Mish's top retro multiplayer games

The most dreaded time of the year is almost upon us, yes it's almost Valentines day. The Pressure to buy lavish gifts and share a romantic experience with your other half can sometimes suck the fun out of the the entire holiday. We suggest an alternative activity for this special occasion. Mish has curated her top 5 favourite multiplayer retro games to play with, or against your other half. Do you want to team up and defeat bad guys, or do you want to win with the highest score? We have games for all players:

Super Mariokart

First up we have everyones favourite racing game, Mariokart, more specifically, Super Mariokart on the Super Nintendo (SNES). This simple but addictive little pixelated gem is suitable for gamers of all ages and experience levels. This makes it the perfect competitive game for all couples. If you need to decide who is doing the dishes or who gets to pick the next movie on Netflix, a quick game of Super Mariokart will do the trick, and it's more fun than a coin toss!

Bonanza Bros

If you would prefer to team up with your partner, we suggest a little game called Bonanza Bros on the Sega Mega Drive. In this game you play as two brothers who must sneak into buildings, steal items and get back out without being caught by the cops! You must work together and help each other out through each level, a great game for friends or couples who are 'as thick as thieves'!

Streets Of Rage

This classic side scroller beat 'em up is another great example of a fun and exciting coop game. This time you are on the other side of the law, you can choose from 3 young police officers and you will team up with your partner to stalk the streets looking to find and defeat the growing crime syndicate that has corrupted the local government. You can fight off bad guys with your own unique fighting style, or team up to defeat them with your special combination moves! This is also a fantastic button basher to release some rage after a stressful session on Mariokart (pun intented!)

Columns

After all that stress, it's time for a relaxing game of Columns. Nah, only kidding, this puzzle game may look relaxing, but it quickly turns all players into a giant ball of stress once you reach the higher levels. You can play alone or against a friend to reach the highest score. This game is similar to Tetris but instead of fitting shaped blocks into each other, you must match falling jewels to clear levels and gain points. The soundtrack is also fantastic to listen to while you play!

Tekken

If you are looking for a simple and epic fighting game, you have to play Tekken. In our opinion the best beat 'em up game franchise in the gaming world, with the coolest characters and most impressive fighting combos. Choose from any of the Playstation classics (we suggest Tekken 3 to start) and pick your top fighter! Learn each characters signature moves or button bash like a pro, both are valid and fun techniques in R-CADE! Whatever game you choose to play, retro games have a knack of bringing everyone together. You may have been destroyed at a game of Mariokart, but it was a lot of fun! Playing video games with loved ones, friends and family is quality time that we need more of these days. Get your game passes booked for a wee game session with your other half, your bestie, an old work friend or your mum, and head down to R-CADE for a fun filled session of retro gaming. We have over 1500 retro video games to play, most of them have multiplayer options too, so you will never run out of games to find or rediscover.

Retro Game Reboots To Look Out For In 2022

This years new game releases look pretty exciting, but we are more interested in the retro reboots that have been announced for 2022. Here's a wee list of some classic retro games that are getting the HD treatment:

Dragon Quest 3

This game is a classic among role play videogame enthusiasts, with the first game of its franchise appearing on the Japanese Famicom back in 1988. The remake, due for release in 2022, has kept the adorable charm of it's original games while adding a few animation and gameplay upgrades. The most noticeable difference being the change of view; the Dragon Quest 3 HD remake has moved away from the birds eye view style in favour of a 2.5D view, the characters seem to have kept their pixelated design while the surrounding environment has been upgraded to a 3D style. The mix of both styles works really well for this new release. Square Enix has yet to announce which console the game will be released on but we hope it's most of them!

Advance Wars

Advance Wars began life as a Game Boy Advance game, released in 2001 in the US, then Europe in 2002 and finally as a compilation 1+2 edition in Japan in 2004. This adorable turn based battle game has been listed as one of the greatest video games of all time! As the Nintendo website explains; you command an army in strategic, turn-based combat as a tactical adviser for the Orange Star Army. Your expertise is needed as you move land, air, and naval units across the battlefield. Take down enemy squads and capture towns and bases to secure victory and keep the peace. Keep an eye on the game-changing terrain and weather as you lead a variety of units across multiple maps. Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot camp will be available to play on the Nintendo Switch from spring 2022.

Saints Row

Saints Row is the open world adventure game created by Volition, often called the 'Grand Theft Auto' clone game where you play as a gangster carrying out missions in the Saints Row district. The first game was pretty standard; drive around, shoot people and climb up the street gang ladder. Subsequent releases introduced somewhat interesting storylines and themes, including alien attacks! The rebooted Saints Row is due to be released in August 2022 across the latest Playstation, Xbox and Windows platforms and looks to be missing the completely bonkers storylines (so far) but we are excited to see how they continue the franchise.

Prince Of Persia: Sands of Time

The 2003 action adventure game is set to get a full remake this year, staying loyal to the original storyline but making use of todays technology to create stunning cinematic sequences and updating the character controls. The game will give you the option to play in classic control mode or the newly updated mapping system. Ubisoft announced that they are also adding the original Prince Of Persia game from 1989 as an unlockable bonus! Date for the release has not been announced yet, but from the teaser trailer it looks spectacular! We can't wait to try this one out.

Bonus round...

Goldeneye 007

Ok, technically there hasn't been an official announcement about the release of the N64 classic, but we couldn't NOT talk about the rumours! There have been hints about the classic N64 game coming to Xbox in the near future. The Xbox achievements system added a whole list of N64's Goldeneye game at the start of 2022, and the gamertag of the person who has completed a number of these secret achievements just so happens to be the lead engineer for Rare Ltd, a developer owned by Xbox.

The remake was already completed several years ago and Microsoft had everything ready for an Xbox Live Arcade release for Xbox 360 before Nintendo pulled the plug at the very last minute.

It's still early days, and Xbox have not commented or responded to any of the rumours, but we are still excited by the idea of an updated reboot of the N64 classic, slaps all round!

What game would you like to see rebooted or remade?

Goodbye 2021, you have been awful!

Another completely bonkers year has come to an end, we survived, but barely. What a rollercoaster these past 12 months have been. Entering 2021 in a lockdown, spending time online and growing our community from a safe distance, making so many lovely new friends and continuing to grow our online store has been a joyous experience with the restrictions we were given. Reopening in September gave us the massive boost we needed, it was so wonderful to see our wee venue full of friendly and new faces, to see you all again and to introduce new fans to our little gaming world! Thank you to everyone who visited us and supported us, you are all superstars!

Unfortunately winter hit and with it a variant that just wont stop, literally the same weekend we relaunched our R-CADE Lates nights again, the world announces a highly transmissible variant of Covid, and with that announcement our business crashed. Restrictions are brought back, parties are cancelled and we have to reduce capacity to follow new rules and keep everyone safe We have spent the last two weeks of December with minimal bookings and a sense of impending anxiety for what the next few months will bring. It has been exhausting as a small business trying to adapt to all the changes, to keep everyone safe and keep our business going at the same time. We were so excited to end the year on a high, but with new restrictions in place and our bookings looking bare, our optimism has dwindled and we are exhausted!

We had hoped that 2022 was going to kick off with a bang! We were so looking forward to attending our very good friends gaming convention in Norwich in January, but unfortunately the OLL '22 Games Convention has been postponed until April 2022. We were also hoping to announce a super fun party week to celebrate the 4th anniversary of R-CADE Glasgow in January, but that too will have to be put on hold.

It seems the overall theme of 2021 was to wait, adapt and survive, but we are officially bored of doing that, and we refuse to spend 2022 with this same mindset.

Adapt to thrive, not survive

We have had enough of waiting, we want to adapt to thrive, not just survive! Right now we are spending our time creating the most epic masterplan to reboot R-CADE in 2022! Forget what you remember about our tiny venue on Saltmarket, we are aiming bigger in the New Year! Some of our old ways may have to be sacrificed, but they will make way for lots of new and exciting projects for our business. On top of everything we want to really focus on our amazing community, as you lot have been amazingly supportive, and awesome, and have kept us from going crazy these past two years of pandemic! (wow almost two years!)

We have spent the festive period laying low, and are hoping for a fresh start in the New Year. We are tired, but hopeful. We have our community to keep us going, and we will never be able to thank you all enough for that! x

What would you like to see from R-CADE in the New Year?