Saturday 23 January 2010

Creatures (Commodore 64)

I'm surprised I hadn't played Creatures before! It was one of the most highly rated games on the Commodore 64, and it was by Thalamus, and I had most of their games. For some reason, though, this (and its sequel!) escaped me.

Creatures tells the story of Clyde Radcliffe, a cute and fluffy thing that's landed on a desert island on Earth. The heartless (but cute!) bastard then sets about eliminating all the indigenous species on the island, just so he and his friends can bunk down there. Harsh.


Right turn, Clyde!

It's fairly typical platform stuff, but although it's a bit on the slow side, it plays pretty nicely. In fact, it probably helps that you're not haring around at breakneck speed, because it's quite difficult and it would be easy to miss things. You can fire, erm, fireballs, or you can charge up and unleash a flamethrower. From your mouth.

There are also things to collect and go shopping with, and then at the end of each stage, there's a torture screen. In the torture screen, you must rescue one of your fuzzy friends from a fate worse than death. Or you can just sit there and watch them get ripped to shreds. Your call.

Creatures is a fun game, if possibly overrated at the time. On the other hand, if I've enjoyed it now, I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more at the time and possibly played it to completion. I don't think I'd be awarding it Gold Medals, but it was almost certainly a cut above the competition then, and as far as 8-bit games go today, it holds up pretty well, I reckon.

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