ZX SPECTRUM - IT LIVES!!! now has a new home: https://zxspectrumitlives.wixsite.com/home
PART III - PTERROR IN SPACE!!!
NEWS HEADLINES!
A BRIEF HISTORY OF SPECTRUM DIGITISED GRAPHIX
A brief history of
SPECTRUM DIGITISED GRAPHIX
1986
SAMANTHA FOX STRIP POKER
Martech
It's easy to mock, isn't it? Shameless tie-in though this was, it could easily be that this was the first Speccy game to feature digitised graphics as part of the game itself.
Quite ground-breaking then I suppose. No? It's a minority opinion, but there you go.
And to be fair, these monochrome graphics are very respectable. In quality at least.
Certainly compared to a similar game which came out three years later...
1987
PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM
M.A.D. Games
Second chronologically in the digigraphix stakes came this budget adventure, a G.A.C. effort from Rubberchip. Boing!
This game crept into my Top 100 Budget games chart, but playing it again now, I have to say it's bloody irritating and highly vocab intolerant.
The graphics are very few and far between, and of rather dubious quality.
On the whole, it has to be said that the load screen promises things the main game can't deliver.
But it's almost a nice try at offering something different.
1988
LANCELOT
Mandarin
By 1988, master adventurers Level 9 were incorporating some rather odd graphics into the +3 versions of some of their games, in a desperate bid to stay relevant.
On the whole, it's probably fair to say the games would have been better without them, in light of what the likes of Magnetic Scrolls and the like achieved using only text.
These graphics are very liney and look a bit like early Amiga screens in black and white, which is fair enough for the time, but not terribly aesthetically pleasing.
1989
MARIA'S CHRISTMAS BOX
Anco
Here we are then, the second of our games of dubious intent in this list.
But whereas Ms. Fox's pixels looked quite attractive in her game, what the heck did Anco do to the voluptuous Barbarian's mate Ms. Whittaker?
I meant Maria being voluptuous there by the way, not the Gladiators dude.
I think someone drew over the original images with coloured crayons to reproduce some truly nightmarish creations.
Enough to put you off card games for life. And women.
1989
SCAPEGHOST
Level 9
I tried playing this Level 9 title to seek out the graphics within, but only found the one image, the grave pic.
So big thanks to Hippy Smith (maaaaan) for these shots via Spectrum Computing, and the ones for Lancelot actually.
Some of the shots are okay to be fair, a bit of an improvement on the Lancelot pics. And I love the Father Jack one here!
They're generally a bit drab and depressing though. As befits the game, but maybe that's the idea, I dunno. Probably stick to Snowball.
1991
PIT-FIGHTER
Domark
This game must be the only attempt to incorporate digitised sprites into a Spectrum arcade game.
Sinclairs User and Your rather liked it, while Crash slagged it but good (27%). Ouch.
I had a go just now and the graphics are pretty impressive really, but they jig around like crazy and leave you feeling a bit ill.
I got a few hits and kicks in, but it doesn't seem very playable.
But really a nice attempt where the graphics are concerned.
2020
A LIGHT IN THE SNOW
Sequentia Soft
A mere 29 years later, digitised graphics appeared on our humble machine once again!
'Interactive fiction' is suddenly a thing - super-short adventures which nevertheless can be of interest when done well.
Sequentia Soft from Spain did a few of these babies. This one is a rather Dickensian (i.e. miserable) tale about a young girl selling matches to survive in the bitter cold in her home of Copenhagen.
Some lovely visuals here, and rather a heart-rending story to boot. Blub.
2020
FOOTSTEPS
Sequentia Soft
Another somewhat downbeat little tale from Sequentia now, which is "set in the same universe" as the last game, if you really must.
This time it centres around a cobbler's young son who has to go and ask a notoriously bad debtor for payment for his flip flops (probably not).
Again, it's grim but quite compelling, and interesting to play for a while.
It's got strong graphics to boot. Bit of shoe humour for you there.
2021
THE TIME MACHINE
Sequentia Soft
Oh man, this one looks great. Sadly I couldn't get the English language version to work properly, so got stuck with the Spanish one!
It's quite ambitious, split into seven parts, and some of the pics I've seen look a treat. Not all, but most.
Hoping to acquire the working English version some time for a proper review...watch this space (and time).
2021
NINJA CARNAGE
Cronosoft
Clive Townsend returned to his ninjarian roots with this title. It's an offbeat kind of game, pretty much unique in its field.
You simply have to make the right decisions to assist a particularly indecisive and potty-mouthed ninja in his quest to do in a yakuza boss.
Be warned, this will involve a LOT of trial and error. When you fail, you go back to the start of the current section, so at least it's not from the beginning. That would be cruel.
Your correct choices are however rewarded with some really nice graphics, neat little coloured pictures which are just cute as a button. In a violent kind of way.
There's even a nice oriental soundtrack to help you on your way. What ninja could ask for more?
2021
SINCLAIR 1: THE TRAIL BEGINS
Sequentia Soft
More Sequentia fare. I should mention that their titles are all multiple-choice affairs, made using the MuCho engine, made by Jari Komppa in 2016. There, you can impress your friends at parties now with that eclectic information.
This one is a tribute to good old Sir Clive himself. His 'origin story' if you like, before he donned his cape and became SuperClive, which I'm sure was a Sinclair User cover once...
It's quite fun to be the man himself, and the game is pretty informative on the whole, if a little serious. Apart from that load screen perhaps.
Again, some decent digigraphix on show, with a little colour here and there.
2021
THE FREAK
Jari Komppa
This is a futuristic, interactive...thing.
The graphics are admittedly a little weak, but nevertheless there's a nice Philip K. Dick short story feel to this one, which is just begging for a longer treatment.
You play as an I.T. guy working for a techie firm, when a catastrophic event of some sort destroys everything in sight, leaving you on the run from scary murderous b*****ds for some reason.
Should have worked from home.
2021
WHERE DID THE MOON GO?
Quantum Sheep
Quantum Sheep gave us this offering as part of the Ukrainian bundle earlier this year. Most charitable of them.
It's a follow-up to The Biggish Tree apparently, which I couldn't find anywhere.
But never mind. This is an uber-short tale about attempting to locate that big shiny round thing in the night sky. Thanks to my daughter for that wording, I couldn't have put it better myself.
The graphics are nice, with lots of colour, but the Spectral palette does provide challenges, as we know, and things get a bit blocky generally.
No matter. It's short. It's sweet. You get to scare a horse.
What's not to like?
So that's about it for Spectrum games with digitised graphics. Apart from any I've missed of course, but I have given it quite a bit of thought, honest.
Someone rather famous will be along in a bit to illuminate us further on the subject, but first here are two more games from 2021 which I deliberately omitted (so ner), since they deserve fuller treatment.
SABOTEUR: DEEP COVER
Crash/Cronosoft
2021
"My girl's mad at me, going one step beyond in my baggy trousers"
Holy sheet, it's a cyborg. He's lonely and follows you around a lot
The year is 1985. A ninja infiltrates a building to steal a huge floppy disk containing top secret information. He kicks some dogs and escapes in a helicopter, only to die of his injuries later (aw, man). The year is 1987. A ninjaette infiltrates a missile silo trying to save the world from getting missiled to its doom. She is way cool and escapes on a hang-glider-motorbike. Their average age was 19 and none of them received a hero's welcome. None of them. But if you have a problem, if no-one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire Ninjas Incorporated.
Alright, but what happened in 1986 then? Was it a bad year for ninja unemployment, Thatcher's Britain and all that? Well, one item of ninja news involved a chap called Mogura, who infiltrated the Viridis corporation to try to smuggle out incriminating evidence of their illegal activity, and to ensure Miss Hang-Glider-Motorbike could sneak in there and do her thang at a later point. Only now can his story be told.
So that's you then. No pressure, but if you fail, Saboteur II must never have happened, and that causes all sorts of problems to do with time, space and Clive Townsend's paycheck. Best look smart, then.
The Sinclair Pumatron 2000 was an unwieldy beast
There are several '80s posters to collect in this game. Cool, man!
This text adventure with graphics was given away as a Kickstarter perk by the mighty Crash, but is now available from Spectrum Computing and all good bookshops. It's by the deadly duo Townsend and Remic, who might just be unique in that they have contributed games to both classic and modern eras of Specciness. Long service awards are surely overdue.
So since this was a freebie and features some impressive digitised graphics, it's probably about 3 locations long and all over in the time it takes to load up, right? Well, nuh-uh, as this game is he-uge and full of locations, which is generally bad news for a saboteur but never mind.
And it's a mapper's delight, a hip hop a hip hop hippy. So get yer graph paper out the drawer and get scribbling. The Viridis building is a skyscraper, so get a big bit.
Personally I'm glad I obtained a map for this game, as without one it's seriously disorientating. Fun though. You have 9 code chips, which you have to hide around the place, to be picked up later by the Avenging Angel herself. You tend to run around pursued by cyborgs and pumas, which you can fight if you're feeling strong (my friend), while trying to uncover the secrets of the place.
Wow, the Ninja's Guild really pulled together to pay for this fancy headstone
This is the start of Part 2. Do you believe in wormholes? Or ninjas?
Deep Cover has a nice atmosphere to it, which is important when you're dealing mostly in text. Andy and Clive have given our ninja mate a personality of his own (tetchy, sweary, fighty) which helps us get inside of his balaclava'd head. The screen even has a health bar, which you can replenish by drinking water and resting, and unplenish by getting flamed by cyborgs and chomped by pumas. There's an onscreen score count, and also the time, which is always handy to know, eh?
Since my feature is about digitised graphics, I'd best mention them. They're rubbish. Ha, you know I'm kidding. There are some cracking images spread throughout the game, real works of art as you can see here. So Clive done good. Even if the bloke in the lab coat is surely Suggs? Maybe he does that crazy Madness walk down the corridors.
If I'm going to be picky and annoying, it could be said that a lot of the location descriptions are quite similar, but since you're negotiating a big old skyscraper, this is probably not unrealistic.
Mad scientist's power supply working well, lightning and all
Gah, bloody pumas after me again. Not buying their trainees anymore
But trust me, make or steal a map and you'll get more out of the game. And for added value, it's even in 2 separate parts, a great way to deal with any memory shortage issues due to overdigitalisationalism. Just got to get me off part 1 first though...
In short, it's a joy to be able to experience Clive and Andy's recent work, and this isn't at all out of place when comparing with their portfolios from ye olden times. Love that enthusiasm, it's the stuff that inspires this site.
THE VERDICT
Enjoy a different kind of action to the usual ninja-y game nowadays. No need to try to stay stealthy, then blow your cover after ten seconds, and get slaughtered by hundreds of bloodthirsty b*****ds.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING
85%
THE IRON WOLVES
Cronosoft
2021
'Ang on, there's a wolf in there I think
Ahhh, I miss going to rock clubs
A lot of adventures can be quite samey and generic. Go north, eat sandwich, examine crumbs. To be fair, one of the very first Speccy adventures raised the bar so high, it became very hard for others to emulate. I speak of course of The Hobbit, which inspired many a similar game, as did the original adventure game called...erm...Adventure, that's it.
So if you want your adventure to stand out, you need an original plot or some new angle on things. With this in mind, this title from last year is a game for grown-ups with an 18 certificate. A bit like Dracula and Jack The Ripper, and all that by CRL back in da day. Only those games were into graphic violence and horror, while this game just wants to swear at you and possibly defile you too if it gets half a chance.
The local mime pretending to be a statue. No need to get naked though, mate
Clive's a bit good with the old colours, innhe?
You play the part of Dek, a pit-fighter on loan from Domark, who was once part of a heroic (dance) troupe who achieved grand deeds 30 years ago. Now your homeland is threatened by a bitchy witch called Orlana, with her hybrid animal army. Dek, like Axl Rose, wants to get the old band back together again for one final hurrah ("Hurrah!") before he carks.
I had no idea of this, but this game is based on a novel of the same name by Mr. Andy Remic himself, no less.
I really should read it, might help somewhat with the game. It acknowledges its debt to Game Of Thrones and the like, but it's still pretty unique in the world of Spectral adventuring.
Since the game's got its 18 rating, the shackles are off and the swearing can begin! There's lots of it, but rather than it seeming over the top and ridiculous, it really does enhance the experience. The locations are viewed through old Dek's world-weary eyes, which helps the characterisation and general atmosphere no end. Even the input line oozes attitude with its offhand "Yeah, mate?"
Has he got tattoos on his armour too? He badass
I climbed up this tower, then fell off and died
There are plenty of locations to explore from the get-go, and lots of objects to juggle too. Damned if I know what to do with them though. And then there are the graphics. Wow, these really are the zenith of digitised graphics on the machine. And there's a decent number of them too. Just massively impressive and you have to doff your balaclava to Mr. Townsend, even if it risks blowing your cover.
While we're talking graphics, I recently clapped my eyes on some of the pictures from the planned sequel to this game the other day (of which, more later), and incredibly they're even more impressive again. Sadly Andy's passing means that the sequel remains unfinished. I've no doubt that it too would have been great.
You don't get this in Lords of Midnight, do you?
It's not all about the pix, you know. Some great narrative too
I'm struggling to find anything negative to say about this fantasy jaunt. I think there was one small glitch I came across, a ring which I couldn't seem to pick up or examine, but maybe there's a reason for that later on. Otherwise I just need to be better at adventures, or have access to a helpful walkthrough, in order to get any further, which is my bad really. Have to go begging to Clive again....."CLIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!"
MONSTER HIT!!!
THE VERDICT
A great achievement, some 40 years after the Speccy's release, to make an adventure as good as this, full of great passion and enthusiasm. Kudos to the authors.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING
92%
INTERVIEW WITH THE DINOSAUR
Jim meets: THE ARTFUL NINJA, MR. CLIVE TOWNSEND
The Artful Ninja
CLIVE TOWNSEND
Soooooo Clive, thanks for answering some questions in between all that time-consuming training of new ninjas, it can't be easy.
Question numero uno coming up! Having seen plenty of your recent work, I duly proclaim thee the undisputed King of Digitised Graphics.
So when did you start doing them then?
Well Jim, it was just before when the Speccy came out! I'd programmed a bit on the ZX81 and started drawing graphics when I heard that a sequel machine would be launched.
Unfortunately I didn't know about the attribute system then, so only my monochrome pictures were useful.
When I started making loading screens for games, I'd design the graphics on paper, then manually draw each square (using Melbourne Draw on the actual Speccy) until I had a full image.
In the pre-internet days it was hard to find good source material, so when I needed a leather-clad Nina for Saboteur II, I had to trace her from an adult magazine!
Ooer sir! Moving on quickly, we at ZX Spectrum-It Lives!!! have been trawling through the Spectral archives, trying to find games which have incorporated digitised graphics as part of the actual games, and have found very few.
Unless you're into strip poker / interactive fiction / fictional interactive strip poker.
Are they a serious drain on the Speccy's meagre memory? Does that explain why it's relatively unchartered territory?
Aye Jim. Graphics do take up a ton of memory. But so does music, text and other data too, so it's a constant balancing act.
I've taken the rather boring approach of just storing the images uncompressed in the extra memory of the 128K machine. With a bit more effort I could have compressed them.
But each image is unique, so I couldn't use other techniques which save memory, such as repeating a tree image to draw different forest scenes.
The style and type of game often dictates how much space is used for graphics.
Clive, I can relate to that, being a fictionalised jurassic monstrosity with a tiny brain, memory problems affect me too.
So Mike, if it's not giving away trade secrets, how do you actually do your digitised graphics? Does it take ages to get the colour looking so sweet, as I've noticed some less studious folk just throw blocks of colour at an image, and it kinda shows.
Easy there, Jim! But to answer your question - "YES IT TAKES AAAAAAGES!"
The first thing I do is use Photoshop to make a Speccy-sized image. I split the source image into important bits, like text, titles etc.
Then I arrange them neatly on the screen by having a layer which shows me the attribute grid. I can scale or move the pieces into positions which work best with the colour limitations. This planning stage is the most important bit.
The second part is to convert this image into 8 colours, by remapping it to my pre-defined palette of bright Speccy colours. This creates nice dithered gradients, which saves me trying to draw them by hand.
Then the fun starts! I go through each 8x8 block and 'fix' it, so it only uses 2 colours. This stage usually takes a day or two.
Finally I look to see if any squares would look better using the non-bright versions of the colours.
BioHell - Stage 1
BioHell - Stage 2
BioHell - Stage 3
STAGE 4 - BLOODY HELL!
Ah, thought so. That's what I'd do too, if my arms were long enough.
On a serious note, it's so sad that we've lost Andy Remic, your partner in crime in recent times, as you seemed to make a great team.
Are you planning any further graphic adventures yourself, or are you moving onto something different now?
Andy has a lot to answer for! It's due to him that I've become re-involved with making Spectrun graphics and games.
We'd actually planned a sequel to The Iron Wolves, but sadly it wasn't finished.
Saboteur: Deep Cover was an experiment, suggested by Andy, as he was frustrated by the limitations of the game engine he was using. And I wanted to see if I could write a text adventure parser, as I'd never made one before, and had a vague idea that it could work in multiple languages.
It was successful, but the game engine was tailored to the Saboteur II universe, so probably won't be useful for future games.
But I won't say Never...
I was going to pick the best of these pix from the unfinished Iron Wolves 2.
But they're all amazing, so...here they all are. More details at: http://www.incognitogames.com/gallery/ironwolves2.php
I think it's a great parser, whatever a parser may be, sounds tasty though.
Lowering the tone just a tad, I ****ing love the amount of ****ing swearing in your games! I think it shows personality, adds atmosphere, and maybe reflects the fact that we're all fairly old by now, and can swear freely if we ****ing want to! As long as our parents don't know about it, of course...
Have you run into any trouble with your...earthy approach?
I swear it's not my ****ing fault, Jim!
Andy Remic's characters swear a lot. And the protagonist in Ninja Carnage swears even more!
I will admit to being the culprit in The Reaper (1990) and the re-released The Reaper (2022).
I thought that adding rude words would get the game banned, or at least spark some controversy - and everyone would rush out to buy it.
They didn't.
Sweary
Swearier
Sweariest
Un-***-ing lucky there, matey.
Last question now, as I've got to go and get my tea. It's herbivores tonight, my mum does them real nice!
We're trying to promote the virtues of modern Spectrum software on our website, mostly because there's been so much written about the classic era that it's gotten a bit repetitive sometimes.
But do you think the new stuff is anywhere near as good as the old stuff? Maybe in some ways it's better?
Fair play Jim, my tea's beckoning too. It's ninjelly tonight, one of my faves.
Well, the old games will always have the nostalgia factor of course.
But some incredible new games are being made all over the world.
For example, the people at speccy.pl in Poland have made some fantastic demos.
And Natasha Zotova and her colleagues at Zosya Entertainment produce some games that are so brilliant, it's hard to believe they're running on a Speccy!
Just for old time's sake!
Karateka, one of speccy.pl's demos
Yes, we know Zosya are aces, Clive
Amen to that, sister! THE SPECTRUM LIIIIIIVES!!!! IT LIIIIIIIVES!!!
Ahem, sorry. Well it's been an honour to talk toot with a Spectral legend, and we can't wait to see more of your outrageously good artwork and programming in future.
Night night, Clive.
Night night, Jim. Don't have nightmares about having to spend forever re-jigging attributes to accommodate the Spectrum's colour palette. Like I do every night....every night...every...
And with that, Clive donned his balaclava again and vanished once more into the shadows, safe in the knowledge that his work here was done.
And thus ends this section on the subject of digitised graphics.
-FIN-
100 GAMES - HOT OR NOT? PART ONE
Part One
3D Lunattack (Hewson)
CRASH 90%S SU 6/10
Action Force (Virgin)
CRASH 35% YS 5/10 SU 9/10
Aliens-U.S. Edition (Electric Dreams)
CRASH 45% YS 9/10M SU 5/10
A.P.B. (Domark)
CRASH 93%S YS 75% SU 63%
Army Moves (Imagine)
CRASH 54% YS 8/10 SU 5/5
Astroclone (Hewson)
CRASH 88% YS 6/10 SU 5/5
Automania (Mikrogen)
CRASH 88%S YS 9/10 SU 6/10
Beach-Head 2 (US Gold)
CRASH 74% YS 9/10M SU 3/5
Black Lamp (Firebird)
CRASH 57% YS 7/10 SU 9/10
Blue Thunder (Richard Wilcox)
CRASH 90%S SU 6/10
Bomb Jack 2 (Elite)
CRASH 71% YS 6/10 SU 5/5
Bounty Bob Strikes Back (US Gold)
CRASH 85% YS 9/10M SU 3/5
Brave Starr (Go!)
CRASH 46% YS 9/10M SU 4/10
Brian Clough's Football Fortunes (CDS)
CRASH 42% YS 9/10M SU 2/5
Buggy Blast (Firebird)
CRASH 91%S YS 5/10
Catch 23 (Martech)
CRASH 56% YS 9/10M SU 9/10
Cauldron (Palace)
CRASH 91%S YS 6/10 SU 5/5
Conquestador (Melbourne House)
CRASH 65% YS 9/10M SU 1/5
Crosswize (Firebird)
CRASH 69% YS 9/10M SU 10/10C
Crystal Castles (US Gold)
CRASH 68% YS 90%M SU 42%
Cyberun (Ultimate)
CRASH 90%S YS 8/10 SU 3/5
Death Wish 3 (Gremlin)
CRASH 45% YS 9/10M SU 7/10
Deathscape (Starlight)
CRASH 57% YS 9/10M SU 6/10
Dogfight 2187 (Starlight)
CRASH 56% YS 9/10M SU 3/5
Dracula (CRL)
CRASH 89% YS 6/10 SU 5/5
Enlightenment-Druid 2 (Firebird)
CRASH 68% YS 8/10 SU 10/10C
Fantasia Diamond (Hewson)
CRASH 10/10S YS 6/10 SU 7/10
Fat Worm Blows A Sparky (Durell)
CRASH 95%S YS 9/10M SU 3/5
Flunky (Piranha)
CRASH 60% YS 9/10M SU 6/10
Game Over (Imagine)
CRASH 55% YS 9/10M SU 5/10
Garfield: Big Fat Hairy Deal (The Edge)
CRASH 90%S YS 7/10 SU 10/10C
Gauntlet II (US Gold)
CRASH 65% YS 8/10 SU 10/10C
Glider Rider (Quicksilva)
CRASH 92%S YS 5/10 SU 5/5C
Gothik (Firebird)
CRASH 56% YS 9/10M SU 8/10
Gryzor (Ocean)
CRASH 49% YS 9/10M SU 9/10
Gunsmoke (Go!)
CRASH 54% YS 5/10 SU 9/10
Gyron (Firebird)
CRASH 93%S YS 4/10 SU 5/5C
Hacker 2:Doomsday Papers (Activision)
CRASH 82% YS 9/10M SU 3/5
Hardball (Advance)
CRASH 84% YS 6/10 SU 5/5C
Impossible Mission II (US Gold)
CRASH 84% YS 9/10M SU 46%
Incredible Shrinking Sphere (Electric Dreams)
CRASH 90%S YS 91%M SU 58%
Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom (US Gold)
CRASH 65% YS 6/10 SU 9/10
Jail Break (Konami)
CRASH 47% YS 6/10 SU 5/5
Jasper (Micromega)
CRASH 91%S YS 6/10 SU 6/10
Judge Dredd (Melbourne House)
CRASH 42% YS 8/10 SU 5/5
Kentilla (Micromega)
CRASH 10/10S YS 5/10 SU 6/10
King's Keep (Firebird)
CRASH 42% YS 7/10 SU 5/5
Knightmare (Activision)
CRASH 62% YS 7/10 SU 10/10C
Konami's Golf (Imagine)
CRASH 58% YS 7/10 SU 5/5
Krakout (Gremlin)
CRASH 46% YS 7/10 SU 5/5C
PART 2
TO FOLLOW
LATER
ISH
Al 'n' Dave's A-Z of Speed Reviews-Part 1
Modern Era Games part 1 A-D
ALADDIN
Oleg Origin
1997
Programmed by the legendary Oleg Origin and released as part of a compilation in 1997 called..."1997". Can this game hope to live up to the other two games in the package? Only The Dark and Metal Man! Good luck with that.
As for the plot, well, it presumably involves a magic lamp, a genie and some real big pants. More than this I do not know. Take it away, Dave…
Dave: Wow, that's a big and colourful sprite. I like the way he tippy-toes everywhere, even walking on air, while leaning at a highly distressing 45 degree angle. At first I thought he had a bald spot, but I think it might be a hat. Combat is a bit flippin' hard though, not helped by someone off-screen constantly chucking vases and knives at you. And also Aladdin's bizarre reluctance to properly use his cutlass.
Al: I too observed the extreme bigness of the main character, it feels like you're controlling a giant. Or trying to play Manic Miner as Berk from Trapdoor. The gameplay is rather woolly, just tentative jumping and fighting that looks more like tickling. Also you get 9 lives, but when you die you go right back to the start., due to checkpoints not having been invented yet in 1997, so frustration is guaranteed.
Dave: A bit of a clunky game to play, I think Oleg’s later releases vastly improved after this one
5/10
Al: Oleg Oranges is a latter-day legend, so he doesn't need us to love everything he's done
5/10
Just One More Thing…
Columbo: So tell me fellas, what’s your fave Speccy game with ginormous sprites? And conversely, what’s your fave Speccy game with teeny weeny sprites? Thirdly, what am I doing talking about Spectrum games?
Al: It’s got to be Trapdoor for me, Lieutenant. Mr Priestly thinking big as ever. Never played any of his other huge sprite games though in fairness. As for teeny graphics, the recent Tokimal perhaps, they're small but perfectly formed. Or from the olden days, how about Stephen Crow's Laser Snaker?!
Dave: I did like Cookkhu... Cucch... Err, the walking blokey from Tir Na Nog/Dun Darach. Though a shout out to the comically humungous sprite in Merlin - perhaps that one was a "draw me a wizard sprite please" scenario where measurements were miscalculated, a bit like the Stonehenge monument in Spinal Tap but the other way round? As for teeny weeny sprites... Hmmm, gotta be Ant Attack, and in a sadistic way I used to like watching the little dudes in Zzoom fly up in the air when you shot them (like everyone did, even though you're not supposed to).
Al: Ah, fond murderous memories!
Dave: Hang on, I’ve got it now…Cuckoolinen…Cookiedrain…Cuckoldlane…ah forget it.
BOOTEE
Mojon Twins
2013
Tragically I can find no instructions for this game. And it really is a shame as I’d love to know what the heck’s going on here. We’ve clearly got a bit of cunning punning going on. There are no pirates evident here, just an odd-looking girl with a boot for her lower half.
She clearly has quite a bouncy bootee as she boings crazily all around the place. But what’s her story? Did she enter a teleporter and someone threw a boot in with her at the last minute? Let’s hope some sense can be made of it.
Dave: Y’know, I used to think ‘Das Boot’ (as in the film) meant ‘The Boot’ in German. And the Mojons’ ‘Churrera engine’ always made me think of churros. That being said, and also irrelevant, apparently there was a completion prize for this game, which explains why it’s so bloomin’ hard. It’s the uncontrollable bouncing of a power-up-free Wizball, along with the annoying ‘knock-you-off-yer-bubble’ creatures from Underwurlde.
Al: This is certainly a game with bounce. Our heroine can reach quite a height in her boot, even if we're not sure why she's doing it. I can only guess she's trying to find a magical shoehorn to ease her out of there. She collects coins and keys to open doors, occasionally finding health pickups along the way. It's reasonable fun for half an hour's play but ultimately pretty odd. Did Dave beat my record of 13 coins I wonder...
Dave: No comment. I did play it for a while actually, perhaps I’m just a masochist. “Like a rubber ball I come bouncing back to Boo(tee)”
6/10
Al: That’s quite enough gangster rap references from you, young man! It’s random stuff, but fun if you’ve got time for a quick bounce
6/10
Just One More Thing…
Columbo: My wife won’t forgive me if I don’t ask youse guys this. What’s your favourite game with a bounce mechanic, whatever that might be?
Al: Well lieutenant, I confess. To buying Bounder and very much enjoying it, just a shame the sequel never made it to the Speccy. Still no reason to buy a C64 though. In recent times, Cosmic Payback ain't bad, if a bit tricksy
Dave: I’ve already mentioned mine – yep, it’s Wizball. Slightly preferred the Amiga version (am I allowed to say that? It had the cute cat) but the Speccy version is great to play too. As you say, Bounder is also pretty cool, silver medal for that one. And I quite liked Cauldron II, but on reflection the little pumpykin is just a tad too hard to control.
Al: No, you are not allowed to say you prefer the Amiga version. This site isn’t called “The Amiga is great” y’know.
Dave: I’m terribly sorry and take back everything I said on the subject. Especially since you are actually writing this line yourself to give the impression that you have a mate.
Al: Stop that!
COMMANDO II
Ultrasoft
1992
Alright, so this came out during the classic Speccy era, not the modern one. But since that was in Slovakia, it might as well be new to us. It reached the shores of the UK thanks to Bumfun (seriously?) In 2010 and the rest is highly litigious history. Arnie must have consented to be on the Slovakian version’s cover too, top man! After your last successful mission (you finished Commando, right?) your helicopter crashes, since you’re clearly cursed. Once again you alone survive and are left to go commando behind enemy lines. Oh, and the place is radioactive too.
Dave: Aaargh, my eyes are poor, my nose is knackered... I can't see those bullets with the dotty scenery!! The background looks nice but I don't think it needed the 'Doh' treatment (hopefully you get that reference). Then again, the 'pow pow' gun sound is a bit better than the original. I only managed to get to stage 3, is that good?
Al: Same as me, mate, so not at all good! Elite probably never heard about this hugely unofficial Slovakian sequel to their smash hit. And whaddyaknow, this is as much bullet spraying fun as the original. With a graphics overhaul and the chance of rescuing hostages in return for some highly destructive weapons, it's like 1985 all over again. And you can fire rocket launchers and throw grenades diagonally in this one, and even backwards, whoop! The only thing missing is some great music, like in the hacked version of the original.
Dave: Enjoyable to play until the enemy soldiers start chucking grenades and rockets at you
7/10
Al: We've seen it before, yes. But it was great then and still pretty darn good now
8/10
Just One More Thing…
Columbo: So, you like to play soldier eh, dweebos? Well what’s your fave gung-ho hut-hut-hut muscle-bound game on the Speccy then?
Al: Woah there, lieutenant! Possibly Commando itself or Ikari Warriors, but more likely the outrageously violent Cobra, even if your average go lasts little over a minute. I could never get the hang of that other Joffa hit Green Beret though. Rambo had its moments too.
Dave: How about Combat School. Or to use its other name (that I've just made up), "Daley gets Drafted". I discovered the trick of using a joystick and doing 'crazy circles' rather than 'horizontal waggles', if you get my drift. I always got the nervy sweaty palm thing when I got to the instructor fight. They don't make difficulty spikes like that any more.
However, Ikari Warriors has always been my fave, I even reckon it's better than the mighty Commando (Elite’s one). You can run over people (including your co-player bud) in a tank. Marvellous stuff.
Al: Tanks Dave.
Dave: Tanks Al.
DROID BUSTER
Ariel Endaraues
2019
Why do I keep picking Spanish games? Let's see how far my one year GCSE gets me with this inlay then. All I have to go on otherwise is that this is a version of the C64 classic (no such thing) Mandroid. A town called Hexagon is situated in a technological, erm mecca maybe, but the AI goes AWOL and declares war on the human race. A guy with robotic arms has to bash his way to the main CPU and give it what for. Let's see how right I was there.
Dave: ...Please sir, can I have a gun instead? My robotic arm is hopeless, it doesn't seem to be able to hit anything...Oh, so you have to hit things at certain times/points? I see. Unfortunately, the energy drain from touching one of your enemies is so severe it seems to kill me instantly, every time, and I only have one life so have to go back to the start of the game.
Al: This game starts off very nicely. There's some moody music a la Target; Renegade, and some very nice colourful graphics. Your guy impressively extends his...arm to obliterate his robotic foes, but timing is critical. Get it wrong and your health depletes super-fast. His random outbursts about wanting pizza add to the fun, and remind me of a certain co-reviewer....
Dave: Slightly annoying. Where’s my pizza?
5.5/10
Al: Pretty good, only let down by slightly repetitive gameplay after a while
7/10
Just One More Thing…
Columbo: Is it more fun to fight robots or to be a robot? Please give some spurious examples to support your argument.
Al: Zirky from Factory Breakout was a fun droid, remember him? And that Alien 8 guy. Even the C-droid in Worse Things Happen At Sea, though he didn't say much. On the other hand, you do shoot a load of bots in Deltas Shadow, and that's hellafun. Maybe being RoboCop is the perfect compromise?
Dave: That's a difficult one, lieutenant... As a Laser Squad/Rebelstar fan, fighting against robots is ace! Though you do have the odd droid on your own team. As for WTHAS, controlling that flippin' robot in a sinking vessel used to stress me out so I stopped playing it.
Nah, there are too many games where you play a robot that are cool, probably. Alien 8 is OK I suppose. In Quazatron you're both a robot AND fight against robots. Aargh, I can't decide. Your question is faulty. Does not compute... Malthunction... Malfunnythinkin...
Columbo: Take this one back to the station, boys. Guy’s gone doolally.
Al: DAAAAAAAVEEEEE! NOOOOOOOO! Right, what’s next…
TO BE CONTINUED SOON...A MERE 22 LETTERS TO GO!
RIVAL GANGS EXT.
Presh
2022
Looking forward to getting my hands on that winnebago at some point, might cook some crystal meth
This is your start point. The phone is an available mission. Some toy cars drive past
Just think, if this game had come out in the classic era, it would have been the inspiration for the whole Grand Theft Auto revolution. Ha, only kidding, clearly this demake is a homage to that great series of games. The Speccy's very own little criminal sandbox. Aah, bless.
I remember playing the original GTA games a little bit, but I wasn't fully up to speed on consoles at that point. The main thrills were having different radio stations in cars and running over Hari Krishna groups and thus receiving seriously bad karma, maaaaan.
Then along came GTA 3, in 3D no less, and what a game-changing...game that was! I loved it to bits, either despite or because of the news headlines it made. But mostly because it was an amazing game. Vice City followed with its uber cool '80s vibe, then a whole host of others followed, with perhaps a hint of diminishing returns, but nevertheless all were worth playing.
But now, back in time we go to the overhead view of the original game, as doing GTA 3 might just be a little much for the Speccy admittedly. I did think for quite a while that this sort of thing might work quite well on an 8 bit machine, and here's the pudding of proof...of it. Can I do that bit again?
I'm on a Kill Frenzy Yaaaaarrrgggh! Simply place 10 mines in front of unsuspecting victims
Another part of the city opens up later on, beyond my ability level unfortunately
Presh, aka Andy Precious, is the man behind this one, having previously programmed the 'imPreshive' Hell Yeah! In this game you choose between the two gangs, the Chameleons and the Darksiders (good game, that one) and obvs you want your gang to be rulers of Liberty City, sorry Vice City, sorry San Andreas, sorry Spec City. That one will do.
So there are 20 missions to attempt in this new improved version of Rival Gangs. Plus lots of kill frenzy opportunities and various weapons to master. Walking around is fine, but indulging in yer actual grand theft auto is even better. Zipping around the city in your li'l 3D stock car is great fun. And if you smash too many things, your vehicle flashes and you'd best bail out sharpish, otherwise, guess what...WASTED!!!
Joyriding in the park is a must
I've picked up a suitcase of dough outside a hotel, now have to take it back to the bakers
I struggled a little with this at first - it takes time to adjust one's expectations when one has played and enjoyed quite so may GTA games and GTA clones over the years. Obviously everything is scaled down more than a little, but there's still lots of fun to be had. It's tricky initially to tell your gangmates apart from the other lot, so the best approach is usually to treat everyone equally and mow 'em all down. This explains my slow progress.
But if you knuckle down and pretend you're a bada$$ gangbanger (can I use that word?), but still a careful, cautious one, you start to get somewhere. You have to build up your Control level by completing missions, but every time you get WASTED!!! you lose 5%. A nice touch which delays permadeath a little longer, until your control level goes sub-zero and you lose control of your bladder just to make matters worse.
"Walking on the beaches, murdering some beetches"
Drive onto the blue square to start an exciting checkpoint race. Don't crash into the yellow Lego though, it hurts
Presentationwise, we get a rather cool loading screen, just hope it avoids any litigation from those Rockstar folk. Then the menu screen has a nice AY ditty, though sound is sparse in the game itself. The graphics and colour are good, pretty small but effective enough.
But the gameplay is the thing. It's challenging and some of the time limits are pretty damn skinny, but there's mucho ultraviolent fun to be had in the finest tradition of the franchise. Overall it's a unique experience on the Spectrum, and really a very good attempt at bringing something so iconic to our beloved machine.
MONSTER HIT!!!
THE VERDICT
It's nice to know that now you can indulge your illegal side in 8 bits too nowadays, and expand your criminal empire even further.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING
90%
SIDEWIZE AND CROSSWIZE
and
CROSSWIZE
Firebird
1987 and 1988
Watch out for that enormous onrushing blue snooker ball, spaceman. Those aliens aren't very exciting are they?
Sidewize visits Omicron, the forest world. Must be a long way below us
Since I went and produced it, I may as well plunder my 'Hot or Not?' list now and then when reviewing olden games, as it's always interesting to see just what's what, who's spot-on, who's out of their freaking minds, and petty quibbles like that generally.
With that in mind, here are a couple of games which seem to have divided opinion. I'm doing them both at once since there's often not that much to say about shoot-em-ups. The clue's in the title, innit?
So SU (2 x 10/10 Classics) and YS (2 x 9/10 Megagames) both loved the arses off both of these games, giving them the highest scores conceivable. YS never gave a 10/10 as such to any game, and rightly so, but SU weren't bound by logic or sense, so did give a few maximums out in their time.
And Crash? 50% for Sidewize, 69% for Crosswize. Wow. That's a serious difference of opinion right there. But if 2 say it's great, and 1 says it's cack, surely the majority has it right? It's time to don my moth-eaten deerstalker and investigate!
Pretty houses, but pretty bloody in my way constantly. And don't get me started on the telegraph poles
Sidewize visits Delta, the desert world. Must be a long way below us
I'd not played either game before, so a clean slate beckoned. Since the brains behind Odin Computer Graphics were responsible for these titles, hopes were high. After all, Nodes of Yesod and Robin of the Wood, among others, were cracking games. OCG seemed set to rule the world, but then got taken over by Firebird and their BT riches, and kind of petered out eventually.
I decided to defy logic and try the later Crosswize first. Okay, not a bad load screen, leading into a fairly functional menu page. No music as far as I can tell, bit odd that. Set my keys and off we go.
Graphics are very nice. We seem to be fighting on people's rooves for some reason. Ah, I died. Ah, I died. Ah, I died. And in the space of 30 seconds, I was as dead as they come. Well, that sucked, let's go again.
I lasted slightly longer second time round, it's true. But not really very long at all. The aliens are plentiful, coming at you from all angles, and your actual playing space above those chimneys and all is so small, it's crazy, with a relatively big sprite to try to control.
Pick-ups can be exploited every now and then, which do help a bit and increase your firepower, but really you need one to make your spaceman smaller! Eventually I scraped my way past the first roofy section. Suddenly you have the whole screen to yourself, ah luxury!
Strange liney aliens attack our Crosswize spacechum every which way
Yes, it's pretty. Yes, it's busy. Yes, you're about to die. It's Crosswize!
But wait. A load of things promptly got hurled at me from all over the place, killing me all over again. Then lots of annoying line things close in from everywhere, and they're very hard to avoid. Waaahhhh, mummy!
And on it goes. I resorted to saving my game state frantically whenever I'd had a goodish run and it had gone quiet, but still I massively struggled to get anywhere. I might not be the best shmuper in town, but this was a bit much.
So onto Sidewize. I'd noticed from reviews that there were fewer rooftops in this game, so had hopes I might do better. Couldn't do much worse. Okay, average load screen, some good music on the menu page this time, and even a choice of worlds to start on. Things were looking up.
There were even a few easy waves to shoot at and ease you in. Then a centipede thing which you couldn't kill, so just had to avoid. But then these huge walls come flying at you at breakneck speed (if walls had necks) and inevitably wipe you out straight away, as your guy seems too big and tardy to avoid them.
Sidewize visits Nu, the cuboid world. Must be a long way below us
This was as far as I got on Crosswize. Fifteen aliens are about to kill me all at once
You do at least get 5 lives in this game, rather than the paltry 3 in Crosswize. But even this is not enough. It's just too damn hard, and the lack of background scenery adds to the boredom. The separate worlds don't differ much either, moan, groan.
Sorry to be such a negative creep (but I'm not stoned, honest). I think if you combined the best aspects of both games, called it Lengthwize, and reduced the harshometer by about 300%, a good time could be had by all.
THE VERDICT
I think Crash had it almost right with these two games. Presumably the SU and YS staff were on steroids if they were able to keep up with them. Or maybe I'm getting too old.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATINGS
SIDEWIZE 70%
CROSSWIZE 72%
THE ORDER OF SLEEPING DRAGON
Drunk Fly
2019
A hobbit contemplates how to pronounce these names properly
This is where we begin. Enjoy a convo with your pa while you can
The Sp...Yandex Retro Games Battle strikes again! This was an entry from the 2019 competition from two chaps who later made Marsmare: Alienation, which I really need to play some time. Apparently there's another event brewing currently, which is great, though it's now multi-machine format, which is less great. But let's hope for a strong Speccy contingent, as the Russians certainly know a thing or two about programming.
The Order Of Sleeping Dragon is a top-down RPG jaunt in the mould of Los Amores de Brunilda, which I lauded back in Part 1. As I've mentioned before, the Spectrum lends itself nicely to this kind of game, so it would be great to see even more of them. Purlease.
It's quite nice out here when there aren't hordes of beasties attacking you
Aw man, I really fancied quaffing some hipster ales and doing Gregorian chanting till the early hours
You play the part of a village person (the policeman perhaps) whose home keeps getting overrun with pesky demons. "No-one knew who they were, or what they were doin'" but the local funky monks are raising suspicions. Since they've got a sleeping dragon and all.
Not long into this game, your pa cops it (just call me The Spoiler) so you head off to check out the monastery and avenge him, and get to the bottom of all this monastic mysteriousness.
You have to take on the marauding monsters with a sword at first, but you'll soon discover some magic tricks and gain the ability to hurl fireballs and the like around, which helps you keep that health level up. There are millions of health top-ups around the place in chests too, once the master key is yours. It'd be cool to have one of those in real life.
The villagers will provide you with various subquests along the way, whether you want them to or not. And handily a quest screen keeps track of these for you, which is a nice touch, very considerate, thanks.
Only the coolest monks can hurl fireballs at the heathen
Better shift sharpish or you'll be having a nice lie-down too
There are a couple of boss fights you'll encounter, which aren't too hard. Unless you've already used up all your magical attacks, like I did. In which case, there are no shops to buy more from, so you're pretty much stuffed. So try to keep something back for a rainy day, unlike my fireball-happy self.
This game is certainly fun to play, nothing too demanding, and a biggish area to go questing in. At one point you even turn into a rat unexpectedly, which is...unexpected. The graphics are all pretty good and the landscapes are colourful and varied.
Ooh, I've got a new quest. Sounds terrifying too
In the well-stocked cellar, our hero gets all potty-mouthed with an unwelcome intruder
Sound however is a bit lacking and the game as a whole isn't terribly long, so it lags behind the Brunilda game in some respects. But these points aside, this is still a good little adventure which is well worth a few hours' play.
THE VERDICT
Another fun Speccy RPG. Now we just need someone to convert an early Final Fantasy title, or Chrono Trigger perhaps? Or maybe Alundra? Or the Mana games or...or...I should really just learn to program and do 'em myself.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING
87%
100 GAMES - HOT OR NOT? PART TWO
Part Two
Led Storm (US Gold)
CRASH 93%S YS 7/10 SU 63%
Little Computer People (Activision)
CRASH 57% YS 9/10M SU 5/5C
Magnetron (Firebird)
CRASH 57% YS 8/10 SU 10/10C
Mario Bros. (Ocean)
CRASH 45% SU 5/5
Martianoids (Ultimate)
CRASH 58% YS 6/10 SU 5/5
MASK (Gremlin)
CRASH 81% YS 6/10 SU 9/10
Max Headroom (Quicksilva)
CRASH 85% YS 9/10M SU 3/5
Mindshadow (Activision)
CRASH 9/10S YS 7/10 SU 2/5
Mindstone (The Edge)
CRASH 89% YS 6/10 SU 5/5
Nemesis (Konami)
CRASH 59% YS 8/10 SU 5/5C
New York Warriors (Virgin)
CRASH 36% YS 62% SU 90%C
Nexor (Design Design)
CRASH 81% YS 5/10 SU 5/5
North Star (Gremlin)
CRASH 90%S YS 6/10 SU 7/10
On The Run (Design Design)
CRASH 91%S YS 6/10 SU 3/5
Pentagram (Ultimate)
CRASH 93%S YS 7/10 SU 3/5
Predator (Activision)
CRASH 66% YS 7/10 SU 10/10C
Prodigy (Electric Dreams)
CRASH 68% YS 6/10 SU 5/5
Project Future (Micromania)
CRASH 90%S YS 6/10
Psi-5 Trading Company (US Gold)
CRASH 58% YS 9/10M SU 2/5
Purple Saturn Day (Exxos)
CRASH 91%S YS 60% SU 75%
Quartet (Activision)
CRASH 36% YS 8/10 SU 9/10
Roadwars (Melbourne House)
CRASH 66% YS 7/10 SU 10/10C
Robot Messiah (Alphabatim)
CRASH 72% YS 9/10 SU 3/5
Rolling Thunder (US Gold)
CRASH 47% YS 9/10M SU 8/10
Saboteur 2: Avenging Angel (Durell)
CRASH 83% YS 9/10M SU 3/5
Samurai Warrior (Firebird)
CRASH 89% YS 9/10M SU 58%
S.D.I. (Activision)
CRASH 59% YS 6/10 SU 90%
Shadows Of Mordor (Melbourne House)
CRASH 93%S YS 8/10 SU 3/5
Sidewize (Firebird)
CRASH 50% YS 9/10M SU 10/10C
Skull (Games Machine)
CRASH 70% YS 9/10 SU 5/10
Sorcerer Lord (PSS)
CRASH 70% YS 9/10M SU 10/10C
Star Raiders II (Electric Dreams)
CRASH 52% YS 8/10 SU 5/5
Starstrike (Realtime)
CRASH 93%S YS 6/10 SU 7/10
Street Fighter (Go!)
CRASH 69% YS 8/10 SU 10/10C
Tantalus (Quicksilva)
CRASH 76% YS 9/10M SU 2/5
The Archers (Mosaic)
CRASH 90%S YS 5/10 SU 4/5
The Beast (Marlin Games)
CRASH 91%S YS 6/10
The Big Sleaze (Piranha)
CRASH 93%S YS 8/10 SU 6/10
The Custard Kid (New Generation)
CRASH 65% YS 9/10M SU 3/5
The Fast And The Furious (Go!)
CRASH 63% YS 9/10M SU 4/10
The Great Giana Sisters (Rainbow Arts)
CRASH 92%S YS 8/10 SU 55%
Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole (Mosaic)
CRASH 9/10S SU 3/5
The Secret Of St. Brides (St. Brides)
CRASH 6/10 SU 5/5
Trantor-The Last Stormtrooper (Go!)
CRASH 68% YS 9/10M SU 10/10C
Twice Shy (Mosaic)
CRASH 90%S YS 5/10 SU 4/5
Vectron (Insight)
CRASH 92%S YS 6/10 SU 2/5
Witch's Cauldron (Mikrogen)
CRASH 10/10S YS 6/10 SU 7/10
Wizard's Lair (Bubble Bus)
CRASH 94%S YS 4/10 SU 4/5
Xarq (Electric Dreams)
CRASH 59% YS 6/10 SU 5/5
Zoot (Bug-Byte)
CRASH 59% YS 7/10 SU 5/5
AND THAT'S THE END OF THAT!
HOPE YOU'VE SORTED THE HOTS FROM THE NOTS!
-FIN-
THE GAMES THAT TIME FORGOT
1982 EDITION
THE BLACK DWARF'S LAIR
Newsoft
Lovely bit of doomy fan art here. Just missing a dwarf
I quite like yellow on green, I'd use it on this site if only Google Sites would let me use more than 3 background colours
What were you doing in 1982? Personally I think 9 year old li'l Al was busy marvelling at the wonders of his new computer. The ZX81! My fave game was Fungaloids, a City Bomber game which came on a compilation tape from Unwin, or Orwin possibly. Anyway it seemed pretty darn spiffy, since all I'd had before then was our Binatone Pong thingy.
But then on 23rd April 1982, something happened which would change all our lives forever. The birth of the ZX82, cunningly monickered the "Spectrum". It had colour, y'see. And sound. Gasps all round.
As mentioned before, I didn't get my Speccy until Xmas '83, so I was blissfully unaware of what games were out for it the previous year. Software houses had a mere 7 months in '82 to figure out how to program the thing and release something that the public would accept and not demand a refund for.
So since I now have to play some games from this period, when Spectrum software was in its infancy, it's important to look at things in their proper context. In my case, it's what my ZX81-playing self would make of them. Not how good they are compared to Starglider. That would hardly be fair.
Chamber 42 sadly doesn't contain the meaning of life
I destroyed a baddy using 150 magic points. On reflection, slight overkill
So with that in mind, it's onto game numero uno, The Black Dwarf's Lair by, appropriately, Newsoft.
Your mission is to trap the black dwarf (gawd, I hope this isn't racist) and retrieve the magic chalice. You are armed with a staff, filled to the brim with 500 magic points worth of zappy power, to smite the enemies within the lair.
In each location you can either use magic to lock an empty chamber. No, I don't get that either. Or else you can move, obviously. And option number three is to 'scry', a word used not nearly enough I reckon. Apparently it means to look through something using sneaky magic trickery. But you already knew that if you're an ex D&D buff, eh? In this case you can find out what's in an adjacent room without entering it. I use an ear trumpet myself.
The coins are possessed round here, rattling away merrily on their own
Argh, a dragon. Cheese it!
The rooms are numbered oddly. I mean strangely, not in odd numbers only. So the game resembles bingo more than a dungeon crawler. As such the atmosphere is a tad lacking. When you meet an enemy, you can stun it, try to destroy it, or transport it elsewhere, which is quite impressive. All cost varying amounts of magic presumably, but you're asked how much you want to use in each case. Might as well just write the game yourself really.
So this is all hyper-basic stuff. I guess 1982 me would be impressed by the following features: the double-height font (ooh), the border flashing different colours when you do something (aah) and the bleepy bloppy noises accompanying it (faint). It's not much, I grant you.
But it's a bit different, almost like a Fighting Fantasy book with all those numbers, but you can't just turn to 400 when you get killed or bored, and it's lacking in excitement generally. It cost £4.95, which is the equivalent today of over £200, so value for money may be suspect. Still, early days. Though I'm not sure Newsoft lasted very long.
Here's another of Newsoft's games - "Secret Valley"
THE GAMES THAT TIME FORGOT - 1982 EDITION
THE BLACK DWARF'S LAIR
RATING 53%
POSITION 5th out of 5
REWARD
The Last Place Potato
SPACE MISSION
Gem Software
Cool spaceships man, but where are the dinosaurs?
The pilot gets a nasty case of the asteroids
Oho, one of so many spacey games which invaded (that was intentional) our homes back in the early '80s. It's hard to overstate the impact of Space Invaders' influence at the time. That game and Pacman absolutely took the hooman world by storm, followed by the likes of Scramble, Asteroids, Galaxian etc.
Space really was where it was at. And probably about 50% of early Spectrum releases were some sort of space-based malarkey. I've not done any research, but it sounds like an impressive stat.
Gem released a few games in their time, the most noteworthy probably being Disco Dan. But this title evaded review by the big three, presumably getting lost in space somewhere. So did it deserve better or should it have been tossed out of the airlock at the first oppportunity?
The inlay gives it the hard sell, stating it's a "superb multi level space combat game that sets new standards in graphical excellence". Even for 1982, this is pure science fiction.
Here's Cape Canaveral, scene of the take-off bit. Though clearly now I've just landed
Too much damage and you'll become one with the stars
We start with choosing if we're using a colour or black and white TV. The youth of today would surely giggle at this point. Then choose your skill level, including "childish", "hairy" and "suicidal". I have to say, on an emulator at least, they all seemed identical.
Next we have a primitive, but not totally rubbish, scene showing your ship counting down to take-off, then launching. Quite a nice feature. Once in space, it kindly tells you your keys, and off we go.
First the game throws an asteroid belt at you, loads of yellow rocks flying everywhere. You're in the middle a la Planetoids and you can thrust forward as well as rotating and shooting. If you survive this onslaught, you get the message that enemy ships are approaching. These are still pretty rapid, but bigger and so easier to hit. After this, it lands your ship automatically and tells you you're a lousy shot. Or it did me at least.
Here come the enemy ships. Or escapees from Horace and the Spiders
I've found that early Speccy games REALLY loved insulting you at every opportunity
Ah, I get it now. Choosing higher difficulty levels means having more waves to fight through. Kinda makes some sense.
There's one feature which is unusual. As you get increasingly damaged, you gradually lose the ability to fire in specific directions, including diagonals. Very odd, but nice to see something different in this type of game.
The main problem is that everything moves way too fast, except your ship. As such, your space career tends to be highly short-lived. I cheated by adjusting my emulator speed, but that made it kinda dull. So probably not a classic galactic jaunt this, but by no means is it a load of space trash either.
Gem's finest moment, Disco Dan. Looks alright actually
THE GAMES THAT TIME FORGOT - 1982 EDITION
SPACE MISSION
RATING 65%
POSITION 4th out of 5
REWARD
4th Place Chocolate Coin
NIGHTMARE PARK
Breadhill Software
A guy in a flasher mac would be a nice change of pace in this godforsaken play area of the damned
Sinister stuff. New pants please
In 1982, even bakers were making Spectrum games, hence this offering from Hovis, sorry Breadhill. It seems to have also appeared on the ZX81, published by PSS no less, and the Speccy version may or may not have had another game called Blok as its B-side. So far, so obscure.
New Crash (New Danger) were impressed with the cover art, including it in one of their features recently. And it does look pretty good, considering some of the amateurish artwork around at the time. But I can hardly criticise, as my drawing is beyond awful. My kids always laugh at my efforts when we play the Pictionary type game on Wii U Party. But it's fine, I can take it. Sob.
Looking at the maze screenshot here, you could be forgiven for thinking this is going to be rubbish, and move on with your life. But wait - if I've got to suffer, so should you! And believe it or not, it's not that rubbish.
You've got to escape the scary park. You've probably drunk too much and they've locked the nearest set of gates on you, I'm sure that's happened to us all? So simply travel across the screen from left to right to get out the other end. Unsurprisingly though, the creatures of the night (hookers?) have other ideas.
Here's the park map, complete with 'You are here' bit. Could use the loo though, where are the nearest lavs?
Damn you, Vorderman! Where's my pen and paper?
Sometimes you can take a step and nothing will happen. That's good. And if you're criminally insane, you can choose to go off the beaten track altogether, which sends you into an abyss and thus to your death. What kind of park is this? It's deadlier than Birkenhead Park...
There are a few different 'nightmares' you will encounter as you crawl your way across the park. Most annoying has to be 'The Doors' (cue song) where there's a man-eating tiger (tiger not actually shown) behind one of three doors. So your chances ain't that great. Choose wrong and a zombie parkie drags you back to the start again. Not really, you die.
Disappointingly, no pic of a tiger. Just flashing writing saying 'TIGER'. Come on Breadhill, you're better than this
Personally I found The Gruesome Gambler to be a perma-cheating b***ard
Another nightmare scenario is coming across 'The Mad Mathematician'. Yes, it does sound truly horrible, this one. You have to add a load of numbers up in JUST TEN SECONDS! Jeez, no chance...
Other nasties include 'The Gruesome Gambler', which involves a rather spurious Higher Or Lower game. 'The Fanatical ESP Tester' which has you guessing another mystery number. And 'Zombies' where you again input numbers to scare off the undead somehow.
So it's quite an arithmetical kind of park, this one. The type the kids really love! And it's very basic and very hard to get far in, but I can well imagine loving this back in '82. It's lo-fi and hi-fun in my opinion. Mind you, I declared my love for Transylvanian Tower back in Part One, so my credibility is shot anyway.
Another game from Breadhill now. Feast yer eyes on 'Seekey'
THE GAMES THAT TIME FORGOT - 1982 EDITION
NIGHTMARE PARK
RATING 70%
POSITION 3rd out of 5
REWARD
Bronze Medal - Hey, not bad!
MONGOOSE/ BEAR ISLAND
Gilsoft
Not the worst artwork in the world, especially when compared with...
Woah! The first version of this game had some pretty punky pictures on the front of it
In ye olden days, one way to sell games which might not merit an individual release was to whack 'em onto a compilation tape. Cascade took this too far of course, with their epically bad Cassette 50, of which Fishing Mission was surely the 'star' for hilarity alone. And the watch had far too many teeny buttons on it. Bah. Yes, they saw me coming.
ZX81 compilation tapes were quite commonplace, and on the Spectrum the likes of Automata and J.K. Greye released similar. And Gilsoft had a go too in the days before The Quill turned them into the adventuring deities we know them as now.
This was their first effort, called Games Tape 1, to be followed by number 2, with the unexciting sounding Reversi and Poker Dice. Then in 1983 came Games Tape 3, featuring Timeline and Tasks, which conversely looks better than it sounds. After that they started doing proper games hoho! That was harsh, but kinda true.
How many apples can a pink snake eat in an English country orchard?
Yeah, in 1982 games really were total ****s
In Mongoose you control a snake (eh?) in an orchard, who has to eat as many apples as it can, to grow in size and keep a pesky mongoose (ah, I see) from munching him. You're fine as long as you keep increasing your length (snicker). But if you're down to one character square, you're snake toast.
So clearly it's a Frogger clone. Sorry, I mean Centipede. It's a little different since it's a maze set-up rather than the usual mostly blank screen. And it moves quite fast and is reasonable fun for a while. I couldn't quite manage to eat all the apples, as new ones kept on falling constantly. Must be a windy day. Not bad overall though, definitely fun-ish.
"This is Bear Island". Think I prefer "This is Anfield"
Gilsoft, I could go off you, y'know
Onto Bear Island, and you find yourself stranded in the Arctic after your plane has crashed. You have to evade hordes of polar bears by trapping them in fishing holes, quite big ones presumably. So keep your distance and tempt them to their icy doom until help arrives (not a chance) or you turn into The Thing (more likely).
Tricky game, this. The movement seems a bit sticky, so sometimes your guy won't move and other times he moves too much. The game plops you somewhere random to start, often quite unfairly. But despite these issues, it's still rather addictive. Primitive, yes, but 1982, remember!
Both games have enough about them to make this pretty good value for a fiver back in the day. Not a bad effort for a bunch of budding goblins and pixies.
Gilsoft wisely gave up on arcade games and went a-questing instead, like this early example
RATING 74%
POSITION 2nd out of 5
REWARD
Silver Medal - Not too shabby!
STORM FIGHTERS
John Prince Software
Think this came off a ZX Printer, got screwed up in a ball, then recovered for posterity. Good work!
Pyoom pyoom. Behold my mighty lasers
Not too much background on this one. There were some adverts for it though which proclaimed it to be the bee's knees and the cat's whiskers, but this was standard for most games, and nearly always not entirely true.
I was going to say this was an obscure title from an obscure software house, authored by an obscure programmer. But I would have been wrong. Y'see, Prince John (weak joke) went on to program the likes of 720 Degrees, 10th Frame, Rolling Thunder and Street Fighter for U.S. Gold. So things worked out well for him, which is good to know.
This is another of 50,000 arcade space games in early Spectral times. But it's not quite Space Invaders, not quite Galaxian, and nothing at all like Scramble or Asteroids. It's more Moon Cresta really in feel, relatively unusual in those days I would say.
Yellow asteroids and blue tie-fighters attack. Don't try to shoot the purple guy at the top, it's one of your lives
Employ firing solution! The font's nice up at the top, isn't it?
So any good? Well, in short, YES! For 1982, the feel of this game is excellent. The load screen springs into life with firing graphics a bit like Harrier Attack, if nowhere near as alarming. Then you're straight into the action.
Your three lives are displayed at the top. One comes noisily down to the bottom of the screen, and then you're off into an asteroid field of indestructible yellow rocks. Blue tie-fighters (TM) swoop in diagonally at a fair click, though nothing like Space Mission speeds thankfully. And now and then a green mothership flies overhead for fun.
Take out that mother of a mothership quick - there's a sweet 50 points in it for you (Is that all?)
John Prince also made 'Galaxy Warlords', since Space Invaders clones were compulsory back in '82
And that's it. Okay, it doesn't sound like it would change your life per se, but the feel of the game is absolutely spot-on. The graphics are crisp and move well, colour is sensibly used and sound is impressively arcade-like and noisy. It just moves like Jagger in a way most games of the time really didn't.
The only downside is that there doesn't seem to be any more point to the game than what I've already outlined. I think it's an endless shoot, with no real variation apparent, unless I've just not got far enough. This is quite a shame, as if separate stages had been included, I think this game would have been a big hit and really surprised people.
Nevertheless it's still a great advert for Mr. Prince's programming talent, and is well worth a quick retro blast.
John was later part of the team which gave us 720 Degrees. Gnarly, dude
RATING 82%
POSITION 1st out of 5
REWARD
Gold Medal - Top of the Class!
-FIN-
TRIANGLE CIRCLE SQUARE
Teknamic
2022
I have to admit to being stumped by this loading screen. Is it the Clifton Suspension Bridge?
You're the circle on the stairs, you have to hop up, then under the other bouncing circle to get past
Modern art. Discuss. Aha. Yes. Hmmm. Well, you make some interesting points, but if I may offer my own uninformed opinion, most modern art gives good modern art a bad name, bad name, to quote Bon Jovi. For every Banksy, there must be 20 divots who scribble haphazardly on a canvas using their own feces, and another 20 who spend a fortune buying it.
As a family, we visit the Tate modern art gallery in Liverpool once every 5 years or so. You see, it takes that long to get over the overwhelmingly depressive nature of the place. I like plenty of odd stuff that could be termed modern art, but it still seems hugely outnumbered by overly 'clever' and uninspired numbers. If it's visually pleasing, great. If it's actually clever, great. If it's neither, what's the point?
Here our triangle spits venom at the enemy green square. Triangles totally kick ass in this game
Our bouncy circle has to hop up ledge by ledge, while avoiding the line-spitting triangles and then the square
A geezer named Piet Mondrian once made lots of pictures consisting of blocks of colour, clearly a Speccy kinda guy, defo not the C64 with its 50 shades of grey. His art is more abstract than anything, possibly too old to be called modern art as such, but it's all relative I guess. I reckon his work is a major inspiration for this game, little did he know at the time. Shame, he could have claimed a royalty cut.
TCS is pretty much an interactive piece of art on our little ol' machine. You take it in turns to control one of the aforementioned shapes around a colourful abstract world, presumably seeking artistic nirvana. Or something.
In short, the rules are these. A circle can bounce as it's light, but it can't shoot. Why would you expect it to? But triangles? Well, they can shoot (naturally) but can't jump. Squares definitely can't jump, nor can they shoot, but they're big and heavy so can fall helpfully through any flimsy flooring.
Triangle attacks again! You can fall any height, since shapes don't have lives as such
Here's the escalator speedrun bit. We're the triangle again for now. Go too slow and the spikes will burst you
You don't get to change shape at will, you just find little icons around and about which prompt a similar change in your own shape. Once you've reached the end of the first section, you suddenly find yourself on an escalator moving rightwards constantly, and you have to avoid or destroy various shapes coming toward you from different angles. After this part, it's back to the same format as stage one.
It's largely a platform game, it's true. But there's never been one quite like this. No status bars on the screen, no text to be found anywhere. Just the colours and the shapes, like that Foo Fighters album. It's beautifully simple and so playable. So far it's not been too taxing, though level 3 is currently causing me some issues, to be fair.
Level 3 has plenty of magenty
On this fearsome screen, you change from circle to triangle, then back to circle again
The vivid colour palette of the Spectrum is the perfect backdrop for this game. It's practically a love letter to the machine's wondrous bright colours, whether clashy or no. Not only that, but the music that plays throughout is also of a very high standard, with a surprisingly enjoyable version of 'There's No Lyrics' by 2 Unlimited coming in later on. We just need someone to convert 'Zombie Nation' now, shouldn't be too hard...
Graphics are spot-on too, with the triangle in particular moving along very jauntily, like it owns the place. Oh, and you get infinite lives, so this is one piece of art which should never leave you feeling frustrated and depressed.
MONSTER HIT!!!
THE VERDICT
"But is it art?" Well, it looks the part and is certainly clever enough. Stick it in the Tate NOW! It's got to be an improvement.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING
93%
RINGO
RetroSouls
2022
Aaahh, inne cute in his little green jumpy and all?
There's the key to the exit. Get jumping sharpish to avoid the big-eyed bird though
Ever wondered what a ZX81 would look like in colour? Well actually I know what it's like, as a mate of my dad's worked at Sinclair Research and one day he sneakily showed us an improved version of the extremely humble '81 they were experimenting with at the time, before the Spectrum took over. It looked amazing to my eyes, since all we were used to was black and white back then.
There wasn't any sound of course, but it was still quite a thrill to see those famously chunky blocks lit up in three different colours. There was just red, blue and yellow, as the likes of cyan and magenta had been attempted but resulted in too many burned-out units. They really were pushing the technological envelope back then, most impressive it was too.
Xmas comes to level 13. Time to turn the heat up a bit, if Ringo can afford it in a recession
The yellow scrolls dispense helpful advice in the style of a New York Italian gangster
All lies of course, but you must admit it makes for a good story. I can only apologise to anyone disappointed, maybe it was all just a crazy dream I had.
Cough. So Denis Grachev and RetroSouls have been behind many top games in the modern Speccy era. Alter Ego, Tiny Dungeons, Old Tower, Gluf, Multidude, the list is quite formidable. They also made a couple, Lirus and Twinlight, with relatively chunky graphics, and this title is in a similar vein. It's an experimental low-res graphics mode, they say. It certainly gives the game an unusual look - my usual emulator couldn't cope with it, but Fuse could. Thanks Fuse.
You are a young snoogle (a what now?) called Ringo, who needs to grab as many stars as he can from the subterranean labyrinths of the Twilight Land. All because snoogles use said stars to light their houses in the dark winter nights, so they don't spill their lingonberry tea all over themselves. In fact, when I paid for this game, I was told I was actually paying 3 Euros for a cup of lingonberry tea, not a game as I had thought. Apparently. Didn't get it though. Maybe it's in the post. Who are on strike. Hmmmm. Ah well.
You can break those greeny blue blocks and there might be a star behind. Only 3 collected so far, pretty rubbish effort
You can create those red blocks yourself using lingonberry fuelled magic, making yourself a nifty staircase
Onwards, and young Ringo goes from level to level, learning new skills as he goes. He can create blocks (Jet Set) Willy-nillily to help him make upward progress, jump over angry creatures, break rocks, jump down off platforms, all the usual gubbins. On each level your main aim is to find a key to open the exit door, hopefully finding some stars along the way. He also has to stop off at Ikea occasionally to top up the lingonberry stocks.
Might have to go to Ikea soon actually. I can give or take all the furniture, but their cheapo hot dogs and cinnamon whirls are the bomb. I know you don't need to know that, but I've run out of things to say about platform games generally. I've reviewed a few by now.
This one is however a decent one, as you'd expect from its authors. There's some larvly in-game music, highly colourful levels and those rather clever low-res graphics. It's also quite Xmassy, as snow starts falling on level 10 or thereabouts. Nice to see a bit, isn't it, even if it's on a ZX81 Colour (TM) ? Too soon?
A spooky ghost guards the key. You can block it off temporarily using your...well, blocks
Here's the exit door but it's closed until you ask that nice creature above if you can borrow his key
I'm not sure that low-res graphics will catch on though, as the extreme bigness of the sprites made me feel a bit ill after a while, and you don't get to see as much of the screen at a time as you'd like sometimes.
But it's an interesting experiment in any case. A bit like Zosya fitting some of their recent games into 16K as a challenge. Is it selfish of me to wish that instead they would carry on using the full potential of the machine, to continue making excellent products as they have done in the past, rather than restricting themselves? I fear so, but it's just an opinion.
THE VERDICT
"And now for something completely different....It's..." deliberately blocky Speccy graphics! C64 owners would have a field day, so don't tell 'em (as if you'd associate with any). But this is an enjoyable game even so.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING
82%
ROBOTS RUMBLE
Miguetelo
2018
This robot dude looks pretty cute. Yup, you've got to kill him
Your Acme magnets are to the left and right and are proper attracty
In this game your character is called Slade, so I guess "IT'S XMASSSSSSSSS!" So this is quite topical right now, I meant that. You're presumably human and you have a job which you love, maybe a little too much. That job is to destroy already broken-down robots on various planets and throw them into burning lava. Bit like Robo-Trashman, loved that game. To be fair it does sound kinda sick fun.
For some unearthly (sic.) reason, on every planet they seem to have a fiendishly convoluted machine to achieve this end. Your only allies are two masseeeeve magnets, which you move around to send the busted bots in the right direction to meet their lavay doom. But definitely avoid any green kryptonite stones you come across like you're the son of Jor-El (Durell?) as they make your droids explode and pollute the planet, which is apparently bad and a sackable offence.
The yellow things are lifts which take you up, oh-woh. Trouble is, generally, you want to go down
There's this robot's final destination on planet Nebula. God speed, little bot
So this makes a somewhat sadistic change to the usual 'steer your cute li'l buddy bot to safety' scenario. Here you're actively trying to render them melted! You could possibly call it robo-euthanasia at a push, but in reality you're just pure evil personified, 'cos you enjoy it. Frankly, extra points for this uncalled-for nihilism, it's oddly refreshing. I'm not a robot hater though - I like robots generally, I do, though I admit I've never taken the Voight-Kampff test, so there's always that doubt in the back of your mind, isn't there?
So you can move your mega magnets up and down at will, attracting the doomed droid but thankfully not all the other metallic parts in the place, that would get a bit too messy. I typed 'bot' too messy first, which casts further doubt on my hooman-ness. You can't beat your programming I guess.
There have been loads of great puzzle games on the Speccy in modern times, the likes of Alter Ego and Fire 'N' Ice. But this one has a cunning trick up its robotic sleeves (eh?) which gives it an extra bit of oomph.
Up, up, up we go. You can see how if your left magnet was near the top, the little guy would be pulled into the green stuff. Not good
On later levels you also have to avoid other, more healthy, robots, which ain't easy using just magnets
Most games of this type have single screen challenges, and as they'd say on Seinfeld "not that there's anything wrong with that." But the levels in this game are multiple screens at a time. And with a challenging time limit too, as your magnets need their batteries topped up now and then. If that makes any sense. So you have to move pretty darn quick and get your undoubted arcade skills (pah!) into the mix.
And inevitably errors will follow. Oftentimes you'll think you've cracked it, when suddenly your robot will scoot across the screen to his death (in the wrong way, that is), as you've forgotten you'd left your other magnet in a slightly careless place, when it needed to be completely out of harm's way.
As you progress, new obstacles and objects appear, such as moveable platforms, glass floors, teleporters and light lifts, so each planet has its own feel and foibles. Not sure how many there are, but I've reached number three so far. I always seem to get stuck on level 3 of every game I play.
The gauge on the right is your battery power. It runs out quicker than Poundland's cheapo ones
This is planet Earth - cue Duran Duran song
The graphics and colour are spot-on in this game and there are two great AY tunes at the very least, which add to the frantic proceedings brilliantly.
This is another great example of excellent modern Spectral programming. Real care has gone into it, and the end product should be played by as many people as I can persuade to do it!
MONSTER HIT!!!
THE VERDICT
'Helping' stricken old machines to their final melty resting place has never been so much fun. But that doesn't include the Spectrum, not yet, no siree Bob. "Why?" you ask. I can't remember. Ah wait, oh yes - because against all the odds, "IT FRICKIN' LIIIIIIIIVESSSSSSS!"
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING
90%
BLACK and WHITE
Pat Morita Team
2020
Not the most colourful of load screens. Ah, that's the point, I see
Screen one. Watch out for the grumpy red loaves
Phwipwooophwipwoophwipwoophwipwoohwappawappawappa. What's that noise? Why it's a tornado unless I'm very much mistaken. And what are those hard shiny things flying around, nearly killing all in their path? Why, that looks like the treasures of Kalela kingdom, being scattered around everywhere. But surely those twin witches were meant to be looking after those riches, the crazy beeches? So what gives? Tell me! What's the freaking deal?? Whyyyyy?
I thought I'd start this off as moronically as possible, as I couldn't really get my head around the plot of this one from the brief story on the inlay. Suffice to say you control the two witches, Candel (Fork Handles?) and Alice separately in their black and white guises, trying to collect up all the errant diamonds. That'll do, plots are over-rated anyway. Let's move on.
This ace little intro screen reminds me of Ghosts 'N' Goblins and the rather more playable Tokimal
World number 2 and things are getting kinda hectic
Okay, so there are 64 screens spread across 6 worlds. You must collect all the diamonds on each screen before your time and/or lives run out. Standing in your way are the usual sort of creatures, plus big ol' balls which you can break using your magic.
Let's say you start as the black witch with 3 magic units to use. "You start as the bla...slap". Bop a creature who's in your way, that uses 1 unit. Crack the black ball, that uses another. Then bop another creature to use your last sliver of magic. Now you are defenceless and have to get to the magic crystal to recharge. And when you do, you turn white, so can now only break the white balls as well as continuing to smite enemies.
White witch can't see the mushrooms for the diamonds
High-fives all round. Time for a celebratory sand-witch
As such you have to plan your route out well. "White witches can't jump" but then neither can black ones, so make sure you don't get stuck in a dead end with a monster barring your way, with no magic to use. 'Cos you'll be dead, innit?
So there's more to this game than first meets the eye, and the further you get, the more addictive it becomes. But the game is well designed all round, so you don't get all het up and frustrated with the world generally, you just try again if you cock up. Later levels start to resemble Bomb Jack a bit, with diamonds everywhere. Well, maybe Boulder Dash instead. Bit of both really.
The yellow triangle things blow you up into the air. Handy when you cannae jump due to your witchy gown getting in the way
Big scary trees and big balls everywhere. Reminds me of (snip)
I'd love to know why they're called the Pat Morita Team, they sound like a '70s AOR band. Irregardless, they're developing a reputation for high quality games recently, so more power to their elbow(s). The attention to detail is superlative. Attractive load and menu screens, arcade style graphics, with great colour and music throughout. It's just great stuff. Even the menu rendition of Michael Jackson's Black And White doesn't sound as bad as you'd expect. Shamone!
MONSTER HIT!!!
THE VERDICT
Fantastic arcade-cum-puzzler which overflows with style, and is a much more colourful experience than the title suggests.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING
91%
SPECTRUM VIDEO NASTIES
DRUGS
PART 1: WINNERS DON'T USE DRUGS
GRANGE HILL by Argus Press (1987)
DRUG WATCH by Nottinghamshire Constabulary (1985)
Missed opportunity here for a load screen featuring that terrifying sausage on a fork
In Grange Hill, ginger-headed stepchild Gonch has had his Walkman confiscated, and he now aims to get it back by breaking into school, with the help of his tiny mate Hollo, to save his mum the bother of murdering him. Well, they did cost upward of £5K in those days and were totally future-proof...for a couple of years.
I vaguely recall these two being in the TV show, but I never watched it much at any stage. I was more into Dangermouse and escapist stuff, rather than gritty, dismal real life drama. All I can remember is Tucker, Bronson, the sausage on a fork and a whacked-out on drugs Zammo. That storyline inspired the song Just Say No of course, and struck fear into the drug lords of '80s Britain. Not likely, it probably gave them more publicity if anything. "Drugs, eh? Sounds intriguing. Maybe I should give those a try some time..."
Ladies and gentlemen, our hero...
Sadly if you say yes, the game ends, rather than going all trippy and pyschadelic, climaxing in copious vomiting
This game is a bit more thoughtful than yer average TV or movie tie-in. It's an adventure with point-and-click overtones, and you have to use objects cunningly to make progress in your quest for the golden Walkman.
You've got a list of commands at your disposal, the usuals such as Pick Up, Give, Examine, Use and Talk (usually to tell Hollo to follow you and not keep wandering off FFS!) Weirdly, when the set commands don't quite cover what you're trying to do, you can type a line in instead. Kinda defeats the point, but it's novel I suppose - the best, and worst, of both worlds.
It's quite playable, this and more fun than I expected. There are instadeaths here and there, including accidentally going back home (doh) and amusingly, tripping on a very slightly jutting-out paving stone (epic fail). That one can be remedied by using your jump key, which produces the most ludicrously big jump most of the way across the screen! While Hollo just walks across it unharmed...
So not bad overall and it might bring back a few memories of Skool Daze of old. Or aggressive sausages.
Gonch jumps the length of the screen to avoid that horrifying paving slab in the middle
Urgh, is this a Clive Barker movie or something?
Drug Watch now, and what's the most obscure software house you can think of? Surely it can't top Nottinghamshire Constabulary! Wonder how that deal came about, must have fallen off the back of a lorry.
Drugs were all the rage back then, so the cops cashed in with this title in 1985. Only joking of course, it only cost £1.25 and no doubt the proceeds went to buying, sorry preventing, drugs in some way, shape or form.
You play a teenager who is set upon by a horde of drug dealers, or pushers to use the lingo of the day. They always go around in big groups, don't they? You have to use your most potent weapon against them - saying NO! If you hit a pusher with your NO! he goes away, but still leaves the drugs behind, in the hope you'll pick 'em up, and then get addicted! Another odd policy. Contact with any drugs costs one of your 3 lives, but if it's heroin, it kills you stone dead. I'm sure some people who have had heroin must have survived, though many are undead now, like Keith Richards.
Blue pills are flying in your direction. Things are going to get hard now
If you take drugs, you inevitably end up becoming a pirate
This game is a sticky Space Invaders clone, and really not a good one. The pushers first fire the world DRUGS at you (an abstract sort of concept), then try their luck with pills, then garden plants and on it goes, with the bare minimum of variety. It's not great at collision detection, and in short it's more likely to send you screaming in the direction of the nearest drugs (paracetamol for me please), rather than putting you off them.
Nice terrifying loading and game over screens though. Real tasteful!
THE VERDICT
GRANGE HILL 7/10
DRUG WATCH 2/10
TEAM DRUGS TOTAL 9/20
"A real mixed bag of drugs here. It probably pays to be selective. Or better still, give them a miss, 'cos drugs are bad, m'kay?"
BODY HORROR
PART 2: BODY HORROR HUMANS ARE GROSS
GERRY THE GERM GOES BODY POPPIN' by Firebird (1985)
BLOOD 'N' GUTS by Quicksilva (1984)
Our repulsive anti-hero in horrible technicolour
Mev Dinc did Last Ninja 2, didn't he? And quite a few other good titles, it seems. This might have been his first Spectrum game. It's certainly his sickest! Here's the story.
The odious little Gerry The Germ failed to obtain his stinkploma from the Illstitute of Infectology, and got thrown out. Quite right too, for all those awful puns. Now he's trying to prove 'em all wrong. He has found a victim to infect, and he has to work his way up through their body, causing as much damage as he can, culminating in causing them a coronary.
It's original, I give you that! But seriously, it takes a special brand of misanthropy to make a game where you actively have to reduce a host's health until they die. Makes Game Of Thrones seem like Peppa Pig.
Mev has tried to inject some humour into the proceedings, gawd bless 'im. Gerry himself is (kind of) cute and cartoony, there's some amusingly wonky music at the start, and body areas include lungaroo and blundder.
In the lung(aroo) you're meant to grab oxygen bottles which appear between those 4 round dudes. Impossible
Gerry's stuck in the bladder with a bird strangely. Not going to ask how it got there
I only mention these two because I couldn't get past them. There are some more I believe, but the gameplay is nigh on impossible. In the lungs you have to grab as many oxygen bottles as you can, to starve it of oxygen, so they collapse. Jeez.
When you fail to do this, you end up in the bladder, rowing in a boat and throwing bog rolls at a tap to control the liquid levels. Doesn't sound quite as damaging, but it's still ludicrously hard.
Further on you can cause renal failure by overdosing on kidney beans, and destroy an aspirin in the stomach, so it gets overly acidic. And infect the pancreas and ultimately bring on heart failure.
Maybe it's me getting old and hypochondriac, but it makes me feel queasy just thinking about it, and it's made worse by the excessive harshness of the game. Maybe it's for the best that Gerry largely meets with repeated failure in his quest to kill us poor hoomans.
The horrific alternative ending to the movie where everyone returns to normal size and explodes out of the patient
It's proper trippy inside the human body. Who knew?
Blood 'N' Guts now, and you know how it is. You find yourself shrunk and swimming around in someone's innards, trying to reassemble your mini submarine and escape through an eye. Bleurgh. You also have to fight off infections, tumors and viruses all the while. Feel ill yet?
It's funny, I always thought that they called this game Blood 'N' Guts first, but had to change it 'cos it sounded too gross, so they changed it to Fantastic Voyage.
But no, it started life as FV, named after a sci-fi film whose plot the game clearly borrows. But when lawyers came a-calling, they opted for B'N'G instead. Coincidentally I saw that movie for the first time a few weeks ago, and it was...pretty darn average. Even with Raquel Welch as an evil baldy and Donald Pleasence in a furry bikini.
Anyhoo, this game is quite fun actually, especially after playing as a bleedin' germ. You can travel all around the body quite happily without encountering too much opposition until an infection breaks out somewhere (bloody Gerry).
Exploring the Inf. Vena Cava. No, I dunno either, but looks like it's 'the naughty bits'
Nice to know there's helpful signposting within our bodies
It seems impossible to complete, but far from impossible to play and quite enjoy, which is what you want in a game really, I'd say.
There's a warbly JSW-esque tune playing throughout, and the screens are all nice and colourful, not just a bloody disgusting mess as our bodies are in real life! So overall this is another quite playable game from The Game Lords, one of many such from their early days.
THE VERDICT
GERRY THE GERM GOES BODY POPPIN' 3/10
BLOOD 'N' GUTS 7/10
TEAM BODY HORROR TOTAL 10/20
"Human bodies are pretty darn icky on the inside, and these games surely can't have sold well due to their queasiness factor. Urgh, I'm off to the bathroom..."
SATANISM
PART 3: SATANISM GAMES FROM THE DARK SIDE
GO TO HELL by Triple Six (1985)
SOFT AND CUDDLY by The Power House (1987)
Pretty sure this was a Black Sabbath album cover. Ozzy looks a bit unwell
How could you? You told someone to go to Hell, and they only went and did it! Now you have to make amends and guide them out of there. You must find 6 crosses, then take them to meet the Hellmaster himself (cue chugging metal riff).
Activision went all satanic in 1985, disguising themselves as Triple 6 Software and releasing this game with an all-white cover except for the blood-dripping title. It had no parental guidance rating on it, which is surprising really, considering its general ickiness.
Reclusive eccentric John George Jones made the game, apparently in response to software houses turning his games down all the time! Wonder why...He channelled his inner Lovecraft and dredged up the sickest s*** he could think up from his depraved, eldritch mind.
A platform game was the clear choice, since they're pure evil. Although this one isn't quite a platformer as such, since your character wanders up and down at will, as well as left and right. For some reason, touching absolutely anything, including harmless looking walls, hurts you, as you're such a weedy wuss.
Argh, evil red crocodile! And guillotines to suit all tastes
Argh, saw cutting a red skull! Watch the bloody pixels fly
Gamewise it's fair to say this is no great shakes. However the sick and twisted creations found within the many screens of Hell are fascinating. And importantly they're very well drawn and animated, and colourful as...well, Hell. So great concept, pretty average game.
Would you believe it? 2 years later, John George Jones was allowed to check himself out of Arkham Asylum and make another Spectrum game, Soft And Cuddly! A quite singular and cyclopean occurrence.
I guess The Power House were the only ones who would have him, what with their stellar record when it came to making quality software. What could possibly go wrong!
The attractive load screen from S&C. Ugly spuds in weird fish mouths are my favourite
Argh, stretchy baby heads and neon green soldier skulls!
The cover sure as Hell sets the tone. A demon sitting on a pile of human heads, a bit like Crash's Hall of Slime. The same cover adorns a Lovecraft anthology I've got. And highly tacky and effective it is too.
The Power House liked to feature their programmers on the inlays, a nice idea. So we're treated to a pic of Mr. Jones' pale gothic/new romantic fizzog! It also says he's a singer/songwriter and has done 2 other Speccy games, Sky Warrior and The Palette, which no-one else has ever heard of. Most intriguing.
Here's the ****ing insane plot. Yo' Mama, aka the android queen, has been dismembered and has also locked yo' Papa in the fridge using evil spirits. You must find 8 spirit keys and take them to Dad, who can then give you info about where the bits of Mum are to be found....How does he know? Once you have all the bits, find a needle and simply sew her back together!
Argh, horrible dribbling fish head on wheels! Looks a bit like Barney Gumble - "You're the king, Homer" (buuurp)
Argh, huge ugly face and weird vehicle above! You don't get this in Rainbow Islands
I'm glad he held nothing back with that. The game itself is not dissimilar to Go To Hell, only you can't defy gravity this time, you jump around instead. It's a bit more forgiving than GTH and therefore more playable. And as before, the wildly colourful and nightmarish creations do not disappoint.
John George Jones - wherever you are and whatever crazy s*** you're up to these days - don't ever change!
THE VERDICT
GO TO HELL 5/10
SOFT AND CUDDLY 6/10
TEAM SATANISM TOTAL 11/20
"They say the Devil has all the best tunes, but does he also have all the best games? Between these 2 and Airwolf, probably not. But don't tell our Lord Satan or you'll be cooking socks in Hell for all Eternity."
SEXPLOITATION
PART 4: SEXPLOITATION FIERCE FEMALES ATTACK!
VIXEN by Martech (1988)
LEGEND OF THE AMAZON WOMEN by U.S. Gold (1986)
The history books tell us that wild, tribal hair was perfectly normal in the '80s
Poor Vixen, aka Corinne Russell, is stuck on the planet Granath with a load of (fairly small) dinosaurs. She was found as a baby and raised by foxes. No idea how that works, but it doesn't seem to have done her any harm, since she had a successful modelling career and all. She must fight off enemies with a cracking weapon - a whip! And she can even turn herself into a fox when the occasion demands it, which is...different.
Obviously this game caused a fair bit of titillation with its racy cover and publicity, not to mention YS making it into a poster (I won't mention that, mine's a bit dog-eared by now). It's pretty darn tame by today's standards, but at the time it certainly raised a few...eyebrows. But is the game any good, or were Martech relying on all the hoo-ha to shift copies?
As iconic Speccy sprites go, La Vixen is right up there, some wonderful animation all round
Level 3 sees a foxy change of form. It moves better than this screenshot suggests really
First impressions are rather good. The heroine is very nicely animated indeed, with a great whip-crack-away action, and the game zips along at a very pleasing pace. It's a bit reminiscent of the excellent Thundercats, in that you travel along whacking objects to reveal jewels, while the li'l dinos come at you from both sides, either high or low. There's a lot of whipping to be done, and the action is fast and frantic. I'm also reminded of the impressive Valley Of Rains, for which this may well have been an inspiration.
After a couple of levels have been completed, something quite surprising happens. Well, surprising if you haven't read the instructions properly (me), or have temporarily forgotten (me too) or are generally old and addled (yep). You become a fox and have to scamper around (do foxes scamper or trot?) in search of more jewels, with no enemies to bother you this time, though there are holes to fall into.
So for my money, this is a colourful and attractive jaunt, if a little quiet, and a game that probably does justify the hype for a change.
Woo! Pool party, let's jump in! Actually no, she's drowning. Really should have learned how to swim
Quite a nice screen from Mr Ffinch. Even if he did borrow that font from H(P)unchy...
Legend Of The Amazon Women now. A plane crashes in the jungle, leaving but two survivors, wild Lady Wilde (Kim?) and her daughter. The daughter gets painfully snatched by the Amazons, so it's your motherly task to get her back from Jeff Bezos. You'd have thought women, being the more sensible sex, could just talk it over, but no, you have to bonk those wild females to death...with your club naturally.
Like Vixen, this one had a fairly dubious ad campaign going for it, featuring large 2-page hordes of fur bikini-clad females looking suitably bellicose. It was a bit strong, but then this is U.S. Gold we're talking about, not known for their subtlety or good taste.
It certainly drew attention to the game though, and was a fair representation of it, to be honest. This is a scrolling club-'em-up, where you mostly bash the local tribeswomen to death to advance further rightwards, sorry eastwards, into the jungle. As you progress, you meet with arrows, spiky doodads and even dragons eventually.
"Let's get ready to r(h)umble in the jungle - may the best clubber win!"
"I may be a bit small, but I've got me a sword, see." The stone statue can hardly bear to watch, he's seen too much
The sprites are great, much like in Vixen, but after playing that game, this one seems painfully slow. You have to hit enemies for ages until they fall over, with little variety of moves, and things are slow going with your club. It could do with adopting the Vixen approach of fewer and weaker hostiles to make things more interesting.
As such I must admit that I didn't persevere beyond the first level, but maybe if one is more patient, better things await deeper into the jungle, who knows?
THE VERDICT
VIXEN 7/10
LEGEND OF THE AMAZON WOMEN 5/10
TEAM SEXPLOITATION TOTAL 12/20
"Game Over...Barbarian...Psycho Pigs UXB...Everyone's A Wally. Well, you know, Wilma was quite...anyway, sorry got distracted there. We all know what the advertisers were trying on with their sneaky ploys, and being poor impressionable teenagers, we mostly got suckered into it!"
GORE
PART 5: GORE - WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
DRACULA by C.R.L. (1986)
JACK THE RIPPER by C.R.L. (1987)
The big-hatted hero prepares to enter The Twilight Zone
Nowadays it's probably impossible to find Dracula scary. There have been so many vampire movies and novels over the years, it's all a bit cliched by now. Bram Stoker's original novel was a classic of course, even if the movie adaptation he did in the '90s was pants. But that was all quite a long time ago...
So in 1986, CRL decided to create a little controversy with this, the first Spectrum horror adventure. It was rated certificate 15, which was interesting as surely a fair few Specfans at the time were below that age. But it did make some headlines, so it probably paid off, since hardly anyone bought adventures generally. I'm only joking, a couple of people did. Probably.
You play the part of Drac's solicitor, travelling to the evil cu...count's house in Pennyslvania (?Check this later) to discuss him buying a property in Blightyland. The game is split into 3 parts, The First Night, which centres around a hotel near to Kount Kreepy's place. Then The Arrival, about your...arrival chez Vlad, then finally The Hunt, to do with bargain-hunting perhaps, haven't got that far.
Yargh, a cyan skelebone in a tasteful red robe!
"By the power of Grayskull, I cast thee to Hell, Duckula"
There are a few little pics now and then but it's mostly a textual affair, as you'd expect with such famous literature as its source material. The descriptions are quite elaborate, which makes a nice change from "You see a tree", "Examine tree", "I don't know what you mean", "Oh F*** off", "I see no f*** here", "Quit".
Overall it's not bad, heavy on the atmos, which is cool. Would have been better with a font you can actually read though. And yellow on blue? Hardly gothic, innit?
Next, Jack The Ripper. CRL were on a roll now, so promptly whipped out other gory tales, such as Frankenstein, Wolfman and this one, about everyone's favouritest old-time serial killer. They even managed an 18 cert for this game, so watch out for plenty of spurty blood and half a nipple, if you're lucky.
This time you play the part of some randomer who fancied looking into all this unpleasant rippering business back in 1888, and doing his best to get ripped himself mostly.
Is this better than Espionage Island? It has big words and uses lower case, so yes
That's our goth rock album cover sorted
There are lots of opportunities to get killed, maybe a few too many on the whole, but it keeps you on your toes that way. The text is very nicely written again, and definitely conveys much more ambience than most adventures. Some semi-gory pictures pop up now and then, most of which are more funny than scary these days, but at least they tried.
I found this to be an engaging game. Perhaps the gravitas of the subject matter makes it seem like a more realistic experience, more relatable than goblin bothering. And the screen is nicely laid out, with a much better font this time, and some colour used to break up all the text. My elderly eyes thank you, mister programmer.
Game over, man. Game over
The prologue to Jack The Nipper. This was before the pea-shootering really got out of hand
On the whole, I'd say CRL's hype was justified, because they were producing games that were a bit different from the norm, and adaptations which were worthy of the original stories. And adventures with more descriptive text really did catch on later, with the likes of Magnetic Scrolls leading the way. So really, it's well done CRL. And a little extra ketchup never hurt anyone after all.
THE VERDICT
DRACULA 7/10
JACK THE RIPPER 8/10
TEAM GORE TOTAL 15/20
WE HAVE A WINNER!
"Looking back as an adult, it's clear to see that these adventures offered a grittier, more realistic experience than most others around. CRL milked the 15/18 cert side of things, but in all fairness, could you do these tales justice without getting a faceful of blood now and then?"
-FIN-
Al 'n' Dave's A-Z of Speed Reviews -Part 2
Modern Era Games part 2 E-H
ENCYCLOPAEDIA GALACTICA
Retro Fusion
2012
It took 8 people to make this game, so it should be great. Jonathan Cauldwell (not Ross, as my predictive text bot has helpfully suggested) was the main dude, and ex-Ocean and Load Dij-Dijer Mark Jones did the load screen. Nice.
From your space station in Eradanus, you must choose a planet to explore/exploit various new species of life. You need 3 specimens of each organism to examine, then you write your findings in the Encyclopaedia Galactica, your employers. Just keep your ship fuelled and watch out for the more lively lifeforms or they’ll have ya on toast.
Al: Well this game looks impressively large-scale and epic. I never fail to be impressed by these sort of things. Trouble is, I always fail to have the patience to get anywhere in 'em. I probably need a few weeks’ play to do it justice, but that wouldn't be a very speedy review now would it? So suffice it to say it looks and sounds good, and would almost certainly reward anyone with any patience, i.e. not me. I got me one specimen researched, but that was it for now, and most of the planets seemed dead, maaaan. Think I missed the point. Hope Dave's review's better.
Dave: Did you ever have people knocking on your door in the ‘80s trying to sell sets of encyclopaedias? Got me wondering who the last person was in the profession. Maybe it's in the last set of Encyclopaediaseseses. Wha? Oh, the game, right. Well, it's like Elite meets Thrust, meets Asteroids, meets err... I guess the anagram game is reminiscent of Ranarama? Nice funky tune playing in your space pod thing as well, though the thrust-y engine noise started hurting my ears after a while. To be honest I can't really give this game a fair review in the time I've had to play it. There's a lot to it. What were you thinking giving me this one to talk about, Al? For crying out loud...
Al: Stop crying out loud Dave, it's upsetting. EG is a potentially awesome space jaunt in the right hands I reckon
7.5/10
Dave: Actually I did enjoy it. I enjoyed flying around planets trying to find, trap and tranquilize little critters, including Daleks for some reason. And the little event pop-ups are quite entertaining
9/10
Just One More Thing…
Columbo: So what kind of epic adventures in space have you embarked upon, o great keyboard space cadets? That’s sarcasm by the way.
Al: My space adventures have hardly ever spluttered off the ground really, lieutenant. I bought Academy with its ginormous box, then barely played it. Weirdly I've never touched Elite. Dark Star I never got to grips with, but I did enjoy the high score table and Spectacle. I guess I got furthest in Starion but then got bored of doing space anagrams pretty quickly.
Dave: Well the bestest and grand-daddiest of all space adventures has to be Elite... Woah, what a guy, erm, game! Talk about expansive, immersive, and...other things involving 'sieves' I guess? The universe is so big I'm sure there's a sieve somewhere.
Al: I reckon when it comes to space-em-ups, you’re at least a good Buzz Aldrin, maybe even Louis Armstrong himself. I’m more Michael Collins.
Dave: True dat. Hey Al, how many ears does Mr. Spock have?
Al: Next game please! Oh Christ, it’s another space one. And no-one can hear me scream…(*screams inaudibly*)
FEDERATION Z
Furillo Productions
2020
Someone’s outdone themselves here. This one is Spanish and a space game, like the last one was. Well, the first issue isn't a problem as I've located some English instructions. And the second issue…it looks fairly different to EG to me, so here's hoping...
Let's keep this short then. You've got 7 space missions to complete, doing the usual Star Trek things - seeking out new life, weeding out excess tribbles and hopefully living long and prospering.
Dave: When I say the name of this game in my head, I've been pronouncing it 'Federation Zee', and I've no idea why. Just seems to roll off the tongue better. 'Zeeeeeeeee'. See? I didn't get particularly into this one, sorry. There were just too many of the mashing-the-fire-button ship encounters. I managed to reach one comet, at which point it told me that I didn't have any comet mining gear (doh!) I had no idea what to do next. Just as well I wasn't a Crash game reviewer, you'd have the programmer writing in complaining that I was a complete dolt.
Al: Oh lordy, more cosmic shenanegans, not sure I can take it, cap’n! Space has never felt so empty as it sometimes seems in this game. It's a bit of a drag lugging your hunk o' junk all those parsecs from one remote point to another. There are battles to amuse you in the meantime, mind. Too many really. I think their underwater follow-up had a bit more action and personality, and a lot of bad dad jokes, which is great. Oh, and I prefer to keep the Z as “zed” myself so I can then call the game 'Fed-Zed' like a big dork.
Dave: It's well presented and I quite liked the sound FX and some of the music. Except the music on the map screen, that was worse than lift/elevator music.
6/10
Al: Calling occupants of interplanetary craft...give this a go if you're patient enough. Personally I’m a bit spaced out.
6.5/10
Just One More Thing…
Columbo: Since we've already covered epic astral adventuring of a 3D nature, what other genres of spacey game have you enjoyed, eh wise guys?
Dave: Well lieutenant, reverting to 2D territory (*takes 3D glasses off*) there's the mighty Starquake of course - it takes genius to design a 512-screen map where every section has its own feel. Exciting and much less frustrating than the Yesods (my old neighbours), those spacemen who keep chasing you and grabbing your alchiems (ooer). Strategy wise, Laser Squad and Rebelstar, Gollop-y good games. And of course the famous Jetpac, scientific proof that every alien planet you land on has its ledges in exactly the same place...
Al: Lunar Jetman was the most impossible game ever, everyone with a head preferred Jetpac instead. Personally I dug Nodes of Yesod, bigger and better and just generally spacetastic, baby. Adventurewise, possibly The Long Way Home, slow though it was due to satellite delays I expect. I was gonna say Rigel’s Revenge, but then realised it was set in the future, not space. Duh.
Dave: Yeah, to be fair Al, “the future” isn’t “space” is it? They’re two entirely different concepts. I’ll draw you a diagram. Sadly for now we’re outer space.
GLOOP TROOPS
Little Shop of Pixels
2010
This one is inspired by Bubble Bobble and even includes a sped-up rendition of that game's music. Call the lawyers! Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to collect all the stars, avoid or even gloop the bad guys, and rescue Princess Inevitable at the end.
Dave: About bleedin' time, a simple arcade game! Just as well really as I've got no inlay instructions to refer to. I've actually played this before, though it's been a while, so let's give it another go. It's immediately reminiscent of a very famous arcade game – Out Run of course (arf). The main difference is you don't pop your enemies in bubble-form after spitting at them (eww). Not too much variety in the screen design though, and screens 15 and 18 are big difficulty spikes. In all the games I played, there was only one other screen that I lost a single life on. I lost every other life on those two. Perhaps could've done with slightly better level design, as I got a bit bored with playing back through the easy earlier ones.
Al: This seems to be quite a pleasant little number, the Bubble Bobble inspiration clear to see and hear, although my version lacked the music for whatever reason, so I had to whistle the tune myself (sorry, neighbours). The graphics are nice and chunky and richly colourful, your dude jumps and fires his gloop (please) in a satisfying manner. It's far too easy though for a while - I reached level 21 of 30 and it's only just started getting tricky. Sorry Dave, I don’t remember levels 15 and 18, can’t have been that bad :p
Dave: Overall, not bad. Okay for a gloopy bash.
6.5/10
Al: Fun for a bit certainly. Top marks for presentation, the gameplay just needs a little tweaking.
7/10
Just One More Thing…
Columbo: So what’s your tippety-toppest cutesy game and character? I can’t believe I just said that, I need a bourbon.
Dave: Favourite character? I'll go with B.L.O.B. from Starquake - does that count as a cutesy game? Yes, I think it does, most things in it are cute. Sabre Wulf has the cutest sleeping hippo, possibly the cutest character in any game ever, it makes the player feel bad when you poke it repeatedly with your sabre. Least favourite - well, you can't go much further than that annoying egg-based idiot, Dizzy. One life and an eminently crackable shell. Yep, would gladly make an omelette out of that little s*d...Sorry, need to go away and calm down now.
Al: Maaaaaan, you’ve gotta mellow that harsh anti-egg vibe and let the Dizzyman into your life, friend. I used to be like you, but now I’m a born-again Eggfan of the most annoying kind! And I don’t even like eggs as such. Anyway, to answer the good lieutenant’s question, it’s got to be Rainbow Islands hasn't it, great game? Honourable mentions to Bubble Bobble and Rod-Land. Least fave? Erm, I'll say Ah Diddums, even though I've never played it and have no justification whatsoever for dissing it. As for annoyingly cute characters, is Nermal in the Garfield games? Dunno, probably.
H.E.R.O. RETURNS
Gusmanb
2020
So this is a homage to the 1984 Atari game H.E.R.O. (Helicoptery Erotically Ravenous Oncologist) which received moderate praise when it hit the Spectrum. Good old Brian Hero is jolted out of his retirement when he hears of a collapsing coal mine. Coal mine? He really must still be trapped in the ‘80s. He decides to dust off his unicopter hat and go rescue some doomed dudes from down t'pit.
Dave: First thoughts - I'm sure there are health and/or safety implications re: wearing helicopter blades on your noggin. And the dude's gun seems to have a range of about 3 inches for some reason.
Not sure I played the original, but this one's OK. I managed to get to level 7 - is that good? The screens seem to fluctuate wildly between very easy and bastard-ish. Am I allowed to say bastard on your site? It's what I was shouting at the screen after losing all my lives at exactly the same spot on the same screen, so yes, I think I am.
Al: It’s alright Dave, this site is already “too hot for Facebook” so you can have as many bastards as you like, ya crazy, erm, fellamylad. Anyways, remember when Activision first arrived on the Speccy scene? With some much-hyped stunningly average games, my fave being River Raid. H.E.R.O. was one such, not that I ever played it, and this homage to it seems kinda fun actually. The graphics are smaller but neater, and the gameplay is alright as you fly around rescuing miners (not kids) and avoiding fire, water and horrid insects. Trouble is, all goes well until level 5 (*sounds of Dave gloating in the background*), when you often have to adopt a Flappy Bird flying technique, which is quite upsetting and difficult.
Dave: Goes to show you don't need snazzy graphics to make a relatively playable game though. Not bad.
6.5/10
Al: Pretty decent remake of a relatively unsung game. Not quite heroic, but not far off.
6.5/10
Just One More Thing…
Columbo: Dog loves his superhero comics, he’s always reading them. He wants me to ask ya about your best and suckiest superhero games, please gents.
Dave: "Dinner dinner dinner dinner Batmaaaaan (: The Movie)" immediately springs to mind, what an ace game. I suppose we should mention the diabolically bad (supper supper supper supper) Super Gran too. Were there any Spiderman games for the Speccy? I don't remember any. Oh, there was that Scott Adams adventure, right? Quite surprising if there were no arcade-type games.
Not sure I can think of any more superheroes. I'm BITING MY LIP just trying to think of one (d'you get the reference? do you? eh?)
Al: Don’t bite your lip, Dave, nooooo! Oh globbits, he’s burst out of his clothes (embarrassing) and gone all big, green and muscly, rampaging around the place, wrecking the office and claiming that he told me I wouldn’t like him when he’s angry! And he was right! Run for your lives, earth people! He’s picked up the lieutenant and is twirling him round above his head now! Ah the humanity! I’d best spit out my last words quick: It’s bizarre that Ocean ended up making 3 Batman games, and weirder still that they were all good ‘uns! (*crash*) I have a soft spot for the first one, as the Dark Knight was brilliantly Adam West-like in appearance (*smash*) Redhawk also had two good, unusual outings (*splinter*) As for the naffest, I believe the Superman game was godawful, but luckily hardly anyone ever played it (*bonkabonkabonkascreeeee*) Never played any of those Marvel adventures much either. Ah phew, Dave’s calmed down now and is sitting there in his tattered clothing, drinking a nice cup of tea. That was close, too close. And weird. Ouch, uh oh, now I’ve bitten my lip too! What’s happeni (*snip* - “FFS, end this now!” – Ed.)
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 4...A MERE 18 LETTERS TO GO!
POLICE SQUAD - EPILOGUE
Well, it had been quite a busy time at the station recently as ever. We had some interesting criminals to deliver justice to, that elusive ninja fella with his elaborate scribbles and that other guy who kept coming back at irregular intervals. I don't think we've seen the last of him somehow, he's a repeat offender if ever i've seen one. I'd solved a great number of cases and the time sure shot by quickly, but for now it's time for this cop to go take the 3 months' leave owed to him and laze around on a Caribbean beach. I knew I was leaving things in my boss' capable hands, incompetent fool that he is. He couldn't even sort out that hunch back at the station we had recently. Let's say it's now someone else's problem for the next few weeks. "It's now someone else's problem for the next few weeks". This is Lieutenant Shirley Drebin signing off and wishing you happy playing with your ancient games, ya criminal scum!
+ END OF PART THREE! +