Past masters
HOW STRANGER THINGS IS LEADING A FRESH WAVE OF RETRO GAMING…
The videogame industry might seem to be constantly looking forwards, but the pace of technological progression doesn’t hide the fact that the medium is often in thrall to its past. So if bingeing Stranger Things 3 has left you in the mood to reconnect with your youth – or simply to enjoy some vicarious nostalgia – there are plenty of options currently out there.
One of which is the show’s own tie-in, a companion piece that’s surprisingly faithful to the plot of the third season – and thus best played after watching. Fittingly, Stranger Things 3: The Game is a deliberate throwback, even if its 16-bit visuals would be a little advanced for 1985. This co-operative adventure sees you exploring an affectionate isometric recreation of Hawkins, from Hopper’s cabin to the Starcourt Mall, solving simple puzzles and teaming up to beat rats, thugs and the possessed victims of the Mind Flayer. Its old-fashioned pleasures are diluted by its few contemporary ideas, such as a pointless crafting system, while the show’s story is padded out with fetch quests in the mistaken belief that volume means value.
No such problems for the twohour-long 198X, which integrates five old-school arcade games into a moody coming-of-age drama. A wide-eyed paean to the arcade era, it tells the story of Kid, a troubled
teen of ambiguous gender who finds a home among “the coolest uncool people” in an underground gaming den. Atmospheric and stylish – a racing game’s soundtrack fades as the action slows to accommodate the Kid’s angsty narration – its slick visuals and none-more-’80s score compensate for a cliché-ridden script.
It might well leave you with the inclination to try a genuine coinop classic – in which case, look no further than Sega Ages: Virtua Racing, a lavish update of the publisher’s groundbreaking 1992 hit from the remaster whizzes at M2. Its oncepioneering polygonal look can’t compete with today’s photorealistic racers, but the peerless track design, earworm score and brilliant splitscreen mode – supporting up to eight players – make it just about essential.
Elsewhere, indie studios continue to revisit the games that inspired them, often bringing us the kind of spiritual successors that bigger publishers will no longer sanction. Konami’s forthcoming reboot Contra: Rogue Corps seems to have little in common with the original sidescroller, but Brazilian studio JoyMasher has a ready-made replacement in the form of Blazing Chrome, an invigorating challenge that looks and plays like a great lost Sega Mega Drive game.
There’s no let-up from the revival in the coming months. A decade in the making, ninja action game Cyber Shadow is on the way from Yacht Club Games, the studio behind the quintessential neo-retro game, Shovel Knight. Meanwhile, UFO 50, from a collective of indie darlings, has been conceived as the lost catalogue of a fictional developer, designed around the limitations of a theoretical console. Well, if you haven’t got a legacy to plunder, why not invent your own? Chris Schilling