Smash Badminton (iOS/Android) Review

 

Here at The Retro Joypad we like to cover the occasional mobile game as well and I've recently discovered an absolute gem, Smash Badminton, one of the best mobile sports games I've ever played.  As the title implies you're playing badminton against random opponents, you start off in the New York venue, further venues are unlocked as you get more wins.  

The game has a great cartoony style to it and the controls could not be simpler to pick up, swipe up for a normal short, swipe down for a drop shot and swipe across to serve/aim.

I absolutely love this game, it is the perfect title to pick up your phone and play for just a couple of minutes as the matches are short (first to 5 points), a highly recommended addition to your mobile gaming collection.

I have also recently found Golf Clash and PGA Tour Shootout which are two top quality golf games and also well worth considering.

Miyoo Mini Flip version 2 - an improvement?

The issues with version 1 of the Miyoo Mini Flip have been well documented on Discord, Reddit and elsewhere online, the main one of which was the stiff, hard to open and close and not very durable hinge not to mention the shell of the machine in the darker colours being prone to fingerprints and smudging.

Well there is now a version 2 of the Flip which I recently received, it is better?  Let's see......

The first thing to comment on is that the hinge has been upgraded to a more durable one made of metal, and I agree it definitely does feel longer lasting, it is still hard to open and close the machine but it's not now accompanied by the loud clicking found on version 1.  However many owners of the grey coloured Flip are still reporting massive issues with the hinge breaking completely after a short space of time.

The shell has also been improved and is now less prone to smudging and fingerprints, although as you can see from the photo I chose the white one this time around which doesn't really suffer from this problem.

On the device itself, the controls have been improved and are now less loud and clicky than before and lastly the stock firmware has been improved although I've no experience of this as have transferred over my SD card containing the MinUI custom firmware.

So to sum up, yes version two of the Flip is a huge improvement, custom firmware is still limited for the machine although support for the SpruceOS custom firmware is being worked on currently so will check that out when a stable version is released and let you know my thoughts.

My favourite retro game developers

 

Each time I used to hear the Capcom jingle when loading a game on my SNES as a boy I knew I was in for a quality gaming experience.  Capcom are not only responsible for undoubtedly the most iconic fighting game ever, Street Fighter II but for many other superb games as well.

Some of my personal favourites :

The 194X series of shoot-em-ups - some of the best ever and still get a regular airing on my emulation devices to this day

Final Fight - the classic side-scrolling best-em-up featuring some fantastic characters

Ghosts 'n' Goblins - The fiendishly tough and addictive platform/shooting title

Captain Commando

Aladdin - an excellent platformer with different versions available for SNES and MegaDrive

Exed Exes

Legendary Wings

Mercs - a walkaround military themed shoot-em-up

These are just some of my favourite titles from their huge library of titles, a full list of which can be found on Wikipedia.

Another developer of some excellent titles Konami made many great games during the 16-bit era, one of the first titles from them I played as Tiny Toons - Buster Busts Loose on the SNES, graphically beautiful cartoony platformer featuring Buster Bunny, I spent many an enjoyable time playing this and still give it a go on my various devices to this day.

Some of my other favourites :

Frogger

The Simpsons Arcade

Salamander 2

The Castlevania games

As with Capcom a full list of their library is on Wikipedia

Perhaps best known for the Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong Land games on SNES and Gameboy, the SNES titles in the series were, at the time, widely praised for their incredible graphics and animation which still stand up today and are still really great titles to play.

However after their success with the DK titles they went on to develop many other quality titles, some of my other favourites :

Killer Instinct

GoldenEye

Perfect Dark

Again a full list of their library is on Wikipedia.

The last company in this list, Devolver Digital isn't strictly a developer of retro games but I wanted to feature them as they are my favourite current indie game developer who have made some of the best and most innovative games I've enjoyed over the last few years, I'm not yet to experience a bad title from them, my personal favourites :

Pepper Grinder - a superb platformer where you character uses a drill to burrow through areas of each level

Boomerang X

Ruiner

I'm really looking forward to seeing what more excellent titles they're planning in the future and already have a few in my Wishlist on the Steam store!  

So there you have it, a small insight into my favourite retro game developers (plus one present day one!)

Move over Drastic, there's a new DS emulator in town!

The recent removal from the Play Store of the Nintendo DS emulator, Drastic has left users of Android retrogaming emulators seeking an alternative - well thankfully there is one now in the form of a new Android DS emulator called MelonDS.

MelonDS not only provides excellent DS performance but supports DSiWare games too, something I've wanted for a long time, mainly to be able to enjoy the Game & Watch titles that are available.  Setting the emulator up for DSiWare requires a bit of tweaking in the Settings, however excellent step-by-step instructions for doing this can be found at https://www.reddit.com/r/EmulationOnAndroid/s/0n2pgSSjTn which will simply and easily guide you through it.

In addition various Bios files are also required but these can be obtained from https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ET4uEa9G470PuMCQzjusELPz0Ew-LMTp

And lastly if you're looking for the full library of DSiWare roms these can be found by going to https://archive.org/download/MarioCubeLite/DSiWare/NDS/

Once set up the emulator boots into the DSi interface allowing you to play the DSiWare roms you've added.  I have to say that although the library of them is extensive I didn't find too many that leapt out at me as 'must plays' except, as previously mentioned for the Game & Watch titles which are excellent as expected.

Overall MelonDS is a great replacement for Drastic and has a firm place now on my Retroid Pocket 5.

The EGM Digital Archive - a truly incredible resource!

I recently backed on Kickstarter a rather impressive sounding book from the creators of the excellent and much missed American gaming magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly, it’s called ‘The Electronic Gaming Monthly Compendium’ described as ‘A Definitive History of Video Games through the pages of the #1 gaming magazine’, I should be getting my copy in a couple of months time.

But what I wanted to focus on in this post was an item included when you back the book which is access to the EGM Digital Archive, this is a truly incredible resource which, in the first Beta release gives access to every issue of EGM (the ‘lost’ issue and new issue #265 will be added soon) and an impressive and very easy-to-use searchable reviews database, simply type in the game you’re looking for, click on it and the site will take you straight to the review as printed in the magazine.

More features are due to be added in the coming months - all issues of EGM2, the special supplements and the ability to download individual issues for offline reading.

But for a first Beta release this is a great start.  This really is an amazing resource and, as print issues of EGM were sometimes hard to find here in the UK am grateful to be able to enjoy issues I missed first time around.  This is the kind of website I could and almost certainly will spend many happy hours browsing, very impressive stuff!