bit too samey. You need to memorise the levels to chain properly, but I'm not sure there are enough visual cues to build a complete mental picture. Or I could just be shit

I see the drill attack comes into it's own in World 2 where it's used to break down destructible walls - nice

Also the stationary spin attack is invulnerable to attack. A great way to dodge projectiles that can't be deflected.

Yeah that would be quite something. The timing require on some of the sections is proper tricky. On the first horizontally scrolling shooting level you need to wait before taking some enemies out to reduce the gaps between waves. Someone has spent a fair bit of time designing this.