Rare Replay Paul Collins Release August 4, 2015 Mode(s), Rare Replay is a 2015 compilation of 30 from the 30-year history of and its predecessor,. The games span multiple genres and —from the to the —and retain the features and errors of their original releases with minimal edits. The compilation adds to make the older games easier and a Snapshots mode of specific challenges culled from parts of the games. Player progress is rewarded with footage and interviews about Rare's major and unreleased games. The compilation was one of several ideas Rare considered to celebrate its 30th anniversary. Inspired by fans, upcoming features, and a desire to link Rare's past and future, the company sorted through 120 games to choose titles that best represented its oeuvre. It prioritized games with characters and environments original to the company.

Name: BattleToads Platform: NES Developer: Rare Publisher: TradeWest Year Released: 1991 Why it Made the Top 100 List: One of the best-looking titles for the NES. Tabtight professional, free when you need it, VPN service.

Rare incorporated six hardware emulators in the package, and worked with its parent company,, to use its unannounced. Rare Replay released worldwide as an Xbox One exclusive on August 4, 2015. Rare Replay 's reviews were generally favorable. Critics appreciated the package's design and craft and called the release a new pinnacle for compilation releases. They commended its 'rewind' and Snapshot features, but criticized technical issues in the Xbox 360 emulation and game installation. Among its games, reviewers preferred Rare's classics, especially, and disliked,, and the Spectrum games.

Some reviewers were disappointed by the absence of the series and due to inevitable issues, while a few thought the package was fine without them. Critics deemed the archival game content and developer interviews as among the compilation's best features, but were upset to see the content hidden behind time-consuming in-game challenges. Rare Replay became Rare's first United Kingdom all-format charts bestseller since in 1998. Contents • • • • • Gameplay [ ] Included games 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 () 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Rare Replay is a compilation of 30 games developed by and its predecessor,, over their 30-year history across platforms from the to the (1983 to 2008), up until Rare's series. The 30 games span multiple genres, including,,,,, and. The compilation opens with a featuring Rare characters.

Each game has a landing page with a variation on its. While the core gameplay remains unedited, Rare added extra features to the older releases. The player can toggle the visual appearance of and 'rewind' up to ten seconds of gameplay in pre- games.

The older games can be at will and progress upon the player's exit. Rare also added an setting for some older games and fixed a game-breaking in. The 'Snapshots' feature presents small segments of the older games as challenges for the player, such as collecting a set amount of in a set amount of time in a set scenario, similar in function to the series. Some Snapshots are connected sequentially as a. The ZX Spectrum retains the technical idiosyncrasies of the original hardware. For instance, their fluctuate in render speed depending on the number of items the computer has to process on-screen.

The Nintendo 64 emulation upgrades the games' and. The nine Xbox 360 releases (and re-releases) install directly to the dashboard separately from the Rare Replay compilation, and require online activation before they can be played offline.

The Xbox 360 games share player saved game and progress between the consoles via 's sync features. Rare Replay uses the prior Xbox 360 of,, and rather than emulating their originals. However, Rare chose to emulate the original rather than using. Runs natively on the Xbox One, as a port upgraded its and frame rate. Rare Replay retains the and modes of the original games, and includes their main add-ons. Multiple classic Rare titles, such as the series and, are not included in the compilation due to issues. A bonus feature section, 'Rare Revealed', contains over an hour of behind-the-scenes footage focusing on Rare's major and unreleased games.

The player completes in-game challenges to collect stamps, which increase the player's rank and the bonus features; to collect all the stamps, the player has to finish every game. The compilation automatically grants stamps for prior progress in the package's Xbox 360 games. Current and former Rare employees, such as, feature in the documentary clips, though studio founders do not appear. Rare Revealed unveils gameplay footage from several unreleased games: for example, in the adventure game Black Widow, the player controls a spider-like robot equipped with missiles. The spider was expected to be recycled in, an unreleased sequel to which was designed with a darker tone than the original. Rare also worked on The Fast and the Furriest, a to with vehicle customization and track alterations.

The company's other planned intellectual properties included the prototype Sundown and the airplane-based Tailwind. The 'Rare Revealed' videos include trivia behind some decisions such as Blast Corps ' character design, the fate of Banjo-Kazooie 's Stop 'n' Swop features, and audio overrides built into. Additional Rare Revealed featurettes not present in Rare Replay have been released since the game's launch via the company's official channel.

Development [ ] Rare began work on Rare Replay in 2014 as a 30th anniversary celebration. The company wanted to do something unique for what they considered a rare milestone in the industry. Rare was also influenced by community requests to bring their classics to Xbox One, and by the Microsoft backward-compatibility team's progress on the feature. The compilation was one of several celebration ideas, but once it was chosen, the '30 years' theme led to the 30 game limit and US$30 price point. As reflective of the company's character and celebratory theme, Rare chose a art style and setting for the compilation.

Rare Replay became part of Rare's plan to simultaneously celebrate its past and introduce its future with a logo redesign, new website, and announcement of their upcoming game,. To select the final 30 games, Rare sorted through 120 games in their catalog. They rated each title for fitness and prioritized those that featured characters and environments original to the company, choosing to exclude those based on licensed intellectual properties. Secondarily, Rare considered whether licenses were available and whether a title remained fun and playable by modern standards. They wanted a wide and representative sample of 'popular games that would hit that nostalgic beat that everyone likes'. Rare chose the Nintendo 64 Conker's Bad Fur Day over the Xbox version ( Conker: Live & Reloaded) because they felt the latter had strayed too far from the original.

While Rare Replay 's designers made the final call, other Rare employees and veterans gave input and recollected old game development stories. Unlike the usual product development cycle, which grows a concept into a final product, most of the development work in Rare Replay was in converging 30 games across six platforms onto one disc.

The engineering challenge lay in the quantity of games and platforms being emulated rather than the emulation effort itself. Rare worked in close collaboration with Microsoft, who were secretly developing the, which Rare ultimately used in Rare Replay. The Microsoft team helped prepare Rare's nine Xbox 360 games for the release.

Their discontinued online services were not restored for the compilation. On Rare Replay 's design, lead designer Paul Collins added that the Snapshot challenges were built to encourage players to sample all of the games, and that the rewind feature was to help all players finish the games without quitting in frustration. The compilation's opening musical number was a compromise from the original vision: a musical history of the company's oeuvre, as told through small musical introductions to each Snapshot. The final opening was intended to evoke players' memories of Rare properties, and includes several.

Rare Replay was announced during the Microsoft press conference at the June. The reveal was leaked in the hours prior to the show. The compilation was released as an Xbox One exclusive worldwide on August 4, 2015. There are no plans for a release or downloadable content additions.

While Rare's founders, the Stamper brothers, were not interviewed in the bonus features, Tim Stamper appeared in a interview set to coincide with the compilation's release. Rare also added a wherein Rare Replay owners unlocked the as a playable character in the 2013 fighting game during a limited test period. Reception [ ] Reception Aggregate score Aggregator Score 84/100 Review scores Publication Score Essential 8.8/10 9.0/10 8/10 9/10 Rare Replay received 'generally favorable' reviews, according to. It reached the top of the United Kingdom all-format games sales charts—the first Xbox One exclusive to do so and Rare's first since Banjo-Kazooie in 1998. Rare Replay was also the first top-ranked budget title since (2009) before it fell to sixth place the next week. Rare Replay was the sixth best selling game in North America for August 2015. The compilation had earlier been 's most preordered game of the 2015 Electronic Entertainment Expo.

Reviewers liked its and low price. Many of the compilation's games already had long-established legacies, such that gamers who experienced the originals in their heyday—the target audience—were unlikely to be swayed by critical reviews of the selections. Reviewers noted the quality and craft that went into the compilation's design. ( ) was impressed by the compilation's presentation and balance between frills and efficiency, and Dan Whitehead ( ) felt that the theatrical theme fit Rare's character.

Reviewers considered Rare Replay a high-water mark for — called it the best since 's. On the other hand, Jeremy Parish ( USgamer) found the contemporaneous 's -style presentation to be a more authentic appreciation of its original material. Chris Plante ( ) saw Rare Replay 's slight hardware improvements and added touches as a viable model for putting retrogames back on the market and slowing the tide of.

Much of the commentary on the compilation focused on Rare's choice of selections and concluded that players new and old would find enough new treasures to outweigh the duds. Reviewer favorites included,, the games, and the Nintendo 64 classics (especially Banjo-Kazooie, Conker, and Perfect Dark). Among the least favorites were, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, and the early Spectrum games, which reviewers felt had aged the worst., however, defended the Spectrum titles for showing an experimental and unrefined side of Rare. Many critics regretted the implacable licensing issues that led to the exclusion of what they considered the company's best games— Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye 007, and Diddy Kong Racing — while others felt that the package was fine without them. Also omitted were Rare's -era games, ' clones', Nintendo franchise releases, and Kinect Sports series.

These timeline gaps precluded, for instance, the player from understanding Conker as an edgy response to the 'cutesy'. Despite these absences, Ars Technica 's critic was impressed by Microsoft's ability to license from publishers including, Nintendo,, and. Eurogamer 's reviewer was surprised by Rare's consistent style across the selections, and compared the company's legacy to that of. The Kotaku reviewer saw Rare Replay as 'image rehabilitation' that would hopefully mark Rare's return to making 'deep and daring games' in line with their historical reputation.

Reviewers felt that the archival game content and developer interviews were among Rare Replay 's best features. Some were frustrated that the features were locked behind time-consuming in-game challenges. Sam Machkovech ( Ars Technica) found himself stuck not even halfway through the stamp card progress after finishing the easiest achievements. This made the unreleased game footage particularly hard to access.

Stephen Totilo ( Kotaku) similarly became uninterested in finishing the stamp collection. He called the stamps the package's 'sickest joke' in consideration of Rare's reputation for collectible-heavy games. Some reviewers found the developer content more important than individual games. Polygon 's reviewer called the compilation 'an essential piece of gaming history', while Kotaku 's critic noted that the features lacked a straightforward history of the company and hid Rare's significant, former ties with Nintendo.

Whitehead ( Eurogamer) wondered why and other early games were ignored in the bonus content. Machkovech ( Ars Technica) found Rare Replay to be as much a 'memorial' as an anthology since Rare had become 'a shadow of its former self'.

He noted how the compilation's final games coincide with the Stamper brothers' exit from the company. Reviewers felt that the Stampers, Rare's founders, were a conspicuous absence from the compilation and Jaz Rignall figured that the compilation's stamps feature was a reference to the brothers. Reviewers praised the feature by which players could 'rewind' time and reattempt difficult sections of ZX Spectrum and Nintendo Entertainment System games, which were known for their difficulty, especially in the notoriously challenging Battletoads. Kotaku figured that Rare added cheats to make the esoteric and 'crushingly tough' Spectrum games tolerable, and the Ars Technica review wished that this 'rewind' feature had been extended to the Nintendo 64 titles.

Critics liked the Snapshot challenges and Polygon reported that they were crucial for learning basic, though less accessible than those of NES Remix. Reviewers complained that the Spectrum game controls were difficult to decipher. The Ars Technica reviewer thought that the compilation did a poor job of explaining each game's controls, and wondered why Rare did not include introductory or how-to videos. Instead, he turned to YouTube videos and external FAQs before playing each game. Eurogamer and Ars Technica disagreed on the virtues of having the Spectrum emulator replicate the graphical glitches of the original console. Jaz Rignall of USgamer appreciated the added option to save game progress at any time for the Spectrum classics, and wrote that the collection will remind players how difficult games used to be.

Rare Replay 's Nintendo 64 emulation pleased critics. Ars Technica wrote that the polygonal upgrades compensated for the 'blurry' and 'pixelated' source material, though the Nintendo 64 multiplayer modes lacked the frame rate upgrades that their single-player modes received. Kotaku noted that the Xbox One had more Nintendo 64 re-releases than Nintendo's. Its reviewer found the in-game Xbox One button prompts to be 'delightful '. Ars Technica 's reviewer commended Rare's choice of the Nintendo 64 version of Conker's Bad Fur Day over its updated but censored Xbox re-release. Initial reviews found Jet Force Gemini unplayable without dual controls, which were later added.

Exchange Pop3 6 0 Keygen For Mac. While Machkovech ( Ars Technica) considered Rare's Microsoft games to the weakest of the lot, Whitehead ( Eurogamer) found them even more enjoyable in the context of Rare Replay. Reviewers noted frame rate and technical issues in the Xbox 360 emulation and did not like its separation from the rest of the compilation.

Kollar ( Polygon) called the Xbox 360 game installation process needlessly complex, and Marty Sliva ( ) did not like how the Xbox 360 startup sequence interrupted the compilation's cohesion. He added that the emulated Xbox 360 experience was subpar compared to the unemulated experience. References [ ]. • ^ McWhertor, Michael (June 15, 2015)... From the original on June 16, 2015. Retrieved June 16, 2015. • ^ Machkovech, Sam (August 3, 2015)...

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External links [ ] •.

Joining the original creators are leading developers who have played key roles on modern greats, such as Dishonored, Last of Us and BioShock Infinite. Together the team is bringing to life the next generation of this landmark franchise, Underworld Ascendant! Backing the game grants you unprecedented front row access to the creation of the next epoch of this storied masterpiece. With your help, here's a glimpse at what we can together build: • Exquisitely Realized Underworld – Plunge into The Stygian Abyss: dark, ripe with dangers, full of ancient secrets to discover. A vast subterranean fantasy world made startlingly real and alive.

• Dynamic Factions – Become embroiled in an epic plot, as rival factions vie for dominance in struggles that ebb and flow across The Stygian Abyss. Your choices will alter the outcome in subtle and dramatic ways. • Improvisation Engine – Delight in player-authored gameplay taken to a whole new level, with a suite of technologies that empower you to solve challenges with astonishing ingenuity. Be the ‘MacGyver’ of a fantasy world. • Hero to Call Your Own – Jump right in as a Fighter, Thief or Mage. Then as your Avatar grows, freely mix and match across any skills to develop a unique hero, tailored to your style of play. • Pushing Boundaries – Stretch Goals will innovate on co-op play with a friend; letting you build your own corner of The Stygian Abyss; and more.

Here’s what some leading game developers say: Richard Garriott (Ultima, Shroud of the Avatar) – “For those of us lifelong gamers that go back to the early days the Underworld franchise, created by Paul Neurath, represents a watershed event on what an immersive 3D true role-playing game can be. Personally I am as excited about Underworld returning as any game I can imagine.” Ken Levine (BioShock) – “Underworld had a transformative effect on my understanding of what games were. It was the first time I ever felt ‘inside’ of an imaginary world. It was the game that primed all my creative ambitions.” Chris Roberts (Star Citizen, Wing Commander) – “Underworld was the first truly 3D textured first person game it influenced pretty much all first person 3D games that came afterwards.” to read more about what legendary game developers are saying. THE UNDERWORLD AS A CHARACTER No other game has such a vivid imagining of an underground fantasy realm as Underworld Ascendant.

The Stygian Abyss is a vast world unto itself • Plunder ancient temples, navigate subterranean rivers, gaze in wonder at the masterwork of jade dwarven halls, scale plunging ice caverns, trek through enchanted forests of giant mushrooms, dare shadowy tombs of the undead, and much more. • Alive with bustling underground societies: enclaves of human renegades scavenging for survival, villages of the mysterious shambler “mushroom people” performing arcane rituals, dwarven factories producing the finest arms and armor. • Face monstrous creatures like the ripper, a vicious, ambulatory plant whose bark is prized by The Stygian Abyss’ intelligent races; stay clear of mass migrations of ravenous rotworms; dodge the giant spider’s sticky webs it casts through the air. • Alter the environment to your advantage. Flood an arid plain to help the damp-loving shamblers expand their territory, gaining their favor.

Changes you make can ripple across the game's reactive, ever-changing ecology, producing startlingly unpredictable results. • Meet shrewd characters, with their own motivations and agendas. Some may be swayed to your cause, while others may manipulate you. • Encounter rugged dwarf frontiersmen, fierce dark elf renegades, and strangely alien shamblers. Each faction holds a valid claim to The Stygian Abyss. Which side will you join?

Will you unite, or destroy? • Entangle yourself in a tale of intrigue and conflict as three fierce, rival factions struggle for control. Your choices will determine the ultimate fate of The Stygian Abyss.

• Experience engaging first-person combat. Launch yourself into fluid, running battles where maneuvering and timing are everything. Utilize your environment to stack the odds in your favor. • Collect magical runes bristling with power. Learn to combine them to surprising effect.

Discover potent spells like Charm Creature, Hailstones, and Clairvoyant Eye. Experiment to customize and improve their effects.

• Obtain rare and powerful weapons and armor. Align with the dwarves to acquire masterfully-crafted plate mail.

Trade with dark elves to gain access to an arsenal of enchanted weaponry. CREATE YOUR OWN CHARACTER CLASS Think outside the box of formalized character classes and concoct your own one-of-a-kind adventurer.

• Jump right into the game choosing from a Fighter, Mage or Thief. But from there you are free to customize your Avatar to your individual play style. • Mix and match your favorite skills and perks. Create a mage skilled at stealth, a fighter who can summon spectral allies, or the ultimate thief.

• Join a faction and gain special perks that improve your abilities to alter the environment, traverse obstacles, or craft traps. STRETCH TRADITIONAL RPG BOUNDARIES Stretch Goals will allow us innovate even further, adding companion creatures, co-op, user-crafted content, and more • Crave fellowship and a companion creature? Vote for the addition of a vorpal bunny or mini-brain.

• Use the Underworld Builder Toolkit to craft your own corner of the Stygian Abyss, and share it with friends. • Need a fighter's prowess in combat, a mage’s spell craft, or a thief's lock pick skills?

Invite a friend to join you online for a cut of the loot. All your buddies’ offline? Use a Doppelganger Gem to borrow a friend's character as an invulnerable ethereal companion AI. To learn even more about the game, and to see more videos, concept art, and more! The team is headed up by Paul Neurath. Paul was the founder of Blue Sky Productions, where he came up with the concept of Ultima Underworld and oversaw its creation.

Later Blue Sky became LookingGlass, one of the most renowned indie studios of the 1990’s. Paul continued to innovate, overseeing the development of such beloved games as System Shock and Thief. As founder of OtherSide Entertainment, Paul orchestrated the return of Underworld, and is once again setting the creative vision for the latest incarnation. OtherSide takes a collaborative approach to development with small, tight-knit teams.

Joining Paul is a team of superbly talented and proven game developers. Some played key roles on Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Thief and/or on more recent landmarks in the genre that have been influenced by these games. All share a passion for bringing Underworld back! Learn more about our team members.