Budget Day 2012.

Hello everyone, and welcome to Budget Day 2012! The house is in session, once again!

Yes, carrying on from last year and therefore possibly making this an annual event, I've taken the day off work to write about 8-bit budget games. And what are these things, you might ask, if you're less than thirty years old and weren't here last year? Well, back in the Eighties you had a couple of price tiers for games. Full-priced games generally sold for between £7.95 and £9.99. Budget games were aimed at taking your pocket money, and cost £1.99 or £2.99.

At first, the budget market relied solely on efforts from bedroom programmers, buying them up cheaply and hoping to make a killing. And this, they often did. But after a while, when the market was much larger, companies that specialised in budget releases would buy up older games and re-release them at budget prices.

It was a good strategy, giving older games a new lease of life as young gamers that hadn't been able to afford games first time around bolstered their collections. The bigger companies, such as Ocean and U.S. Gold, even set up their own budget companies to reissue their own oldies.

I must have owned tons of budget games in my time, both original games and re-releases. For this exercise, though, I intend to focus solely on originals if possible. There was a certain spirit and charm to many budget games that was often lacking in full-priced efforts, even if the games weren't all that good. I'm going to play some games that were favourites of mine in the past, and some that I've never played before. Hopefully it'll be fun, and will keep our minds distracted from that other Budget that's going on today.

March 21st - Budget Day 2012

Last year, you might remember, I attempted to alleviate the misery of the Government squeezing our finances by taking the day off and spending it writing about 8-bit budget games. And it seemed to be quite popular... so much so that I'm doing it again this year! So on Wednesday 21st March 2012, there will be another A Gamer Forever Voyaging Budget Day!

On the last budget day, I managed to play and write about nine games in total. Not bad, but I'd like to beat that this time around... at least make it into double figures, anyway.

I've got a shortlist of potential games, although to be honest, the word "shortlist" seems a bit misplaced. The reason? The list currently has 108 games on it. Yeah... not much chance of getting through all them.

So between now and then, I'm cherry-picking titles for consideration. Ideally, I want that list down to about 20. And I want you to help. Yes, really! See that poll to the right? All you have to do is vote for the games on the list that you'd like me to write about on March 21st. The three that get the most votes will become part of my Budget Day... so get voting!

Number 10.

Before the countdown begins, I'll explain how the games made it into the top 10. Basically, these are the ten games I've most enjoyed discovering (or in one case, rediscovering) in the time I've been writing the blog. If I've specifically picked it for a feature, I'm not going to count it, but anything else stands a chance of making it in. Or should I say, stood a chance... the top 10 is already picked and ready to go.

So, without further ado...

Number 10 - Rock Star Ate My Hamster (Commodore 64).

If you'd told me a year ago that after more than two hundred posts, Rock Star Ate My Hamster would have been in my top ten blog games, I'd have thrown a telly out of the window. It seems ridiculous to suggest that... it's not even a very good game.

Doesn't matter. For all its flaws and lack of any sort of long-term play, Rock Star Ate My Hamster will give you two solid hours of pure addiction as you try to manage your mismatched band of reprobate rock stars to the top.

Here's what I originally thought of it...


Three days? I suspect that three months wouldn't knock my lot into shape.

I think the appeal with this game lies in the fact that everyone wants to be a rock star or pop star. There's nothing that seems more attractive than being top of the charts... why else do you see film stars or sports stars releasing records? It's not enough that they're famous and have glamorous careers, they want the adulation that only crowds of concert-goers can give.

Rock Star Ate My Hamster doesn't let you become a rock star, but managing them is incredibly addictive... up to a point. That point being when you manage to have a hit record. Really, once that happens, there's nowhere else for this game to go. It's a shame, but back in those days, games were often a lot more limited. With the likes of Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Singstar and Lips out there now, the music game market is on a real high (or has been... it might have reached a saturation point by now). I wonder if there would be any market for a much deeper version of this game now?

I don't know. Maybe it's best left in the Eighties. What I can say is that, in terms of pure enjoyment, the two hours of glued-to-my-screen clicking that ensued upon loading Rock Star Ate My Hamster are enough to make this my tenth favourite blog game.

Rock Star Ate My Hamster (Commodore 64)

I always fancied this back in the day! It always seemed as though it would be a right laugh, and who doesn't want to take a band all the way to the top? So the promise of music, celebrity, scandal and uproar was too good an opportunity to miss this time around.

Rock Star Ate My Hamster is a very basic management game, which pitches you into the cut and thrust world of the pop charts as you pick your perfect blend of stars for a supergroup... or maybe a manky bunch of knackered has-beens would be your ideal lineup?


A pop strumpet, a permanently pissed grizzled metaller and a mad genius. Surely the perfect blend?

It's really quite funny at first, with humourous caracatures of well-known stars to pick from, subtly renamed for the job at hand. Dick Knackered, a ringer for the singer with the Rolling Stones, particularly tickled my fancy. He was a bit expensive for my budget, though, and I went with Lumme, Frank Zipper and Bimbo Baggins, who was the double of a famous Australian pop strumpet. And with them thrown together, the charts were surely ready for Christ On A Bike.

Or not.

Cracking the charts is actually pretty difficult. For starters, you haven't got anything to crack them with. You need product, and to be able to record, you've got to have a deal. You've got to hit the gig circuit and make a name for yourself. At this point, you have to decide on the scale of the venues you'll play, and the prices you'll charge. Too big a venue or too high a ticket price, and you'll risk making a loss.


Christ On A Bike. Quality, through and through.

Get the balance right, though, and you'll start accumulating cash, and a reputation. Sponsors will flood in. Well, you might get one or two, but it's better than nowt. And eventually, you'll attract the attention of a record company and score a deal. And then it'll be time to hit the studio.

Christ On A Bike's debut album, "A Smorgasbord of Shite", endured a tricky gestation, with the band's manager accidentally wiping one of the best tracks. Eventually, though, we had ten tracks laid down, and we had to decide upon a single for release. The manager, in his infinite wisdom, chose the less-than-immediate "Arse-tronaut", which the band felt worked better as an album track.


To be fair, you could quite see that happening, with that gob.

And so it proved, with "Arse-tronaut" not making a dent in the top 10. Second single, "Lord of the Rings is Shit" suffered from having an inappropriate video, and again failed to chart. And "A Smorgasbord of Shite" was similarly absent from the album charts. But the band was playing to sold out arenas, albeit with cheap tickets proving a draw. And the publicity machine was cranked to full effect.

And then came the break we needed. Bimbo Baggins was killed in a terrorist attack. And whether it was due to the groundwork we had put in with our gigging or merely proof that death sells, our epic instrumental "Bimbo's Tits" hit number three in the charts! Christ On A Bike had arrived!


Success at last! What more glorious tribute to Bimbo's death than a chart hit named after her norks?

Truth be told, Rock Star Ate My Hamster isn't a great game, it's far too limited for that. But there's something ridiculously addictive about trying to pimp your band into a chart position. I must have played for about two hours non-stop to make it in the biz, so make of that what you will!