Alpha Beta Gamer

Radical Heroes is a great looking 2.5D side-scrolling beat-em-up, reminiscent of classics like Double Dragon and River City Ransom.

It looks fantastic thanks to the 2D retro Sprites in a 3Dish (slightly-less-retro-but-still-pretty-damn-retro) world. It also features Oculus Rift support, but be warned, the mixture of 2D, 2.5D and 3D may make your eyes implode.

The fighting is fairly basic but great fun, with extreme close-up finishers, weapons and objects scattered around the levels, boss fights, the ability to enter shops to buy items and upgades, even the ability to hire back-up from a Robocop lookalike. There are also a huge amount of unlockable characters, mostly with tongue-in-cheek references to classic movies and games, with Ultra Lad (Mega Man), Street Commando (Rambo) and Robo Kid (Terminator) all making an appearance.

Radical Heroes is shaping up to be a great slice of retro nostalgic fun, it’s big dumb fun, exactly what a side-scrolling beat-em up should be!

Download the Alpha Demo, free

Lugdunon is a charming retro 2d multiplayer RPG/sandbox game that is reminiscent of the 16 bit console era that allows players to make the game their own.

The game features PvE and PvP combat, crafting, trading, character leveling and customisation options. The most impressive feature however, is the ability of designated players to become ‘Game Masters’. This allows players to create new crafting recipies, add and edit NPCs and mould the landscape as they see fit. It’s a great feature, allowing players to effectively make and run their own world and craft their own adventure within the game.

Lugdunon is currently in Open Alpha, with Beta testing starting soon.

Play the Alpha, Free

Blue Saga is a new pirate themed MMORPG with gorgeous retro 2D graphics that’s inspired by Dark Souls, Pokemon and the One Piece anime. It’s a great game, with a huge world to explore, by land or by sea, some interesting characters, and a wide variety of monsters to battle in real-time.

It’s a great game with lots of character, it’s a bit like the legend of Zelda, but you can play it online with friends and features some mighty fine pixel-art.

Download the Beta, Free

Joylancer is a fast paced and fun platform game that revels in it’s monochrome retro glory.

Your Legendary Motor Knight is gifted with incredible power and superhuman dexterity, making him a very agile, formidable fighter and making Joylancer a very enjoyable slice of retro platform gaming.

It’s visual style is obviously reminiscent of early Gameboy games and is a great homage to classic platformers, with some modern day gameplay mechanics and no slowdown!

Download the Beta, Free

SanctuaryRPG is a great new roguelike ASCII text based RPG set in a world of wizards and warlocks, ghosts and goblins, and soups and salads. It has six playable character classes and nine unique races to choose from, crafting, side quests, diverse weaponry, magic abilities, XP, a great turn based battle system, and cow romancing!

It’s an impressive game that brings fresh ideas, modern day gameplay elements and a nice sense of humour to the classic ASCII text based game style.

Download the Beta, Free

Super Mario Eclipse is a great fan made Mario game that doesn’t just re-iterate ideas from previous Mario games, it actually builds on them and throws in some great additions of it’s own. Marios’ movement and controls are spot on (like a mix of SMB2 and SMB3), combined with the nicely realized retro graphics, the game feels like just like a Mario game should.

There are a few interesting additions and tweaks to the normal Mario formula, such as the trippy visuals, side quests and some new puzzle elements. The best additions are the new mario suits though, such as the Chuck (American Football) suit and the Yoshi Suit.

Download the full game, Free

Illuminascii is a great new FPS with a wonderful ascii text based visual style that features randomly generated content and roguelike elements. It’s a very silly game, great fun to play, and like any good roguelike, you never know what’s going to happen next. It’s probably best to explain what happened during my first game:

My randomly generated character, ‘Killroy the Gaunt Vegetable Wizard’, was wandering around admiring the scenery (it is an oddly pretty game) when a large blue ‘J’ set upon me, I promptly shot it a few times, and was told ‘you have killed a deformed burrito’. I came across many such monsters, including a ‘ruinous water pistol’, a ‘pompus corpse’ and ‘lumbering hermit’, and completed a few levels, each time with a strange randomly generated cutscene playing. I found another gun, a fruit machine, a vending machine, ammo and food. I was doing rather well, until I got to a wooded area similar to the one above, and was promptly wiped out buy a ‘lecherous motorcycle’ and an ‘aggravated bearded cat’. ’Killroy the Gaunt Vegetable Wizard’ was no more!!

You have to play this game, it’s still in early Alpha, but already in these early development stages, it’s 100% pure, weird random fun.

Download the Alpha, Free

RPG MO is a simple yet addictive MMORPG where you fight monsters and increase levels in 14 different skills. It features Pets, PvP, legendary equipment, crafting and a variety of diferent monsters to dispatch.

The gameplay is similar to Runescape, but with a nice, simplistic art style and no level cap, so you can grind forever!

Download the Beta, Free through Desura

Taijou is a fast paced, bullet hell platform game, that plays like Super Meat Boy with guns, lots and lots of guns.

It’s fast paced, frantic arcade fun that rewards skill and punishes slow reflexes. Levels are varied, all with their own satisfying retro style, with plenty of different enemies just waiting dispatch you.

Your character is pleasingly quick and agile, with a nice selection of weapons and special moves. You may still be seriously out gunned but you can out-manouver the biggest of baddies if your reflexes are quick enough.

Download the Beta, Free

Posts tagged retro game