There had been rumors about this, but it's very, very awesome to see them come true... Rocket Knight Adventures (Genesis), Sparkster (SNES), and Sparkster (Genesis, completely different game from the SNES one) are great classic platform-action games, and really are highly under-appreciated classics. They're very hard, but really fun... I have the first one, great game.
Anyway, somebody at Konami was a fan too... and using Bionic Commando Rearmed as their inspiration, we have, in 2.5d, upcoming for the PS3 (PSN), X360 (XBLA), and PC (Steam), Rocket Knight. It's being developed by Climax Entertainment, the developers of LandStalker among other games. Awesome!
See here for all the info!
http://www.1up.com/do/minisite?cId=3176338
So far the first link, the preview, is the most interesting, but there's some more stuff upcoming as they release it in the coming days... very cool.
Nobody else here played these games, really? Too bad, they're great... Konami was amazing in the 16-bit generation, publishing almost only great games, and the three Rocket Knight/Sparkster games were no exception. The new one looks pretty good too. :)
I have RKA. I don't remember playing much of it, though.
Konami was incredible in the 32-bit era, too. They gave me Silent Hill.
Seriously though, ignoring their sports games 16-bit Konami was just unbelievable... only a couple of misses in the entire generation. Contra, Castlevania, Goemon, Tiny Toon Adventures, Gradius, Parodius, and Twinbee, TMNT, Snatcher, Sunset Riders, Lethal Enforcers, Rocket Knight... 16-bit Konami was awesome.
Yeah the happy video game nerd seems to like them.
New video! The game's looking great... :)
Normal
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Hard Mode
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Looks really good. Some of the early images they posted last year looked a bit iffy, but seeing it in motion it's clear that they're keeping a lot of the feel of the original games.
They're also making a new Splatter House game, with all 3 originals in it. Yep, this is the era where we basically regurtitate the past back onto our plates.
At least in the case of Splatter House, it's so old that it'll be new for most people. It's been, what, almost twenty years since the last one?
Yeah, the last Splatterhouse game was Splatterhouse 3 for the Genesis, from early 1993... but Rocket Knight was gone for almost as long, the three games in the franchise were released in 1993 and 1994. Both are older franchises for sure, but this generation 8 and 16 bit console retro remakes are definitely in...
So the game's out now, as of the last week sometime, and I just played the PC (Steam only I think) demo. It's pretty good, I definitely like it, and will have to get this eventually for sure. The graphics are quite good and have a pretty nice visual style, the gameplay's fun, and the jetpack is as awesome as ever. In Normal it does seem somewhat easy, but Hard is more difficult, so there is that at least, and some stuff to unlock in the final game, too. This is a pretty successful retro revival I think, and it's awesome to have seen happen after so long... anyway, definitely try the game out!
(On PC of course a gamepad is highly recommended...)
It's going to be really, REALLY short. Like less than two hours. I wish it was more than that since they're asking $15 for it.
Well, at least there is some replay value in playing it in Hard, and evidently in order to unlock each next level in Hard you have to find some special way to beat the level bosses... play the demo, they mention that at some point.
Also, platformers are often short, right? I mean, yes, it is too bad, but still, it's not like it's rare for the genre, I think.
It basically depends on if that two hours is a reviewer blazing through to get that review out, or if it's the way I play the game, taking my time to enjoy the sites and have fun with it. Super Mario World can also be beaten, and I mean with 96*, in only a few hours, but the first time I did it took weeks. Aladdin also is a very short game if you just blaze through it. It's kinda normal, as ABF said. Even Metroid, again a game I took weeks to enjoy the first time, is often beaten with 100% in under two hours by those who've mastered it.
Even taking your time, it shouldn't take more than two hours to beat. That's not coming from reviews, that's coming from me playing through the demo, which is one fourth of the game.
Is that really a full quarter of it?
Either way it's really fun though, games with jetpacks are awesome... :)
Yeah, there's four areas and the demo is the full first area minus the boss battle at the end.
It's obviously designed for replay, playing on Hard mode, and getting better times and better scores, though, so that's not too bad... I mean, yes of course longer would be good. But it's not completely unacceptable that it's short or something, if it's fun while it lasts and has good replay value...