The Rocket Knight Adventures revisit looks promising (new trailer!)

Posted Wednesday, 14th April 2010 under New old games
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Rocket Knight Adventures on the Mega Drive was/is awesome. When I was reading up via 1up and heard via their awesome nerd podcast Retronauts earlier this year that it was getting a revisit via PSN/XBLA, I was mildly excited. Some of the early promo artwork looked like it had potential, but I was still sitting on the fence.

However, after checking out an update over at PALGN and watching the trailer, I’m pleasantly surprised by how it’s shaping up:

I’m really loving the visual aesthetic here – there’s a classic storybook fantasy feel to the visuals that looks great, and the animation and particle effects are spot on. I didn’t have the speakers on while watching it though, so not sure on the direction with the audio. Hopefully it’s not poxy!

The original Mega Drive game in the series featured everything that made Konami such a powerhouse back in the 16- and 32-bit eras, with loving attention to detail on the visuals, great music perfectly suited to the hardware, plenty of colour, passion, spot-on controls, innovation and even a little story to boot! While the sequel on the Mega Drive was in comparison pretty disappointing (I’m guessing a different team handled it), the concept was still fun. The only game in the series I never got a chance to play was Sparkster on the SNES. I really should track it down though, Konami made some brilliant games on the SNES.

So yes, new Rocket Knight Adventures game for May. Can’t wait 😀

Kung Fu gets rebooted – Revenge of the Wounded Dragons

Posted Tuesday, 24th November 2009 under New old games
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Indulge me, this is the second post with more than a passing glance at the current generation of gaming (be warned there might be one or two to come – Braid and Trine are now up on PSN).

So, this round of hooplah surrounds Revenge of the Wounded Dragons, a new game coming to PSN shortly-ish (release date is TBA, was supposed to be coming in the next week or so or somethingorother?). Why is it awesome? It borrows from the plotless (and awesome) Double Dragon for its duo-toned heroes, hails back to the arcade with its ‘avenge your family/girlfriend/dog/mortgage broker’ premise and, most importantly, is using the classic formula from Irem’s classic Kung-Fu Master but giving it fresh coat of paint, a few tweaks, 2-player coop and plenty of awesome:

See, you can’t tell me that isn’t full of awesome. Assuming it doesn’t play like a giant douche or something.

There’s more info on the official PS Blog at: UPDATED: Coming to PSN: Revenge of the Wounded Dragons.