Tag Archives: 90s

The Month That Was

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June was the launch month for this blog. It was a busy and interesting month with some surprising results. In all honesty, I wasn’t expecting much in the way of traffic. The majority of blogs hardly get much of a readership, within the first 6 months of operation. 16-BIT Shock on the other hand enjoyed a constant stream of daily visitors. Several spikes occurred during the month, further bumping up overall traffic to the site.

It was also really great that so many views came from so many different countries. To be exact, 31 countries within a 30 day period. Here are the top 10 countries by rate of views:

  1. United States
  2. South Africa (where 16-BIT Shock is based)
  3. United Kingdom
  4. Greece
  5. Canada
  6. Japan
  7. Brazil
  8. Mexico
  9. Netherlands
  10. Italy

Honourable mentions also go to visitors from: Germany, Russia, Portugal, Australia, Finland, Sweden, Hungary, France, Spain, Belgium, New Zealand, Norway, Israel, Ireland, Latvia, Denmark, Morocco, Iceland, Malaysia, Honduras and Columbia.

I appreciate that so many of you took the time to visit this site, read the articles and even shared with your friends & followers on the various social media channels. It’s even better to know that there’s a keen interest in retro gaming among the majority of you. The articles will only get better in the coming months with an increased focus on the project I’ve been working on.

For those of you who have waited patiently for more information on this project –July is your month!

I have several articles lined up that will go into greater detail about this game project, the development process and the release of the first screenshots to ever be made public. Exciting stuff and sure to fire up a few retro heads out there.

And for those that enjoyed Joe Gilliver’s FM Synthesis article, are also in for a treat. Joe’s busy preparing another one that will go further into the technicalities. Want to make your own FM-based chiptune tracks or wondering what the fuss is all about? Joe is an expert in the field and will be shining some light on what is deeply niche subject matter.

Bass Cadet will continue being a mainstay of this blog but will probably be reduced to 2-3 posts per month. The reason for this is because the emphasis will now shift towards game development updates. All in all, it’s looking like an even more interesting month ahead. Stay retro, folks 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Bass Cadet 03 – Streets Of Rage 2

 

 

 

Bass Cadet 03 hitting you just in time for the weekend!

 

Streets Of Rage 2 / Bare Knuckle II by the legendary Yuzo Koshiro. 

 

 

Bass Cadet 02 – Musha Aleste

Welcome to yet another edition of Bass Cadet!

This week I’ll be showcasing another one of my favourites. Compile’s seminal Aleste series was lucky enough to get the Toaplan treatment. Two of the world’s greatest shmup developers united and gave us the mighty – Musha Aleste or M.U.S.H.A as it was known in the States.

There are no words to describe what a phenomenal game this is. Boasting fast-paced shooting action within a stunning futuristic-oriental world setting. Unlike other shmups where the player often pilots a spaceship of some sort. Here we get something way cooler. The so-called metallic uniframe super hybrid armor happens to be a fully fledged mecha. Manga and anime fans, rejoice!

This is a vertically scrolling shooter with some impressive parallax, particularly on the third stage. It was a fairly early release for the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis since it came out in 1990. Which just make some of the technical achievements in this game, even more notable.

Another stand out point is the music. Composed by Toshiaki Sakoda, he managed to deliver the ultimate shooting game soundtrack of the early 90’s. Everyone who loves the genre is still reminiscing Musha Aleste’s hard rocking, heart pounding, synth-assault of an allegory of an electric metal orchestra.

It seldom gets any better than this. Few game soundtracks get the blood pumping like this one does. I am not aware of an actual OST album for Musha Aleste ever getting released. An unfortunate oversight that I hope will be rectified, one day.

Die-hard fans probably have the cart rammed in their Mega Drives permanently, the volume set to max. They get to enjoy the music every time they try to make it through to the end, on hard mode. It’s quite the experience. While the above video doesn’t even come close to recreating the exhilaration, the music is there for all to enjoy.