Retro Gamer 150 - Your Greatest Games Ever!

[Eric]

Bit surprised to see Outrun placed so much higher than Coast to Coast. Other than the nostalgia factor (and it never WAS a great game - style over substance) I'm struggling to think of one reason why the original is so much better.

Agreed. I love outrun, but I play coast 2 coast every week.

I would have liked a Drift On/Off option for Coast to Coast to bring it nearer to the original arcade Outrun. The drifting is great but I still can't get back out of a drift!

[Sephiroth81]

I would have liked a Drift On/Off option for Coast to Coast to bring it nearer to the original arcade Outrun. The drifting is great but I still can't get back out of a drift!

And wasn't Outrun 2 SP on Xbox the best of the lot anyway? Handling wise and slightly superior visuals overall (although Coast to Coast has more tracks/cars and is multiplatform).

[kiwimike]

I liked the previous posts here who bought up a couple of games that seemed better as ports of the arcade games than as the original themselves. Buggy Boy on C64, and Commando on Spectrum. I'd forgotten about those gems!
Sounds a good idea for a feature!

[LAIS]

What surprised me the most was the number of classic older games that didn't chart last time round, like Defender, Super Metroid and Monkey Island 2. I don't know if it's to do with changing tastes, or easier access to some of these titles with the Virtual Console/remasters etc.

One thing that threw me a bit was the mag saying (about Sonic 3 & Knuckles) that 'the exploration element of Sonic & Knuckles was explored further in later games like Sonic CD' - I was always under the impression that S&K was the final 2D Sonic until the GBA games.

Was Sonic CD developed after S&K but released before? What's the actual time line of these titles?

[RodimusPrime]

Would love a new outrun as well.

Could maybe do something a little different and freshen it up a little.

re-use the Outrun Europa name ( never really liked the game but always liked the name )

keep it the same traditional outrun with branches, but each branch could be a European country.

I know outrun is all about the Ferraris but add in a selection of porsches and lambos and work a concept around that.

[tapmantwo]

I really enjoyed this feature - loads of games I've not played before now added to my wishlist. I can't remember which games I submitted, but I'm pretty sure a fair chunk are in there.

One thought though - I was suprised that neither FIFA or Football Manager/Championship Manager made it in there at all. Given they're both top sellers every year, I was expecting them both to chart. Do you think that because they have releases every year, there wasn't enough votes for a specific version to chart? Or is it the RG demographic doesn't cover so many of the people that play those games?

One other thing - could you publish (online or in print) the last chart that was run all those years ago? It would be great to review the changes at a holistic level, rather than just seeing those that have moved. I'd be keen to see if more of my favourite C64 games made it first time round.

I'm about to read the C64 article now - looking forward to that one

[theantmeister]

7 out of my 10 made it into the 150 list, so I'm happy

Oddly enough, I didn't vote for the number one game, even though I really should have

It really was a great article though. I can't imagine the amount of work that went into it.

[NickThorpe]

One thought though - I was suprised that neither FIFA or Football Manager/Championship Manager made it in there at all. Given they're both top sellers every year, I was expecting them both to chart. Do you think that because they have releases every year, there wasn't enough votes for a specific version to chart? Or is it the RG demographic doesn't cover so many of the people that play those games?

Interestingly, if the entire FIFA series were combined into a single entry, it still wouldn't have made the top 150 list. Likewise, the latter-day Football Manager games (the ones without Kevin Toms' face on) wouldn't have.

On the other hand, the Championship Manager series was a victim of the "many versions" problem - we got a decent number of votes for various versions, but nowhere near enough to take any single version into the list.

[joefish]

I liked the previous posts here who bought up a couple of games that seemed better as ports of the arcade games than as the original themselves. Buggy Boy on C64, and Commando on Spectrum. I'd forgotten about those gems!
Sounds a good idea for a feature!

Yep, Speccy Commando is a great game in its own right. Quite a few people prefer the orginal 8-bit versions of Robocop too.
There's also a certain Cosmo Gang the Puzzle / Pac-Attack 'homage' on the Speccy which I hate to bring up again but was originally written because the originals seemed to have a great idea but implemented it so terribly...

[Darran@Retro Gamer]

Now that I think about it, I'm really upset the Wizball isn't in the final list. That's a great game and it still plays beautifully too.

I'll try and get the original list up later.

[joefish]

It's probably more a reflection of the readership disribution. So many more only look back as far as the days of MD / SNES console gaming.

[Darran@Retro Gamer]

Maybe less old people are interested in retro nowadays? After all how long can you still like playing old games?
The feature was advertised for three months in the magazine, so it's not as though people didn't have time to vote for their favourite games. Maybe older readers weren't interested in voting. Is voting a young thing?

[NickThorpe]

It's very much a Generation X (Factor) thing.

I'll see myself out.

[ianpmarks]

Maybe less old people are interested in retro nowadays? After all how long can you still like playing old games?
The feature was advertised for three months in the magazine, so it's not as though people didn't have time to vote for their favourite games. Maybe older readers weren't interested in voting. Is voting a young thing?

I think this may be true.

[dpg50000]

Only about 30 pages in, but really enjoying this issue. I've been an RG reader since the start, but it's fascinating to see how many games in the new list that were also in the old list have dropped a considerable number of places - I suspect now that the world and his dog can emulate, play via Virtual Console / XBLA / PSN etc., that a lot of overlooked classics from the 16 bit / 32bit era have found new fans. Also, as others have alluded to, a lot of the 8-bit games really haven't aged that well, and now there's no longer the rose tinted specs due to easy emulation, people are favouring games that actually were (in general) possible to complete, properly play tested, offer save slots etc.

Love the cover too.

My only gripe is the number of typos - they seem to have increased immensely in the last few months. I'm just over a quarter of the way through the mag and must be close to double digits in typos, missing words and just plain incorrect sentences. I found 3 in 3 pages:

Page 25, game 107 - "...it was the 3D graphics made it intense."
Page 25 - game 105 "...made it one Bullfrog's best."
Page 27 - game 90 - Word Of Warcraft ????

And page 21, game 116 - ".... and it's rather telling that neither Capcom or Yotsui himself has never captured Strider's magic in any subsequent sequels."