A Good Walk Spoiled. Part 1 - Ups and Downs.

Sid Meier makes awesome games. Alpha Centauri, Pirates!, and of course the Civilization series are just some of the names that leap from the pages of gaming history. Pity I don't like any of them (well, I haven't actually tried Pirates! yet). I'm just not strategically minded. I always end up getting wiped out by my opponents in no time flat in strategy games. I don't get them at all. Sorry, Sid.

But there is one of Sid Meier's games that I do get... Sim Golf.


First things first... where to build this thing? Each locale offers different terrain challenges.

I love Sim Golf. It's like the Sunday afternoon of games... you can just potter about in it, having a nice relaxing time, adding a bunker here, taking away a water feature there. Sure, there's some micromanagement to be done... and I'm not that great at that. But I don't care. It's my ultimate chill-out game.

That said, I rarely finish anything I start on it. This doesn't matter... I really enjoy every game of it. But I thought I'd start up another new game and blog it, and see how that goes. Maybe I'll build a complete 18 hole course this time. Maybe it won't be very entertaining to read and I'll knock it on the head early on. Or, maybe, I might have a successful game and the blog posts will be fun too. That would be a result.


Doesn't that look like a lovely place for a golf course? Let's get cracking...

The scope for building courses is enormous. You can spend hours just on one hole. Will you make it a par three, four or five? How big will the green be? Will you have bunkers or water features? Or both? What kinds of trees will you have? And how will the terrain lie? Actually, the land-shaping tool is amazing. You can have all kinds of hilly layouts if you want. You can build up a massive elevated tee, and have a long downhill hole, or you can make the green difficult to reach on the top of a plateau. But you have to bear in mind that your patrons might get tired...

Micromanagement plays a big part in the game. You have to employ staff for various duties... gardeners to keep the courses free from weeds, marshalls to move along slow players, vendors to offer refreshments around the course. It's important to get the positioning of these right, not just for coverage but bearing in mind the layout of the course. Build holes that are too difficult, and there's not much the marshalls can do with everyone struggling. Build holes with too many undulations, and people will get knoackered, so although you'll make a killing with the refreshments, again, the marshalls will be unable to keep things moving.


Hole 1. A par 4, dogleg through the trees, with sand around the green. Nice start.

And then there's the "Sim" aspect of the game. For "Sim", read "Sims". Yes, the people on your courses are little Sims people, with their own strange sounding language and little emotion icons. Luckily, you don't always have to guess how they're feeling... handy speech bubbles will let you know if they like or dislike any particular hole, but will also let you in on little titbits from their personal lives. It's for your own benefit to try and encourage these to play out... it's also quite entertaining, and all you really have to do is keep them happy enough to keep coming back to the course.

You can probably tell I love this game... I've waffled on about it for ages without actually doing anything. So without further ado, hole number 1 is complete and open to the paying public...

Getting Wasted. Part 1 - We're Having a Party!

I'm starting a couple of new irregular features, to be updated when I feel like playing the games in question.

Getting Wasted will follow my attempts at playing an all-time classic RPG - Wasteland. I owned it on the Commodore 64 and got a little way into it, and really enjoyed it. But it ground to a halt for some reason that I can't remember. I've always really wanted to get back into it, but I haven't got the patience these days, even with an emulator, to figure out all that disk swapping and boot disk creating and what have you.


It all starts here...

Fortunately, I've got the PC version. I've had it for years, but haven't been able to play it because it's a DOS game and I can't do DOS. I know, I'm rubbish. I've tried and tried, and can't figure it out. And I know it's probably quite simple, but apparently so am I. Help is at hand, though, courtesy of a program I've discovered called D-Fend Reloaded. It's a front end for DOSBox from what I can gather, for people like me who can't even manage that program. And it works. Programs I haven't been able to use for over a decade are now up and running.

I have to say, compared to what I remember of the Commodore 64 version of Wasteland, the PC version is somewhat lacking charm. It's very generic looking, whereas the 64 version has more style. But that doesn't matter for this... I just want to be able to play the game.


I don't want anything to do with this lot. I'll have all their gear, though.

So, why "We're Having a Party!"? This hasn't been much fun so far. Well, mighty oaks must start from little acorns, and before you can embark on the quest you must create your party of characters. I've always struggled with this... I've always had a hard time naming so much as a pet, and you don't want to know how long it took me to come up with my kids' names. So, naming fictional characters in a video RPG? Impossible.

Still, it was done, with the party leader being me, PaulEMoz. Strong as an ox (eh?), lucky and highly charismatic (who said games had to be like real life?), I was the perfect choice to lead this little band. Next up is YJ Malmsteen. I always put him in role playing games... named after Swedish guitar maestro Yngwie J. Malmsteen, I always figure you can't go wrong with a Viking by your side. Quick and agile, he'll hopefully be doing the sneaky work for me. My third character is Ed the Head. Strong, clever and lucky, he'll be patching up the gang if they get injured, and hopefully still slaughter enemies like the Iron Maiden mascot he loves. Yeah, I spelled it wrong.


And we're off. Let's see how long we last...

Aaaand finally, we have Kelly Bundy. Wasteland was something of a revolution to me, in that it was quite important to have a female character in your squad. And I thought it would be quite funny if the most intelligent member of the party was called Kelly Bundy. I always thought that girl had hidden depths. She's also a nurse (medic), which I like the idea of, and she's highly charismatic, so should be able to charm the socks off any would-be assailants.

And so, with that, we're all set. The party is formed, and out into the Wasteland we venture...

Barbarian II (Psygnosis - Commodore Amiga)

Remember what I said yesterday? That Barbarian would be great if you could just run in there, hacking, chopping and leaping with a move of the joystick and the press of a fire button?

Scratch that. I was wrong.

You may well recall (you should, like I said it was only yesterday) that I quite enjoyed Hegor's adventures in Barbarian. The game wasn't without flaws, but it was quite interesting and had a nice graphic style, and I had a pretty good time with it. Seeing as I also own the sequel, I thought I'd dash the pair of them off, one after the other. And I was quite looking forward to seeing what improvements had been made in the sequel.

There are no improvements.


Yep, you keep looking the other way... I'll just nip down here...

In fact, the game seems to be a backward step in almost every way. The first problem lies with the control method. Now, I bemoaned the odd mouse-and-menu control method of the original, and wondered how much better it would be with joystick controls. Barbarian II uses joystick controls, but plays pretty horribly. It turns out that there are too many actions to comfortably fit within the constraints of the joystick and one fire button, making the game a bit confusing to play.

Also, many of the creatures attack you from positions that make them very difficult to hit, resulting in massive frustration as you take hit after hit. You'll also find yourself trying to escape, maybe up a flight of stairs, but being hit by some spitting creature and knocked, helplessly, all the way back to where it can get you more easily. Grrrrrrr!


Bit nippy in here. You'd think they'd turn the heating on.

Another problem lies with the game design. In an attempt to give the game added depth, it's been switched a little from the flick-screen original... it does stay flick-screen, but when wandering through the forests, you now have branching paths, being able to move up or down to take different routes. But this makes the game dull, like a slow-paced version of Robin of the Wood.

And finally, the game looks worse than the original. The background graphics of the forest are lovely, but the characters all look muddy and indistinct. And Hegor no longer looks like a barbarian... he looks more like a useless Viking, the one that the whole village laughs at.

I'm not sure what happened here... the ingredients were there from the original game to make something really good. It certainly hasn't panned out that way, though, and I don't expect to play this one again.

Barbarian (Psygnosis - Commodore Amiga)

The name "Barbarian" has quite a history in gaming... probably because there were two of them. I think that everyone remembers the Palace Software version... with its epic one-on-one sword combat and lopping-off-of-head coup-de-grace, it was the beat 'em up of choice for those that didn't like wearing coloured pyjamas. Then, of course, there was the sequel, which famously discarded the one-on-one aspect in favour of an adventure-type game, and Wolf from Gladiators. And Maria Whittaker.

If you had a 16-bit machine, though, there was another (although "lesser" machines did receive ports at a later date). Psygnosis had their own Barbarian game. You'd think that would be a bit confusing for the masses... surely it wouldn't have taken much effort to come up with an original name. Still, I guess they figured that if the name fit the game, that was all that mattered. And it's the Psygnosis game I'm looking at on the Amiga.


Eh? Wassat?

Psygnosis' Barbarian is an adventure-type game. You take control of Hegor the Barbarian, who must travel through a hostile land of dungeons and traps in order to confront and defeat his evil brother, Necron the Sorceror. And not only are there traps to be sprung or overcome, but also (naturally) hordes of Necron's minions to be dispatched.

Sounds straightforward, and all too easy for someone as mighty as Hegor the Barbarian. Unfortunately, he's been hamstrung by a strange and unwieldy control system. It would have been great if Hegor could have just run in there, muscles glistening, hacking, chopping and leaping with the movement of the joystick and the press of the fire button. Instead, he's controlled via a mouse-driven menu.


Hmmm. This looks too straightforward. I wouldn't trust that rock as far as I could throw it...

This seems really odd, and it feels a bit weird, too. The weirdest part is that Hegor will keep walking unless you tell him to do something different, no matter what. That wall that's blocking his way? He's under the impression that if he walks into it enough times, it'll get out of his way.

It's also quite difficult, especially with a twenty-odd year old mouse that's not as responsive as it once was. That said, the icons are laid out in such a way that you never normally want one that is too far away from the last one you used. And to be fair, you can string together a quite impressive and fluid sequence of moves, once you get used to it.


If he had a heart, he'd just let me have that bow up there...

And once you know what you need to do... there's some trial and error to be found in Barbarian. Sometimes, the way forward is obvious... just walk or run along the screen and hack the creature that's in your way to death. It usually just takes one blow. But there are other times when you'll be strolling along, golden locks flowing in the breeze, and a spiked trap will drop on your head and kill you, seemingly without warning. It's somewhat irritating, as there don't appear to be any clues as to the presence of some of the traps.

It's a curious game, is Psygnosis' Barbarian, and one that's nowhere near as immediate or satisfying as the Palace game. It's quite slow, and when you're playing as a barbarian the last thing you want is to be ponderous. Still, it does have its charm, and I found myself plodding on and coming back to it, just to see if I could get a few screens further. Not what I'd call a classic, but enjoyable enough.

Gravitron 2 (PC)

If you thought my games shelves were a bit of a disgrace, with unplayed game after unplayed game, then you should see my Steam list. The amount of times that I've bought a game, particularly when it's on a Special Offer, and then not played it is ridiculous. So I thought I'd tap into that reserve today, and I picked Gravitron 2.

I pretty much knew what Gravitron 2 was about before I played it... I knew it was like Thrust. And Thrust is a game that I have really enjoyed over the years, although I've never been all that good at it.

All of that applies to Gravitron 2.


Look! Little people. Now, how do I get to them in one piece?

If you don't know what Thrust is about (or Gravitar, the arcade game from which it no doubt sprang), then read on. The game is set in space, and you have to navigate your craft down to a planet's surface and blast a reactor, which will trigger a world-destroyng explosion (meaning you have to get back into orbit, sharpish). Of course, it's never as easy it sounds. These planets are extremely well-armed, with turrets firing at you in defence of their world. As an extra line of defence, the further you travel into the game, the more inaccessible the reactors become, with tight caverns needing to be negotiated before you can get to the reactor. It's an intense test of nerves, reflexes and skill.

Gravitron 2 gives you all of that, plus a few extras. For instance, there are now people to be rescued from around the reactor. I'm not sure whether they're scientists or colonists, or what. But they're there, and you can land and pick them up. There are also extra defences, such as laser barriers that switch on and off and serve to make life even more difficult. Aesthetically, the game ladles on the pretties, ensuring that although it's still a simple-looking game, it doesn't appear stuck in the Eighties.


I think we all know what happened here...

I did explain that I was never very good at Thrust, and it therefore follows that I'm not very good at Gravitron 2, even though it's a more forgiving game (you can take a number of hits per ship, whereas in Thrust, well, you can't). That being the case, there may be even more to the game later on that I haven't been able to discover. Even so, I can state categorically that Gravitron 2 is a very good Thrust game indeed. Thrust cost £1.99 about 25 years ago... Gravitron 2 costs £2.99 today, via Steam, I'd say that was more than fair.

FIGHT! Commodore 64 vs. ZX Spectrum. Number 2: Uridium

After yesterday's less than successful effort, I felt like I wanted to play Uridium properly. And then I realised it was the ideal candidate for the next episode of FIGHT! This is particularly true when you compare them on the main platform-specific websites... on Lemon64, the Commodore 64 version (which is the original) only averages a user rating of 7.79, and doesn't manage to crack the top 100, whereas on World of Spectrum, their version does hit the top 100 and averages a user rating of 8.49. Intriguing. So who's right?

I'm very familiar with the Commodore 64 version. Programmed by Andrew Braybrook, one of the 64's premier coders, at the height of his powers, it's a slick arcade shoot 'em up that requires quick reflexes and a fast trigger finger. It's incredibly polished and a lot of fun, and I spent hours and hours with it in my younger days.


Five-to-one problem... need fast trigger finger to deal with!

For the uninitiated, Uridium is a two-way horizontally scrolling arcade shooter, which sees you piloting a spacecraft against fifteen massive enemy Dreadnaughts. Each of these must be destroyed, but it's not as simple as just flying up there and blowing them out of space... they'll send waves of fighter ships at you. They also have proximity mines on board, which are released if you fly over or even near their ports. And finally, just getting from beginning to end can be very difficult... the Dreadnaughts are littered with structures, which prove deadly if crashed into. And you do have to get from beginning to end... you have to land on the runway before you can destroy the Dreadnaught.


Sneaky... I fly down this narrow track and they swoop in behind me. Clever...

Slipping back into the pilot's seat of the C64's Manta felt very comfortable. It's a pretty fly ride, nice and responsive, able to accelerate quickly although braking is sluggish, capable of flipping in a 180 degree manoeuvre, and also of flipping onto its side, which is handy as there are some tight gaps to squeeze through. It also pumps out a more-than-passable amount of bullets, and even though enemy attack waves number no more than five or six, they're accurate, so you need those bullets to take out as many as possible as quickly as possible.


Mine! Mine! Hey, if you want it that much, you can have it!

The 64 version is a glorious arcade blast. Always was, and probably always will be. It's not perfect... the gameplay is by its very nature repetitive, but the different dreadnaught layouts help to make up for that, as you're always on edge, wondering where the next tiny gap or obtrusive structure will be. It's a bit of a pain having to wait around by the runway for the Land Now signal (if you get there too early... there's a very real danger that you'll be blown to bits before then. There's a sequel, though... Uridium+. And that game rectifies the Land Now issue, moving it one step closer to perfection.


The red square is a mine port... they're really fast, so I'd get out of there!

What of the Spectrum version, then? Is it better than the Commodore game? Is it even as good? My honest opinion is... no, it's not as good. It is a fine game, though, and a great acheivement for the Spectrum. The Dreadnaught layouts are different, which I appreciated as it effectively makes it another game to learn. Attack patterns are similar though, although the game is even more unforgiving and difficult. The Manta controls well, but the game is let down slightly by the scrolling, which although not exactly jerky, tended to give me a headache after any reasonable length of time.


Those enemy ships on the runway are sitting docks... blast them while you can!

There are a couple of things missing from the Speccy version, too... neither of which is gamebreaking, but worth a mention. When you end a level, you play a brief bonus game on the Commodore 64 to determine your bonus. That's gone on the Spectrum. Also gone is the cool fly-by at the end of the level, where the dreadnaught boils away and you get the chance to blast some of the ground features youDmay have missed before you landed. Like I said, not gamebreakers, but just little touches that add to the overall experience.


One down, fourteen to go. Spectrum owners are unlikely to have seen this bit.

I'm not entirely sure why the Spectrum version is rated that much more highly on the internet than the 64 version. When you play them back-to-back, Braybrook's original is clearly superior. Maybe it's because there aren't many great arcade shoot 'em ups on the Spectrum, whereas the 64 did them really well? I'm not sure, I can't vouch for that having not played many Spectrum games. What's clear is that both platforms had a really good game in Uridium, so everybody wins in that respect. As for this comparison:

RESULT: Commodore wins!

Commodore 64 (iPhone/iPod Touch)

I've been a fan of the Commodore 64 for nearly twenty-five years now. The original machine is best, of course, but I welcome any new opportunity to play its games on new platforms. Emulation has seen old computers raise their heads all over the place... not just on the humble PC, but for years and years now they've been running on systems from handhelds up to the Nintendo Wii. Now, it's running on the iPhone... sort of.

The program is set out in a cute way, with a Commodore 64 in the middle, tape deck at the top left, cup of coffee and computer mags at the top right, joystick at the bottom right and games at the bottom left. This is purely cosmetic... after a little while, a power button pops up for you to start the program. Once you do, it displays your list of games, plus options at the bottom.


Watch you don't spill that...

Games... it appears that someone has managed to officially license some Commodore 64 games for sale on the App Store. They get around the usual restrictions by offering them through an in-emulator store. It works perfectly well, although there's not a lot of games available just yet. Most of the games are from Hewson (not a bad thing), with a few First Star, Task Set and Mastertronic games also available. Oh, and Wizball.

You don't need to head in that direction immediately, because they do throw some free games at you for starters. At first, I thought that the eight Commodore games they give you were your lot... not bad, as the classic International Soccer and Basketball are among them, as well as Jupiter Lander and Jack Attack. But then I noticed there were others in the store for free, and all I had to do was download them. And there are some bona fide classics in there... Bruce Lee for one, Samurai Warrior (Usagi Yojimbo) for another. There are a couple of Jeff Minter games (Hover Bovver and Attack of the Mutant Camels), which is good to see. There's also Laser Squad, which would seem to be an awesome addition... although I can't figure out the controls for that one at all.


That's what you get for trying to be sneaky!

The controls... that's where the whole package lives or dies, really. And although I don't want to say that this dies, it's certainly a bit peaky.

The level of control you get depends on the type of game you're playing. The first game I played was Bruce Lee, or B. Lee as it's actually called here... I guess your character could be Bernard Lee, or maybe Brett Lee, but that's a bit less glamorous in a kung-fu game. I didn't play this much at the time, and never really knew what I was supposed to do. My mate Reedy played it loads though, and loved it. Actually, I remember now that we had some good laughs with the two player game. He might not have been so keen on this one... it's pretty tricky to do what you want. The problem mainly comes from the "joystick"... the length of travel is too long, making movements imprecise. In B. Lee, that means The Green Yamo keeps kicking me to Kingdom Come. Not great.


Games can be played in Landscape mode, which is probably a bit easier.

Next up was Usagi Yojimbo. I loved this game back in the day. Loved it. In fact, I might do an Unsung Classic on it. For a samurai game, and therefore a beat 'em up, it's quite laid back. As a result, it actually works pretty well on this app. Everything came flooding back straight away, and I didn't have any control issues at all. This could eat up some time.

Finally, in order to test the shop and the joystick's true limits, I downloaded Uridium. Uridium was possibly the best arcade shooter on the 64. Fast and frantic, it requires quick reflexes and a quicker trigger finger. Which means that on the iPhone or iPod, you're dead in no time flat. You just don't have the level of control that you need over your ship. Shame... this would have been an awesome game for the bus.


And this is full screen mode. Now, where's the "accurate controls" mode?

At the end of the day, recommending this Commodore 64 app is difficult. After all, the C64 has been emulated on countless handhelds, to better effect. But this does have some nice features... one of which is the way it automatically saves your game when you exit and gives you the option of resuming where you left off next time you load the game. It's a nice idea, but the controls still need some tweaking. That said, it's free (not sure if that's permanent or not), and as Usagi Yojimbo is also free and is awesome and playable here, it's worth getting just for that. Anything else you happen to like is just a bonus.

Unsung Classics. Number 9: Ristar (Sega Megadrive)

Ristar is a game that seems to have been very highly regarded in general, but its release came toward the back end of the Mega Drive's cycle, and so it probably wasn't seen or played by as many people as it deserved to be. Of course, in this day and age gamers are given second or even third chances, with emulation and retro compilations being the order of the day. Ristar is on the Sega Mega Drive Collection, and also the Wii Virtual Console (at least, I think it is), so there's plenty of opportunity for it to get a good playing. Here's why you should jump at the chance.

Sega, of course, had already created one of the all-time classic mascot characters in Sonic the Hedgehog, and he/it had a range of games, all wildly successful. It's almost a shame that Sonic was so successful in a way, because Ristar could have been a great mascot character, and as far as the game goes, I prefer it to Sonic.

You are, naturally, Ristar, and you live in a world of platforms, which is handy when it comes to making a game. An evil space pirate has captured your father and is using mind control to enslave the planets in your galaxy. It's left to you to rescue your dad, and stop the evil Kaiser Greedy (for that is the space pirate's name).


Grrrrr! I'll thwottwe you, you wascawwy wabbit!

Ristar is a funny and cute looking character, albeit an angry-looking one. But given the quest at hand, he's not very well-armed. All you can do is jump (and not very high at that, and there are no double-jumps here), and grab. The grab is your offensive move... you grab your enemy and then slam into it and bounce it into oblivion. It looks funny, because it looks like you're throttling the life out of the enemy creatures! Larger enemies take a few hits, though. You also have other moves, depending on your environment... for instance, in the second world you can swim, and whilst underwater you can swim faster instead of jumping. Or there may be rungs or ladders which you can climb up or swing across.

Unlike Sonic, this game is played at a pretty sedate pace, which means you've got more time to explore the levels and take things in. This is good, because there are plenty of bonuses to be found, in the form of treasure chests. Break one open and you'll receive a reward... usually a unit of health, but sometimes it'll be a crystal which gives points, or sometimes a full health top-up. Sometimes you'll see a chest, but figuring out how to get it is difficult. I like that... it means you go out of your way to find it out, and see more of the level. And there's no time constraint of any kind, so you can potter about at your leisure.


Look at the size of that fella! Wonder if he'd taste good with tartare sauce?

At times, you will encounter a crank. No, not a madman... a lever or handle, suspended above the ground. If you jump and grab on to this, you'll start to swing around. Hold on for a while, because once you're swinging fast enough, when you let go you'll go zooming into the air, invincible to everything in your path. Usually there's some kind of bonus to be found when doing this... sometimes treasure, sometimes a large "height bonus" (lots of points). It's just something else to keep you interested.

Ristar is a heck of a lot of fun. It's a pretty chilled-out game, not too difficult but quite long and still enough of a challenge to keep it from getting boring. It also looks lovely, with a great art style complementing the action. It's a real shame that it didn't get the attention it deserved at the time... put that right now, while you still can.

Nanostray 2 (Nintendo DS)

I'm not usually all that keen on playing sequels before I've played the original... I like to have that comparison to draw on. But I saw Nanostray 2 for less than a fiver, and figured it would be rude to leave it sitting there. Besides, I do like a good shoot 'em up, and there aren't many that I know of on the DS, so it had to be worth a blast.

Nanostray 2 seems to combine elements from Gradius V and R-Type Final. Wait a minute... what? That must make this the most awesome shoot 'em up ever! Well, just hold your horses there while I expand on things a bit.


There's not much that'll stand up to a two-pronged lightning attack.

The game has a fairly substantial menu, but the areas you'll find of most interest are Adventure mode and Arcade mode. Adventure sees you attempting to play right the way through the game from the beginning. You get five ships to see you through, although more can be picked up through the game, if you're lucky. You also get two continues, should those ships not prove to be enough.

As you might expect from a modern shooter, Nanostray 2 features a narrative, and you as the heroic pilot. You have to pick your way through fairly cramped levels, avoiding and blasting waves of small craft, before tackling a boss at the end of the level. Shooting entire waves of enemies releases coins to pick up, some of which will give you orbs that float around your ship and fire when you do. These orbs can be repositioned around your ship for strategic purposees, which comes in handy at various points throughout levels. You also have a secondary weapon which is more powerful, but is also limited in use. Probably best to keep it for the bosses, then.


No, that's not my score. Maybe if you knock a zero off the end.

The Arcade mode functions a bit more like a Score Attack, with you selecting a level and then going on to score as highly as possible on it. Sadly, you can only pick levels that you've unlocked in the Adventure mode... and as that is pretty difficult, you might not be using the Arcade mode much, at least for a while. That said, the Adventure mode is nicely structured, in that once you've got past the first level you've got a choice of two for your next, so this branching pathway enables you to do the unlocking a bit more quickly, if you're any good at the game.

I'm not, so I haven't unlocked much yet. I imagine that one of the reasons there aren't many games like this on the DS is because they don't control well with the D-pad. Nanostray 2 certainly isn't unplayable, just... challenging. It's quite good fun despite the D-pad thing, it looks nice, and it's certainly not a walk in the park. It's not really suitable for short games, at least not in Adventure mode, and long games give me cramp, but despite all this, Nanostray 2 is a decent addition to the collection.

Safari Guns (Commodore Amiga)

Here's another episode in my "pick a game I've never heard of from the box" series... which still has quite a way to run! And this particular instalment saw me playing a game called Safari Guns, which is another game from Beau Jolly's Big Box.

Safari Guns took me a little bit by surprise... I have to admit, I was expecting a hunting game. But it's not that at all. Instead, it's an Operation Wolf-style game... but with a twist. Instead of shooting the animals, you have to photograph them. Don't worry, though, you are armed with a gun as well as a camera. You have to switch to that when angry poachers pop onto the screen. That's when you get to satisfy your bloodlust.


All those tasty animals around, and he goes and shoots me!

Points are scored at the end of the game (and, I suspect, at the end of the level... I'll tell you if I ever get there...). Points are scored for photos of animals... each new animal shot being worth the most points. Subsequent shots of the same animal will bag you an increasingly diminishing number of points. You also score for blowing away the poachers... but if your trigger finger slips and you hit an animal, then points are deducted.

It's a simple formula, but an enjoyable one. It is, though, dependent on having a good mouse, and mine is merely OK. As a result, I didn't do as well as I would have liked. I did enjoy playing Safari Guns quite a bit, though... I thought it had that "one more go" element, and I actually quite fancy another shot on it now.

Unsung Classics. Number 8: Citadel (Commodore 64)

If you look up Citadel on websites, you might wonder how I'm putting it in Unsung Classics. After all, it got 91% in ZZAP! 64, which means it was obviously appreciated in its time. That may seem true, but I honestly don't know anyone else that's played it, and it hardly ever crops up in lists or discussions of best Commodore 64 games. Time to spread the word a little.

I remember following the making of Citadel in ZZAP! 64's Diary of a Game, and looking forward to it a lot. Martin Walker's updates were entertaining and insightful, and served to build a good picture of what we could expect from the game. As a result, I made sure I had a tenner available for when it was released, and bought it as soon as I could. I didn't regret it.


Your droid has a little information screen. The 'E' tells you you're about to pick up an energy capsule.

Citadel is a game set in deep space, where a routine explanation has picked up energy emissions from a seemingly-barren world. A probe was sent in to investigate, but after providing information on the planet's internal defence systems, contact was lost. As it is thought that the planet may hold technological secrets, you must use remotely controlled droids to explore the eight underground cities in an attempt to find anything of value.

The cities are laid out with checkerboard flooring, something akin to a chessboard. And indeed, the game's instructions say that this is like a cross between an arcade action game and a strategic board game. Seems like an odd mix, but there is some truth to this. You can't just pile in with guns blazing... the cities are very cleverly set up so that you're quickly overwhelmed if you try this. No, some thought is required here.


Success! You've found the door to the next city. Just in time... there are enemies on your tail...

In Citadel, each city's floors are littered with trapdoors. Once your monitor moves within a certain range of these doors, they'll open, revealing either a good surprise or a nasty surprise. It's easy to know which is which... if you get within two squares of a trap and it hasn't opened, then you know you'll reveal either a switch or, better yet, energy or firepower for your droid.

Switches are used to shut off electrified beams that deny access to many areas. There's quite a bit of backtracking needed to get all the areas open... although you don't always have to open every switch or visit every part of a city to be able to move onto the next. I appreciated this, as it can be frustrating to be stuck in similar-looking cities, wondering exactly how to get to the one bit you've missed.


This city's got horrible decor. You'd be wise to get out, sharpish.

There are some similarities to Paradroid here, too... obviously, there's the "remote droid beamed into droid-occupied territory" thing, but besides that, you have a Capture mode available. This one's a bit easier to use than in Paradroid, though... simply double-click to open it, move it over whatever you want, and let go. Voila, it's yours. This comes in very handy, because in this case, any droid you capture can be used as a shield... and it will need to be, otherwise you've got no chance in later levels, where enemy firepower is substantially more vicious.

Citadel is an excellent game, which requires you to use your brain as well as your trigger finger. It's very devious, and it's obvious that every single trap placement has been carefully considered, meaning you'll have to have your wits about you to get through the game. The action is a bit samey, it's fair to say, but it's still never less than interesting, and I've really enjoyed delving back into its depths.

Budokan - The Martial Spirit (Commodore Amiga)

Fighting games were always pretty popular on the old computers... not with me, though. I'm not very good at them, so generally speaking, I tend not to like them. There have always been exceptions... International Karate was fantastic, for instance, and some of the old arcade beat 'em ups have always appealed.

Budokan is a bit of a different beast, in that half of the game is devoted to training and learning.


This is a nice place. Now, where should I get beaten up first?

The game starts with you in the courtyard of the Tobiko-Ryu Dojo, where you will undertake your training. There are four training halls, each specialising in a different discipline. These disciplines are Karate, Kendo, Nunchaku and Bo. As you make your decision and walk towards the dojo of your choice, it's clear that you're disadvantaged right from the outset... your character doesn't half move with a limp!

Once you're in the dojo, you can choose to either practice your moves or take on a sparring partner. There's a decent selection of moves for each discipline, so practicing is a good idea at the beginning. When you've got a few moves down pat, it's time to try them on an opponent. Budokan gives you three different sparring partners, and it's worth taking them all on in turns, just to see how different opponents might come at you.


Welcome to Budokan! If you come back next Friday, there's a gig on.

Once you feel your skills are at a high enough level, you can finally travel to the fabled Budokan arena, to take part in the martial arts tournament. There, you'll fight a range of opponents, each with different skills and weapons, some of which you won't have encountered before.

Budokan has an interesting gameplay mechanic, in that you only get to use each of your disciplines a maximum of four times throughout the tournament. You can, if you wish, use kendo against a karate fighter, which is quite amusing. But that might leave you vulnerable later in the tournament. It also means that there's no point developing a favourite and sticking with it... you're going to have to mix and match your styles. It helps to keep the game a little fresher.


Hah! Know karate, do you? Well, I know stick, and now, so do you!.

At first, it seems that all that supposed depth counts for nothing, as you'll probably dispatch your first couple of opponents easily. But things soon change, and you'll find yourself eating mat on a fairly frequent basis. A problem rears its head, in that fights are quite short and loading times are not, so you end up spending more time watching and loading than actually fighting. Still, Budokan is a cut above your average early fighting game... although having said that, it's a bit like a kind of advanced Yie Ar Kung-Fu. That's no bad thing in my book.

vvvvvv (PC)

I like to keep something of an eye on the indie games scene, because that's where a lot of the original ideas are, or you can get some cool little games for a bit less than full retail releases. Either way, they make for some good blog opportunities, and I've used them to good effect so far.

The next one I fancied a crack at was vvvvvv. Or is it VVVVVV? I'm not sure. And no, I don't know how to pronounce that. It doesn't matter... it's not called vvvvvv because of any of the characters' names, or anything like that. It's called vvvvvv because the game is filled with spikes.


Yep, and you have to collect it. Without the ability to jump. Good luck!

Yes, vvvvvv is a platform game. And, indeed, spikes are the order of the day. The game's setup is simple... you're on a spaceship, something weird happens, and the crew are teleported randomly about a space station. You, as captain, take it upon yourself to go and retrieve your crew, little realising that every single room is a treacherous nightmare to navigate. Mostly because of spikes.


Yes, I said spikes. And here are some. Oh, and a ghost. You should avoid that, too.

The game's controls are simple. You can move left. You can move right. You can't jump... what you can do is a gravity flip. So to get past some obstacles, you'll have to flip upside down and walk along the ceilings, or the undersides of platforms. It takes a fair bit of getting used to, but soon becomes an important and fun part of the game.

Now, this sounds a little bit simplistic in this day and age... so to help out in that respect, the game is unashamedly old-school and retro in every way. It's not an exaggeration to say that this could be a Commodore 64 game. From the way it loads, to the character set, to the graphics, to the SID-meets-NES music, it's presented perfectly in the style of a game from 1988.


You should look happy, seeing as I've just teleported here to rescue you.

The gameplay, too, is similarly old-fashioned... it's evil! It's flick-screen, rather than scrolling, and each screen is named in a time-honoured fashion, and some screens are very devious indeed, while others give you a little bit of a breather. And although some will have you tearing your hair out, eventually you'll suss them and wonder how you ever got stuck.

vvvvvv is a throwback in the most delightful way. Even the price is a throwback... it's about a tenner, which is what you would have paid for it in 1988. That might seem a bit much for what it is, but if you ever got any joy from vicious games like Monty On The Run, you should at least download the demo of vvvvvv... I reckon you'll get quite a kick out of it.

Revs! (iPhone/iPod Touch)

I was at a bit of a loose end today, and somehow I ended up on my iPod, browsing the App Store. Eventually, I happened upon Revs!, which was a 59p racing game, and so I impulse bought it.

It's a typical Super Sprint/Ivan Ironman Stewart-type game, something which seems to be becoming increasingly popular on the iPhone/iPod Touch. You get a choice of four cars, but all this boils down to is that you get a choice of your favourite colour, as they all look the same and they all have identical abilities. There's also a choice of two game modes: championship and time trial. I'll look at the championship first.

Once your game gets under way, it's you against the other three colours in a five lap race. The championship consists of eight tracks, and you score points for a top three finish... but if you come fourth, you're not allowed to progress. Harsh, that.


Mud, mud, glorious mud. Nothing quite like it for slowing your car down so you finish last.

Should you make it through all eight tracks, there may be more. I don't know, because my accumulated points total saw me finish fourth, and I was told that a top three finish was needed to progress. So even though I never actually finished last, the others swapped positions enough to see me cumulatively last. Bastards.

It's very difficult to do better, too. I did win the first race, and managed second in the next, but I was third every other time. Your car isn't fast enough to outpace the opponents at the beginning, so you'll always see two cars streaking away into the distance. You can collect coins on your travels, and at the end of each race you'll get the chance to upgrade. But to be honest, I never noticed any difference from race to race in the performance of my car. And as overtaking can be as difficult here as the Valencia Formula One track.


It's like Wacky Races, except all the cars are broken from the start.

Time Trial can be a promising game mode, with a constant challenge to your own times being an addictive element of any game. Here, however, I was foiled in my attempts at fun. The game provides you with a ghost car, which is nice and gives you something to shoot for. Also, the cars now have different attributes, so you can pick one according to your driving style. But it also only unlocks one track for you, and to unlock the next you have to beat a pre-determined time... which I was unable to do! So I was left trundling around the same track, wondering where the hell I could shave off the second-per-lap I needed.

Revs! is actually a decent little app for 59p. It looks almost exactly like a Commodore 64 game, and is similarly old-school in gampeplay, with the cars having eight fixed positions as you turn. It never feels exciting, though, and is definitely hampered by its harshness. You might want to give it a go for that price and for the nostalgic feel... but you'd probably be better off going with DrawRace instead.

FIGHT! Commodore 64 vs. ZX Spectrum. Number 1: Bomb Jack

Here's a feature I thought would be a good idea, that would tap into our schoolyard memories and provoke, erm, "discussion"... ZX Spectrum vs. Commodore 64! We've all had those arguments as to which is better... and I felt like stirring the pot a bit more. Just for argument's sake.

Now, I owned a Commodore 64, but I'm perfectly able to accept that it might not have had the best version of every game. I thought it might be fun to take a game that was released on both, put them up against each other and see which is better. Let's see how it goes...

The first game I chose was Tehkan/Tecmo's Bomb Jack. OK, so it's an arcade game, and that being the case, why did I choose two no doubt inferior versions to look at? Even stranger... Bomb Jack is not a game I have any particular love for. I've never been any good at it, and I find it quite frustrating. And yet, I've subjected myself to it... twice.


Here's what we started with... lovely, juicy bombs.

The arcade game is actually quite nice. It's pretty enough... bold and colourful, with those lovely red cherry bombs hanging in blue skies. To get the best scores, you have to collect the bombs in order. Once you collect one, the next in the sequence will start flashing. That's the one you should go for. Collect all the flashing bombs and you'll receive a big points bonus.

It was never a favourite of mine; I never was any good at it. Playing it in MAME these days has given me a new appreciation of it... skilful play can see you weaving in and out of enemies, and it can get pretty intense. And of course, there's the risk/reward aspect of collecting the bombs in order for bigger points. It's a classic name, and in retrospect I would say rightly so.


Bit naughty, putting all that red in the background. Where are the bombs?

I had Bomb Jack on the Commodore 64... I did play it a fair bit but it was annoying. It wasn't well reviewed either, generally speaking. I'd also heard that the Spectrum version was really good... something that's stuck in my mind all this time, and partially led to this little feature.

Playing the 64 version again just brought home all its faults, but magnified this time. Jack's a fat lad, for starters... and oddly, you can actually feel the weight! Jack seems to drop more quickly than in the arcade version, and also seems to struggle to get his lardy backside off the ground. The enemies are all bigger too, but it's more than just a cosmetic problem... this extra size makes the screen very cramped, and it's very difficult (if not impossible) to manoeuvre around for the bombs. It's fast... but that's also a problem, given the size of everything. Also, bonuses are very hard to come by, which is annoying... and then you find out the game has a completely different (and lower) scoring system to the arcade version. Bomb Jack on the Commodore 64 is not very enjoyable.


That bird's nothing but trouble. One peck, and you're dead.

Having re-acquainted myself with the Commodore version of Bomb Jack, it was time to try the Speccy's effort. And the first thing I noticed was the size of the game's characters... they're small. Thankfully! When I say "small", I mean "just the right size". The game is perfectly playable on the Spectrum. Gaps can be squeezed through, enemies can be dodged, bombs can be collected in order, bonuses can be had. And the scoring system is the same as the arcade version's. Graphically, it's one of the nicer Spectrum efforts I've played so far, with colourful backgrounds and no sign of clashing. Nice work, Elite!

The home versions had a problem from the start, in that Bomb Jack in the arcade has a vertical monitor, and these versions had to be squashed hozizontally. One version coped with this far better than the other. I had quite a lot of fun with the Spectrum version of Bomb Jack. It's a very well implemented version of the arcade game, with precise controls and accurately-proportioned graphics. It seems as though they really took the time to lay out the screens with the horizontal aspect taken into consideration. The 64 version, on the other hand, doesn't work all that well. It does have nice red bombs, although they're more blood red than the big arcade cherries. But the poor scoring system and claustrophobic playing area really cripple it, and it's not really worth much time.

RESULT: Spectrum wins!

Colony Wars (PS1)

The PS1 is yet another platform I pretty much missed out on. I owned one, but only very briefly indeed, and of the few games I owned for it, I only really got to play a couple at any length. So this is a system that's prime for blogging...

One of the games I can remember owning but not playing was Colony Wars: Red Sun. I only bought it a couple of days before I had to get rid of the PS1, so never really got to find out what it was like. I saw it in Cash Converters (where else) and it rang a bell, but before I bought it I looked it up online and discovered that Red Sun is actually the third in a trilogy. So I decided to buy and play all three for the blog... eventually. I've got the original and Red Sun - Vengeance will follow courtesy of eBay.


Your sights are locked, but I wouldn't go attacking something that size...

The first thing I spotted was that this game was produced by Psygnosis. I was a touch surprised... they're well-renowned for their 16-bit classics, but I'd thought they were defunct before the Playstation era. Shows what I know. Anyway, it gave me a little extra edge of anticipation prior to loading it.

Colony Wars starts with a sweeping narrative, which anyone would swear is by James Earl Jones, adding an amount of grandeur to proceedings. Research suggests that nobody is clear as to whether this is James Earl Jones or just a very good impostor. Let's pretend it is. It just feels better that way.


In space, everything except you is enormous.

The game is a massive space-opera, where you play a single lone starfighter pilot, battling against a gigantic evil Empire. Of course! Your ship, thankfully, is simple to control. You can accelerate and decelerate with the shoulder buttons, and switching between different weapons is easy. I can be put off from space games very easily if the controls are too convoluted, but this is nice and simple.

It's difficult to judge how good this game is from my time with it. It's absolutely epic, and huge, and I haven't even scratched the surface. What I can say is that the ship handles pretty well, blasting things feels satisfying, and there's a genuine sense that you're part of a grand quest of righteousness... in spaaaaaaaaace! I imagine this impressed the hell out of people when it was released... I don't know if I'll be able to play the trilogy enough to do the games justice, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.

Game Room (XBox 360)

Sorry for the lack of an update yesterday... I had my game lined up and then couldn't get it to start! I'll try it again on another system soon...

Microsoft threw Game Room at us from out of nowhere a while back, and since then, I've been waiting excitedly for its arrival. Now it's here I've snapped it up, and thought I might as well give my initial impressions.

In case you don't know what Game Room is, I'll tell you. It's as close to owning your own arcade as you'll ever get, unless you win the EuroMillions.


Look at the size of that place! You could fit stacks of games in there.

The setup, I think, is quite nifty. You're given a huge building interior, with loads of rooms, and you can fill these rooms with arcade machines. Some are actually classic arcade games, and some are custom-designed machines that play old console classics... currently for the Atari 2600/VCS and Intellivision. I'm not sure if other systems are in the pipeline, but you'd have to imagine they will be.

You're given a few themes to choose from at the beginning, so you can set up each room in a different style, and then plonk your games in whichever room you feel appropriate. There's also different items of decor that can be strewn about for added ambience. More themes and decor can be unlocked as you play in your Game Room.


I love the 80s! To cater for the likes of me, many themes are available for your rooms.

An added extra which adds something unique and fun to the gameroom is the mascot feature. Each game has a mascot, based on a classic iconic character from within the game. These can be bought separately at the shop, or you'll get them for free if you buy the game on its release date. It's fun to see these little daft characters pottering around in your arcade... I love seeing the Adventure duck/dragon roaming around, and characters are in danger of a kick to the head from my Shao-Lin's Road mascot (not really!).

There are down sides... the range of launch titles is not the best, meaning that you're unlikely to find any well-stocked arcades on your travels just yet. Still, as time goes by this will improve, and I'm genuinely excited to see how my arcade builds up over time.


Ahhh... happy memories. And barring gaming megaplexes, the only time you'll see your mates standing at arcade machines.

Also, there are server problems. So far, I've found it pretty difficult to upload any challenge scores... it's a shame that this isn't running smoothly, because the potential that exists from challenging your mates is massive. I'd hate for them to be put off because they can't connect to upload their score.

Still, I see masses of potential in Game Room. A lot of people are unhappy with it... unjustly in many ways, I think. It has to bed in before it can be properly judged, but I think that if you used to hang around in arcades when you were in your teens and/or love 80s arcade games, then Game Room is going to eat up a lot of your 360 time in the coming months... I'll revisit this one a little way down the line, to see how it's holding up.

Unsung Classics. Number 7: Z (Commodore 64)

It's time for another in that ever-popular series, Unsung Classics. Again, it's a Commodore 64 game... no surprise, because I've played loads more of them than any other system's games. I've got plenty lined up for the future, too... and another new feature I'm working on...

Z (or Z-Pilot in the US, apparently) is a top-down shooter, in the vein of Time Pilot, or more accurately, Time Pilot '84. It's set across four zones, or dimensions, and the object is to get to the fourth dimension and destroy the control ship.


Normally, I like a game of darts...

Each zone is filled with alien ship that are trying to stop you. Unlike the Time Pilot games, you're not constantly on the move here... you can stop and take stock of what's going on around you, which is quite welcome.

After a while, you'll see a bomb floating around. You have to shoot the yellow bomb container, then swoop in and collect the bomb. Bombs are used, in the first three dimensions, to blast holes in the portal that takes you to the next dimension. The more holes you make, the easier it is to fly through the moving barrier and into the portal.


You're sitting by the portal as a bomb floats by. Grab it!

Make it to the fourth dimension, and you'll have the chance to destroy the control ship. You'll need to collect at least five bombs for this... I say "at least", because the control ship is evil, and it's fast, and it will chase you around the level mercilessly. There's a fair chance that you'll miss with at least one bomb, so you'll need a decent supply to be sure you can finish the job... if you survive long enough. This level is more like Time Pilot meets Sinistar.

Z is a heck of a lot of fun. It's fast, smooth and quite a rush, particularly as you progress through the levels and the enemies get more and more vicious. Having to use the space bar for the bombs is a pain, but just adds to the nervous tension, particularly when that control ship is chasing you around. I don't think many people got to play Z in its day... I really enjoyed it then, and it's still a good shooter even now.

Warlock's Quest (Commodore Amiga)

One of the main reasons for writing this blog is to play all the games I've got sitting upstairs, in an attempt to justify keeping them. Many of them are games I've never played or even heard of before, and that's where a lot of the fun lies... seeing whether I've got an undiscovered gem or a waste of disk space.

Warlock's Quest is one of those games I'd never heard of. It seemed pretty obvious what it would be when I loaded it up... a role-playing game. Except... it's not.


No, I haven't got a clue what's going on there, either.

To be honest, I still don't really know what was going on. Sometimes, having some instructions can be quite handy. Basically, the game appears to be a shoot 'em up of sorts... the playing area is split into two levels, with your warlock moving from left to right and, where ladders or gaps allow, up and down between the levels.

A range of supernatural creatures are out to stop you from doing... well, whatever it is your quest is. I'd probably have to complete the game to find that out, and I didn't manage it. Mostly because it's hard. If you stay still and blast, you'll last longer. But of course, you won't get anywhere on your quest. The enemies are constantly spawning, so you can't just clear the screen and then move on, either.


Jesus! Those red blobs might be annoying, but I'll take my chances... downstairs looks freaky!

But, in true Gauntlet style, your energy is constantly ticking down, too. So if you do stay still, you'll get a high score before you die, but you will eventually die, so you might as well get a bit of a shift on and see what's on the other screens.

I did kind of enjoy the game... the graphics are very small but endearingly cute in a way. Apart from the scary stuff... it started to get a bit weird and freaky further on. God knows what I would have found if I'd managed to get further. I can't see me ever playing it again... it's out of the way now, and I can at least say I've played it. I didn't hate it, but there was nothing particularly outstanding there to encourage me to go back to it.