New Games Like Old Games

There are new games that take after the games of yesteryear, and today we’re going to look at some of them. Now, I already know what you’re typing in the comments, and you’re dead wrong.

 

Blood Typers

One of the most outlandish but genuine strokes of genius by SEGA was The Typing of the Dead, a keyboard focused spin-off of The House of the Dead 2 where you need to type prompts to deal with zombies.

Anyway, yes, or as SEGA’s quirky way of teaching people how to type quickly under intense pressure, The Typing of the Dead cemented itself as one of the weirdest games of all time, but it feels like we’ve been waiting forever for someone to do a little bit more with the concept.

Enter Blood Typers from the team at Outer Brain Studios, who decided to take the Typing of the Dead concept and extrapolate it into a full-blown co-op survival horror experience.

Set in a procedurally generated movie lot that’s now populated with zombies and other ghouls, you and up to three friends must now try to survive by using your keyboard for literally everything. Not only do you need to type words in order to blast a monster in the face, but also to navigate the environment, as different spots on the floor have their own words attached.

It’s quite a full-on experience, but one that’s definitely improved by playing with friends, especially considering there’s proximity voice chat, meaning you might hear your mate walk into the other room, but you won’t hear him get mauled to death. Unfortunately, the prox chat does mean we might’ve recommended a “friendslop” game, but it’s a good way to shame your mates for struggling to spell potato.

 

Forbidden Solitaire

Probably the one game in this video that you’re most likely to have recognised or even played yourself just because of how many reviews it received within a few weeks, Forbidden Solitaire has become something of a runaway success. While it’s not really like any proper video game aside from Microsoft Solitaire, it’s the game within a game of it all that makes Forbidden Solitaire such a retro throwback, largely because it’s trying to be a CD-ROM from 1995.

Set in 2019, you find a strange CD-ROM in a thrift store called Forbidden Solitaire, and you vaguely remember some controversy surrounding its release way back when. The game itself plays a bit similar to Balatro, in that you’re playing a card game over multiple runs, and you unlock Jokers that effect play in meaningful ways, some good and some bad. The difference though is that this game offers some cheesy FMV cutscenes of a badly dressed wizard getting merked, but strip back Goosebumps/Are You Afraid Of The Dark level production values and you’ll realise there’s some real horror lurking underneath the surface.

Working together with your sister Emily, you’ll play through the game and uncover more about its history and development, leading to some dark secrets and revelations that could spell trouble for both you and Emily. It’s definitely more of a narrative experience than an infinitely replayable roguelike, but if you’re nostalgic for those old and crappy CD-ROMs and you’re looking for something spooky, Forbidden Solitaire is just what the demo- I mean, doctor ordered.

 

Doorcrash!

SEGA might have cancelled development on their “super game”, but their new take on Crazy Taxi is still on the way, which kind of flies in the face of the previous 20 years of the franchise. After the release of Crazy Taxi 3, SEGA seemed content to leave the series on the sidelines, only bringing it up if they needed a fun level or character in a cart racer, or a fun minigame Like A Dragon. There was even a Crazy Taxi minigame in The Incredible Hulk, if you can believe that.

For a while, it was left up to indie developers to give us the Crazy Taxi experience, and there’s probably too many of those for us to list, but one of the most recent ones that caught our attention is Doorcrash! Granted, the main reason that Doorcrash! is on our radar is because it’s free to play on Steam. Hard to argue with a game when the cost of entry is the same as simply breathing oxygen. Don’t let EA know it’s free.

Based on a version of Sydney, you play as a food delivery driver called Vivi, who mans their scooter and tries to accomplish as many deliveries as possible in a five minute shift. That doesn’t sound like it’d be that fun of a game, until you realise you’re actually riding the Mega Scooter 9000, which lets you jump over buildings and spam the nitro like you live your life a quarter mile at a time. Admittedly, it’s a distraction game made by students rather than a long term investment, but sometimes you just need a short burst of fun.

 

House of Necrosis

Look, whenever we take a look at modern indie games that resemble the classics, we know that finding a game that takes its cues from Resident Evil is kind of cheating. Any kind of indie survival horror experience owes its existence to the work done with those old school RE titles.

Sure, you might find some that are trying to evoke the feeling of Silent Hill over Resident Evil, but what does SH owe its inspiration to after all? Plus, you just need to take one look at House of Necrosis and you’ll realise that it’s an RE homage through and through. You’ve got a lone protagonist trapped inside a mansion, and the mansion is filled with zombies and other critters. Also, loads of doors! It’s as close as it gets to Resident Evil without Capcom calling their lawyers.

Still, just because the framework looks like a Resident Evil clone doesn’t mean that House of Necrosis doesn’t have its own ideas on show. Despite the pre-rendered backgrounds, the cutscenes whenever you move through a door and the tank controls for exploration, House of Necrosis is actually a turn-based RPG, with the dungeon you’re crawling through actually just a spooky mansion in the middle of the woods.

When you break down the actual framework, House of Necrosis begins to feel a bit more like a Mystery Dungeon, albeit with a Resident Evil flavour. Now, if that pitch can’t convince Capcom to make an actual version of that, we’re going to be very upset.

 

Dracamar

Resident Evil isn’t the only gimme during these types of videos. There’s three of them and you’ll see the third by the end of this vid, but the second is the 3D platformer. Whether they get their cues from Super Mario 64 and its follow-ups, Banjo-Kazooie or Sonic Adventure, indie games love paying homage to the 3D platformers of yesteryear. Dracamar is another example of that, which is great for anyone looking for a brand new 3D platformer to enjoy.

A game for anyone who loves cute visuals mixed with awesome gameplay, Dracamar is a platformer that’s inspired by real life Mediterranean landscapes and culture.

You control one of three different characters, Caliu, Foc and Espurna, as they’re trying to gather cute little critters called Okis in an attempt to free land from the clutches of the evil King Crad. Alongside them, you have the very special Iko, a massive Oki who we’ll take seventeen plushies of right now, thanks.

Admittedly, Dracamar is less exploration focused than other platformers, but with 15 levels, multiple bonus levels and a wealth of bosses to fight, Dracamar has enough content here to keep you occupied for a good while. In all the best ways, Dracamar feels like a throwback to the 3D platformers of older consoles, and we honestly couldn’t ask for more, though don’t expect it to be the most challenging platformer you’ve ever played. Dracamar is built for gamers of all ages, after all.

 

Idols of Ash

Not who our writer and researcher Ash looks up to, Idols of Ash is instead an indie game that looks like it was lifted from the PS1’s library, but plays like almost nothing you’ve ever played in your life. Well, apart from like a reverse White Knuckle, I guess? It’s The Descent meets Titanfall, kind of, and we’re still not sure how those two things go together.

You play as a cave diver who’s descending into a mysterious chasm that appears to be thousands of meters deep, and all you’ve got to show for it is your trusty grappling hook. Instead of being like Just Cause’s grappling hook though, which just winches you to the target destination, you instead have to use physics to secure the hook in place and swing effectively. It’s quite the complex and engaging physics system for such a cheap indie game, but isn’t that always the way? Some indie games with a box of scraps manage to make something more immersive than most AAA experiences.

So we’ve covered the Titanfall aspect, but what about The Descent similarities? While you’re not being hunted by a bunch of feral humanoids, Idols of Ash does confront you with a massive centipede that’s chasing you throughout this bite-sized game. Naturally, because it has more legs than you, it’s a little bit faster, so you’ll need to become comfortable using the grappling hook really quickly, unless you want to become bug food. I did pretty quickly.

It’s genuinely quite tense, as this big bugger is never too far away, but if you get the hang of the physics, you’ll be giving Peter Parker a run for his money.

 

Champions of Chaxia

When we look at video games that are designed to evoke that old school feeling, our mistake is simply focusing on just video game influences. Just take a look at Champions of Chaxia, which you might think is trying to emulate those old text adventure games like Zork and the like. In reality, Chaxia is an attempt to create a digital version of those choose-your-own-adventure books that became popular in the late 70s and early 80s. While those were focused on the world of fantasy, Champions of Chaxia is a little bit more grounded.

Instead of playing as some grand adventurer off to save the world, Champions of Chaxia is about trying to survive as long as you can as a gladiator in the empire of Chaxia. Naturally, you’ll fight to rise through the ranks of the colosseum, which takes place through turn-based RPG battles involving dice rolls, but the meat of the game is in the decisions you make. Between each battle, you’ll get to roam the streets of Chaxia and interact with the locals across the city, making alliances or breaking them depending on your actions.

As you’d expect from a game that’s all about player choice, Champions of Chaxia isn’t the longest game in the world, but that’s the point of a “choose your own adventure”… well, adventure. You simply get to start again and make wildly different choices. With an art style and graphics that look like a print book come to life, you should definitely consider checking out Champions of Chaxia. Besides, it’s one of the cheapest games in this video too.

 

Toyful Wonderworld

We’ve reached our third gimme, and it’s the first person shooter, but please try to give us some credit. As mentioned earlier, if you’re looking at a throwback FPS game that’s designed to get your nostalgia neurons firing, chances are they’re aping DOOM in some way, so it’s nice to see a boomer shooter that has some kind of different influence. Granted, Toyful Wonderworld looks a heck of a lot like a Wolfenstein 3D reskin, which is about as far from DOOM as EA College Football is to Madden NFL, but the journey that Toyful Wonderworld took from Wolfenstein 3D is definitely interesting.

Instead of going straight from Wolfenstein, we need to take a detour to a little known PC shooter called Bad Toys 3D, developed by Tibo Software and released in 1998. You play a soldier sent into a toy factory to murder all the evil toys, enough said. Nearly three decades later, developer Cody Blate clearly had fond memories of Bad Toys 3D and decided to craft their own version in GameMaker.

Like Bad Toys 3D, Toyful Wonderworld sees players controlling a lone soldier sent in to deal with a bunch of sentient evil toys, but instead of jumping into a toy factory, you have to explore the titular amusement park. Across the game’s 35 levels, you’ll fight dozens of enemies and bosses while slowly unlocking the 10 different weapons.

The art style might look like a flash game that you probably played instead of doing schoolwork, but that just adds to Toyful Wonderworld’s charm. Come for the retro shooter thrills, stay because the toys locked the doors and you can’t escape.

 

Subversive Memories

Okay, so we might be double dipping on the Resident Evil throwbacks, but to be fair to us, Subversive Memories isn’t quite like other survival horror games.

While most games in that genre try to pitch you on a scenario that’s quite outlandish, but no less scary, the plot of Subversive Memories relies so much on a very real part of Brazilian history: the military dictatorship which ran from 1964 to 1985. Yeah, you thought these were all silly and fun games, and then bam, a bit of grim reality.

You control Renata, a young woman growing up during the dictatorship who always found there was something missing within her life and her past. Following a trail of breadcrumbs leads her to an abandoned military research facility that unfortunately holds dangerous secrets that might be simply too much for her to withstand. The game’s own Steam description doesn’t shy away from its themes and real world history. You’re literally attacked by invisible monsters, much like how many people within Brazil during that time were censored and ultimately disappeared by a seemingly invisible, malevolent force. It’s grim, powerful stuff.

As for the actual gameplay, it’s a 2D side scrolling take on Resident Evil, similar in a lot of ways to the more recent Signalis. You explore tight corridors in this maze-like facility, solving cryptic puzzles that only ever appear when there’s a survival horror happening. Resources are scarce, combat is optional and even discouraged, so this should be right up the alley of anyone looking for that classic survival horror experience.

 

Intravenous 2

So edgy that you could cut bricks out of mountains with it, Intravenous 2 is very upfront about what kind of game it is. John Romero couldn’t make us his bitch, but Roman Glebenkov definitely could.

A hardcore top down stealth action game that will immediately remind you of Hotline Miami, Intravenous models itself after the PS2 banger Splinter Cell trilogy, Deus Ex, and even milsims like Arma.

You play as one of a number of gruff and tough fellas who right some wrong uns by breaking into compounds, dealing with guards, and using the environment to your advantage. It even has elements of imm sim to it with a lot of interactivity with objects and surfaces, as well as a load of different ways of approaching the task at hand. Which is typically shooting guys in the face.

Intravenous 2, much like its predecessor, is v much not for you if you aren’t willing to well suffer a bit. Enemies are super smart and tend to just keep searching for you rather than just giving up after 5 seconds. Even just the noise of the wall you vault can end up in you just starting blasting. That’s viable and sometimes fun, but it’s really a game where you’ll want to feel that power trip of being a big beefy shadow.