ZX SPECTRUM - IT LIVES!!! now has a new home:  https://zxspectrumitlives.wixsite.com/home

NEW WEBSITE THREATENS PAGES OF GARISH RETRO GOODNESS!

BEST AND WORST OF SPECTRUM SOFTWARE SCENE FEATURED!

CLASSIC CONTENT GALORE AND LOTS OF NEW STUFF TOO!

REVIEWING THE GAMES NO-ONE ELSE DARES TO TOUCH!

NOW WITH EXTRA DINOSAURS!

NEWS HEADLINES!

Once upon a time, my mate Dave and I decided we'd pick a random new-era Speccy game to play and review, and this title was the lucky winner!  This is also possibly the first ever proper review of the game, exciting eh?  Quite the Unclear User Exclusive.  Unless Dave gets to it first on his website of course, the scoundrel...

Anyway, we Spec-chums have been treated, have we not, with the impressive range of games released for our beloved micro in the last 25 years or so?  Spectrum screen art and music has continued to evolve all the while, thanks to all those clever folks who excel at such.  We salute you in the fashion of Arnold J. Rimmer.

Puzzle games have thrived of course recently on the Speccy, despite a few too many Tetris copies.  This game is apparently a Sokoban clone.  Blank looks all round.  Well, you simply have to return 4 colourful balls to their rightful homes on the screen by moving them around, as they glide frictionlessly around the place until they hit something.

The Speccies is one of those games that is a simple idea, which gradually ramps up the difficulty level and soon has you scratching your head more than is medically good for you.  I played it happily enough for an hour or so.  It's nicely implemented and enjoyable to play.

But then I realised something - it was quiet, too quiet.  True, there's a nice tune on the menu screen, but unfortunately no in-game ditties.  So I cunningly played some of the best Speccy choons I had saved on my phone (I use an android Spectrum emulator, heathen that I am)  in the background, and the experience was transformed.  I know it's a bit of a cheat, and you could play whatever music you like in the background to any game, but for me having the likes of Glider Rider or Led Storm audio as an in-game soundtrack worked a treat, and got the adrenaline pumping a bit more while I rolled my balls around merrily.  Or you could listen to some muzak by the rather spiffy MmcM, if you're more "down with the cool kids", innit?

Difficulty-wise, I got to the giddy heights of level 23 but then sadly botched saving the game state on my emulator, so have to start afresh next time.  So the acid test is: could I be bothered starting it all again?  The answer: "yeah, go 'ed, lad!"

Remember when platform games were pure evil?  In the '80s, everyone was scared of them, so just like "The Scottish Play", they didn't dare to say their full names out loud.  Ma*** Mi***?  Impossible.  J** S** Wi***?  Impossible and bugged to make it more impossible.  Tech****** T**?  Utterly impossible to complete even one room properly.  Dyna**** D**?  My record was screen 3.  Please excuse the language there, I know it's not acceptable.

No genre has been as responsible for so much human suffering over the years, apart from flight simulation.  Perhaps, with the commercial demise of the Spectrum, we would receive respite from such a plight, and somehow put it all behind us.

Time passed.  Some sang about gold.  The Spectrum platform game was surely dead and buried, but then someone somewhere resurrected it (thanks) and, by Zeus, amazingly it appeared to be a reformed character.  Modern-day wizards of the rubber-keyed wonder emerged, offering us new colourful and sonically alluring offerings, which were not seemingly devised by Beelzebub himself.  And lo, we were muchly grateful, and thanked the gods above and ceased rending our garments, which were in a bit of a state by now.

In the year of our lord 2018, Stonechat Productions gave us Bean Brothers, a platform game with a difference.  You play as two...beans probably, who have to co-operate with each other, usually by standing on each other's heads, like a 2D Head Over Heels, in order to escape 20 fiendish screens o' fun.

Playing the game is...a pleasure, therapeutic even.  Since when did Spectrum games become fair?!  With every screen completed, the nightmares begin to recede.  No more mumbling "mff, mff, Solar Power Generator, mff, aaarrgghh" in your sleep or having that dream where you fall...over and over in a hellish infinite death loop until all your lives are frittered away and you're staring dazedly at the menu screen once more.

The game looks great with cute but purposeful cartoon characters, sounds great with a brilliant AY choon, and plays very nicely too.  The odd screen may seem a little easy here and there, but there's plenty to keep you occupied.  At halfway through the game, the computer helpfully told me I'd lost 51 lives in the process.  Good job it kindly gives you an infinity of 'em, with nary a POKE required.

See, a nice game, unlike Tech****** T** which pretended it was being generous by giving you 32 lives.

For a good five minutes back in the mid-'80s every kid wanted to be Peter Stringfellow.  He got to fly a well spiffy helicopter called KITT and used it to zap bad dudes in order to clear his name, after being wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he did not commit.  And he played his huge violin moodily on the beach a lot.  Thanks to Wikipedia for this information as I never watched it myself.

So obviously, it being a TV show and all, software companies fancied making a game of it.  Ocean advertised it heavily but rather embarrassingly failed to get the licence finalised, so Elite swooped in, perhaps by helicopter, and snapped it up.  This was probably a good thing, as Ocean at the time couldn't even convert primary school French into English to save their lives.  Witness Knight Rider, Street Hawks (both of 'em) and Miami Vice.  So we can thank Elite for saving us there.

However, what resulted was surely the Spectrum's most Marmitey game ever.  Crash loved it (90% Crash Smash), maybe a little too much.  Sinclair User hated it (3/10) because there wasn't a ZX81 version.  Sinclair Programs really hated it (a gobsmacking 10%) because it didn't involve a flickering black square jerking slowly up the screen, then producing an error message, with an apology to come next issue.

Your Spectrum/Sinclair/Whatever probably came closest to hitting the nail on the head, but it's hard to tell due to their then hopeless ratings system.  They gave it Hit Hit Miss.  Kind of sums it up in a very vague way, only marginally more informative than "This is a game".

Right then.  Having dismissed everyone else's opinions, I guess I'd better play the game.  Okay.  Hang on, better make myself a nice coffee first...and maybe pop to the loo...erm, now I'll perhaps just sort out my pension...oh alright, I'll play it now.  Jeez, what's your hurry?!

Just to warn you, I'll be playing Airwolf using "massively cheaty mode", namely save scumming my progress using my Speccy emulator on every screen.   Sometimes more than once per screen.  This is for the sake of my mental health and to prevent death from cutting this review short.

The idea is you have to rescue some hapless boffins/brainiacs/nerdlingers from a meany's underground hi-tech base, using your well impressive chopper.  Well, it's got a gun at least.  So here goes...

Screen 1 is a gimme, even I can do that.  So screen 2 should be slightly harder then.  Ah, a wall.  Just shoot through it I guess.  Hang on, it's just refreshed itself somehow and filled in all the holes I shot in it, that's weird.  Shoot it again then.  Hmmm, refreshed itself again.  Okay, SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT OH FOR ****'S SAKE, HOW IN THE MOTHER******* NAME OF CHRIST ARE YOU MEANT TO DO THIS, IT'S ****ING IMPOSSIBLE.  Oh wait, I've managed it somehow after 20 or so tries.  Is that the whole game, surely I've suffered enough already?

(Lack of) progress continues in a similar vein throughout the game.  This game really does hate you, and you've got to love it a little for that.  After all, nowadays we're supposed to love cruel and unforgiving games, calling them "Souls" types, as if that excuses everything.  In the '80s we just called such games tw**s.

Using my admittedly cheaty tactics, I eventually came across a blue scientist (please).  "Now we're getting somewhere" I naively muttered to myself.  Just take him out the way I came in, easy does it all the way.  Wait, I just blew up for no apparent reason.  Hold the phone, it happened again.  WTAF?  Oh, my time limit ran out.  And it just keeps running out with every life lost.  So I went on a very macho gung-ho mad dash one time and thought I'd managed to get all the way back out.  But somehow I forgot the revenge of the motherloving b***ard wall on screen 2, which I now had to traverse in the opposite direction.  I did the only decent thing I could and crashed my beautiful Airwolf against the wall deliberately in frustration, instantly killing Peter and his boffin buddy.  The bad guys had won again.  I rage-quitted like the petulant child I am.

Ahem, so...plus points then!  The game looks great, excellent graphics and the 'copter controls work really well.  Trouble is, so narrow are the margins of error on practically all screens, you're constantly using minute tweaks of the controls to squeeze into tiny gaps, never really getting to give the hi-tech whirlybird its head, say for a nice flight over Switzerland or something.

Given it's quite an old game, I think Elite did a good job on this one, it's so much better than most licence tie-ins of the time.  It may be that they ramped up the difficulty deliberately as there are only 12 or so screens in the game, and it would be too easy to complete otherwise.  But it's just possible they might have taken it a tiny tad too far in the end.

For some reason Ocean's planned Speccy conversion of the arcade game Toki fell off their "to do" list back in 1991.  There's probably a dusty post-it note about it lying in an abandoned corner of their old gaff in Manchester somewhere.  There were previews which looked promising with big chunky graphics, but the game went the way of Comic Bakery and so many others.

But happily we've only had to wait 30 years for a Toki-esque experience on our beloved machine, thanks to the brilliant Pat Morita Team (loved their last album) who hail from Espana.  They've done some good stuff already, but they really seem to be raising the bar (I actually typed 'bra' at first, I kid you not.  Sorry, must focus) of late, what with this title and Shovel Adventure, another recent goody.

You play a damn dirty ape who is desperate to win back his high-maintenance gorillafriend from a rival simian suitor.  Got to be Donkey Kong surely, although Diddy must have grown up by now, so could well be 'courting' as the old folk like to say.

You have to traverse 5 levels full of platforming goodness, with some extra bits added on if you buy the extended version, which you really should, it's only a few squid.  You can throw your nuts at enemies, picking up weapon boosts here and there, or simply jump on them to turn them flat as a fluke.  A big bad boss lurks at the end of each level, patiently waiting for you.  What do they do with the rest of their time?

I must say this game is a corker.  It's amazing that people are still putting so much love and attention into games for a 40 year old machine.  It's enough to bring a tear to an old gamer's eye, so it is.  Sob.

Sniff, right, I'm okay again now.  Graphically things look excellent, your ape dude is only small, but well-defined, 'cos he's been the gym.  The scenery is colourful and varied across all the levels, with the boss battles adding further interest as you go.

There's some very nice AY music throughout, changing with every level and boss fight, though the noise our Toki makes when the baddies get him is a bit strident by comparison.  He is a monkey, I suppose, not the quietest of creatures.  At least he doesn't throw his scat at the screen, unless that's what happens when you finish the game.  "Congratulations!"  *splat*

The game isn't easy by any means, and you tend to get thrown back a few screens when you get gotten, but it never feels too unfair, meaning you'll happily play it for ages without going bananas.  Argh, nearly got through without a lame monkey pun... 

Here's a weird thing.  Guns & Gears is a DLC release for the 2020 classic Delta's Shadow from those ingenious Spanish Russians, Sanchez Crew.  I can't think of any other examples of Speccy DLC - it's a modern concept of course.  Quite a few Spectrum games of old had expansion packs I suppose, but you couldn't download them on the internet for some strange reason.  Clearly an oversight.

This is actually a prequel to Delta's Shadow, taking place seven years before that game.  You play as Jacqueline, who together with her resistance colleague Dirk Chinstrap, sorry Nova, are trying to topple the eeeeeeeeevil Delta Corporation, who are taking over the world with their cheap flights to America.

Our Jacqui has to break out of the Delta factory, it seems, while Crush McMeatigan goes off to a role-play training session with their senior management.  Could anything be more chilling???

I'm giving big points to the Sanchez massive for providing an all-action heroine who jumps and shoots and dies every bit as well as any steroid-guzzling muscle-bound lunk ever could.  But maybe a few points lost for her outrageous proportions on the front screen.  She looks like she could bounce '90s Lara Croft into next week.  Yet her character sprite in the game itself looks like a skinny gal in a flasher mac.

The gameplay is largely the same as in Delta's Shadow, albeit slightly more basic - mostly climbing ladders, shooting robots and falling into machinery.  But it's done with great style and attention to detail as ever.

Graphics are spot-on and colourful, with slightly more muted colour tones than DS (see screenshot above).  The AY music is once again great, and the whole thing is a joy to play with superb cut scenes piling on the atmosphere.

I'd say you can probably complete this DLC in an hour or so, once you get to grips with things.  Once I'd managed this, I was actually quite gutted when it ended, which reflects just how good the game is.  To give you a better idea of how I felt at the time, I'm going to curtail this review at a totally inappropriate mom

Here's a game with a hint of mystery about it.  According to our very own bibles of Spectrum knowledge, namely World of Spectrum and Spectrum Computing, it was originally written back in 1992 when the Speccy was (just barely) still going and it seems to have been linked to Atlantis Software in some way, as it contains a screen plugging some of their games.  But in the end, it was released only in 1995 by Redwood Designs.  Presumably to an audience of practically no-one by then.

It seems a shame that the planned deal went south for whatever reason, as this would surely easily have been Atlantis' best ever game.  Admittedly not up against too much there, though they did have their moments.  Such as...er, hang on, I'll get back to you, I promise.

So this title was too old to be hip and too young to be retro.  A tough break, I'm sure we can all relate (cough).  Good job there are still some of us around who can give it the attention it deserves though, eh?  God bless us, one and all!

Enough self-congratulation.  Anyway, you would think this game has to be an arcade conversion, everything about it screams that.  But apparently it's not.  The chunky graphical style, colourful intro screens and gameplay generally seem so arcadey, it's almost a tribute to those big noisy coin-eating behemoths of the '80s.

You play as Jack Lumber, who with that name was always feted to cut down trees for a living.  When he's not cross-dressing like his dear papa, he has to do his day job and fulfil his employer's logging quotas.

But this can prove tricky.  Birds, bees and homicidal maniacs are out to stop him, maybe with an environmental agenda, who knows?  He can throw apples at them in defence though, canny lad that he is.  He's got an axe he bought off Ebay which is only good for hacking down half a tree, so he has to get it re-sharpened regularly.  Thus a level containing 3 trees necessitates 6 visits to the various overworked whetstones around the place.

Each level contains a few screens to wander around, various objects to assist young Jack and five stars to collect, which trigger a bonus stage if you manage to complete your current level first.  The bonus level involves jumping around on logs collecting stars and eating buttered scones for tea.

One thing though, this game may look cutesy and nice, but it's mightily hard.  You have to be very methodical and patient in choosing the optimum route and try to keep your next move in mind at all times, not getting distracted by trying to destroy as much wildlife as possible with your well-aimed Granny Smiths.  Otherwise the skinny time limit will get you every time.

And guess what?  If you do get all five stars to earn the bonus stage, then scrape through the current level with, say a meagre 3 seconds to spare, you get to use just those measly 3 seconds for the bonus level, no more.  Man, that's harsh.

The graphical style is heavily inspired by the classic Rainbow Islands and the whole game is wildly colourful, just like many arcade games of old.  It's one of those great Spectrum games where the programmer fearlessly throws masses of colour at everything, as though colour clash ain't no thang.  There's a quirky tune that plays throughout, occasionally slowing down a tad when the action hots up, but this just adds to the general chaos.

Apparently the logging company has four branches worldwide for Jack to work at, namely Pleasant Valley, Winter Wonderland, Sunshine Safari and Dead Man's Gulch.  Yikes, hope they pay for his travel expenses and life insurance.  I'd love to see all those levels, but so far my record is only stage 2 of Pleasant Valley, so clearly I must try harder.  And avid save scummer that I am, I may one day stand half a chance of getting somewhere in this brilliant game.

Aha, Sceptre of Bagdad, that was okay.

THE GAMES THAT TIME FORGOT

1986 EDITION

Aliens have invaded the underground caverns of the Doombase.  You have to evict them by collecting several keys, in order to build a doomsday device...of keys.  No further explanation asked for or given.

Doombase resembles Starquake on a budget, which is okay in theory.  But how does it play, and does it bring anything worthwhile to the table?  Kinda the point of a review, I know.  I admit I'm stalling for time here as this game is pretty nondescript.  There's a general lack of polish apparent, which is understandable for a budget game, but it's always nice to be surprised by a game now and then.

First impressions aren't great - no loading screen, weird compulsory keys choice (Q, W, ENTER and SYMBOL SHIFT anyone else's configuration of choice?) and occasional annoying sound effects.

So we're relying on good gameplay to save the day.  But it doesn't really happen.  Your jetpack probably wasn't made by Ultimate, as movement isn't very intuitive.  You are armed only with bombs which you drop vertically until they quickly run out, but you could really do with a nice zappy Acme laser gun instead.  More of a farcenal than an arsenal really.  Ha.  Hmm.

Anyway you can at least fly around 10 to 15 screens easily enough, with quite a generous damage bar.  Generous that is until an alien suddenly attaches itself to you and won't let go, triggering flashbacks to those horrid wasps in Wriggler, depleting your whole bar just like that.  This happens often.

I got to 3 keys, falling pitifully short of the however many I actually need to build my big key-themed doomsday device.  Ah well.

Tynesoft and Harry S. Price were quite the Spectrum dream team.  One released mostly staggeringly poor quality games and the other, despite probably not existing (allegedly) ripped off game after game from other authors, and passed them off as his own.  "CrimeBusters with Magic Knight"  is the most notorious example.  He knew he should have removed that last bit from the title, what a giveaway.  But let's put any prejudice aside, and judge these 2 games on their merits, shall we?

Okay, they're ****ing awful.  The fact that there are 2 games in this package makes it doubly painful.  One For The Road is a Pacman clone (distant screams) where you drive round collecting cat's eyes (wha?) and avoiding chasing road signs (wha?) which you can drive over if you pick up an oil can (your turn).

It's too slow by far - surely a car should move faster than a cheese?  Colour clashes hideously, sound is rubbish and soon you'll be diving for the off switch.

Tragically Mutations is worse.  Apparently it's a rip, I mean mod, of Spawn of Evil, only I imagine things happen in that game, as b*gger all happens in this version.  You search for aliens, occasionally find some, then blast them in a very boring way.  The star scrolling effect is okay, so probably Don Priestley to thank there.

These 2 games would have sucked back in 1982, when people sold games that were just a xmas tree made of asterisks, but in 1986 it bordered on criminal.  Wow, I was gonna be nice about all the games in this feature, and now I'm ranting like a drunken madman again.

Pippo.  No back story.  No bizarre plot.  The inlay just says "this is a classic arcade game" and away we go.  Shame really, so let's make one up.

"The name's Pippo, Detective Peter Pippo, generic world-weary rabbit gumshoe, kinda like a cross between Sam and Max.  I eke out a paltry living on small fry cases, tossed to me every so often by sassy bunny dames who walk up the stairs to my dingy office downtown, usually wanting their abusive rabbit husbands to be persuaded to go swim with the fishes."

"One night I was bouncing home through an atmospheric dark alley when I heard a ruckus way up high in this tall building nearby.  I boinged wheezily up the fire escape, until I finally reached the roof.  Then the damnedest thing happened, see.  When I bounced forward, the floor of the roof changed colour to bright pink.  And again, and again, with every bounce I took."

"I was suddenly set upon by hoodlums - bubbles, smiley faces and dollar signs, who were trying to do me in.  Luckily, despite my massive bunny bulk, thanks to a diet of rye and doughnuts, I managed to dodge their advances, even finding time to pop the odd pill I found lying around.  I say "lying around", they were actually dancing before my eyes.  Then when I took one, the wise guys turned into coiled springs.  So I jumped on 'em good, but I had to watch my step - too close to the edge of the roof and I'd soon be pavement pizza and my career in private investigation would become yesterday's headlines and tomorrow's fish and chi...I mean fries wrappings"

"When would this nightmare end?  Probably when I stopped mixing prime opium with my whiskey..."

Yeah, Pippo's alright actually.  This is me saying that now, not the bunny detective.  I know his story seemed so real and immersive, and not at all a waste of space.

It's a decent enough Q-bert clone, a tad slow maybe, but graphically good and colourful, and playable enough to pass the time in a bit of a fun panic.

And it was my missus' fave Speccy game back in the day, so that's gotta count for something, eh?

The aptly-named Dr. Maddo is holding Marilyn Monroe (yes, really) captive in his castle in UnHollywood (yes, really), with the intention of cloning her (fnar (c) YS 1986).  Her agent wants you to free her to save her image (yes, really) so you have to fight your way through the following levels:  castle hustle, cesspool, disaster room, laboratory, robot plant, android base, replication bay, code circuitry escape cell and punishment chamber.  Sounds decent, right?  Well, we'll see.

This game hails from Slovenia.  As laudable as that is, it is pretty freaking crazy and somehow it found its way onto U.S. Gold's tame budget label Americana.  The plot is way out there, which I like.  The loading screen is impressive.  Sadly then you have to play the game.

On screen one, you are pelted with dots (nets) by three monkeys, while a rogue tissue (bat) flies at you, followed by an annoying heart (dog) for some reason.  All the while you have to frantically shoot tiny bits off a gate to reach the next level.  It's like screen 2 of Airwolf, only (pauses in disbelief)  this is harder.

I really did try.  I've done my best to give this game a fair crack of the whip, but despite well over 50 attempts, I still can't get through that b***ard gate.  I now officially give up.  I checked the RZX walkthrough and to be fair, the other levels look a little different, but just as annoying, though credit the authors for geting some variety into the game.  It's just the difficulty level is off the charts, even for an '80s Speccy game.

Graphics are adequate if not spectacular, colour is fine and there's even a reasonable tune playing throughout.  If there had been a difficulty option, it might have been a contender.  But sadly no.

Tynesoft strike again, no Harry S. Price in sight this time at least, so the lawyers can stand down.  And whaddya know?  This is a proper game, not two half-games.  Here's the plot bit.

Good wizard Isluider (not Isildur) had his spell book stolen by the sarcastic wizard Sarkonez, and is now imprisoned in a magical world created by him.  Isluider has nevertheless promised you mucho dinero if you can retrieve said book, and has gifted you his friend Zod to accompany you/kill you once you've found it.

Not sure if this game is a PAWer or GACer or maybe neither, but it seems solid enough.  The parser is better than many adventures, as it actually understands some words.  There are some rather lovely graphics for most locations and the fantasy setting is comfortingly familiar.  The font is better than Wingdings, but why do some adventures INSIST ON SHOUTING AT YOU CONSTANTLY?  I actually have to re-read locations regularly as my eye (I've only got one) can't easily take it all in first time round.  I guess some adventure authors don't dig evolution.

It's a nice touch to have a companion to join you on your quest/mission/thing.  Zod is stronger than you are, you little weakling, but he can't fly like in Superman II.  Oddly he has his own score rating in the game, as well as you having your own.  How the heck does that work?

I'll probably never know, as I managed to explore around 20 locations happily enough, the highlights being killing a dragon suspiciously easily and jumping on a moving log to cross a river after a few goes.

I eventually got stuck trying to get a rusty grate open, with Zod looking on cluelessly, but I got further than I get in most adventures, so I'll count that as a win.

EXTINCT JIM & THE JUDGEMENT OF DOOM

-FIN-

The future, my friends, is bleak.  The earth is dying a slow toxic death and the elite classes rule over the mindless masses with cruel and selfish intent.

So in order to escape today's grim reality (satire), why not take a break from real life and play Future Games instead?  I guess placing yourself in an even more dystopian environment than our current one might cheer you up a bit.  Well, maybe.

The year is...some time in the future, and you have been chosen to take part in the annual Birexien lunar games, advises the amusing inlay blurb.  Downtrodden citizens, if they win, can gain their freedom and transportation to a presumably much nicer planet.  All the others who fail to win die in this 1986 precursor to Squid Game, Hunger Games and The Generation Game.

You have 5 events to survive, as well as a perilous car journey between each of these.  First up is Break-In at Com-Cen, where you negotiate strange hazards to reach a computer, hack the security system and escape the way you came in.  It's a quirky little start to proceedings.

Then get in your car to blast to the next stage, avoiding obstacles and an enemy car who has it in for you.  This is like a vertical scrolling Tranz Am, only with far nicer graphics (ooh, Ultimate burn).

Next is Hairy Meanoid's Spheres missus, where you boldly stand in an asteroid field and jump back and forth, avoiding small planets which are chucked at you.  A couple of grenades can be thrown at the planets to avoid imminent squishage, but once the grenades are gone, your only hope is the brilliantly-named Astral Wimp-Out Device.

Another car journey brings you to the aerial combat range, where you fly around with your jetpack and zap aliens till they're all deaded, possibly 3 or 4 rounds of 'em, I dunno.  It's like Lunar Jetman, only playable (Jeez, what's wrong with you, ya heretic?)

Another road trip, then it's Toxard Shoot, in which acid-spitting death badgers (loved their last album) hurl their toxic sputum at you, so you have to shoot it down first.  Weird idea, but it's basically the clay pigeon shooting bit from Hypersports.  No winking badgers here though, more's the pity.

Yet more brumming, then onto Spiky Doobydoo Chase, where you have to outrun, in true Daley Thompson's stylee, a rhino-like beast who tends to stab you up the bum, which makes your head fly miles up into the air, while your headless trunk spurts pixels, like a gory manga film.  This actually happens.

Survive this and your last car ride is to the glorious award ceremony, which features fireworks left over from Penetrator, probably to cover up the noise of other competitors getting their prize of a bullet in the ****ing head, as Rage Against The Machine would have it.

This game to my knowledge has never been reviewed by any magazines.  Why?  I bought it back in the day and loved it, and it almost gained further cache because no-one seemed to have heard of it.  I read recently that Mastertronic's best-selling game of all time was Formula One Simulator.  The same piece of crap that Spirit Software used to spirit people's money away from them, with its promise of a real steering wheel included with the game.  I don't think Mastertronic improved the game at all, yet people bought it by the bucketload.  Humans eh?  Not the brightest.

Anyway, misanthropy aside, I am going to right this injustice right now.  Right.  This game cost £1.99 and contains 6 very serviceable mini games.  That's 33p a game.  Even in the '80s, that wasn't much, just 66 half-penny sweets I reckon.  Each game has great graphics, is full of character, bags of colour and is really good fun to play.  You can practise them separately too, which is handy.

Then there's the sound.  I remember being gobsmacked by the extraordinary space jazz music that plays when the game loads up.  It's the work of beeper music genius Tim Follin of course, and it's really something.  More of his sound effects crop up in the game as well, which adds to the senses-pleasing quality throughout, though the game doesn't smell of anything much, to be fair.

In conclusion, this title would not look out of place in the pantheon of top budget games titles, together with the likes of Magic Knight's adventures and possibly Cabin boy Jim, and his obsession with booty.  Sorry though, no eggs allowed in here, there are limits.

The doors of the inn burst open.  A dishevelled and bleeding old man staggers in and mutters darkly the words "He's back".  "Who's back?"  shout some nearby drunkards.  "Balachor" wheezes the codger.  "Balachor?  Who the **** is Balachor?"  counter the regulars.

Some time later it was established that the ignorant locals hadn't even played Catacombs of Balachor from a couple of years earlier, so were not really up to speed on events.  You however know the score, cleverchops.  After all, you were the brave soul who just about escaped the eeeeeevil wizard's fortress with your life (lives?) that time, having supposedly smoten him to death.  But as the front cover brazenly declares "The bestest, baddest wizards never stay dead for long".  So it's wizard whacking time once again, peasants!

This game is written by a couple of likely characters called Morkin and Rorthron, who must have escaped from the Land of Midnight decades ago.  Once free, they beavered away at their first game, the aforementioned Caterpillars of Balachor, which is well worth a play and showed what they could do, but with this game it feels like they have certainly levelled up, to use a term which politicians have recently ruined.  So watch out Doomdark, sorry Balachor!  Getting mixed up there.

In order to defeat the wotten wizard, our hero must solve various problems along the way by using an item or twelve.  There's loads of stuff just lying around the place, and you'll be faced with some tricky choices as your pockets only hold three items.  Mind you, when those items are a big axe, a wagon wheel (not the biscuit) and a ladder, them pockets must be impressively spacious and capacious.

Starting out, you spend a short while dodging monsters and wondering why your fire button isn't working, but you should soon find ways of arming yourself, which comes as quite a relief.  And when travelling around the village and its environs, admiring the scenery as you go, you are reminded of quests of old, perhaps the one with the nasty wulf, or that lord of fire, or even the wood with a robin in it.  The place is bursting with colour and beautifully designed scenery.  Take a bow Rorthron, Lord of the Graphics, who stands on the downs of shadows, looking south to the Tower of the Moon.

Morkin, son of Luxor, King of Coding and immune to the Ice Fear, ain't shirking either though.  For he hath taken many more modern aspects of gameplay and cunningly injected them into the flick-screen maze genre of yore.  The object-based puzzles remind one of point-and-clickery from '90s PC classics, only without so much pain involved.  The health bar is a more friendly version of older games, which were happy to rip away your few lives mercilessly at the merest whiff of a foe.  And trading in your various riches in exchange for clues from the village seer is another novelty unheard of back in '80s Speccyland.

To add to the local colour, some of the village 'characters' have opened up their doors to receive you into their homes.  This might sound horrible in real life, but in this game such things always serve a purpose, so do try to be sociable, eh?

It plays really well - it's not hard to make some decent progress straight out of the box, but you will have to knuckle down in order to complete your entire quest.  I managed it eventually, with the help of many a saved state, and thoroughly enjoyed myself in so doing.  Hussah!

Perhaps the only thing missing from my wishlist for this game is a thumping wizardy-themed soundtrack, but the sound in the game is highly decent anyway.  Maybe to enhance the experience, play some bizarre '70s prog rock in the background, preferably with lyrics about pixies and potions.  How about a 128K version with in-game AY music, eh guys?  Maybe even with some added quests to sweeten the deal?  You don't ask, you don't get, I reckon  (dodges swinging fists).

5 DODGY OLD GAMES I OWNED

"Ten crazy caverns, ten hungry mouths to feed.  Line up the crunchy cubes and cannon them into the craving craw.  Watch out for the crazy crashers coming to convert your little cubey crammer into a crushed crisp.  It's a cracker!"

Beautiful words, just beautiful.  This is the inlay blurb to Crazy Caverns, and it just goes to show that if you've got nothing worthwhile to say, resort to regularly repetitive annoying alliteration.  I swear by it, you've probably noticed.

In fairness, this was all you wanted from a cheap and cheerful budget game back in 1984, so it does just fine.  This was one of Firebird's first offerings, in the same tranche as Booty, though not really in the same class.  But they did a nice line in respectable, solid titles at the time on the whole.

Putting an actual in-game screenshot on the front cover ot the game showed an unexpected facet rarely displayed by software houses.  That of honesty.  Most companies were at pains to distract you from the quality of their games with fancy artwork.  Mind you, Firebird probably saved a load of money simply by not hiring artists.  The only downside is that their products ended up vaguely resembling No Frills beans or Smartprice cheese, so it was swings and roundabouts there.

Crazy Caverns is an odd little game, but not without merit.  It's kind of like when you've spent three hours typing in a long listing out of Your Computer, at least the one in ten that actually worked properly, and you play it, and it's really not too bad.  Maybe not award-winning, but worth a go or three.

Unlike those listings though, this game is lightning quick, so clearly machine code is at play here.  The tiny baddies lurch around the screen in random patterns like drunkards.  There's no time limit, so the safest option, just like for dealing with the inebriated, is to keep well out of the way.  But time kind of drags this way, so you have to get on with it really.

And then you tend to lose your few lives.  I reached level 3 after a few goes, but didn't feel massively like trying to better that.  Graphics are basic but colourful, with a great picture of Mick Jagger on each screen.  Sound is basic also, controls work well enough.  That's it really.  Not sure there'll be a PS5 conversion any time soon.

What was the first computer or console arcade football game, eh?  I checked with Mr. Google and apparently there were a couple on Atari machines early in the '80s.  On the Spectrum there can't have been very many prior to this 1983 effort by the super-obscure Wintersoft, programmed by Bernie Winters with graphics by Schnorbitz the dog.

Obscure '70s in-jokes aside, I can't remember how I ended up owning this game.  I can only assume my folks got it cheap from somewhere shady.  Just look at that guy photo bombing on the front cover, it's priceless!  And the blurb promises 3D.  Well, the goal frames themselves are kind of 3D at a push I suppose.  Even hype meister Kevin Toms never claimed 3D graphics for his epic game.  Hang on...flick flick...oh wait, he did.

Anyway, this was a bold attempt to try to fit a full footy game, well 5-a-side at least, onto a single Spectrum screen.  Sounds impossible?  Well, yeah it is.  But points for trying.  Hold on, I forgot something about this.  This is purely a 2 human players game, there's no computer opponent.  Hmmmm, that makes things a bit tricky, I'd need a...what do you call it again...friend.  But I'm 48, I've got no friends nearby who'd play a rubbish 39 year-old game with me.  The kids would laugh me out of town.  So what can I do?  I have but one choice.

"Have you got a second, dear?  I've just got a small favour to ask.  No, not that.  There's this game I need to review for my website, you see, and I need you to be my opponent.  It's really great, I promise.  It won't take long...hopefully.  I just need a few screenshots.  I'll make you a brew, sweeten the deal.  Pretty please, no - come back..."

Ahem.  Actually I did alright, I only lost by the odd goal in the end, I'm quite pleased with that.  Some of her tackling was pretty rough, and how you get 6 players sent off in a 5-a-side game I'll never know.

So how does the game work?  You'll laugh when I tell you.  Your players are numbered (secretly) 1 to 5, so to control the relevant player, you have to prod their number first.  If you can remember it.  Then move them jerkily around using up, down, left, right as you'd expect.  When next to the ball, press one of 4 keys for differing strengths of pass/shot (just pretend you're throwing a grenade at an ant, the principle is the same).

You can surprisingly kick diagonally and also take throw-ins and goal kicks in the same way.  In reality however, with 2 people having to use the one keyboard, it all results in an unresponsive and confused free-for-all, with no-one getting anywhere fast.  More likc Playground Soccer Simulator really.  Hilarity ensues, so credit the game for granting us the gift of laughter.

Still better than World Cup Carnival.

Ascend through the levels of the evil count (think I spelled that right) Kreepie's Transylvanian Tower, dodging bats and eventually destroying the count himself and then count his treasure hoho!

There weren't many decent games around in the first year of the Speccy.  Personally I'm glad I didn't get mine till xmas '83.  Imagine getting Gobble A Ghost and Embassy Assault for your xmas games.  I was lucky enough to get Jetpac and Tranz Am for mine.  Well played, parents!

So this was a very early game from 1982, and generally it has a bit of a bad rep.  Richard Shepherd's games were basic in most senses, but featured striking artwork on the covers, which no doubt fished in quite a few unsuspecting victims.  Actually Urban Upstart was alright, but then it was written by Pete Cooke, black belt in Tau Ceti.

Transylvanian Tower seemed to attract most people's ire for some reason.  Sinclair Programs, with no sense of irony, listed it prominently in their top 5 worst games for weeks on end, neck and neck with Make-A-Chip.  But other Shepherd offerings were no better.  My good buddy Daverino still turns into a gibbering wreck at the mention of Devils of the Deep.  So does TT deserve this treatment?

I remember playing this game with my mum for hours, partly because it was so bloomin' slow!  It takes an age to randomly generate the levels at first, and then ages again to produce the level map which you can access, but only when you kill a bat.  Just settle down and accept that you're in it for the long haul, is my advice.  To be fair, some modern console games have been known to have excessively long load times, so it's not excusively a 1982 issue.

So it's basically a maze game, which some games happily stop at, but this game has more depth to it.  Various helpful objects can be found, such as a magic ring (you can go through 2 walls before Gollum takes it back), a magic cloak for invisibility and best of all, a magic apple.  You see, you have to kill a certain number of bats to be allowed to the next level, something to do with Romanian tax laws, and having a magic apple just lets you through "irregardless".  Saving a looooooot of time.

Other objects are available, which you can stave bats off with, but the best one is your trusty gun.  When a bat appears, you press a key at the right moment to try to shoot the (literally) damned thing, which adds a nice arcadey element to proceedings.

The count himself, played by Bela Lugosi, appears on level 5, and such is the...relaxed pace of the game, that when he does, it scares the bejesus out of you, despite him being blocky as funk.

In summary the graphics are bad, colour is very blue indeed and sound is average.  But you know what, this game provided hours of lo-fi fun all those years ago, and is worth a stab (sorry) even now.  At least it showed so much more ambition than most games of the time.  Especially Schizoids.

What have Starglider and Race Ace got in common?  Both examples of outstanding Spectrum software?  Both sold a gazillion copies?  Both feature amazing 3D vector graphics and digitised speech?  Both..well, point made and laboured.

The answer is Mr. Tony Rainbird.  The man himself penned Race Ace in a spare 5 minutes back in '83, then later became head honcho at Rainbird Software, purveyors of many outstanding adventures and other top games later in the Spectrum's commercial lifetime.  They may have only hired him because he had the same name as the company, but the boy done good.

Our Tony probably soon realised that his strengths lay more in management than programming after writing this game, and also Run Baby Run, which was better and good enough for Firebird to publish.  He clearly has a good sense of humour, as Race Ace ended up on Firebird's notorious Don't Buy This! compilation, presumably as he offered it to them willingly.

So how bad is the game then?  Well, I won't lie to you, it ain't great.  Once you've chosen your speed from between 1 and 250 extraordinarily ("Try 250!" the inlay baits you.  "No!" say I), your car pootles/zaps along the circuit, chasing 8 others.  Your speed remains constant, as your throttle seems to be stuck open (aaaaarrrrgghh), so cunning track positioning is your only friend when it comes to overtaking.  The main problem is your opponents tend to get very bunched together and trample right over you, resulting in your car standing still for a few seconds.

As such, the only way to get anywhere is to choose a large number of laps, so the field gradually gets more strung out, then you can pick 'em off one by one.  Then, surprise!  Once you manage to hit the front, the race stops immediately and you are declared the winner.  Even the FIA wouldn't try that manoeuvre.  Probably.

It's a bit like Supersprint, only superslow or supertoofast and superunrealistic, but it holds your attention for a few goes at first, despite the dull gameplay.  Mostly freak value, I admit.

There's only one circuit, the graphics are basic, though at least the cars do resemble cars, unlike Grand Prix Simulator.  Sound is ultra sparse, with not even a painfully slow rendition of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain", most race games' stock equivalent of the Death March.  And the cars could even have been different colours, since they're just UDGs, but hey.

My dad went out and bought this one for me, I seem to recall.  I never let him out unsupervised again.

Hunchy is such an odd little game, which ended up having quite a colourful history for two main reasons.

Reason the first, m'lud being that it was such an obvious copy of the arcade classic (?) Hunchback that Century Electronics forced Mr. Micro, whoever he is, to make radical changes to the game, so that Ocean in turn could pay them for the official licence instead, and work their dubious magic on it.

So these radical (cough) changes were duly made and the game re-emerged as Punchy, which was frankly genius in that it was hardly any different at all to Hunchy.  I guess the lawyers had given up by that point.

Anyway reason the second (remember) is that those wonderful folks at Amstrad, in order to promote the new Spectrum +2 in 1986 saw fit to release a bundle of games with it.  This bundle consisted of Disco Dan, Oh Mummy, Alien Destroyer, Treasure Island, Crazy Golf...and Punchy.  All famous 128K classics, I'm sure you'd agree, and at least 2 to 3 years old by then.  So poor old Punchy got another round of bad publicity.  Nice one, Sugar.

To be fair, I didn't buy this game, or even have it bought for me.  I had a (whisper) pirate copy, which my da...I mean, someone mysterious who I didn't know, procured somehow for me.  Before it underwent the changes to both name and game.  So loading it up was kind of like going on a magical mystery tour.  Kind of.

The game itself is most notable for its digitised speech.  The stuff of nightmares, it is.  A truly evil voice yells "Esmerelda, Esmerelda.  The bells, the bells".  And when you die, it screams "Ho ho, ha ha" like the Joker.  In Punchy this was changed to "That's the way to do it" and (I think) "Rock the baby, rock the baby".  Chilling.  Really.

Hunchy is a lo-fi version of the arcade game, with flickery graphics and ludicrously slow jumping.  But it's still more forgiving than Ocean's version, with that stoopid rope jump on screen 2.  And it's very colourful and has bags of character, with amusing overuse of ye olde language on the title and hi-score screens.

I surprised myself by reaching screen 10 or so, about halfway to the finish according to the radar near the top of the screen, but by then it was apparent that the game had become quite repetitive.  It was also every bit as thrilling as the Ocean version.

Crash gave Punchy a rating of 88% in their second ever issue.  Maybe the enigmatic Mr. Micro was in fact Roger Kean.  Makes you think, eh?

EXTINCT JIM GIVES YOU THE LOWDOWN

FIN