Digital distribution via the Virtual Console and Xbox Live Arcade has thankfully helped stifle the previously intense flow of classics compilations to retail, but this is one greatest hits package we can get behind. SNK Arcade Classics: Volume 1, as indicated by the title, compiles 16 of the most prominent NeoGeo hits from the early 1990s – Metal Slug, Samurai Shodown, and The King of Fighters '94 included – without the need for dusty, overpriced cartridges. ...

Never heard of Nights? It’s the game that came out on Sega Saturn in 1996, in which you, as a purple jester - the titular Nights - played through two children’s vivid dreams of flight and aerial acrobatics. In tow, you had the kids themselves - Elliot and Claris - and you had to fly through all manner of dreamscapes. The game concept and style of play set Nights apart as something different 12 years ago, but it’s a testament to the strength of the original recipe. ...

If you’re hardcore enough to derive happiness instead of pain from the Roguelike convention of starting from scratch when you die, but not quite hardcore enough to have imported this dungeon crawler ten years ago for your Sega Saturn, we recommend this terrific remake of Baroque.

Baroque’s death mechanic dovetails neatly with the narrative - it’s by dying and revisiting that you start to piece together the intriguing ...

Question: if Iron Man can fly, why has he stumbled into every pitfall of the superhero genre? His game is messy, confusing and, at best, about as good as Catwoman or Batman Begins. Which is not good at all.

In this game of the film of the comic, you are the titular Iron Man - disabled billionaire inventor Tony Stark - in his rocket-booted iron suit, out to thwart evildoers. At heart it’s a shoot-’em-up with a great deal of ...

In reality Silent Hill is probably the last place on Earth we’d want to visit - we’d sooner spend a bank holiday in Baghdad. But atmosphere-wise it trumps even Resident Evil’s Raccoon City on the scare-o-meter. This latest game in the series (a port of the recent PSP title) reveals how it all began in a plot involving a troubled trucker, a mysterious fire and loopy locals with a terrible secret.

As ever, ...

Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Vol. 2 picks up where the [previous volume] left off and gives us the fifth, sixth, and seventh installments in the franchise. For roughly fifteen dollars, you can bring home Real Bout Fatal Fury, Real Bout Fatal Fury Special, and Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers - three immensely ...

If you played Persona 3, is it worth your $30 to buy Persona 3 FES all over again? Yes. For everyone else, congratulations on not buying the first game, it's all included with FES - you are a winner. There are two Episodes in the game: The Answer, a new thirty-hour campaign taking place directly after the events of the original Persona 3, and The Journey, which is the original episode spiffed up with new features. FES has added enough new ...

If you've got a low tolerance for syrupy-cute anime nonsense, Arcana Heart probably isn't for you. A 2D fighter with an all-girl cast, it piles on the saccharine with high-pitched voices, exaggerated posing and lots of overcute everything everywhere. What's more, its 11 fighters have all been tailored to fit some weird Japanese fetish archetype; there's the athletic schoolgirl, the mopey schoolgirl, the bumbling witch with big glasses, the ...

There was a time, around 15 years ago, when the slightly deranged fighting game fanatic had the option of leaving the arcade, and saving his quarters for a gigantic Neo Geo cartridge, and practicing one of SNK's many "homages" to Street Fighter II; all for the wallet-tightening price of around $200 a game.

A decade and a half later, and our PlayStation 2 (and 3) can display arcade-identical ports of the entire World Heroes series; from ...

Obscure: The Aftermath is a survival-horror game aimed at people that love Hollywood screamers. The story involves a rowdy fraternity party that unleashes mutants on a college campus, and the to-do list calls for hacking up those creatures with hockey sticks, chainsaws, and other fun killing implements. Sounds sweet, right? NOT! The action is weak and the graphics are butt-ugly.

Atmospherically, the game does what it need ...