Retro Vault is our regular weekly feature in which we dive into gaming's past and share five classic nuggets of retro nostalgia. If you want to catch up on previous Retro Vaults, check out the CVG Retro Vault archive.
September 1999 - GTA 2 magazine ad
The surprising success of the original Grand Theft Auto and its London themed spin-off inspired its Dundee-based development studio DMA Design to get to work on a sequel.
GTA 2 was set "three weeks in the future" in a generic city called Anywhere City, USA. Players took control of a petty criminal called Claude Speed as he tried to make it up the crime chain.
The big addition to GTA 2 was a gang system. Each of the three districts was populated by three different gangs, each forming a 'hate triangle' of sorts. Actions performed on gang members would not only have an impact on that specific gang, but also the gang that hated them.
Killing Zaibatsu members, for example, would raise your respect meter with the Loony gang, while naturally lowering it with the Zaibatsu gang at the same time.
GTA 2 was released to a relatively mild response. Fans of the first game still enjoyed it, but the gang system wasn't considered a big enough leap forward. It didn't matter - DMA was already working on a new 3D engine in its new Edinburgh office...
March 2004 - The Legend Of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures artwork
The eleventh game in the Legend Of Zelda series was this curious GameCube title designed for four players.
A couple of years prior, Nintendo had released a remake of A Link To The Past on GBA, which also included a four-player bonus game called Four Swords in which players could work together to escape dungeons while also competing to collect the most rupees.
Four Swords Adventures was a continuation of this, with the main Hyrulean Adventure mode offering 24 episodic stages for one to four players to battle through.
Unfortunately, not many players got to take part in it, because while the single-player mode could be played with a GameCube controller, games involving two or more players required everyone to use a Game Boy Advance as a controller.
The reason was a novel one - rather than forcing everyone to use the same screen space, players who strayed from the pack on the TV would then be able to continue on their own separate screen on their GBA. As brilliant as this was, there simply weren't many Nintendo gamers with three other players and four GBAs readily available.
July 1987 - After Burner arcade flyer
Developed by Sega's AM2 division (also responsible for the likes of OutRun, Hang-On and later Virtua Racing and Daytona), After Burner was as famous for its cabinet as the game itself.
That's not to say the game wasn't a cracker. Taking control of an F-14 Tomcat jet, players had to duck, dive, dip, dodge and barrel roll their way through numerous high-speed stages while gunning down enemies and avoiding their bullets.
As impressive as its lightning fast gameplay (using Sega's new 4MB graphics technology) was, it was the deluxe cabinet model that was the highlight of any arcade willing to cough up the big bucks to have it installed.
The deluxe version featured a fully rotating cockpit, which rolled and tilted as you played the game. Complete with speakers positioned right at the player's ear, it immersed players in the game like nothing before it at that point.
After Burner was so well-loved that in 2006 Sega AM2 released a new version, After Burner Climax, with modern graphics and the glorious return of the deluxe rotating chair.
1993 - Rik Mayall Nintendo ads
CVG was saddened to hear of the death of British comedy legend Rik Mayall last week.
While he will obviously be most fondly remembered for his fantastic and hilarious performances in the likes of The Young Ones, Bottom and Drop Dead Fred, gamers of a certain age will also recall another of his projects.
Throughout 1993, Mayall was hired by Nintendo to appear in a number of television commercials advertising some of the company's bigger games at the time, including Starwing, Street Fighter II Turbo, Link's Awakening, Super Mario All-Stars and Tetris 2.
Unlike most celebrity-endorsed ads, the ones starring Mayall were actually genuinely funny. Thankfully, YouTube user Applemask has complied every Rik Mayall Nintendo advert into one video for your viewing pleasure.
Our personal favourites are ones for Link's Awakening, and the bizarre one for Nigel Mansell's World Championship in which Rik plays the F1 legend himself.
March 1989 - Konix Multisystem preview (CVG issue 89)
We've covered the ill-fated Konix Multisystem in a previous Retro Vault, but here's how we covered it in CVG at the time.
Understandably, given the lofty ambitions of the console-that-wasn't-to-be, we couldn't contain our excitement, declaring it "quite simply the answer to every games player's dreams".
With promises of an exercise bike add-on for just £40, games that would cost £15, a console price itself of just £200 and "dazzling" graphics using a then-impressive palette of 4096 colours, the Konix seemed far too good to be true.
Sadly, it was. The Multisystem ultimately never made it to the shops, mainly because the numerous wild promises made by the company simply weren't economically viable.
What we wouldn't give to get our hands on a prototype model, though.
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