This post and series has been a long time coming!

One of my favorite things to do is share games with people, the weirder/rarer the better. Part of me just wants everyone to know they exist, to see this passion project someone finished, to know how a few people made a very special thing, and you too can enjoy it.

Today’s post is not indie-flavored - instead it’s some personsal classics. Old games! Games I grew up playing and still play, especially if you’ll join me on the couch.

It’s funny, my gut is that everyone knows these games… didn’t everyone grow up playing these? None of these are newer than, I dunno, 2005? So maybe some younger folks will find something new?

But tbh, these posts are for me! I’m putting together a basement arcade of sorts, and going through all the old ones, new ones, everything. So I want to get some thoughts down about these, and start to capture them all.

Without further ado:

An indulgent nostalgia trip. Gotta start somewhere!

Sega Genesis! I’d also accept, MegaDrive.

• 8 Stages, 4 punks against Mr. X, Shiva, and all the goons on down.
• Elevator levels! Plenty of them!
• A cheat to enable Very Easy mode, and starting with 9 lives.
  • As always, it’s fun to actually win the game.
• The bosses were tough and super rewarding to beat.
• So much nostalgia for playing: with siblings, cousins, friends… enemies…

A direct inspriation for the feel and combat of Beat Em Up City (wip).

Modern/newer emulating this style now:

• Streets of Red
• TODO MORE TO LIST HERE

Also the most recent Streets of Rage 4 was great! And you can unlock the old-school characters and pretend you’re still playing SOR2 :P

Also Sega Genesis, also filling that couch co-op void.

I didn’t beat this game until I was in my 20s, on a dedicated run with my brother.

It’s only recently occurred to me that TJ&E is a roguelike. I hold it against myself that I didn’t grow up playing a proper ascii-art dungeon crawler, or older text based games. But TJ&E’s randomized map generation is precisely the same mechanics, just funked-out and given a 90s pixel art veneer.

I love the Earthlings - the enemies in this game.

• A gaggle of nerds
• A woman with a shopping cart
• A hula dancer who makes you dance along with her

I love the player statuses - from Poindexter to Genius to Goner.

I love the items - wrapped gift boxes with so much variety: good, bad, useless, overpowered, out of control.

• A decoy to distract enemies
• Rocket Skates for going whatever direction you’re facing way too faste
• A Door! Who knows where it goes?!

I love the chaos! And am shocked I haven’t just-gone-for-it with my own game dev. (I seem to keep getting stuck over-engineering my addons - more on that in future devlogs.)

Also, the soundtrack rules! And the elevator cut scenes… and the dialogue.

Falling asleep and needing to be button-mashed back awake if you don’t touch the controls for a minute.

This list will grow!

There are sequels to this game, and I’ve played them a bit - but this one holds the power for me.

Sports! Woo!

NBA Hangtime has unbelievable “rubber-banding” - the game actively works against teams building huge leads, and dramatically increases odds in favor of the computer in the 3rd and 4th quarter.

The result - every game is a heart-attack, every win is hard earned. In my last game, I managed to take a 5 point lead with 2s left, which was just barely safe from the full-court buzzer beater they flung up.

I have a few copies of this now, and all of them need battery replacements - more on that once I’ve successfully done it!

Once that’s in place, I’ll dive back into the Create-A-Player - where you can customize stats, height, weight, and choose from some insane whacky 90s art. A friend from grade school played as “Grampa”, and could not get over the hilarity of the old man blocking dunks and slamming it home on the other end.

I’m not sure what’s stopping a follow up/more games like this from coming out. Between this and Showtime, it feels like there’s a need for a modern 2 on 2 game… maybe there’s one out there I’m not aware of? Or people just keep playing the classic.

Also a note, I think the gameplay here is somewhat like Super Mario Strikers - I’m angling toward a game of my own that does this pass/shove/barely get a shot off style. It’s super fun, and everyone loves an alley-oop or bicycle kick.

I recently played through SSX Tricky and then SSX 3 again - I played both as a middle schooler and had yearned for them for years, then discovered I could make it happen on the Steam Deck via the Dolphin Emulator.

Tricky was always great, and I have my favorite courses (Tokyo Megaplex! Garibaldi!) and boarders (Psymon for lyfe), but going into 3 again was really amazing. The open-world-y, interconnected, explorable mountain is a huge achievement and fun to wander, and pretty much every track is a blast. I’ll play through again for a future list.

I love taking out a new character and quickly maxing them - you start out much more capable in 3, but it’s fun to feel the earned difference in the stats, RPG-style.

There are some modern snowboarding titles - a bit lower-key, but a sign that wandering the mountain is still fun.

• SNO (TODO CHECK NAME, FIND OTHER GAMES)

This one was at my cousin’s house, which led to me yearning for a super nintendo. I finally played through start to finish when they rereleased on Game Boy Advance - I had no idea the depths! Star Road!

SMW influenced a ton, but Super Mario Wonder is definitely the modern take.

---

More to say here, more to come! Certainly images, clips, and links to related videos, at least.

I’ll be expanding more on these entries - I’m trying to capture what it is I love about games, to inform my own game dev direction. I’ll have more recs and whys in the coming years. I also hope to get into more games-related techsposure posts (another series in the works: 5-things-I-love-in-games), and more devlogs to as I work through my works-in-progress.

Thanks for reading! Danger Russ Out.