Yakuza (PS2)

Cash Converters comes up trumps again! Although I'd heard of the Yakuza series, I really knew nothing about it, other than it was popular and pretty highly regarded. I had no clue about the gameplay, or anything. But it was £1.99. Perfect blog fodder, so I snapped it up.


If I'd known this was a golf game, I mightn't have bothered.

Yakuza puts you right in the heart of the Japanese underworld... in fact, it puts you in the shoes of an enforcer, with aspirations of starting his own "family". Trusted and respected by bosses, and with money, you're in prime position to go it on your own. Until your girlfriend is kidnapped, that is... and a chain of events is set in place that leads to you taking the rap for the murder of your own family's boss.

The first section of a game sees you playing this scenario out, and it serves to get you really involved in the story, as well as being a deent tutorial. You'll learn how to beat up large groups of thugs, which is what the majority of this game is about.


Just the seven of you? You couldn't make it more difficult than that?

The combat system is fairly straightforward. Punches are the order of the day... you can string together some pretty vicious combinations that will leave most thugs struggling to breathe. You're also able to put some other moves in there... a throw can scatter a few guys at once, while a suitably subdued bad guy can be slammed against a wall for maximum damage. And if all else fails, you can reach for the nearest chair or blunt instrument and beat the crap out of them with that.

Once you get out of jail, ten years later (game time, naturally!), the game becomes a more open-world affair. So when you're not on a mission, you have some freedom to explore. In doing so, you'll find a range of mini-games, which involve some daft games or (of course) more fights. Wandering the city is fun, as it's based on a real area of Tokyo. Pity, then, that it's often rendered Resident Evil-style, with fixed-camera views making you hobble around in a confused fashion.


This is what you get for fucking around with Yakuza! Go home to your mother!

Other than that, though, I found Yakuza an interesting and involved game. The gameplay itself is not especially stunning and in fact gets a bit repetitive, but the storyline and setting were enough to get me hooked. I can easily see why the series is up to a fourth game... it's not a world we generally have much access to, and it's sufficiently different to Grand Theft Auto to make it worth sticking with.

Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II - Rogue Leader (Nintendo Gamecube)

Star Wars.

It's probably the most recognised name on the planet. It's also, surely, the most-milked for merchandise, although I guess that's arguable. And it's got loads of videogame spin-offs. Most of which I haven't played...

I dunno. I love the films, particularly the original trilogy, but I still managed to get a fair amount from the newer ones. For some reason, though, I haven't been all that bothered with the games. Yeah, there's the classic arcade original... but I never saw one in its day, and so I never really fell in love with that.

Then there's stuff like X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter. Again, supposed classics, but they came at a time when my gaming mojo was at an all-time low. Even the Dark Forces games have passed me by. Thinking about it, I feel a little empty.


I've lost R2! Oh well, he was irritating me, anyway.

The Gamecube is a machine I got late in the day, and so missed a good amount of its classic titles. I seem to remember that Rogue Leader was a launch title, or thereabouts, and it generated a lot of excitement. And after playing it, I can see why. It's certainly the most spectacular-looking Star Wars game I've seen. The tutorial, set on the sandy plains of Tatooine, leads you into the game very gently... too gently, in fact. I found it a bit dull, and soon skipped past it.

The next level, though, is an attack on the Death Star. That's more like it! It's actually very familiar if you've played the first arcade game... first, you're shooting towers on the Death Star's surface. Next, you have to fight off waves of TIE-Fighters. And then, there's the trench run, as you attempt to blow up the Death Star.


See, now that's the stuff. There's no more intimidating enemy than an AT-AT.

Swooping over the Death Star, dodging and weaving as the TIE-Fighters scream around you, is really pretty thrilling stuff for any Star Wars fan. And it looks convincing, which is key. The trench run, too, has an incredibly solid feel, possibly for the first time. That said, it doesn't feel as fast or frantic as the decades-old arcade game, but it does feel authentic.

I did, though, find it quite difficult. And as such, I finished playing after I'd destroyed the Death Star. I'd played for over an hour at this point, including the time spent on the tutorial, so I consider it sufficiently played for a blog write-up. Two levels further on comes the Imperial Attack on Hoth. I've just GOT to play on to see that one...

Saboteur! (ZX Spectrum)

This was recommended to me ages ago and, erm, I forgot about it. But it's always been a game that was in my mind anyway. I quite fancied it back in the day, but never got around to playing it. Now I can, but I had to decide which format I would go for. As the Speccy version is in many Top 100 lists, I went with that one.

It's an odd title for the game, Saboteur!, because there's no actual sabotage involved in the gameplay. Instead, you have to search an enemy compound for a computer disk which contains names. Lots of lovely names, of people that no doubt need to be stopped from, erm, doing something. Probably something bad.


That'll teach you to mess with a ninja, sucker!

The enemy won't just let you stroll around unchallenged, though. Oh, no. From the moment you climb out of your little rubber dinghy, guards and security devices are out to stop you. The guards can fight, and some are armed, and there are also attack dogs and laser-firing security cameras, so you'll need your wits about you. Just as well you're a ninja.

It's set out in typical 8-bit platform fashion, with you running across the screen and "flicking" on to the next one when you reach it. It's also, as is fairly typical for these games, a bit repetitive, but given the setting of the game, that's not surprising or even any kind of a detraction.


What? Hang on... I didn't find the disk, and I got killed. How did the worst ones get on?

Once (or if) you've found the disk (against the clock... you can't just wander around for as long as you want!), then you must make your way to the roof where a helicopter is waiting to whisk you to safety. Just as well... that dinghy would be a bit of a rubbish getaway vehicle with all the heat you'll have generated!

Saboteur! is a pretty enjoyable game. It gives you a choice of nine difficulty levels which is pretty nice... get proficient at one level and you can ramp it up and try your hand at the next. There can be some frustration when you can't find the disk, or your way out, but that's just the nature of these games. Overall, this one was a pretty good pick.

Perfect Dark (XBLA)

Perfect Dark is one of the most revered games of all time. But as it was on the N64, I didn't get to play it. Never thought I would, either... until an updated version was released on XBox Live Arcade, for 800 points. Handy!

However, coming into it without the benefit of rose-tinted glasses makes the game a harder sell to me. I'm not that much of a FPS player to begin with, but those I've played lately are modern, state-of-the-art efforts, and however groundbreaking the original Perfect Dark might have been, this update would have to go some to match any of them.

I'm not sure that it goes far enough.


Oooh! That looks... exciting... ummmm...

For a start, although it's only on XBLA, it's still just an update of a two-genereations-old game, and so it doesn't look all that great. It's serviceable, sure, with some nice touches... but it still looks like a bit of an old wrinkly.

Gameplay isn't what I would call sublime, either. There's nothing wrong with it... in fact, old-schoolers might prefer the lack of hand-holding. But in areas that look very similar everywhere you go, it's quite easy to get lost, or rather, not know where you're meant to be going next.


You're Out Of Your Mind, thinking that looks like Mrs Beckham.

Mind you, although I said there was a lack of hand-holding, I played on the first (easiest) difficulty level, and the aiming was more or less done for me, and the guards were a bit on the stupid side, allowing Posh Spice, sorry, Joanna Dark to wander around relatively stress-free.

There's no doubt I haven't got the most out of this game at this point... I need to play on a tougher difficulty level, and I haven't even touched the multiplayer, which is the aspect most fans of the original seem to love best. I like the "spy behind enemy lines" element of the game, and I suspect I'll press on and look for improvements... but for me, it's not the all-conquering supergame it's been labelled.

Baraduke (Namco Museum (everything), arcade)

What a strange little game this is. It's another of those odd games on the Namco Museum that I've never played before, and when I first saw it I had high hopes of it being a bit like Section Z, a shooter that I love.

It isn't.

It's an odd sort of a shooter, which sees you controlling a player named Kissy. Yes, really. I actually looked up this game, and found that Kissy has a backstory. And that backstory is a corker. Apparently, Kissy married Dig Dug. Yep, that shocked me as well. They had three children, one of which is Mr. Driller. What? They are now, sadly, divorced. Even videogame characters can't stay together these days.


You can tell she's a girl. A bloke would shoot that daft cute thing.

I tell you, this was shocking revelation upon shocking revelation to me. Who would have thought it? Can you imagine a Japanese soap opera based on this? It would be awesome! Sadly, it's never likely to happen. Also sadly, this is all way more interesting than Baraduke, the game.

Baraduke (or Alien Sector, to give it its Japanese (and better) name)sees you venturing through alien landscapes, blasting odd looking creatures so that you can unlock the door to the next level. It's as shallow as that. The creatures (at least, the ones as far as I saw) look like octopii. Some sit there and throw out more octopii that wobble about at you, and shoot laser rings at you. If you blast the ones that sit there, they release collectable things.


Look, there's too many nasties down there. You go.

There's a recoil action when you shoot... if you don't counter it, you'll blow yourself right back across the screen, eventually. It doesn't, in actuality, have much of an effect on the gameplay... it just looks kind of nice.

That's about it, really. It's quite a dull game, and not much fun to play. It's slow, and low-scoring. All it really has going for it is that tremendously involved backstory. Who fancies writing it into a screenplay? Anybody with me?

Professor Layton and the Curious Village (Nintendo DS)

Professor Layton is a curious title. It's renowned for being caught in the great Woolworths crash of 2008, when every copy in England seemed to be stuck in a warehouse, and those that had made it into the wild were selling for eighty quid that Christmas. Eighty quid! People were desperate to get their hands on it. But why? For £8.99 from Cash Converters, I decided to find out.

This is a puzzle game. So yes, you might be wondering, what was I playing at? I have little love for puzzle games. But it did promise to be a bit different from the norm. For one thing, it's not a match three game... nor is it a Tetris-esque "fill the holes with the shapes" type of game. Thank Christ for that! I hate most of those.


It's not intuition. I already knew that letting a kid read the map would be trouble.

No, Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a mystery wrapped in a puzzle, quite literally. The good Prof has to solve a mystery to obtain a great treasure, a Golden Apple, and to do so he must travel to the village of St. Mystere and solve the puzzles within.

And what a lot of puzzles there are! And several different types, which means that your brain really does get a bit of a stretch. Some are fairly straightforward, enough for even my meagre brain to cope with. Others, though, are right bastards, and when they tell you you're wrong, you're very likely to question them. Out loud. Strongly.


Haha. Yeah. 12 moves for you, maybe... 112 for me, more like!

The game is tremendously well put together, and beautiful, too. When I got to the title screen and saw that it was by Level 5, who were responsible for Dark Cloud (among others), it came as no surprise. I knew I recognised the style from somewhere, and it helps to make the game even more appealing.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a great little game. It's interesting, beautifully presented and a real workout for the brain, set out in a style that is very unlikely to irritate. And it's very easy to just pick up and play for a few minutes, whenever you feel you've got the time. I'm very likely to do just that, which is something to be said for a puzzle game!

Unsung Classics. Number 6: Halley Wars (Sega Game Gear)

Once upon a time, many many years ago, I was wandering around an arcade in Whitley Bay, and I happened across a game called Halley's Comet. It was a vertically-scrolling shooter, and it looked awesome. So I played it, and loved it. I seemed to be really good at it... it only had a six-digit high score, and on my second go I managed 545,000. And then... I never saw the game in an arcade again.

Years later, I bought a Sega Game Gear. I really liked that little system. When I spotted that there was a game called Halley Wars for it, my interest was piqued. And when I saw that it was a vertically-scrolling shoot 'em up in the vein of Halley's Comet, I bought it immediately.

And I loved it.


Whoooosh! Those mini-comets cause a fair bit of damage. Best take them out ASAP.

It was quite a bit harder than its arcade parent... partly, I suspect, because of the controls, and partly, no doubt, because the screen was nowhere near the same height as an arcade screen and so there was much less time to react to enemies. Nevertheless, the prospect of saving the planet from an approaching comet remained appealing, and enjoyable.

I played this today using a Game Gear emulator, not something I've ever used before. I really like it... it has a nice Game Gear surround for the "screen". Brings back some happy memories.


Doesn't that look nice? I loved my Game Gear.

The game follows the arcade game of Halley's Comet pretty closely. Alien forces are using the approach of a comet as cover so they can attack the Earth. Your lone fighter must attempt to stave off not only the alien attack, but also the disaster of having a comet crash into the planet. Lasers are always a good bet in these cases, and your ship is therefore handily equipped, but powerups can be picked up along the way to help you on your quest.


This fella's a mite troublesome. He needs to be hit hard and fast.

If anything gets past your ship, be it alien spaceship or mini-comet, the planet will be damaged. Once this damage gets too great, the Earth is detroyed, and you're pretty much knackered up there in space. Or in other words, it's game over. It's a good premise for a game; it adds tension and forces you into taking a few more risks than you otherwise might.

Halley Wars, for an old handheld system, is a good little shooter. It seemed amazing to me at the time, and although it's obviously less so now, especially with the advent of MAME, I still think they did a pretty good job here. For me, it justified the purchase of the Game Gear, which is pretty high praise. Now that I can play Halley's Comet in MAME it's perhaps redundant, but I've had fun with it here nonetheless.

Ugh

I just can't play anything today. I haven't had a cold this bad for a long time.

Xenon (Commodore Amiga)

I can't remember ever playing Xenon on my mate's Amiga. I remember playing Xenon 2, vividly. But any memory of the first one escapes me. Strange. Maybe I didn't play it at all.

Now I have, though, and here we are. Xenon is a pretty interesting vertically-scrolling shoot 'em up. You start in a land-based craft, and can move in any of eight directions across the landscape. Enemy gun emplacements will rise from the ground and should be destroyed... not just because they're nasty, but also because they tend to leave behind powerups for your craft.


Early doors, and the land craft is about to have some work to do...

Eventually, though, the landscape will present you with towers and structures that get in your way. When that happens, a quick waggle of the joystick will see you transform into a plane-type craft. Soaring through the skies, you'll have no problem in flying right over any bothersome obstacles. This craft, too, can be powered-up with collectables.


The plane, on level 3. Yes, that says demo. No, I couldn't get to level 3 myself.

The game's formula is fairly predictable, otherwise. Move up the screen, destroying the enemies until you reach the end-level boss. Then die. Erm, I mean, you must defeat that to progress to the next level.

It's a pretty difficult game, but quite an enjoyable one. It's neat and crisp looking, and has a very upbeat tune which does a good job of driving you on through the level. Later efforts have surpassed this, but I reckon that Xenon stands as a good example of its time, with enough there to make it worthy of an hour of play. I could go back to this one.

Arx Fatalis (PC)

This wasn't my original choice for today... but my original choice didn't work, so I needed a replacement. Arx Fatalis has been sitting on my hard drive, unplayed, for ages, so it was a convenient stand-in.

Arx Fatalis is a role-playing game. That's a genre I've always convinced myself I like, mainly because of the thirteen months I spent completing The Bard's Tale between 1987 and 1988. In reality, though, most of the ones I've played I've found fairly boring.

And yet, I've found myself travelling that lonely path yet again. Arx Fatalis sees you in a world with no sun, where all the planet's inhabitants have been forced to band together to create an underground habitat in order to survive. But now that they've been down there a while, the bond is breaking and squabbling is, once again, the order of the day.


Whyyyyy, yoooou... I oughtta strangle you with my bare hands!

Your character finds himself imprisoned and with no memory. Isn't that always the way? Of course, the first task is to find a way out, and once that is done, start trying to piece together your life and eke out a new existence, before finding what your true mission is.

It's fairly standard stuff... walk around, get attacked by a rat, kill the rat, eat the rat. Oddly, you can bray the crap out of a rat with a giant bone and it will keep coming back for more, but one punch from you and it's dead. Obviously, you don't know your own strength. Rat meat, along with other foodstuffs, can be cooked before eating, which makes it more nutritious. Quite a cool idea, although I'm sure other games must have used this as well.


The dank, brown atmosphere made our hero think he'd been transported onto the Commodore 64...

Another cool idea is the magic system. You find runes on your travels, and what do runes make? Spells. To cast a spell, you use the mouse to draw the relevant rune symbols in the air. Draw them successfully, and the spell will be cast. I played about five minutes of Morrowind once (but I'll be playing that one in more depth for the blog at some point...) and I seem to remember it used a similar system. Could be wrong, though.

Arx Fatalis, research has uncovered, was intended to be Ultima Underworld III. Makes no difference to me, I haven't played any of the other Ultimas (have I played anything in my life?). But it is a pretty decent, if very murky and brown game, with a fairly interesting control system. If I can find the time, I might see myself getting on with this one OK. But that's a pretty big "if".

Sword & Poker (iPhone/iPod Touch)

For years, I've ridiculed the idea of videogames where you use cards to defeat your enemies. I've tried to play a couple of them, and hated them. I've called them stupid and pointless, among other things. And then I went and played Sword & Poker.

Sword & Poker is something of a dungeon crawler. It's not like Dungeon Master, and it's not like the Diablo games. Instead, you're shown a top view of a dungeon level, with you starting at the beginning, and a pathway to the end. Along the way are a series of monsters, which you must defeat to get to the end of the level. You can't go around them, although there are times when the path branches so you can choose which fight to take. But basically, you'll have a set number of fights to win in order to get to the next level. If your energy runs out before you get to the end, you've lost and will have to restart the level.


Ready... FIGHT! Erm, DRAW! Snap? Damn.

When you do encounter an enemy, you face off using a five by five grid. Nine cards are placed in the centre of the grid... you will then be dealt four cards, and you must place two of them on the grid to make the best five-card poker hand that you can.

Each hand causes damage to your enemy. Cleverly, it doesn't always work out that the strongest hand causes the most damage. That's the case with your starting weapon, but as you earn money you can buy new weapons at the end of every level, thanks to the handily placed shop. Some weapons have magic properties... others sacrifice damage with stronger hands in order to make some of the mid-level hands do more damage. So you might only hit for one point of damage for a straight flush, but you might hit for thirty for a full house.


Not sure about you, but I don't much like the look of that fella at the end...

It's an interesting element of strategy, because those premium hands don't show up all that often. You'll do best if you take stock at the end of every level, see what you can afford and look at how much damage each weapon can do, and whether certain trade-offs are worth it.

Sword & Poker is a very simple idea, and one I'm sure has been used many times before but that I've been too blinkered to see. I've learned a lesson with this game... although an idea might be stupid (which I still think the fighting with cards thing is), it doesn't mean it won't be enjoyable. You won't see me rushing out to buy more card fighting games, but I've learned not to be so ignorantly dismissive.

Damn

Missed a day! I'm disappointed, but I suppose it's inevitable, eventually. Stupid winter cold germs!

Oh well, back on track again...

Unsung Classics. Number 5: Firetrack (Commodore 64)

Have you ever played Star Force? It's a classic arcade vertically-scrolling shoot 'em up, albeit probably underappreciated. It's not exactly a giant name of the arcades, but those in the know... well... they know.

Star Force was in one of Consett's taxi offices in the Eighties, and I spent a fair bit of my pocket money on it. It plays so well, and you always feel capable of doing better. When you don't, it's your own fault. I loved it, and longed for a conversion for my Commodore 64. It never came.


You can tell they're aliens... look at that colour scheme!

There used to be a big bus station in Consett. It was shaped like a giant crescent, and it had all kinds of nooks and crannies. Some held taxi offices with arcade games. One held a second-hand bookshop. Ever keen to expand on his empire, the bookshop owner sold second-hand computer games, too. It was a good way for us kids to expand our collections... newish games were available at pocket money prices.

On one of my ventures into the bookshop, I saw Firetrack in the box of Commodore 64 games. I remembered it had had a good review in ZZAP! 64, and when I looked at the back of the box... it looked a bit like Star Force! And so, £2.99 later, it was mine.


That's a bit easier on the eye. Blows up nicely, too.

To be honest, I think that if someone had attempted to convert Star Force to the Commodore 64, it probably wouldn't have been as good as Firetrack. It's probably the best vertically-scrolling shooter on the system, and yet, like its arcade inspiration, was woefully underappreciated in its day.

There's a plot, but it's stupid and irrelevant. All that matters here is that you've got alien landscapes and ships to blast. The first level sees you up against fairly slow attack waves... they're easily dispatched... if you concentrate. It's easy to find yourself distracted, because each level is littered with + and X shaped squares, and if you destroy these they increase your bonus at the end of the level. There are also question marks at regular intervals... destroy a certain number of them and you'll be awarded an extra life.


Awww, that looks like little allotments. Burn them all!

As you progress through the levels, the difficulty increases... first, the attack waves get faster, and then they start shooting at you. Eventually, it'll take all your mettle and reflexes just to carry on.

Firetrack, for me, is an excellent arcade shoot 'em up. I haven't found too many that agree, but on the other hand, I haven't found that many that have actually played it. I think it suffered at the time because it was released right at the time weapon pickups became popular. That doesn't bother me.. I'm all for simplicity and purity if the game is good. Firetrack is very good, and I've really enjoyed playing it again.

Bionic Commando Rearmed (XBox Live Arcade)

Bionic Commando is a name that goes back a long way. I used to love the Commodore 64 conversion of the arcade game. It was tough but fun, with great music. I never got to play the arcade version, but that hardly matters. If you're American, though, the Bionic Commando name means something entirely different. A brand new version was produced for the NES, which although having a similar main character was a very different game.

It's this version which has been remade for the modern consoles. I bought it the day it came out, played the tutorial, hated it and never loaded it again. Still, the name holds an appeal, and when Capcom produced a brand new, all-singing all-dancing update, I was interested. I wasn't forty quid's worth of interested though... but months and months later, I was able to nab it for £4.50 from Tesco. Rude not to, at that. Before playing that, though, I thought it might be wise to revisit BC: Rearmed.

Good decision.


Ka-BOOOOM! Even the poster is shocked at the power of that one.

Having spent a bit more time with Rearmed and getting to grips with the controls a little more, I started to enjoy myself. The game reminded me quite a bit of Shadow Complex, although that game came out later. It also reminded me of Impossible Mission, strangely enough. I think it was the behaviour of the guards that did it... they'd wander around their little areas quite happily, but when I got near they'd maybe move faster or start firing. It's quite a bit like Impossible Mission's robot droids.

Once I got myself over the fact that your commando can't jump (which I still think is silly, but no longer insurmountable), I started pinging myself around the platform-strewn environments quite handily. And it becomes fun, swinging across a gap, landing successfully , taking out a guard, catching onto the platform directly above, hauling yourself up, hanging there, blasting another guard and then vaulting up onto the platform. Turning that into a fluid, seamless action is very satisfying. It feels right, it feels good.


That's the bugger, there. Let me pass!

There's a small amount of other spy elements here... hacking the computers is also IM-esque. It's a bit weird to start with, but it soon becomes manageable.

Just as I was really getting into it, though, I came to the first end-level boss. And that's where I remain. I just couldn't figure it out at all, even with the clues I was armed with. In fact, we came to an impasse... it couldn't hurt me, and I couldn't hurt it. After 15 minutes, it was back to the dashboard.

Shame, really... there's a lot of game for the MS points, and although it's tough, it feels more challenging than unfair. It's presented very nicely... modern, but with plenty of nods to the old-school. I expect I'll have another crack at this one, probably after I've had a look at GameFAQs or something. I hope the brand new version can live up to this one.

Go!Go! Beckham! Adventure on Soccer Island (Gameboy Advance)

I was wandering around Cash Converters earlier, as I like to do, because it's quite a handy place for picking up bargain games for the blog. On this occasion, I spotted they had Go!Go! Beckham! Adventure on Soccer Island for the GBA. It's not a game I was familiar with... I'd only ever heard of it once, a couple of years ago, thanks to a fellow forum-goer (and blog follower... thanks, puffle!). Even then, I knew absolutely nothing about it, but for £2.99 I reckoned it was worth a punt (see what I did there?).

I hadn't even whacked it into the DS, though, when I saw that it was made my Denki... and my heart sank. Denki were responsible (obviously) for the previously-played-for-the-blog game, Denki Blocks! (those people at Denki love exclamation marks more than I love putting three full stops for a pause!).

Still, from the screenshots it looked like an entirely different game, so on it went. And although the presentation has a lot of the hallmarks from that game, I enjoyed Go!Go! Beckham a lot more.


Beckham ponders over his next move. Don't think too hard, Dave, it might hurt!

Go!Go! Beckham! is a platform game, where bad guy Mister Woe and his League of Monsters are running wild over Soccer Island. Obviously this isn't right, and look who's here to save the day! It's David Beckham!

If you think that's a slightly strange premise for a videogame, well, yeah, it is. Diddy Dave is a cute looking little fella (apparently there are those that think the same of the bloke in real life), and as he runs around the side-scrolling levels, booting and heading his footy all over the place.

Naturally there's a lot more to it than that. There are monsters on the island... I wouldn't exactly say they're rampaging around the place, mind. They trundle about, occasionally getting in the way, but are soon dispatched with a couple of trademark 30-yard raspers from our Dave.


In a clear case of art imitating life, Dave collects a huge pile of cash.

Strewn around the island's levels are coins (of course) and gems, which should be collected, and keys, which must also be collected to unlock the goal. Collect all the keys on the level, then blast the ball through the goal and the level is complete. With 40 cutesy levels to be cleared, there's plenty to do. The game also saves high scores and best times, so there's plenty of replay value here as well.

Go!Go! Beckham! Adventure on Soccer Island is a really nice little platform game. The football mechanic does add something a little different. I've never played a Kirby game (there's something for the future), but I used to watch Aidan playing, and I see a slight resemblance to those games here, but with plenty of its own charm and ideas, too. What a good little pickup for three quid.

Atomhex (XBox 360 Indie Games)

Another day, another 360 indie shooter.

Atomhex is an indie game, and it's a twin-stick arena shooter. There's a lot of them about, so if you make one, it has to have enough worthwhile features of its own to make it stand out. I would say that Atomhex just about does.


A triple stream of laser death. Handy, with those big atomhexes around.

You control an Asteroids-style ship, and you whizz around the arena, using your other stick to shoot in whichever direction you choose. I'm not sure I like that in this game... because of the shape of the ship, that mode of firing looks wrong. It's the right choice of control method for the game, though... maybe a different design of player ship would have been a better fit.

Atoms and hexes of different colours roam the board. Your objective should be to shoot the shields from the hexes and collect them for points multipliers and different weapons. If hexes bond to an atom, the combination starts firing out harmful enemies of varying types. This is when things start to get hectic...


That's not my high score. That's just insane.

Although this is more dangerous, it's very good for your score, and massive bonuses can be had at this point. Also, it's just more fun when you're barely in control. That said, Atomhex never really clicked with me like I'd expected it to. Still, it's cheap, there's lots to shoot, and there are 100 Awards to unlock, which is nice for an Achievement-deprived indie game. It's certainly worth a punt if arena shooters are your thing.

Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (Sega Megadrive)

Why do I subject myself to puzzle games? Whyyyyyyyyy? I know what they're about, and I know what they'll do to me. And yet, I'll try them on the off-chance it's one of those rare Puzzle Quest types that'll have me hooked. It hardly ever works out that way.

If you know what Puyo Puyo is, then you know what Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine is. Groups of jelly-like coloured beans will drop from the top of the screen, and you have to quickly arrange them in such a way that like colours will be grouped together. Get a group of four and they'll disappear. And as you're facing off against an opponent, the quicker you clear your groups, or better yet, the more chains of groups you make, the more damage you'll cause to your opponent's playfield.


Why don't you do that, then? I'll get on with something else.

It's all very familiar, although this was probably one of the first games of this particular type. And as with all the rest of these games, I'm rubbish at it. There are thirteen stages in the game... I managed to reach the second. The first was actually quite easy. I was pleasantly surprised. But on the second stage, the opponent took off at breakneck speed, and I just can't play these games that way. Defeat was inevitable, every time.


Well, there's no getting out of that. Looks like my time is up.

And so, my time with the game came to an end in predictable fashion. Worth a try, I suppose, but the outcome was inevitable. If you like games like this, well, this one is pretty cutesy and obviously a nice example. But it's absolutely not for me.

Highway Encounter (ZX Spectrum)

Highway Encounter is a game that I probably wouldn't have thought about playing, but it's in World of Spectrum's Top 20 games, and as the Spectrum is a bit of a blind spot for me, I thought it would make a good blog game. I can actually remember reading the review of the Commodore 64 version in ZZAP! 64, where it got a pretty decent if unspectacular review, so I wasn't coming into this completely in the dark.

Then again, I might as well have been. I had no idea what the gameplay was going to be like... although I knew that the game had a Zaxxon-esque viewpoint, it plays nothing like that. Nor is it particularly fast-paced, as you might expect from a game called Highway Encounter.


Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go...

The game sees Earth in the grip of an alien invasion. The only way to repel this invasion is to destroy the mothership, which is parked at the end of a highway. It's far too dangerous to send in troops, so the plan is to use a squadron of droids to transport a massively powerful bomb called the Lasertron to the mothership, where it can be detonated, and all will be well.

You start with five droids, one of which is under your direct control. I say "direct control"... that was never really the case with me! Your droid uses an Asteroids-style control method, where you rotate and then push forward to accelerate. It really takes some getting used to!

The remaining droids just plough on in a straight line, pushing the Lasertron toward its destination. That sounds great, but naturally the enemy has populated the highway with obstructions. Your job is to clear these, either by pushing obstacles out of the way or by shooting enemy droids. Or, in some instances, you actually have to block the path so that the droids don't just rush headlong into danger.


Guys! Come baaaaack! Wait for meeeeeee!

It's easier said than done. The game takes on something of a puzzling nature as you work out the best way through each screen... if you're in time. Many's the time my squad of droids went piling onto the next screen before I could get there, and when I caught up, I found them in trouble.

I found Highway Encounter to be a really interesting little game, if a difficult one. I would imagine that if you put the time in and get to grips with it, it would prove very rewarding. It was nice to play something as different as this... there's not a lot like it.

Alien 3 (Super Nintendo)

It's film tie-in time today, as I've decided to dip into the SNES catalogue and play "one of the best SNES games of all time", Alien Cubed. Sorry, Alien 3.

You know that when Acclaim bought the licence to Alien 3, they were really just buying the licence to the Alien name. Then again, after the action spectacular that was Aliens, maybe they just figured the film would be another all-guns-blazing affair. I bet their jaws dropped when they saw that it was more in the vein of the first film.


What are you looking at? Eh?

It's interesting to see, then, that they've almost completely disregarded the film's plot in making the game. The characters and setting are there... Ripley is shaven-headed, and there are prisoners to be rescued here and there. Generally speaking, though, Alien 3 is a maze game where you blast as many aliens as you can find.

And really, that's it. There are missions, sure... accessed through the many terminals that are scattered around the landscape. But what it boils down to is that you trudge around a bleak-looking maze, shooting aliens and finding stuff.


Christ. Bit bleak here, innit?

I'll be honest, I found Alien 3 to be an uninspiring effort in my short time with it. There's not really any skill involved... because a large part of the game takes place in tunnels or ducts, the aliens are just there to be shot. Once again, a game that's been touted as an all-time classic has disappointed me. Just as well there's always another game around the corner...

Rocket Ranger (Commodore Amiga)

This is my 200th post in the blog! For a long while there, it didn't look like I'd get that far. So in order to celebrate, I've played something that I absolutely loved in its time - Cinemaware's Rocket Ranger.

Cinemaware.

The name brings to mind that horror of gaming past - the interactive movie. And indeed, Cinemaware did stray some way down that path. But rather than actually attempt to make interactive movies, they made videogames with a movie feel to them... subtle difference. I don't think many people had a bad word to say about their ambitious efforts, back in the day.


You can shake that fist all you like, I'm still coming to knock your block off...

Rocket Ranger, for me, was the ultimate Cinemaware game. It took inspiration from 1950s sci-fi matinees, blended a fantastically mental plot with appealing mini-games that didn't outstay their welcome, and wrapped the lot up with presentation that was totally atmospheric and gripped you right from the loading screen. It got everything right.

I said "mental plot", didn't I? Here goes: In 1940, the Nazis won World War II. They discovered an element on the moon called Lunarium, which allowed them to make huge technological advances and therefore win the war. The planet has since suffered a century of darkness and oppression. This can be reversed, however; scientists FROM THE FUTURE have invented a time machine, and using this, they have sent you, in 1940, the equipment you will need to single-handedly take on and defeat the Nazi forces. These items are a rocket pack, a radium pistol and a secret codewheel. Use them wisely, and alter history...


And I'm off! Eventually... you should have seen me crash just before this.

I always loved that premise, and Cinemaware pulled out all the stops to do it justice. It really looks the part, and in fact if you've ever seen The Rocketeer, you could easily think that they took some inspiration from this game! Similarly, the dramatic music leading into setpieces adds a hell of a lot to the atmosphere. That's really what this game is about... atmosphere. The illusion is never broken.

As for the gameplay... well, any detractors of Cinemaware games would point to the limited gameplay as a flaw. Using your network of spies, you must uncover the locations of key Nazi strongholds. Once you have found one, you must fly there and defeat whatever awaits. This leads to a variety of mini-games, all of which are pretty enjoyable. These range from shooting down squadrons of Nazi planes to fistfights with Nazi guards to standoffs at ancient temples. The way everything is linked together makes for a totally cohesive experience.


What a welcome! I'm going down like a lead balloon with this lot.

And for me, that's what Rocket Ranger is... a great experience. Playing it repeatedly is not boring... much as I can watch a favourite film several times and enjoy it every time, even though I know what's going to happen, I can do the same thing playing Rocket Ranger. Except... I've never finished it yet. That's something to aim for... and something I will have great satisfaction in achieving.