Retro Review! Planescape: Torment - PC

    Your eyes snap open and you gasp as your lungs refill with air. The ceiling above you is splattered with what appears to be old blood. You suddenly become aware that you're laying on your back on something very cold. You swing your legs over the edge of the platform and sit up only to notice that you have been laying on a slab in what appears to be a mortuary. The pounding in your head slowly subsides leaving you with only an empty, blank feeling. Where are you? Why are you here? Who are you? You examine your body and find many, many scars tracing their way across your skin. Your back itches incessantly, but no scratching can alleviate the crawling of your skin. Suddenly, a skull floats up to you and greets you. The skull explains that you were dead. There's no sugar-coating it. You were dead. The skull floats around you and examines your body. You explain to the skull that you do not know how you got here, or who you are. In fact, it seems that your memory is completely blank. The skull explains that this has happened before. In fact, you have died many times in the past - always returning to life with just a little bit more of your mind gone. The skull mentions a tattoo on your back - so THAT must have been what was causing the itch. The skull reads what has been tattooed there and describes instructions left there by one of your past incarnations. Along with a brief explanation of your never-dying "condition" are two simple commands with little explanation: "find your journal, find Pharod, both of these tasks will help you learn who you are." With these instructions in mind, you make your way out of the mortuary with your new boney companion.

Retro Review! Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire - PC

    Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire is a third-person shooter developed by Lucas Arts. The game was released in 1996 on PC, and again in 1997 with Nintendo as a publisher for the Nintendo 64 version. I remember renting this game for the Nintendo 64 multiple times as a kid. This was the first game I had ever played that took place in the Star Wars universe, and I was so happy that our local video store had it. I also remember being extremely confused about just what type of game this was. When I checked out the back of the game's box, the screenshots only worked to deepen this confusion. Was Shadows of the Empire a third-person shooter? Was it a flight-sim game? Was it a first-person shooter? The answer to those questions is...well...yes. I never got very far in the game when I was little, but I gave it another shot on the PC recently and was happy to relive some childhood memories.

Retro Review! Live-A-Live - Super Nintendo

    Live A Live is a Japanese Role Playing Game (JRPG) created by Square. The game only saw a release on the Super Famicom in 1994 and was never officially available outside of Japan. An unofficial fan translation allows non-Japanese speaking gamers to enjoy the JRPG. It's really too bad that the game never saw an English release, as it presents some unique ideas in game design as well as a large amount of humor and enjoyable gameplay.

Final Fantasy II - SNES

    Final Fantasy II is a Japanese style Role Playing Game (JRPG) released by Square in 1991. Even with the Roman numeral II following the name, Final Fantasy II is actually the fourth game in the Final Fantasy series. Square apparently wanted to avoid confusion when localizing their latest game to the USA as the actual Final Fantasys II and III had not been released outside of Japan at the time. Now that all of the early Final Fantasy games have seen release in the US, this renumbering by Square is actually responsible for way more confusion than leaving the game entitled Final Fantasy IV when it crossed the Pacific would have created.