Open beta so the NDA is lifted (i think?) Played a bit in closed beta and now in open beta. Yet another MMORPG, but based on the AD&D Forgotten Realms books/ruleset made by CRYPTIC who depending on who you ask is hit and miss City of Heroes, Star Trek, Champions.

I just stumbled upon this fun little flash game from Mark Foster called Bomberjam. The game is a local two player territory annihilation game which draws upon some Bomberman and Qix gameplay mechanics.

In this video I take a look at the Japanese Playstation disc with the game Zanac X which is becoming more rare by the day :( Go check it out.

Zanac is a very cool series of Shmup games created by Compile. The game originated on the MSX and NES but also found its way on many other systems like this Playstation One version. It's very similar to other Compile shmups like PowerStrike, Aleste, Super Aleste, M.U.S.H.A. All these games feature a similar weapons system.

Other good Compile shmups are Blazing Lazers on the TG16 and Gunnac on the Nes.

A nice little platformer with gameplay somewhat remeniscent of that of Burgertime & Mappy. It was brought out on the MSX platform in Japan and also had an Arcade version out in Japan.
In this clip I show the MSX version and the Arcade version and talk a little about the differences between the two and try to play the game as well.

Taito released this in 1984.

Space Manbow by Konami was a great shmup that shared a lot of family resemblances to Gradius and Parodius. It featured a very similar weapons system. A great game and a must-have for any MSX2 owner who likes shmups.
Sadly this game never was released outside of Japan.

It did come out on cell-phones/mobile phones in Japan in 2006 and it came out on the Wii's Virtual Console in 2009, sadly also Japan only.

The game only comes on cartridge and it features a special SCC soundchip that greatly enhances the sound capabilities of the MSX2 platform. A great looking, sounding and playing game.

Galaga Destination Earth is a turn of the century incarnation of the well known Galaga game. But it has a twist to the gameplay making it into a bit of an all compassing shmup. It shares similarities with Gyrus, Gradius and even Panzer Dragoon Ortha. Go check it out.

Burnout - this is the first iteration of a great series of racing games. I explain a little about the game and then I do some gameplay. Neither of which is really good as it is tough to do both at the same time :P

I touch on the new 2013-03 YouTube layout too.

Cloak and Dagger - a cool dual stick video game created by Atari back in 1984. It is closely tied into a movie with the same name:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087065/
(Cloak & Dagger is a 1984 film directed by Richard Franklin starring Henry Thomas, Dabney Coleman and Michael Murphy. It is a remake of the 1949 film The Window. It was originally released in a double feature with The Last Starfighter on July 13, 1984 and then released separately on August 10, 1984.)

It was supposed to be released on the Atari 5200 but due to the video game crash that never happened. A cool bit of information about this game can be found over at AtariHQ:
http://www.atarihq.com/5200/5200faq/02_06.html

Space Dungeon is one of these shooters that has two joysticks to control the game. The left one for movement and the right one for firing. It is very similar to Robotron 2084 or SmashTV.

Well worth checking out yet the only home port of it in existence is on the 5200.