Tech Olive

On the last day of every month we [usually] write a review of a classic video game of yesteryear. While today is the last day of the month, it’s also the last day of the entire year, so we’re going to recap all of the Retro Reviews that we’ve posted in 2010 and put them all in this one convenient post for you to nostalgically enjoy. Please join us after the break for all the retro goodness of 2010.

Note: There are some months that we missed due to either being knee-high in timely content or we were just too freakin’ lazy.

January: Nerf Blast Arena
- “Back in the early days of first-person shooters, it took a lot to peel me away from games like Goldeneye, Perfect Dark 64 and Wolfenstein 3D, but Nerf Arena Blast (NAB) was one of the few games that managed to do it. I decided it was time to install the 328MB, hard drive-eating, Unreal engine-based monstrosity.”

February: The CRT Monitor
- “Ah yes, the familiarity of CRT monitors astounds me. We’ve all used one at some point because it was the only thing we had. LCD monitors didn’t become extremely mainstream until just a few years ago. Heck, it was only last year that I made the switch from CRT to LCD and some people are still rocking the ancient display technology to this day. For this month’s Retro Review, I’ve decided to dive into the mysterious world of the one technology that changed the planet, but now serves as a stupid inconvenience and a desk space waster.”

March: Alien Carnage
- “For this month’s Retro Review, I decided to review one of the many games from my past that I wish I had played more. Unfortunately, I only ever had the small, demo-like “shareware” version of Alien Carnage (Originally released as Halloween Harry) and if that wasn’t enough, the game’s mechanics were always a bit hard for me to grasp in my early years. Here I am to finish the job.”

April: Atomic Tanks
- “We all like a good destroy-and-conquer type game every now and then, but today’s games of this genre are just way too complicated it seems. We need to go back to our roots when games were just plain simple. This brings us to a game that I recently acquired much interest in and have already played way too many hours that destroying targets has become a pure science. This is the game only known as Atomic Tanks (not to be confused with Heavy Weapon: Atomic Tank).”

May: Bio Menace
- “Bio Menace was one of the many games that I played as a youngling. It was one of those games that spawned in the 90s when the entertainment industry was enamored with gritty, bullet-proof hero-with-bad-guy tendencies that have awesome names like Snake, Ace, Maverick, Duke, Bunny and so on.”

July: USB 1.1
- “One port that rules them all! USB is the most widely used port in existence, so it only makes sense to honor the great history of the early days of USB in this month’s Retro Review.”

August: Cannon Fodder
- “Back in my early days of gaming, I remember going to a friends house and catching glimpses of his older brother playing this top-down military strategy game that captivated me. I never learned of this game’s name, so I was tortured by this mystery for many years.”

September: Super Mario Bros.
- “In honor of Super Mario Bros.‘ 25th birthday earlier this month, we’ll be celebrating with a Retro Review of the classic NES title. Released in 1985 and developed/published by Nintendo, Super Mario Bros. captured the hearts of millions of gamers around the world by selling over 40 million copies, which makes it the second best-selling video game of all time (Wii Sports is first). 25 years later, it is still a fan favorite amongst nostalgic gamers and today, I’ll be taking a trip back in time to see just how good this game was.”

October: SkiFree
- “This month’s Retro Review touches on a game that just about everyone has played or at least seen. SkiFreewas created in 1991 by a programmer at Microsoft, the game has seen several updates over the years, and today we pay homage to a true classic. If you’ve never heard of this game, then go drown yourself prepare yourself for one of the biggest classics since Super Mario Bros.”