* 100th POST!! *

Well here it is my 100th post! I never thought when I started this blog that I’d ever reach this milestone but here we are!  Thanks to everyone who’s discovered this blog and have read and hopefully enjoyed it, I hope you will stay tuned as The Retro Joypad will continue!

Just a reminder that I’ve set up a Facebook page for the blog at https://www.facebook.com/theretrojoypad where the link to each new post is uploaded shortly after it is posted, this I hope will be prove a useful way of finding out when new content is added.

My thanks also to those who commented to say that they’d read the blog as a result of my letter in Retro Gamer, much appreciated, hope you’re enjoying it and will stick around!

Here’s to the next 100 posts!   :-)

Zero Zero : Perfect Stop is the best and most impressive Playdate game yet!

Regular readers will know that I’m a proud owner and fan of Panic’s unique little yellow Playdate handheld and that I’m also a fan of the Densha de Go series of train driving games so was very excited and curious when I read that a train driving game based on the series was being released for the Playdate, would it be any good?  Let’s find out…..

The game is called Zero Zero : Perfect Stop and first off let me say it’s amazing! It really pushes the Playdate to its technical limits, the graphics are detailed and movement is smooth and not all jerky.  There is an excellent tutorial included in the game for those who’ve not played this genre before although it’s very simple to get into, acceleration and braking can be controlled either using the crank handle on the side of the machine, the face buttons or by pressing up or down on the d-pad, my personal control preference is the d-pad as it offers a little more precision than using the crank where you run the risk of over accelerating which, in a game where you have to adhere to speed limits is not good!

Of course as well as adhering to speed limits you must also keep as close to time as possible and ensure you’re stopping accurately in stations, this is undoubtedly the hardest part but very rewarding when you pull it off!

This is without a doubt the best Playdate game I’ve played to date and just adds to an already impressive library on the machine of quality titles.  If you have a Playdate this is a must have.  Now available via the built-in Catalog and via itch.io.     TRJ RATING : 5/5

My letter’s been published in Retro Gamer!

I’m thrilled to say that, after a couple of issues of waiting my letter to Retro Gamer about this blog was finally published in the latest issue!  I was really happy to see this and to see the lovely and encouraging reply from them at the end as well, hopefully with their large readership this will attract new readers to the blog.  Thanks Retro Gamer!  :-)

Only four posts to go!

I’m amazed to say I’ve now written 96 posts on this blog since launching it in 2021, meaning I’ve only four posts to go until my 100th post, I never imagined when I started this blog that I’d find so much to write about and never expected three years later to be so close to 100 posts.

My continued thanks to everyone who has read and continues to read my posts, I hope you still find them enjoyable, entertaining and interesting!

Stay tuned for the century post, coming soon!

Move over Wave Race 64, there’s other excellent jet-ski racers in town!

Regular readers of this blog will know that Wave Race 64 on the Nintendo 64 is one of my favourite games of all-time and a title I still play to this day, however there are other excellent jet-ski racing games I’ve discovered which are equally worthy of your time.

Firstly of course is Wave Race : Blue Storm on the Gamecube, which takes the classic original and improves on it, the courses are more challenging with tighter corners, happily the excellent wave effects are still there as is the cheesy dialogue!  There’s a good selection of jet-skis and characters to choose from with a good variety of tracks.  A worthy successor to the classic N64 game.

Next we have two jet-ski racers on the Playstation 2, Splashdown and Splashdown 2, again these have loads of characters and courses to choose from.  The courses look great and the bonus with these two titles is the ability to pull off tricks both while racing and while in the air off a ramp for extra points which adds a fun additional dimension to the game.  Both games run really fast and smooth and are both really enjoyable.  For me Splashdown 2 slightly has the edge over the first game in terms of courses and graphics but the first title is also well worthy of a look as well.

And lastly we have Surf Rocket Racers on the Dreamcast, not much to say about this one other than that it’s another excellent jet-ski racer with great looking jet-skis, courses and smooth gameplay.

So there you have it, Wave Race 64 has some serious competition now, I have no hesitation in recommending all of these games, all of them are great fun!

Anbernic RG Cube Review

 

As previously mentioned in this blog Anbernic have been responsible for some of the best emulation handhelds around having absolutely nailed it recently with the clamshell RG35XX SP device.  Now they’ve launched the RG Cube, which is notable first of all for it’s narrower 1:1 screen, best suited for playing systems which support the 4:3 aspect ratio such as GameBoy and SNES, I wouldn’t attempt PSP on it though due to the massive black borders which appear at the top and bottom of the screen.

So is this another winner from Anbernic? Let’s see……

Firstly let me say this is without a doubt the most comfortable emulation device to hold and use that I’ve experienced for a very long time, it feels really great to hold and use.  The build quality is excellent as you’d expect from Anbernic featuring hall effect joysticks which also feature the option of different colour surrounds, although these can be turned off in the Settings but I think they look pretty cool!

For me the 1:1 smaller screen took a bit of getting used to but for systems that support it they look great and in most cases completely fill the screen which is a gorgeously sharp and bright affair.  

I did run into a couple of issues on the Cube, firstly on the Dreamcast Redream emulator, the menu options at the top are chopped off including the Exit option meaning the only way to exit a Dreamcast game is to press the Home button, a minor irritation but still annoying nonetheless.

Next, even though I was using exactly the same roms which worked perfectly on another device I simply could not get any Saturn games to work through the standalone Yaba Sanshiro Pro 2 emulator and ended up creating a playlist in Retroarch in order to play them, thankfully they play flawlessly this way.  I also tried the Saturn.emu emulator but the Cube is clearly not quite powerful enough for this emulator as some Saturn games ran pretty well, others were slow with choppy audio so this wasn’t really an option either.

I experienced no other issues with any other system though I’m glad to say!

This is another cracking device from Anbernic but not without it’s issues, their best machine recently in my opinion is still the RG35XX SP but this takes a credible second place for sure.

Subway Surfers City (iOS / Android) Review

Continuing with this blog’s aim of occasionally featuring mobile games as well I’d like to take a look at the sequel to the excellent endless runner Subway Surfers, called Subway Surfers City.

This game is a huge improvement on the original in almost every way, the music is better, the graphics are way better, there are now blue power-ups to collect and when you have collected enough, double-tap on your character and you activate a hover board for a short time, the magnet is still available to collect which will collect all the coins and blue power-ups around you for a short time.  In addition you can fly up to higher platforms via gusts of air from air vents.  

The original Subway Surfers was a great way of passing away a few minutes but this new game is really addictive with that ‘just one more go’ quality, I absolutely LOVE this game and is highly recommended to all. TRJ RATING : 5/5