#oneaday Day 205: Last weekend of 2024

The last hours are ticking away on the last weekend of 2024 as I type this. I have two days of "work" (and I use that term loosely during this ever-curious interstitial period between Christmas and the new year) and then a day off for New Year's Day, and then it's back to normal existence.

I have enjoyed the Christmas break, overall. I haven't done very much with it — the fact I have nearly beaten The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom will attest to that — but the period of just straight-up rest and relaxation has been good for me. It's easy to just sort of "tune out" the stresses of everyday working life until you take a step back from them for a little while, and it's most definitely been nice to be away from work social media and the never-ending moaning that goes on there.

We've got an exciting year coming up at work. We've got some great licenses in the pipe for Evercade, one of which (SNK) we've already teased, but there are several more lined up and ready to go, too. I'm looking forward to revealing these at the appropriate times (you won't get any clues here, sorry!) but not looking forward to, once again, revealing something cool and being immediately hit with a torrent of "you should get [x]" comments. I swear, a significant number of people involved in this hobby don't actually care about the thing itself, they only want to know "what's next".

I was actually thinking about this quite a bit towards the end of the working year. Evercade cartridges are super-cool and good value because they collect together a bunch of interesting games in one place, but this unfortunately means that reviews of them tend to suffer. When you get maybe 150 words in a publication like Retro Gamer to cover a cartridge with multiple games on it, there's not really any time for the reviewer to talk about anything in great depth. And online review sites aren't much better, either; inevitably, when we get a cart reviewed, it'll be a general overview of the whole thing without really going into much detail about any of the individual games.

This is a real shame, I think. If I wasn't working for Blaze directly, I'd be wanting to do comprehensive reviews of each cartridge, covering each game in detail. In fact, as it happens, I may be doing something along those lines for both the Evercade blog and YouTube channel in the new year — we want to celebrate some of our back catalogue as well as the most up-to-date stuff, and there's a lot to talk about at this point.

I know "company that makes the thing writing about the thing" isn't quite the same as a professional review, but honestly, a lot of the reviews out there aren't really providing much in the way of helpful information. What I strive to do in my articles and videos for Evercade is provide some decent quality research, some historical and social context for the games — and just an outline of why they're cool, y'know?

So more of that in the new year. In fact, that's what I might just fill my days with on Monday and Tuesday this coming week. While there's not much in the way of "production" stuff going on, I may as well get ahead of the game with writing some bits and pieces, no?

I didn't intend this post to be so work-centric when I started, but, well, that's happened now, and it's not as if I had much else of note to write about, really. I mean, I could write about Echoes of Wisdom, but like most gaming-related things, I'm going to save my conclusive thoughts about that for MoeGamer once I've actually beaten it — which will be in the next couple of days, I reckon, possibly even tonight, depending on how hard I can resist looking at a guide to find the last few Heart Pieces and Might Stones.

Anyway. If you, like me, are back to work for a couple of days tomorrow, I hope you've had a nicely restful holiday season and that those two straggling days aren't too stressful. 2025 is yet another opportunity for a "fresh start" for all of us, and while many people around the world are staring down some significant challenges (I'm glad I never made it to America at this point, frankly) we can all just take each day as it comes and see how things go.

For now, more Zelda.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 181: Hanging in there

I'm still ill. I have just about survived today, with only a little nap after finishing work, but I am feeling pretty rough now. It is not fun, because I have work to do, I have things I want to enjoy, and coughing and spluttering through the day does not make any of those processes more enjoyable.

Still, at least we had a reasonably fun thing to do at work today: tease something for next year! If you happened to miss it, here:

That's right! We're doing the Neo Geo! That's all I can say on the subject for the moment because we're not revealing the details of this deal with SNK beyond the fact that it involves Neo Geo stuff until early next year, but this is something people have been asking about for a while, so it's great to finally be able to say "yep, we doin' it".

Naturally, because no-one on the Internet is ever unconditionally happy any more, we had our fair share of people moaning about things we hadn't actually said, but for the most part, the response has been great. Neo Geo games are top-tier retro, and having a bunch of them in the pipeline is great.

Like I say, that's really all I can talk about on the subject for the moment, because Marketing. Looking more broadly, though, signing an agreement like this only shows how Evercade is going from strength to strength. We've got a couple of other big agreements waiting in the sidelines, too, but we're not even teasing them just yet (although I guess I just did) — you'll find out more about them next year. All I'll say on the subject is that between these deals, we should be making a fair ol' chunk of people happy, and that's always a nice feeling. As for the people who immediately assume the worst when receiving what should be a highly positive announcement? Balls to them, I say. It's really not my problem if someone is unable to find happiness in something specifically designed to bring people happiness.

Right. I'm off to bed to try and shake off this cold. I would like it gone by the weekend, as I have another Laura Bow mystery to play — and work Christmas do next week, too!

Shit, that reminds me, I probably better get my Secret Santa pressie sorted, I guess…

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#oneaday Day 25: Atari In Your Pocket

We announced some new products at work today: two new models of the HyperMegaTech! Super Pocket, a low-cost handheld that comes with a bunch of built-in games, plus full compatibility with the Evercade ecosystem, allowing you to expand the device's capabilities with 500+ games across more than 50 cartridges. And yes, that is the official PR line! I should state up front, though, that this is my personal blog, and thus nothing I say here should be considered official Blaze shenanigans; I just wanted to enthuse about this stuff.

One of the two new Super Pockets joining the existing Taito and Capcom devices is focused around Technos Japan, which is a brand for whom the license expired for their Evercade cartridge, meaning second-hand copies of it now go for absurd prices. The Technos Super Pocket brings most of those games (and a couple of newcomers) back at an affordable price point, which is nice.

The one I'm really excited about, though, is the Atari model, which comes with a whopping 50 games. And we worked with Atari to deliberately select a lineup of games that isn't the same as those seen on other Atari-branded devices. Sure, we've got some familiar favourites in there from the 2600 and arcade back catalogues, but we're backing those up with plenty of 5200, 7800 and Lynx titles, including a blend of both games that were on the existing Evercade Atari cartridges, and some brand new ones.

Perhaps best of all, we're doing a limited edition (2600 units, natch) which is designed in classic '70s-style woodgrain. You can preorder that one right now from Funstock; the standard non-limited versions of both Atari and Technos will be up for preorder at the end of the month for an October release.

With Atari having been such an important and defining part of my life growing up, I'm naturally delighted to play a part in bringing a bunch of these games back. So I thought I'd pick out some of my personal favourites, because why not.

Solaris

This is a great game for the Atari 2600. Despite not being called Star Raiders, it is an official sequel to the original Star Raiders (and different to the game actually called Star Raiders II on Atari 8-bit). It's made by the same programmer (Doug Neubauer) and features the same conflict between humanity and the legally distinct Zylon Empire. Like Star Raiders, it features a blend of action and strategy, tipping a little further in the direction of "action", and is probably one of the most technically impressive, ambitious 2600 games to come out of first-party Atari.

In Solaris, you fly a ship around the galaxy in search of the titular planet. You travel long distances on a grid-based sector map, and by warping to occupied sectors you can battle enemy fleets, destroy enemy bases and rescue allied forces from the Zylons. While it might initially seem complex, it's easy to pick up and very compelling, plus relatively short play sessions make it ideal for handheld play. Definitely a highlight if you've never played it, though it is available on the existing Evercade Atari cartridges.

Miner 2049'er/Bounty Bob Strikes Back!

I'm grouping these together because they're both very similar — the latter is the sequel to the former. They're single-screen platform games in which you control Bounty Bob, a Canadian mountie, who is chasing down a dastardly trapper named Yukon Yohan. Yohan has, it seems, taken up residence in an abandoned radioactive mine filled with mutant nasties, so it's up to Bob to clear the way.

The narrative setup doesn't matter at all; this is a game from the early '80s. What does matter is the gameplay. Your main task in each stage of both Miner 2049'er and Bounty Bob Strikes Back! is to walk across every bit of platform in the level. This starts out simple (in Miner 2049'er, anyway; Bounty Bob Strikes Back! is much tougher, working on the assumption you're already familiar with the prior game) but quickly introduces you to a variety of gimmicks, giving each level a somewhat different feel from the last. Both games demand concentration, dexterity and for you to puzzle out the best route to victory, and their arcade-style structure makes them, again, great handheld titles.

Final Legacy

An all-time favourite of mine, this one. It's best known as an Atari 8-bit game but it was also ported to the 5200, which is near-identical internally.

Final Legacy is an action-strategy game. Some call it "Battlezone with ships" but it's a bit more complex than that. There are four distinct components to the game: a navigation map, in which you move around the game world, pick your targets and attempt (usually unsuccessfully) to avoid detection by enemy ships; a "Sea-to-Land" section where you destroy ground targets with a laser; a "Sea-to-Air" section where you shoot down incoming missiles (inevitably launched while you were pratting about in Sea-to-Land mode); and a Torpedo mode in which you destroy enemy ships.

Final Legacy isn't one of Atari's most well-known games, but as far as I'm concerned it's Star Raiders-tier good. I hope the Atari Super Pocket encourages people to give it a proper go.

Ninja Golf

It's Ninja Golf. The title surely tells you everything you need to know if you weren't already familiar with arguably the Atari 7800's best game.

Turbo Sub

A fantastic Atari Lynx game, Turbo Sub is a real showcase of the platform's spectacular sprite scaling ability. It's a first-person shoot 'em up in which you pilot the titular sub both above and below the waves, blasting enemies to kingdom come and, when beneath the surface, collecting crystals which can be spent to upgrade your weapons for the next stage.

Turbo Sub is pure arcade-style fun. It looks great and it plays super-smoothly. It was one of my favourite Lynx games back when I had one, and having it just ready to go on a pocket-sized device is going to be a delight.

Warbirds

Another great Lynx game, Warbirds is a World War I-themed combat flight sim. While its scenarios are limited to dogfighting against one, two or three other planes, the wealth of difficulty options mean that you can customise the experience a great deal, and it's a lot of fun seeing how many missions in a row you can survive with everything turned up to the hardest level.

Like Turbo Sub, Warbirds is a showcase title for the Lynx's sprite scaling capabilities, with both cloud cover and enemy planes depicted as smoothly animated sprites. These are combined with simple polygonal elements for ground detail — a few hills and the hangar that marks your airstrip. It's relatively simple at its core, but it'll keep you coming back for more.

Berzerk/Frenzy

I'm grouping these two together because, again, the latter is the sequel to the former. These are two early '80s arcade games from Stern, casting you in the role of a little green man (literally) and tasking you with fighting your way through increasingly ferocious waves of killer robots. Take too long clearing a screen and the demonic Evil Otto (the world's most terrifying smiley face) will come after you.

Berzerk is the original game, and became famous for a couple of reasons: firstly, its speech synthesis, which would often yell "QUARTER DETECTED IN POCKET" to unsuspecting passers-by; and secondly, the fact that, according to urban legend, it "killed" two people. (The truth of that one is that two people just happened to suffer a heart attack after playing a game of Berzerk; there's no real evidence that the game itself or the stress of playing it caused the problems, but you know how these things go.)

Frenzy, meanwhile, adds a few elements to Berzerk's basic mechanics such as reflecting shots and destroyable walls. The only home port it got back in the day was to Colecovision, and no-one had a Colecovision (which is a shame, because the Colecovision is very good!) so this Super Pocket release is noteworthy for being one of the few official home releases it has had since its heyday.

—

I think that'll probably do for now. I suspect I'll be spending a lot of time with the Atari Super Pocket when I get one (because of course I'm getting one; I'd be getting one even if I didn't work for Blaze) and I'm super-happy to be involved in making it a thing that exists.

You can find out more about the Super Pockets on the official website, and Evercade likewise. This was not a paid ad. I just like what I do.

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