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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Publisher Hamster has announced that the colorful stacking puzzle game Senkyu is now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of the digital Arcade Archives series. Originally released in Japanese arcades by Seibu Kaihatsu in 1995, this is the first time that Senkyu is seeing an official release in the West. In Senkyu, players connecting four or more balls
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Earlier this week, Japanese game publisher Tatsujin released Amusement Arcade Toaplan for iOS and Android mobile platforms. Founded by Masahiro Yuge, one of the original founders of Toaplan, Tatsujin takes its name from the Japanese version of Truxton. With that little knowledge nugget out of the way, Amusement Arcade Toaplan is a free-to-download collection of classic arcade games, which includes
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Popeye the Sailor Man is officially in the public domain, and it’s time to celebrate the spinach-powered legend’s entry into the creative commons! After 95 years of being tied up in copyright, the original 1929 Popeye comic strips and classic animations are now free to use, offering fresh opportunities for creative reinterpretation. the iconic one-eyed sailor, his lovable Olive Oyl,
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Taito’s Rastan never reached great heights in the barbarian-crowded zeitgeist of the 1980s. Few remember that his first game received a sequel in Rastan Saga II, and even fewer (myself included) are aware that the Rastan series received a third installment in the early 90s. More than three decades later, publisher Hamster has finally brought Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga III
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Welcome back to The Splintering’s Jolly Jinglings holiday event! Today we’re going to celebrate by taking a look at possibly the Christmasiest of all Christmas games! It’s difficult to believe that the classic playground war of “Nintendo vs. SEGA” was officially decided nearly 2 decades ago! I mean, seriously! 2020 is RIGHT around the corner! Making me feel old over
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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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Get your head out of the gutter, ya’ dink! In an example of remarkably good timing following Mike Tyson/Jake Paul fight last week, publisher Hamster has announced that Final Blow is now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of the digital Arcade Archives series. Originally released in arcades by Taito in 1989 and later ported to the Amiga,
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From Pong to Virtua Tennis, there is a rich history of arcade-style tennis games that are way more fun than they have any right to be. One of the quirkier parts of that tradition is Konami’s Table Tennis, which is now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of Hamster’s digital Arcade Archives series. Originally released in Japanese arcades
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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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Before Bloody Roar, before Animorphs, but not before Altered Beast, there was Metamorphic Force! Publisher Hamster has announced that Metamorphic Force is now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of the digital Arcade Archives series. Originally released in Japanese arcades by Konami in 1993, this is the first time that Metamorphic Force is seeing an official release in
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The worst, and yet the best title ever. Publisher Hamster has announced that Violence Fight is now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of the digital Arcade Archives series. Originally released in arcades by Taito in 1989, Violence Fight is a one of the first one-on-one arcade fighters just before Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat took the
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No sand. No bikinis. Just dudes. Publisher Hamster has announced that Power Spikes is now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of the digital Arcade Archives series. Originally released in arcades by Video Systems in 1991, this is the first time that Power Spikes (aka Super Volley ‘91) is seeing an official release on home consoles. Power Spikes
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“Never tell me the odds!” -Some deadbeat dad who got murdered by his kid Publisher Hamster has announced that Moon Shuttle is now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of the digital Arcade Archives series. Originally released in Japanese arcades by Nichibutsu in 1981 and later ported to the Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit and TRS-80 CoCo, this is
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“More hateful still the miscreant who seeks, when caught, to make a virtue of a crime.” –Sophocles Publisher Hamster has announced that 2D action game Crime City is now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of the digital Arcade Archives series. Originally released in arcades by Taito in 1989, this is the first time that Crime City is
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Welcome back to another SEGA Dreamcast Anniversary here at The Splintering! Since Yu Suzuki’s Shenmue is one of the most iconic games on the Dreamcast platform, it has to be included with any Dreamcast-themed celebration. Since the first two Shenmue games are awash in lovely ladies, it occurred to us that there may be one to match up with every
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Welcome back to our SEGA Dreamcast Anniversary celebration at The Splintering! Today we’re reviewing Playing at the Next Level in which author Ken Horowitz details the history of SEGA of America with an emphasis on SEGA’s U.S. development teams and some of their more notable games.* Starting with the ill-fated Master System and continuing all the way until SEGA’s swan
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It’s 9 September, which means it is the anniversary of the SEGA Dreamcast’s U.S. release. I’m now going to attempt a fair review of Sonic Adventure, one of the most divisive games in SEGA’s back-catalogue. While it was received very well upon its original release in 1999, its many flaws have been exhaustively laid out since. How to proceed? Should
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Every now and again, we at The Splintering are going to lean on our mascot, Chomp the Termite, to go out into the world of myth and fiction to get the stories that we non-fictional types just can’t get. September 9th marks the anniversary of the SEGA Dreamcast’s release in the U.S., so Chomp thought he’d dust off his old
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“What are you prepared to do!?!” Publisher Hamster has announced that Lead Angle is now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of the digital Arcade Archives series. Originally released in arcades by Seibu Kaihatsu in 1988 and later ported to the SEGA Master System, this is the first time that an arcade-perfect version of Lead Angle (aka Dead
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Publisher Hamster has announced that Finalizer Super Transformation is now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of the digital Arcade Archives series. Originally released in arcades by Konami in 1985, this is the first time that Finalizer Super Transformation has been commercially available since Microsoft shut down the Xbox Game Room service several years ago. One or two
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I find it hard to believe that nobody could come up with a more interesting title for this game. Publisher Hamster has announced that The Ninja Kids is now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of the digital Arcade Archives series. Originally published in arcades by Taito in 1990, this is the first time that The Ninja Kids
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Today, The Splintering is reviewing the most famous of all of the SEGA Genesis launch titles: Altered Beast! I know pretty much everyone interested in classic gaming knows about the original pack-in for one of the greatest consoles of all time… and most people do not have the nicest things to say about it, either. However, I am one of
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The title is a bit nondescript. Publisher RockGame has announced that The Legacy is coming soon to Steam PC. Developed by Second Reality, The Legacy is a cooperative survival horror game set in the picturesque Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe. Players will hunt, manage resources, craft items, and survive long enough to uncover the dark secrets of a cursed land.
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A punch of nostalgia courtesy of Konami. Publisher Hamster has announced that The Final Round is now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of the digital Arcade Archives series. Originally released in arcades by Konami in 1988, this is the first time that The Final Round (aka Hard Puncher in Japan) is seeing an official home release. In
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Don’t get too excited. It’s not that kind of football. It’s soccer-football. Publisher Hamster has announced that Football Champ is now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of the digital Arcade Archives series. Originally released in Japanese arcades by Taito in 1990, Football Champ was later ported to the Super Famicom and Amiga. M International versions of the
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It is with great pleasure that I present this review of Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble III for the PlayStation 4!* You may be asking yourself, “Why would you care so much about reviewing a rerelease of some obscure TurboGrafx-16 (TG16) game that only five people have ever heard of?” You see, I am one of those five people, as I actually
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“Ghost Ninjitsu Scroll”…? Something like that. Publisher Hamster has announced that Ninja Emaki will be released on 4 July for Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of the digital Arcade Archives series. Originally released in arcades by Nichibutsu in 1986, this is the first time that Ninja Emaki is seeing an official release on home consoles In Ninja Emaki, players
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