Retro games continue to jostle for attention with glossy modern blockbusters, demonstrating that there is still as much interest in simple, accessible gameplay as there is in photorealistic 100-hour long adventures. But there is another take on the retro genre, one in which completely new ideas combine with retro models to take games in unique and intriguing directions.
Take newly released PS3 and PS Vita music game Sound Shapes. Utterly modern and brimming with fresh ideas, it's anything but dated and yet its smart combination of 2D platforming gameplay and interactive audio offers a distinct sense of gaming's past. Allowing players to create music through interaction, it is visually brilliant, witty and varied.
Over on the Nintendo DS and 3DS, Flip the Core offers more classically formed retro in the shape of a scrolling 2D shooter. The modern twist here? The 2D world is but the skin of a 3D environment, allowing the player to shift perspective, with the action then continuing in 2D.
Finally, a level deeper into obscurity, late-70s games maker Leo Christopherson, who made his name on a computer called the TRS-80, has just remade his classic Android Nim for PC and Mac. The 2012 version of this abstract action game, available from its author's website, is certainly a curio, but one that is incredibly addictive and that may offer gamers a gateway to the eccentric fringes of retro gaming.
