Wiper

...which would be an optional difficulty setting so wouldn't impact upon you in any way?

I specifically avoided mentioning Enduro Racer because I knew Lorf would pop in to recommend it A great game, absolutely worth getting! As you asked for other good arcade conversions... Bubble Bobble is a great version, certainly the best of the 8-bit ports, and New Zealand Story is a decent port; both are classic arcade games well worth having. Space Harrier obviously can't live up to the original, but it's very enjoyable nonetheless. At the other end of the scale, Strider is a genuinely terrible port, avoid!

Completely obvious, but Sonic on the Master System is the best Sonic game (well, tied with the Game Gear version, seeing as they're identical), and is absolutely worth having. And if you don't mind something a bit heavier, the following are genuine best-in-generation titles: Ultima IV happens to have its greatest version on MS, both in terms of controls and visuals: it's just a wonderful version of a great game Phantasy Star is a true classic - expect to pay through the nose for it, mind. Also, I'm not sure if it classes as a genuine 'essential', but I adore Master of Darkness, which is a great little Castlevania knockoff. Similarly, I'm a big fan of Master System Ninja Gaiden, which is notably different from all other versions.

I'm interested in it, but also unwilling to give Activision any money, so am doing my best to ignore it. The forum has not been helping me in this regard.

This week has primarily been asset creation; new tilesets, new sprites, new overlay objects. All of which Twitter helpfully destroys any impact of with its horrendous compression: Oddly, despite having less to obviously show off than previous updates, this has been my busiest week; over two working days' worth of work done, thanks to having had Tuesday off work plus more free evening than usual! Next week I'll look at building the processes that handle victory and failure.

The combat is a bit like Monster Hunter, albeit less difficult, and unlike that game it a) has something of a story and b) ends.* Also the original has the best opening/title theme of all time, but alas that was removed from Dark Arisen I'm quite fond of it. *though it does have a massive/endless postgame thing, which I merrily ignored

I'd strongly recommend Rare Replay, which is by far the most loving, carefully put-together games collection I've had the pleasure of playing. Also, as mentioned upthread, take a look at the 360 and original Xbox compatibility; Panzer Dragoon Orta, for example, is a delight to play. Also, having played and completed it with a smile on my face on PC, I also recommend Crackdown 3 for open world fun, yours for the princely sum of a free Gamepass trial subscription. (I also have a lot of love for Sunset Overdrive and the oddity that is Screamride, but your mileage may vary)

Any excuse to stick up Sega Sound Team live performances:

None of these appear to be Defender-likes (of which the winner is clearly the Fantasy Zones), Aero Blasters (admittedly not a series), or Thunderforce (I mean, some of them are exclusively side-scrollers...), so, um, pass?

This week I decided that it might be helpful to not have to limit myself to a single screen when building levels; I've now incorporated basic camera logic, as well as parallax scrolling to accompany it: I've also got smooth zooming functionality, but need to think about whether a) I really need it, and if so b) how to handle the parallax backgrounds in that case.

I did not! I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy it as a side-on platformer, but watching that footage I'm impressed at how similar in feel snake movement and physics are.

A few more complete shots, from multiple angles: Lowlights: buttons only delineated by colour, meaning any button prompts will be, er, interesting for colour-blind folks concave(!?) menu buttons blech angular design of seeming discomfort analogue sticks in the nasty dual shock layout Highlights: I quite like the colour accents on the d-pad. That's pretty cute. It has at least got the standard number of analogue sticks and buttons? um

I'm really digging the cartoonish faces on the new characters, they've done a great job keeping the style of the originals even as they've pushed the technology far further. Very much looking forward to this.

Yep, courtesy of one of that compilation's achievements. One of my favourite games in that (excellent) collection, though I'm a little sad they only included the NES version. Whatever the case, it's a game I have very fond memories of playing with a friend back in junior school, and it holds up surprisingly well (moreso than most Rare games of the era, in fact).

No, I wouldn't suggest that the Xbox store is worse than the eShop, which certainly has the worst design of all console storefronts in terms of discoverability/layout, and is comically slow considering how little it's pushing. Though I will say that while it can take a while for things to load in, it doesn't let that loading time freeze the UI, where the Xbox as a whole just seems to love stuttering around whenever any kind of network activity is happening. (also, crummy as the eShop is, no store is worse than the Microsoft Store on PC in terms of, you know, actually functioning and letting you download your purchases reliably/not randomly signing you out/just plain working. At least the problems there don't seem to have affected the actual Xbox store!)