Welcome back to Jolly Jinglings, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of all things festive and frosty! The original Home Alone film hit theaters during the holiday season of 1990, making this year the anniversary of its release. We’ve already marked the occasion by reviewing the Home Alone video game for the original NES, but why not see how the Super Nintendo version stacks up? The
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Welcome back to Jolly Jinglings, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of all things merry and bright! The original Home Alone film was released during the holiday season of 1990, making this year an anniversary of sorts. So what better time to take a look at one of the video games inspired by the classic feature film? For those too young to
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Welcome back to the Festival of Dread, The Splintering‘s month long celebration of all things cookie, spooky, and altogether ooky. It’s been a while since we’ve done one of our “Cheeky Gaming Ads” galleries, and while Halloween doesn’t quite lend itself to the same level of “cheeky-ness”, we thought it would be fun to gaze at a few horror-themed arcade
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Welcome back to The Splintering’s Monochrome May event! Today we’re featuring the trade paperback edition of Batman Black and White, the four-issue anthology miniseries published by DC Comics. The individual issues of Batman Black and White included five stories that were eight pages long, and the first collected edition was released in 1998. Each story features the work of a
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Welcome back to The Splintering’s Jolly Jinglings holiday event! Today we’re tackling a rare example of a Christmas-related superhero game… Superhero games have historically been hit or miss, but Batman has managed to have slightly better luck than many other characters. The 16-bit era was particularly kind to the Dark Knight. There are several solid Batman games on the Super
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Welcome back to The Splintering‘s Festival of Dread, our celebration of all things monstrous and macabre! Today we’re going to take a look at Mary Shelley’s classic horror tale Frankenstein as retold by celebrated manga creator, Junji Ito. Originally published in 2013, Junji Ito’s Frankenstein includes not just an illustrated retelling of the classic tale, but it includes several backup
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Welcome back to the Festival of Dread, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of all things creepy and chilling! Today we’re going to look at Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess, a game from beyond the grave! Why so? Because the game is no longer available to purchase if you have not already done so (at least on Xbox 360). Developed by MediaTonic
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“No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.” -Stanisław Jerzy Lec, Polish Poet Last Thursday, Ed Piskor’s family laid him to rest. Piskor was an independent comic book creator who took his own life on 1 April 2024 after he was publicly accused of sexual misconduct several days prior. These included allegations that Piskor had sent inappropriate text messages to
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Welcome back to Jolly Jinglings, The Splintering’s holiday celebration of all things gold, frankincense and myrrh. Today, we’re going to look at The Life of Christ: The Christmas Story, published by Marvel Comics in 1993 and distributed by Thomas Nelson publishers. Heavy spoilers will follow, but the story is probably familiar to many of you, anyway, right? (If not, you’re
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Earlier this week, A.G.E. Comics launched a crowdfunding campaign for Fall of Man issue 2, a 32-page sci-fi adventure book set in a post apocalyptic future. Written by Paul Byrd and featuring illustrations by Benjamin Worrell and colors by Jimmy G, the Fall of Man series is set in a world where the superpowered remnants of human civilization struggle to
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Ghosts in the machine? Shoot them with bullets. On Thursday, game publisher HYPERSTRANGE released the 90s-inspired FPS GHOSTWARE: Arena of the Dead via Steam Early Access. Developed by Daev Team, GHOSTWARE: Arena of the Dead features old-school arena shooter gameplay and a surrealist, reality-bending “meta-narrative” that explores the meaning of death. (43?) Players take on the role of Molly, who
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ININ Games recently announced that Cannon Dancer (known as OSman in the West) is releasing both digitally and physically for Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PS5 on 13 April 2023. The Xbox version will receive a digital-only release. A side-scrolling action game in the vein of Shadow Dancer and Strider, Mitchell Corporation’s Cannon Dancer was certainly a rarity upon its arcade
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Strictly Limited Games (the other small-run physical video game publisher) recently announced that preorders for limited boxed editions of Steel Empire – Chronicles will begin on Sunday, 9 April (yep, Easter Sunday). This collection includes three versions of Steel Empire (SEGA Genesis, Nintendo GBA, and the 2019 remake), as well as a bonus game Over Horizon (NES), which was never
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And there’s a gorilla. Independent comic book creator Ashley Land launched a crowdfunding campaign for The Unbreakable Argonauts issue 1, a giant-sized, 64-page graphic novel. Written by Land and illustrated by Daniel Max, this first issue of The Unbreakable Argonauts is intended as the start of an all-new superhero universe that promises stories that will “take the heroic team all
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By Jove! Independent comic book creator Jason Sandberg recently launched launched a crowdfunding campaign for Jupiter issue 1, an ongoing sci-fi anthology series written and illustrated by Sandberg, Jupiter is an anthology The project is already fully funded, having raised $1300 at the time of this writing. Even better (if you’re a backer, I suppose), is that all work on
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What do you do with it once you catch it? Publisher DANGEN Entertainment recently revealed new gameplay footage for the dark fantasy action RPG Hunt the Night, which is set to release 13 April for Steam PC. The release date for the console versions (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox) has not yet been confirmed. Developed by Moonlight Games, Hunt the Night
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Iron Age=Hammer Time? IronAge Media recently launched a crowdfunding campaign for the first issue of ANVIL: Iron Age Magazine, a sci-fi anthology that features short stories by multiple authors and creators. The project is already fully funded, having raised more than $8 thousand at the time of this writing, and everything looks to be on track for hitting the July
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Remember, remember the 13th of… Friday… erm, this isn’t working…. Fulqrum Publishing has officially launched the 1.0 version of Dread Templar for PC via Steam, GOG and the Epic Games Store. Created by the one-man developer at T19 Games, Dread Templar is a first-person shooter inspired by its classic 90s forebears – most obviously Doom. The game puts players in
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“Who likes to rock the party?” Publisher Hamster has announced that The NewZealand Story (aka The New Zealand Story) is now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of the digital Arcade Archives series. Originally released in arcades by Taito in 1988, The New Zealand Story is a 2D action game where players take control of Tiki, the chief
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Japan based development studio Kanipro recently announced that their first game – maiden game, if you will – Violet Wisteria will launch on 9 February via Steam PC. Inspired by the retro classics of the early 1990s, Violet Wisteria is a Valis-esque 2D action platformer featuring a color-switching attack mechanic akin to Ikaruga. Here’s the official breakdown of Violet Wisteria
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The interdimensional lizard people are upon us! On Tuesday, independent author and “the leading Hispanic voice in science fiction” Jon Del Arroz launched a crowdfunding campaign for Flying Sparks: Ultra Light Beams, a 72-page graphic novel. The project is already fully funded, having raised more than $6 thousand at the time of this writing. Written by Del Arroz and featuring
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Have gun, will legend. On Monday, Donkey Madness (Madness, I tell you!) launched a crowdfunding campaign for Shotgun Samurai Legends, a 48-page action/adventure anthology and the follow-up to the Shotgun Samurai manga that was successfully crowdfunded in 2021. The project is already fully funded, having raised roughly $2 thousand at the time of this writing. Here’s the official pitch taken
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Sunsoft has announced that their casual co-op game Ikki Unite will be coming to Steam PC on 15 February. Known outside Japan as both Farmers Rebellion and Boomerang, the original Ikki was originally released in 1985 and puts players in the midst of peasant riots in feudal Japan. That doesn’t sound very “casual” to us, but maybe these are “mostly
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“Monsters” seems a little bit strong… “Hippies” maybe… Pum Spak recently launched a crowdfunding campaign for Unemployed Monsters, a 56-page comic book featuring work by artists from Rick and Morty and Bob’s Burgers. The book is fully funded, and currently in-demand, so you can still buy into the project if you missed it during the crowdfunding period (like we did).
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ININ Games recently confirmed that three compilations of Jaleco’s classic Ninja JaJaMaru games will be coming to the West in February, with two of them receiving physical editions from Strictly Limited (the other small-run physical video game publisher). These collections are being developed by City Connection for both Nintendo Switch and PS4, with preorders now available via the Strictly Limited
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Japan-based developer Drecom recently announced that their upcoming adventure game Tokyo Stories (working title) will be exhibited at the 2023 Taipei Game Show, which will be held from 2 to 5 February in the great nation of Taiwan. Wrapped in a mishmash of 3D and pixel art visual aesthetics, this generically named adventure puts players in the midst of a
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Earlier this week, Strictly Limited Games (the other small-run physical video game publisher) opened pre-orders for limited physical editions of Infinite-Beyond the Mind for both Nintendo Switch and PS4. Developed by Emelie Coyo, Infinite-Beyond the Mind is an indie platformer that has been available for Steam PC since 2020. Here’s the official breakdown of Infinite-Beyond the Mind from Strictly Limited:
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Gorillas not confirmed. On Friday, developer Onyx Wings unveiled its upcoming supernatural, mystery-based platformer Mistcaller, which is planned for a December release on Steam PC. Described as “an eerie, yet thrilling puzzle-platformer that takes place in a world covered by mist,” Mistcaller is a game where players are able to control the mist and haze that surrounds them in a
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Publisher Hamster has announced that sci-fi shoot ‘em up Senjyo is now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of the digital Arcade Archives series. Originally released in Japanese arcades by TEKHAN (now Koei Tecmo) in 1983, Senjyo is a vertical shoot ‘em up where players control a futuristic space tank (!) to destroy a ferocious alien menace. The
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A hazy shade of newsprint On Wednesday, Alterna Comics launched a pre-order crowdfunding campaign for their Winter lineup of books. This time around, the campaign is being run both on Indiegogo (here) and the Alterna Comics website (here). Through the campaign pages, you can pick up all six of Alterna’s Winter issues, or simply pick and choose the titles you
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