Take a look at the 100 Best Video Games 143 in 1

Another video from me, this time a review of a fairly new and interesting pirate multicart. It's certainly an interesting selection of games and has got to be one of the best multicarts you can buy. 

  This is the complete list of games on the cart, some unusual choices and some pretty obscure games. 

Enterprise Demo: Genesis Project - First Contact

Another long forgotten platform that has been resurrected thanks to the demoscene, the Enterprise 128! According to the maybe not 100% accurate, but usually pretty good at this sort of thing pouet.net, this is the first enterprise demo released since 1993! Coming in first in the oldskool compo at function this year, it's a very impressive demo to see on any 8-bit platform, especially one as under used as this.  For those not familiar with the Enterprise, it was yet another British home computer released in the mid 80's and like so many of it's ilk that tried to compete with the ZX Spectrum/CPC/C64 etc, it didn't do so well. It seems to have been even less popular than the likes of the Dragon 32 and Jupiter Ace, languishing in almost as much obscurity as  the Camputers Lynx and Memotech MTX. For reasons that aren't entirely clear a lot of these machines ended up in Hungary where it seemed to have something of a following which gave birth to the aforementioned demos from the early 90s.   

This is a short vid I made a while ago showing off a few of the games available for the system, of which there is a surprising number, though many of them are direct ports of Speccy and CPC games.

Pac-Pac Commodore Plus/4 Pac-Man

Another Pac-Man clone? Surely the world has enough of these, we don't need another one! Well in this case, maybe we do. The trouble with Pac-Man clones, particularly ones on classic 8-bit systems, is that they tend to be absolutely awful. This version breaks the mold however, it's fast responsive, looks good and sounds good. All in all much better than the dire offerings that often get passed off as Pac-Man. It takes a few liberties with the format of original arcade game, but it's still clearly Pac-Man and worth a download if you like that sort of thing. 

It's the demo season - With Spectravison and PC Engine!

Yep, it's that time of year again when demo parties start happening. Lots of interesting demos are on the way, but what's caught my eye are these two releases from the Edison 2016 party.

The first is this demo for the very obscure Spectravideo 328, another early 80's machine that has been largely forgotten about. This demo is pretty cool and looks rather MSXesque, which is no surprise as the Spectravideo 328 is apparently the system that the MSX standard was based on.

This demo is from a much more well known system, the good old NEC  PC Engine/ Turbogrfx, but it's still a system that doesn't get a lot of demo attention, so this is pretty cool too. It's an invite to the Datastorm 2017 party, early I suppose, but if this is a harbinger of what's to come then it may be worth waiting for. 

Wing Warriors - MSX Homebrew

I'm not sure exactly when this came out, but it's a new hombrew title for that often overlooked Japanese 8-bit computer the MSX. Although it suffers from that familiar jerky scrolling common to so many MSX games it still looks like a lot of fun and you can grab it here! 

Sega Master System Homebrew 2016

The results are in for the 2016 SMS Power! Sega Master System coding competition and here's a quick video of the top two games in this years entries. 
Bara Buru is a nice 80's-esque platformer in the style of Bubble Bobble. It's apparently a fully finished game and from what I've played so far seems pretty good. 
Cimmerian is essentially a remake of the classic 8-bit fighter Barbarian. It's still incomplete, but looks promising. Hopefully a complete version will soon follow. 

The Keep - Vic 20 FPS? Well sort of.

Calling this game a first person shooter is pushing it a bit, whilst it is first person, theres not really any shooting here, probably calling it a first person dungeon crawler would be more accurate. It's been out a while, but this new video from Retro Gamer VX is the first I've heard of this game and it's certainly impressive for the system. Running on the original unexpanded Vic-20 it's surprisingly smooth and looks pretty playable. 

Of course this isn't the only game of this type on the humble old Vic, there is in fact a port of Doom available for the system. Whilst not nearly as smooth as the above game, it is a full fledged FPS with enemies to shoot and everything.

Obscure Systems Showcase - Fujitsu FM7/FM 77

The latest in my occasional video series showing off games on less well known systems features the Fujitsu FM7. Another Japan only home computer, it was originally released in 1982 and seemed to enjoy a reasonable level of popularity, competing with the PC8801 and X1. Later on in the udgraded but fully backward compatible FM77 series was released, with superior graphics and sound making it a pretty capable gaming system. 

In this video I've featured a few games for the original unexpanded FM7 and a few for the fancier FM77 model. I suppose I could have done different videos for both the machines, but the FM77 seems more like an upgrade than a different system so I ended up combining them. 

Silpheed is really the stand out title here, it's a lot of fun to play and the graphics and sound are very impressive for the system. Some of the other games were a bit disappointing, they often look better than they play, but Wibarm may be something of a hidden gem if I could work out what the hell was going on. 

The Lands of Zador - Even More Majestic

I've featured The Majesty of Sprites on here before, the startlingly good looking Commodore Plus 4 game from Bauknect, but here's the sequel and it looks even better. The same wonderfully colorful graphics, but this time it seems that all the stages are smoothly scrolling in all four directions. Apparently the gameplay remains much the same, but with some added puzzle elements - a physical release from psytronik software will be coming out sometime soon

Flappy Bird on SEGA VMU and code injected into Super Mario World!

The Dreamcast still receives a lot of attention from homebrewers, with more than a few disc releases in recent years, and it seems like the VMU add-on is almost as popular as a target. It's no surprise then that Flappy bird would eventually end up on here, this game becoming almost as widely unofficially ported as Tetris. The game looks to play slightly differently to the original, but the rest of the elements are there and it's seeming no less irratating. 

   

Whilst I'm about it, here's yet another version of Flappy Bird, but this time with a bizarre twist. The SNES amy already have a version of Flappy Bird, but it's been created once again, this time in a very unusual way. 

Arbitrary code injection exploits, basically a glitch that allows the user to reprogram a game,  have been used in Super Mario World to do all sorts of interesting things for a while now. The Tasbot at AGDQ has got a lot of cool tricks to show off using this exploit and human players have used it to warp directly to the end credits, setting speed run world records in the process. 

This above video showcases something very interesting, a human going through the very laborious process of using a code injection glitch to not just warp to the end of the game, but essentially program a Flappy bird clone in real time. The video explains in all better than I could, so give it a watch.   

Undumpted Famicom Game - Magic Kid Googoo

You'd think by now that every commercial Famicom/Nes game out there would have been dumped as a rom file and made available online. Okay, there may be a few ultra rare unreleased prototypes or betas that aren't circulating (Nintendo no doubt have a few), but surely there can't be any commercial releases out there, right?

Apparently not, as this video of a previously unknown Korean game shows. Whilst it is unlicensed and seems never to have made it out of Korea, it actually looks pretty good and appears to be a fairly well made platformer. Why has it remained so obscure for all these years? No idea at the moment, hopefully more details will be revealed soon, but maybe more Famicom treasures are still out there.

As this game seems to be in the hands of some people associated with Hardcore Gaming 101, it's likely to be dumped soon and hopefully a rom file will me made available so we can all play it.

Hyper Play - The new retro print fanzine.

The age of fanzines has definitely been and gone, replaced of course by the web, like so many other things, but it seems there's a few die-hards still  hanging on. If you're not familiar with the term a fanzine is a fan published magazine, usually put out by amateur enthusiasts and often focusing on niche subjects. Sci-fi, music, football teams and of course computer and video games were popular topics in the past and these magazines were sometimes the only medium by which fans could communicate with like minded others.

It's nice then to see a newly published fanzine, even if it may be one of the last of a dying breed. This one focuses on retro games, particularly RPGs and looks like it could have some interesting content if that's your bag. You can get issue one here at the reasonable price of  £3.50 in the UK and £4.50 for international orders.

ColecoVision Arcade Controllers Kickstarter Funded!

If you have to ask why then you probably don't need one, but it seems a lot of people do. The ColecoVision is a console that has a small but very dedicated following and this deluxe arcade controller from Edladdin does looks pretty cool. I suppose it goes to show that there is no niche to small to fill on Kickstarter if you have an appealing product. This company does have form, having already produced a line of controllers for the 2600 and 7800, so there's probably a good chance that this product will actually appear before the end of the decade. 

There's still just time to back this project (just) and it closes on the 19th of February.