Sturmwind (DC) - Recently, I've undusted some DC games and Sturmwind was the one I played the most, awesome hori shmup with excellent graphics and a nice gameplay mix of Thunderforce, a bit of Gradius and a pinch of R-Type, tasty mixture, that's for sure. You can tell the guys who made it know their shmups, the game is challenging and sometimes a bit frustrating but rarely makes me downright angry like Last Hope, another homebrew where it's not enemies and tricky levels that pose a challenge but hard to see bullets and general cheesiness. Fantastic game.
Capcom vs. SNK 2 (DC) - It's been long since I've played it, and man, what a blast from the past! Sucked me in again for hours, I'm a bit rusty but still feels okay overall, at least I could -almost- beat it on the first go on hardest (last battle was too much for my Ryo) so that's that. So good, so deep, selecting a fighting style alone can make or break a game with a certain chara team, possibilities are endless. Also the silly announcer still makes me chuckle.
Tempest 4000 (PS4/5) - Minter did it again, great new version of Tempest 2k/X with a graphical update (loads more psychedelic stuff, love it) and slightly different gameplay. Your ship doesn't come to a dead stop anymore when you let go of the stick but inertia lets it do some extra steps, took me a few minutes to tune in to but it's no prob, although I prefer the old style atm, let's see how things turn out when I've played t4k more. Power-ups have been expanded, sequence of power-ups has also been changed a bit but that's just a marginal thing which you prolly won't notice if you haven't played the game as often as me. I was hoping they put the cool bonus round from tx on PSX into t4k, there's something similar where you have to fly through gates using the waggle control function of the PS pad, not bad but it's too short and I really miss the awesome sound and atmo, and of course the challenge, the PSX bonus rounds could get very intense which I loved a lot. Oh, and t4k also has lotsa music from the old games and new stuff as well, some nice pumping tracks there. Defo worth playing, not only for fans.
Captain Barrel (NGCD) - Hah, one day I will beat the game, one day!!1! It's so addictive, makes me go back to it every other day. Together with Xeno Crisis, this is one of the best home-pro-brew games of recent years, hard to put down, challenging, mean, sounds good, looks good, great for short bursts and long sessions alike.
Shinobi (NGCD) - Not much to say, it's arcade-perfect Sega action platforming goodness par excellence, thanks a bunch, Hoffman! Too bad my external USB burner does not seem to like the Golden Axe NGCD iso, would love to play that on the machine as well but for now I'm having big fun with Shinobi again, been a while since I've played the arcade version. Top job, that port.
