Reviews
Reviews by Alessandro Grussu (442)
Hard on both eyes and ears, this pathetic excuse for a game wasn't already good in its own time, now it's absolutely awful.
If your idea of fun is to wait 15 minutes or so staring at a mess of crude, color-clashing sprites, for the "right" time to jump through a hole in a platform, just to see another hole opening under your character's feet and being forced to start all over again, then this piece of garbage is for you.
Jumping Jack? Jumping Cack, I'd say.
Yes, the tape multi-load was a pain in the neck, and at times it was quite slow, which for a fighting game is a real sin.
But if you consider the complexity of the original coin-op, especially the fact that you simply could not replicate all of its subleties with just a Z80 CPU, 128K RAM, a lever and one button available, the Spectrum version wasn't all that bad, especially if compared to the Amiga version for instance, which could have been much better given the available resources.
Not the best fighting game on the Spectrum, but far from the worse - Oriental Hero, anyone? - and a brave attempt in itself.
Utterly frustrating down to the point of being infuriating, this sort of pearl collecting simulator seems to be, to my amazement, highly regarded by the Spectrum users community. The most unfair aspect is in my opinion its flip-screen gameplay, which means you'll more than often bump into a nastie without being able to do anything to avoid it. The only redeeming features, which make me assign it a 2 instead of a 1, are most of the sea inhabitants' sprites, some are particularly well done and animated.
This is a game I would recommend to masochists and self-haters only.
Originally a budget title, this sort of cross between Jet-Pac and Kosmic Kanga is an entertaining little game where you have to collect the pieces of a starship scattered across a dangerous landscape. Each level is more difficult than the previous one, therefore giving a challenge to the constant and determined player.
Simplistic but clean graphics, good use of color and sound, and taxing gameplay make Pogotron a nice pastime.
An absolute classic, this ideal follow-up to Jet-Pac is quite taxing and definitely not recommended for easily discouraged players.
Polished graphics and sound in pure Ultimate style are just the most superficial aspect of an absorbing game which will have you always on the lookout for the next batch of aliens.
A true milestone in 8-bit generation videogaming.
Jackal, 16 Jun 2011 (Rating: 3)
Surely this is not the game you would show other people to make them aware of what you can technically achieve with a Spectrum, but despite sketchy (if colourful) graphics and almost no sound, it's a fun run-and-shoot game, and not an easy one to boot. Enemies will come to you like flies and you will also have to negotiate some very nasty turret emplacements. A passable conversion from the coin-op, but not a bad game in itself.
Desolator is a conversion of a relatively obscure Sega coin-op, Halls of Kairos, which involves your character going around a maze-like haunted mansion rescuing little kids who are being held captive there.
I remember having played the coin-op personally and as a conversion this is a good effort. It is the coin-op itself that is a little bland on the gameplay side; unfortunately, this aspect has been ported to the Spectrum conversion as well.
Not bad, but not very exciting either, although this is no fault of the Spectrum version.
A bad and partial version of a wonderful coin-op which was also known by its Japanese title, Xain'd Sleena, Soldier Of Light reeks of "rush job" from start to finish.
Not only the bland and colorless graphics bear almost no resemblance to the original game, and sound is almost absent, but the frantic pace of the coin-op has been turned into a dull and repetitive platform exercise with a bit of side-scrolling shoot-em-up in the middle.
The wonderful and atmospheric settings, the end-of-level bosses, the giant motherships, the strange creatures which populated the alien worlds have been left behind, and what we have is a mutilated version which lacks half of the levels of the original and will be completed by an average player on the third go.
One of the worst Spectrum coin-op conversions ever in my opinion, if not the worst.
A real classic, the first proper object-based arcade adventure, with great graphics, sound, gameplay, only slightly marred by color clash between sprites and background - but which does not interfere with game enjoyment at all. The best of the whole Wally series in my opinion.
While the idea is as interesting as it is morally questionable - a South American dictator simulator -, this game is too erratic to be really enjoyable. The underlying mechanics seem to be more random than logical; you will often not understand why things seem to go the opposite way you try to push them. In the long way this gives room to frustration and boredom. Not recommended.
Not bad as a pinball game, but in terms of physics accuracy and "feel" it can't hold a candle to Sagittarian's ancient Pinball Simulator.
A very playable and accurate conversion of the coin-op, which manages to convey the frantic action of the original. Pity for the pretty simplistic and colorless graphics though.
Axons, 16 Jun 2011 (Rating: 1)
This obscure unofficial Czech Xenon II clone is one of the worst shoot-em-ups I ever played on any system. Sketchy and garishly colored graphics, slow and jerky scrolling and movement, tired gameplay make this game a real disaster.
Luckily there are many better similar games available for the Spectrum. This is simply bad.
Although this was highly regarded when 16K was the state of the art, it now shows all its age, and it's not a pretty sight. After 10 minutes or so, this faux-3D chase game becomes boring and repetitive, letting you want something more varied and deep. Still, it keeps a certain charm - of the way we played when the Spectrum was young!
Boring and shallow Christmas themed game, good for kiddies only (in 1989; I think even kids would not give a damn to this nowadays). Cute cartoon graphics save it from being a total waste of time.
A poor and badly aged variation on the Pac-Man theme. Has some interesting ideas but the global realization is simply too basic and sketchy. The bleeping noises are also quite irritating. Avoid.
An almost unknown independently produced game where you, as Montana Jones (probably), must retrieve a certain number of coffers from each level in order to unlock the exit to the next one.
This does not sound like we are considering the most original game ever, but its strength lies in the realization; graphics are simple but clear, with a proper use of color, and levels are arranged in a way that forces you to think about the best route, but not too long since you are also, from the second level on, being chased by enemies whose touch is fatal.
A nice platform collect-em-up game indeed.
Exolon, 16 Jun 2011 (Rating: 5)
A superb platform/shooter, coded by master Raffaele Cecco, Exolon is a great example of its genre. As a futuristic super-soldier (called Vitorc in the Crash and Sinclair User reviews, but not in the game instructions), you must negotiate 125 screens divided into 5 levels full of enemies and traps, jumping over platforms and using teleports. The backpack rocket launcher will help you overcome the obstacles barring your way. If you find the exoskeleton you may double your firepower and trample over mines without harm, but you won't be awarded the special 10,000 points bonus each time you reach the end of a level.
Every aspect of the game is flawless: graphics, sound, playability, progressive difficulty, you name it. Exolon can deceive the casual player by appearing either somewhat slow or sometimes too difficult, on the brink of impossibility. But this is one of those rare games where the ability to think about the best route to take must be paired with sharp reflexes in order not to be overwhelmed by the ever-present dangers. A true classic. 5/5
Not the most original Spectrum game ever, and pretty taxing too, but well made and certainly not unfair to the player, Turbo Girl is a vertical shoot-em-up where you must drive a bike along a very dangerous path. Luckily you have got a projectile weapon which can help you in negotiating the obstacles you'll meet.
There are quite a few similar games available for the Spectrum, and Turbo Girl is a good one - although not quite one of the best.
The concept at the base of this puzzle game is interesting. Unfortunately the actual realization leaves a lot to be desidered. Gameplay is most of the times confusing and based on casual factors rather than strategy and thought, and for such games this is a mortal sin. Most of the times you simply do not feel to be in control of the situation. Not a game I'd recommend.
A very bland and unexciting collection of sports events which pales even in comparison with older titles like Daley Thompson's Decathlon.
A bland arcade adventure with sparse graphics and sound and mostly illogical gameplay. There are many similar games available for the Spectrum way better than this. Riddler's Den is not completely awful, but is not a game I'd recommend to anyone but the player who's already cracked the Dizzy, Wally and Magic Knight series.
Zorro, 16 Jun 2011 (Rating: 2)
Pretty poor in terms of both presentation and gameplay, Zorro is a platform with some adventure elements which never really takes off.
Not a patch on similar titles like Bruce Lee, Zorro shows some good tricks here and there, but not enough to lift the whole game above mediocrity.
Gotcha, 16 Jun 2011 (Rating: 1)
Abysmal excuse for a game, with horrible graphics, ear-ripping sounds, frustrating gameplay and a few bugs as well, I only cared to play it because Alexander "Alex_Lux" Lukic chose it for the Speccy Tour 2008. The irony of it was that I went first in the individual competition and this helped me win that year's Tour.
Alex has been a knightly opponent, and I reckon him as the most influential Spectrum game player ever. He has shown to be a nice and friendly person as well. That said, I'll never - ever - forgive him for forcing me to play this appalling piece of garbage!
A pretty good effort, considering the complexity of the original coin-op. Nice but scarcely animated graphics and almost no sound do not play in its favor. Pity you couldn't throw Hadouken energy spheres but Sagat could!
Of all the home computer versions, and I played all of them, this was the best one - think about the others then (the C64 "UK" version being particularly appalling!).
I never liked this arcade adventure very much. Colorful but somewhat basic graphics, sparse gameplay which made you spend too much time in finding your way around and an insane level of difficulty and frustration never made me think much of it.
Surely it is not bad, but it is much less polished and entertaining than, say, any similar game from the Wally series.
I don't like Vectron. It looks dated even for my retrogamer likings, and the game action is too hectic and difficult to follow to me. Most of the time I couldn't exactly figure out what was going on. I'd choose Gyron over this a hundred times.
A pretty poor clone of Xecutor which came as a free game with a Your Sinclair cover tape, Ano Gaia (a title sounding quite dubious for Italian and Spanish speakers!) is just another run-of-the mill shooter with bland graphics, sparse sound and absolutely nothing to make it stand out of the crowd.
One of the first Code Masters offering, and one of the best. A BMX racing simulator where you can compete against the computer or another player over a set of well-laid and presented tracks.
The only thing I do not like is the pretty grating sound of the bikes going around, but it is just a minor fault in what is a jolly good budget game.
I reckon it's also much better than its sequel.
Enduro, 16 Jun 2011 (Rating: 1)
A horrible port of an ancient Atari 2600 racing game. Looked and played bad even in its time - no competition for other oldies like Pole Position. Nowadays it is just plain awful. Avoid like Ebola virus.
A fighting game which is repetitive, ridiculously easy and as slow and clumsy as swimming in a pool filled with jam. Stick with Usagi Yojimbo if you like murderous rabbits.
Apart from its Thatcherian-Reaganian overtones (quite common in the 80s anyway), this is a pretty good shoot-em-up which will test your skills to a rather high level. Nice graphics and music, plus taxing but fair gameplay make it rise, although not very much, from the crowd.
If I was given the possibility of awarding this game with a 6, I'd gladly do it - and for it only.
This is my favorite Spectrum game ever, combining an excellent presentation with thrilling gameplay which makes your choices crucial in directing the balance, turn after turn, towards victory or defeat.
The presence of so many different scenarios, each with its own peculiarities, and difficulty levels means any game will never be the same as the previous one, making it immensely replayable - which for a Spectrum game is a not so frequent quality.
Crème de la crème - nuff said.
Another example of how to turn a potentially interesting concept into a mediocre game.
Marred by simplistic graphics and jerky scrolling, Alien Evolution puts you against an alien invasion which you have to fend off with more subtle means rather than just zapping them. Unfortunately gameplay turns soon into a series of chores, like lying strings of mines in order to block the proliferation of enemies. Other weapons become available as you progress in the game, but by then you'll probably be already overwhelmed by boredom.
Poor, shallow and repetitive game which looks like it was lifted from a multi-event title à la World Games. Unfortunately the action is too bland to let your attention stick to it for more than 10 minutes or so. Denton Design's worst game in my opinion; it does not retain any of the usual charm and quirkyness of their titles.
One of the finest coin-op conversions for the Spectrum. Good graphics and sound are coupled to a run-jump-swim-and-shoot action which holds enough variety to avoid becoming repetitive.
Another coin-op conversion - and a faithful one as well. Better than the Spectrum version of its prequel (Shinobi), Shadow Dancer is a competent platform-shooter (with shurikens) hybrid with the added novelty of a dog who is able to assault enemies, distracting them enough to let you fly a shuriken in their direction.
As for the coin-op, though, the action tends to become a tad samey.
A superb example of how to translate the tension and atmosphere of a great movie to a computer game, The Untouchables is a collection of mini-games, each related to one of the main moments of the movie, which come together seamlessly in a feast of great graphics, sound and music.
I finished it and sent the solution to The Tipshop. It's not very deep or complex, but the sheer zaniness of the atmosphere is worth more than just a laugh. A lighthearted little text adventure for the player who likes to put his tongue in his cheek every now and then.
There are some pretty good BASIC games around. Orchard Thief just isn't one of them.
I found this on a tape together with other equally awful games, but for some reason I can't explain, I only remember this one. Probably because it was the most crude and appalling of all.
Do not waste a second of your life on Orchard Thief. You'll regret it.
One of the most overrated Spectrum games ever in my opinion. Basically a maze game with odd, extremely stylized graphics, Android Two is a game where you have to run through a maze shooting giant worms in the head, avoiding some droids which can be shot and some other which can't, and caring not to step on one of the countless mines lying around.
If that's your idea of fun, fine. Me, I won't touch this any more in my life after playing it for Speccy Tour 2009.
Skyfox, 17 Jun 2011 (Rating: 4)
A 3D shoot-em-up cunningly disguised as a "light" flight simulator, Skyfox puts you at the controls of the eponymous aircraft, a fictitious state-of-the-art fighter, against an alien invasion of Earth.
The presence of several different missions and scenarios and the various levels of difficulty add considerable depth and replayability to an already good game, which should please arcade zappers as well as players used to simulations but looking for a simpler, more action-oriented challenge.
A mediocre budget clone of Shinobi. The Spectrum coin-op conversion wasn't brilliant, but it was altogether better than this rip-off. Don't bother and stick with the original or, even better, with the conversion from the sequel, Shadow Dancer.
A superb maze game where you, controlling Mervyn the apprentice wizard, who accidentally turned himself into a frog, have to defeat eight wizards for each of the eight levels of a fearful dungeon in order to regain your human form.
The atmospheric graphic style featuring a different maze layout for each level, with distinctive colors and progressively stronger enemies, the wide choice of spells you must use to withstand the challenge, but above all the absorbing and complex, yet fast-paced and taxing gameplay make Ranarama a true classic which will give you many hours of good fun.
A very nice variation on the Pac-Man theme, featuring pleasing cartoonish graphics and fast-and-furious action. Different power-ups apart from the usual power pill add depth, although the action tends to become a little repetitive, as it is usually the norm with titles featuring such a simple gameplay.
A poor rip-off of Pyjamarama, with crude graphics and not a hint of that masterpiece's subtlety. At least it came out on budget price.
Excellent conversion from the Sega driving game. High points are: great graphics with great use of colors; convincing impression of speed; the ability to adjust the controls sensitivity. The tracks are progressively difficult and on the longest and most difficult courses you will need to master every bend and twist in order to reach the end, thus making the whole experience much longer and absorbing than, say, Enduro Racer. Sound is pretty poor, with the tune at the beginning being particularly irritating, but that's just a minor point for such a superb example of a Spectrum coin-op conversion. 5/5
Very simple budget side-scrolling shoot-em-up. Good, no-nonsense zapping-and-dodging fun, but nothing else to hold your attention for a long time.
One of the most gruesome and bizarre-looking Spectrum games ever turns out to be a pretty straightforward flip-screen shoot-and-collect-em-up affair where you have to find the giant fridge first, and your mother's body parts later.
Normally I would have awarded it a 3, but it gets a 4 because of its novelty value due to its gory, off-the-wall atmosphere, and because it went out as a budget game, so it was not bad value for the money.
If Soft & Cuddly was a movie, it would be a low-budget, early 80s Cannibal flick in my opinion.
A rare example of a murder mystery game on the Spectrum, Killed Until Dead puts you as detective Hercule Holmes against the Red Herring Club, the elite association of the five greatest murder mystery writers. They have gathered at the Gargoyle Hotel for a meeting which is, as a matter of fact, an excuse to settle several old issues. One of the members will be killed at midnight, and it's your task to prevent this nefarious design from becoming reality.
You must collect clues about the killer, the intended victim, the place chosen for the aggression and the weapon that will be used by breaking into the guests' rooms (obviously when they're not in), secretly taping their conversations and finally interrogating them.
If you manage to gather clues strong enough to understand the whole plan, you will be able to make an accusation, but beware! Should you fail, a bullet will be fired at you by an unknown hand!
This is a unique and superb game, full of nice touches and humor, which will require a constant and progressive use of your gray matter in order to solve the many different cases offered to your attention. Play it and prepare to be challenged to something you rarely experience on the Spectrum.
As a conversion from the Sega coin-op, Altered Beast is good - almost everything you would expect if you played the original is there, down to the intro/attract mode. Trouble is, the graphics are a bit messy, almost on the edge of psychedelia, so the Spectrum version could not suit to everybody's tastes.
Besides, the coin-op itself was, excluding the metamorphosis trick, relatively straightforward, so the game overall gets a 3 for being a competent conversion, but not a really exciting game in itself.
As all H.P.'s rip-offs, this is best left in the garbage can of Spectrum gaming history. Play the original instead.
A tough and taxing game, especially in the second part, Game Over shows great graphics - although with a fair bit of color clash here and there - and frantic, nail-biting gameplay. It is difficult, but if you manage to complete it without cheating, you will have something to be proud of!
Not recommended to players which are either easily discouraged, or anguished at the thought of feeling alone agains seemingly endless hordes of enemies, or both.
iD, 24 Jun 2011 (Rating: 3)
An interesting idea, but too thin and dry to make a whole, full-fledged game out of it. Worth more as a historical curiosity than else.
What's the point of computer pinball games if they can't give you a proper experience of moving ball physics? Macadam Bumper has sparse gameplay - the table is very simple and short of bonuses and surprises - and the ball seems to have a mind of its own sometimes.
With its Pinball, Sagittarian was able to do much better in only 16K! Play that instead.
I never liked this game too much, and that's not because of the horrid rendition of the theme from Bizet's Carmen playing in the background, or at least not only for that. Yes, some of the screens are quite devious and require a considerable amount of strategical planning to be solved, but as a whole I find it somewhat derivative and formulaic.
A masterpiece of a game, which will absorb you in the quest for the ultimate landscape. Imagine the child's game of hide-and-seek, the law of conservation of energy and the Cartesian principle of dualism between mind and body, all rolled into one, and you will have a partial idea of what this experience - more than a game - is. A pinnacle in video gaming for every system it was converted to.
A feeble attempt to a race-maze game in 3D perspective with some shooting.
Sparse visuals and action won't make your attention last for long. Not badly done, just too bland.
Irritating music, primitive and eye-soring visuals (which aren't any better than the C64 version, despite what Matt B wrote) and dumb, repetitive gameplay make Chinese Juggler one of the worst titles in the whole Ocean catalogue. Avoid like plague.
Another potentially good idea gets wasted in its realization. Simplistic graphics and gameplay pave the way to boredom pretty soon, dissolving the initial novelty value deriving from the unusual setting.
If the game's aim was to give its players all the fun and excitement of driving around a featureless town at slow speed dealing vegetables and fruit to grocery stores, it has been carried out extremely well.
I don't like this game - and that's beyond the scarce sympathy I have for the reactionary, goody-two-shoes character of Tintin himself.
I find it too much repetitive and shallow despite being nice to look at, games from the Perry/Bruty couple never looked lousy. I was so bored with it that I didn't even know there was a final stage set on the Moon! For Tintin fans only.
A competent driving game, but driving around the same course again and again is not the greatest idea of fun in my opinion. Does manage to give a convincent impression of speed though.
I'd pick Out Run over this any day - might be a tad slower, especially in the "gallery" level, but it's much more varied, and that's more important to me.
Ugly, primitive and simplistic maze game with a hint of role-playing which does not hold a candle to equally early efforts like Maziacs or Androids. Didn't like it back in the day, like it even less nowadays.
Pedro, 24 Jun 2011 (Rating: 1)
A very simple game with crude graphics and sound and dubious collision detection.
Has a nice cartoony loading screen, but that's just the only good point I can find in it. Abysmal.
Very poor attempt at a country management game where you are supposed to do a lot of exciting things like drilling oil, buy and sell gold and move a tank every now and then.
Not only it gets boring quite soon, but it also never lets you feel that the outcome of events depends from your actions.
The added "graphics" section, with its sluggish and unintuitive interface, only manages to make an already bad situation worse.
An awful clone of Manic Miner with less levels and without even the necessity of collecting objects in order to unlock the exit. Don't bother.
Spectrum version of an old hand-held game. Competently done, but as all games of this kind, very simple. Good for some no-frills fun and/or if you are a hand-held nostalgic.
Spectrum version of an old hand-held game with the added bonus of lovely characters from the popular (in former USSR) Nu, Pogodi! series.
Like Diver Mystery Of The Deep, this is competently done, but as all games of this kind, very simple. Good for some no-frills fun and/or if you are a hand-held nostalgic.
Motos, 29 Jun 2011 (Rating: 5)
Excellent conversion of an original Namco coin-op where you have to push your enemies off a platform floating in the air, but without hanging on too much, for a meteor shower will arrive and destroy the tiles, putting you at risk of falling off.
Different layouts, foes which become stronger and smarter, a strategy element consisting in deciding how many disposable power pills - which you collect during the game - you think are needed for push strength and/or jump length, nice graphics, good music and sound effects, plus a budget price earned this game a SU classic back in 1987.
Today, it is still immediately enjoyable and catchy as it was then.
Loosely based on the Jewel Of The Nile movie starring Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas, this is an arcade adventure where each screen is a clever challenge for the player.
You have to lead three characters, by controlling each one of them at a time, along a dangerous path starting in the city of Luxor, Egypt, in order to thwart the dastardly plan of the evil Governor of Assuan, who wants to enslave the free tribes of the Nile.
The game is certainly not recommended for the casual player and easily frustrated people since a lot of patience will be required to negotiate the dangers which lie ahead. You are outnumbered and without careful planning the minions of the Governor will soon end your adventure.
Howewer, like all games of this kind, your efforts will be rewarded since you won't be doing any routine tasks, thus keeping the player's attention alive. The pleasing cartoon graphics and the distinct Oriental atmosphere add a lovely touch to an already good title.
E-SWAT, 29 Jun 2011 (Rating: 1)
A major disasters. A not superb, but overall pleasing coin-op, reminiscent of Robocop, is turned into a mess of squat and sketchy graphics, jerky movements and action which is as exciting as waiting for snails to come out of their shells. A real waste of a licence and a truly horrendous game in itself.
Cabal, 29 Jun 2011 (Rating: 4)
Great conversion of the Tad coin-op. Does not get a 5 from me due to the lack of two-player mode and of the roll which lets you avoid enemy bullets, but apart from this, it is really well done.
I simply hate this game. Stick characters running around a sketchy maze collecting yellow rectangles are not my idea of fun. I usually enjoy platform/puzzles hybrids, but I never could get any fun from this - too insipid and frustrating for my tastes.
A peculiar icon-driven cartoon-styled adventure where you have to lead a pack of wacky characters in a South American country in the '20s in order to stop a mad scientist from making the fundamentals of the British empire - cricket games and the suchlike - collapse.
For non-British players most, if not all, of the humor is sadly unintelligible. Besides, the puzzles can sometimes be very subtle, even thin logically speaking - you sometimes have to resort to the old trial-and-error method, and this can easily lead to frustration.
However, the unusual presentation and the considerable depth of the game - it is split in two pretty long parts - make it a little gem, which should keep any adventure fun really busy.
A budget side-scrolling shoot-em-up where you have to negotiate ten levels packed with ten different kinds of enemies.
For a budget game it is quite reasonable: adeguate graphics, even if some color schemes look rather questionable, and sound effects. The fact that you have to negotiate each level in a peculiar way, plus the need to take care of your fuel and ammunitions, add some depth to the action.
Not a masterpiece, but an enjoyable little game for run-and-gun fans.
A nice little game, with clear and colorful graphics and pleasing tunes and sound effects, FJHH is openly inspired to Mr. Do, a very old Universal coin-op which was never converted for the Spectrum.
It is pretty simple and good for casual gaming, so it's not likely to hold your attention for a long time. But while it does, it will surely be a fun time.
Five years before Dune II, there was Nether Earth - 4X real-time strategy in an odd non-isometric 3D perspective which worked very well.
Trying to claim Earth back from the mysterious Insignan race, the human resistance forces have seized a base. From there robots must be assembled to grab more resources, protect key points on the map and ultimately capture or destroy the other three bases.
The initial sensation of being overwhelmed by an almighty enemy, the joy as the game progresses with every factory you gain, the tense battles between robots - which you can control yourself as well as leave with assigned orders - make Nether Earth an attractive and satisfying experience. Is it true that from the moment you capture your second base the tide starts to swing noticeably on your side, but before you manage to do that, you will have to sweat a lot!
An early racing game which was not very good in its own times; now it's downright awful.
Main features are poor graphics, dubious collision management and monotonous gameplay. To be avoided at all costs.
One of the most overrated games ever - on the C64 at least -, Microprose Soccer is a soccer arcade game vaguely reminiscent of the venerable Tehkan World Cup coin-op.
Looks pretty flashy initially but interest wanes as soon as you realise that the only way to score a goal is 90% of the time a diagonal shot just a little out of the goal area. Even more unrealistic is the infamous "banana shot" - luckily, it can be turned off.
MS was a bit more playable on the C64 due to the different colors of playing teams. On the Spectrum, the two-color scheme (green and black) makes such distinction harder.
Not a turkey - it's competently programmed - but certainly not up to the hype which marked its release.
Gryzor, 15 Sep 2011 (Rating: 5)
A very good conversion of the Konami run-and-gun coin-op. On the 128K you also get great tunes and sound effects. Graphics are pretty basic and a bit prone to flicker sometimes, but that's a minor annoyance considering how well the conversion has been put together. Well done.
Seen with today's eyes it would look rather basic, like a pinball table from the 60's, but Sagittarian Pinball is one of the most realistic and accurate pinball simulators you can find for the Spectrum - and it runs on 16Ks!
A big and boring Atic Atac rip-off. Avoid unless you need a cure for insomnia.
A little budget game made of two sections, both of which are neither good nor interesting. Horrible even for 1985 standards, let alone today. Don't bother.
Guide the wizard around the rooms to collect magic items in order to rescue three fellow sorcerers.
Not a very complex game in itself, Sorcery requires good reflexes and fast action. Hasn't aged very well but it's not bad either, good for the odd game or two.
In 1986 an enhanced version was released within the Now Games 3 compilation.
A flip-screen Commando clone which was mildly entertaining as it was released, but now shows all the weight of age, especially if compared with the Spectrum conversion of the coin-op it took inspiration from.
Sprites are sketchy, noticeably flickery and tend to merge with the background; sound is almost non-existent; the flip-screen gameplay is not well implemented and you can - and will - get killed as soon as you enter a screen just because you didn't see what was coming next.
Even the not-so-great Spectrum conversion of Jackal is better than this - you are able to see what can kill you, and graphics do not flicker. 5/10.
One of several movie tie-ins which were increasingly more often released between the 80's and 90's, Darkman reflects the movie it's based upon: not that good, but not that bad either.
Graphics are colorful albeit not very detailed, sound features some nice tunes and effects, and the different sections provide enough variation to keep you interested, although difficulty is rather high - and you've only got a single life. This one in particular is the most annoying aspect of the game; playability would have benefited from giving the player at least three attempts instead of just one.
As it is, Darkman is overall an OK effort, but nothing really out of the ordinary.
Karnov, 15 Sep 2011 (Rating: 5)
A superb conversion of a not-so-well-known Data East coin-op featuring a fire-breathing Russian on a dangerous path leading to the long lost treasure of Babylon guarded by a fearsome dragon.
Karnov is a huge game - 9 large levels full of enemies and traps, no less - and features large, colorful and defined graphics, although 1-character block moving does not make animation and scrolling very smooth. However, there is so much variety and surprise in this title that you will be hooked to the screen just to see what comes next.
You have been imprisoned on a mining asteroid for life and want to escape. Simple premise for a simple, but interesting budget adventure. Could be confusing at first due to the odd room layout, and the fact that the place is at first glance devoid of anything which could offer you a chance of making your aim real. Other than that it's a pretty good adventure.
Very overrated shoot-em-up. Published with a lot of hype on the C64, it was a definite triumph of style over substance. On the Spectrum, the realisation is so sketchy that you can safely omit the style, and the game reveals itself for what it is - a basic space shooter with very little variety and irritatingly moving backgrounds.
If you put the blatant Reagan-esque evil-empire anti-Soviet rhetoric aside, this is a really interesting game, where the sum of the different parts is better than the individual sections themselves.
The weaker parts are the first and the last - the first being a boring exercise in keypressing, the last an annoying phase where you have to hit the cooling robot from behind with some bouncing explosive disks. The game fares much better in the intermediate shooter sections.
With some more balance between its parts, it could have been better. As it is, Raid Over Moscow is however a good game, following the path first laid by Beach Head.
An exploration platform game set inside a medieval castle where you have to find three magic stones. Hmmm, haven't I heard that before? Originality is not Glaurung's highest point, and neither are the graphics - colorful but not very detailed -, sound and gameplay. Good for those who like this kind of game, but as a full-price title it looks and plays definitely average and not in the same league of contemporary or earlier games like, say, Dynamite Dan.
Not a patch on Quazatron, Magnetron takes the original formula and worsens it in almost every possible way: boring level layouts, an almost incomprehensible subgame and an overall sensation of "been there, done that" do not play in its favor. The flip-screen nature does away with the awful scrolling of Quazatron however, and adds some color to boot. Not a turkey then, but markedly inferior to the first chapter.
As Trantor, the last Stormtrooper, you need to assemble a code in order to escape the alien-infested place where the assault ship with your comrades was destroyed almost soon after landing, as you can see in the unusual animated sequence shown just upon loading.
The game runs at a fast pace since you must battle against the clock - you've only got 90 seconds to find each letter of the code word - and the aliens come against you thick and fast. Luckily you're armed with a flamethrower, an unusual but effective weapon.
Technically, the game is brilliant. Graphics are large and well animated - particularly noticeable are the player character sprite and the big, deadly alien found only on one of the levels - and a good tune plays on the menu screen (in 48K!). General presentation is also original and well done, from the short intro to the icon-driven menu. However, the frantic gameplay and the fact that you must constantly look after your energy and ammunition levels since you've only got one life make Trantor very difficult, and sometimes even frustrating. It's good then, but it would have been better were it not so hard. 4/5
An original and unusual peacekeeping simulation set in a somewhat dystopian near future where the world is divided in 16 superstates, each with different technological and economical levels, but all armed with atomic weapons. Your task is to try to encourage cooperation and goodwill as much as possible in order to avoid a full-scale nuclear war. This involves diplomatic actions as well as communication eavesdropping carried out with spy satellites.
Competently done and somewhat frightening - if you think about the responsibility weighing on your shoulders - this is a complex title which requires a lot of judgement, and it is therefore not recommended for those gamers who prefer action above all.
A superb sequel to a good game, Saboteur II manages to keep the key gameplay elements which made the first chapter so successful while expanding the formula to a larger, more complex and overall more satisfying experience. As a female ninja your task is once again to defeat the dictator, this time by infiltrating his huge fortess and sabotaging his missile, then escaping on board of a motorbike. Android guards and vicious pumas will try to stop you, but you will also need to care not to fall from great heights, which will have a severe impact on your energy levels. Nine missions of increasing difficulty largely enhance the game's length and replayability.
A proper example of how to do a game sequel, Saboteur II is nonetheless a great title in itself. The only niggle is that it is somewhat slower than the first game - not to the point of being unplayable of course, but if you played Saboteur you will notice it. Alex Rider did an accelerated version for both 48K and 128K Spectrums, which you can download from my website, featuring Oleg Origin's excellent new loading screen and speeded-up with my own SetoLOAD turbo loading scheme. 5/5
In this sequel to the one-on-one sword fighting game, you come back either as the Barbarian, this time armed with a double axe, or the sword-wielding Princess, in order to defeat the vicious Drax once and for all.
Through three levels - the wasteland, caves and Drax's dungeon - you will meet several enemies, and each one of the requires a different approach to be defeated. Some of them, like the dinosaur in the first level, can kill you with a single blow, but you can do the same if you, as in the first game, manage to behead them.
The final battle will once again require you to use (a bit of) strategy since pure brawl won't cut it. Some items scattered throughout the levels will also be very useful if you find and understand how to use them.
All in all, an enjoyable hack-and-slash escapade, not so long but with a good deal of variety.
I never understood what people see in this game that makes them think it's so good. Even for an early game I find it too sparse and "empty" both in terms of presentation and gameplay. It's not awful, but it doesn't cut it for me either. Even the early Mikro-Gen shooters like Galakzions or Space Zombies are more addictive to me.
An OK Galaxians clone. Not bad for the odd game or two, but there's better around, even considering early games like this one.
A curious and frantic variation on the "shoot the aliens" theme. The Zombies fly in ever-increasing number following a pattern which looks not unlike a sort of hypnotising dance. Concentrating on them and avoiding being hit by a bullet or an enemy becomes therefore more and more difficult. An unusual and interesting if slightly annoying little shooter.
Savage, 25 Sep 2011 (Rating: 4)
From a technical point of view, this game is interesting for the way it manages to combine fast movement with a colorful display which overcomes the traditional limits of the Spectrum. As a game in itself, though, it is hardly original. Three rather short parts - run-and-shoot, avoid-the-obstacles in pseudo-3D à la Death Chase and a side-view multi-scrolling maze game - should be negotiated in sequence, each one being separately loaded from tape even on 128K (and without any enhancement to boot). It's not bad, as a whole it is better than the simple sum of its parts in fact - but I'd call it a real case of style over substance.
Excellent conversion of the military-themed multi-event sport coin-op from Konami.
All events have been faithfully reproduced from the original. Most of them involve the usual joystick waggling with the odd fire button pressing, which must be performed with great care - the first event is particularly punishing about this.
However there are some sections where you will have to shoot targets and even use unarmed combat, the last task being a hostage rescue mission from a terrorist occupied embassy.
A great conversion and a fun and varied game in itself, albeit some events are much more difficult than others.
SQIJ!, 14 Oct 2011 (Rating: 1)
I don't know whether this sort of binary monstrosity - which only by a very long stretch of imagination can be referred to as a "game" - was an actual piece of commercially distributed software, or just a plain joke. A very sick joke!
A noteworthy rendition of the great 2000 AD comic series - which is sadly completely lacking an Italian release even at the time of writing (November 2011). Good, clear graphics and nice touches such as the quotes from your fallen comrades as long as you proceed in the game are especially interesting.
If you go around killing Northern soldiers mindlessly, your adventure will soon come to an end - apart from when you are in Nu-Ruthin, your energy falls constantly, your ammo is limited and you should therefore use medikits and ammo packs only when you really need them.
That said, the game is not very hard and once you learn how to manage your supplies efficiently you will be able to complete your mission without much effort. This is undoubtedly the biggest drawback of the game.
The hardest Judge of all roams around the streets of Mega City One in search of villains and perps to be arrested or terminated on the spot, accordingly to the crime they have committed.
Once you arrive to the scene of a crime you must guide Dredd to face the villain by running and jumping up and down various sets of platforms, avoiding killing innocent bystanders and using droids as cover when you are shot at. Some criminals will raise their arms up just by telling them to stop or by shooting a blank cartridge. Others will require different kinds of ammunition - you've got the usual Lawgiver gun choice of normal, incendiary, ricochet, explosive and armour piercing (in different quantities). If you have run out of ammo you can even use your fists, but they are not very effective.
On the whole, the game looks not bad (although some color choices for the backdrops are questionable at best) and plays pretty well for a while, but it gets repetitive in the long run since once you've figured out how to negotiate every particular block, you won't have much of a challenge - missions are pretty much the same altogether.
Yeti, 07 Jan 2012 (Rating: 3)
A shameless rip-off of Exolon, with inferior graphics, sound and gameplay. Not awful, but the original is tons better.
Dispatching the four arch-enemies in the plague-infested village can be very difficult, considering that each one requires a peculiar weapon you have to find first. Great presentation - the Ultimate flavor is still strong here - but somewhat sparse gameplay, and the strategic element which the different effects of the antibodies should have on the nasties ends up being somewhat annoying. Still, it's a good game, just not as great as other Ultimate offerings.
A great little arcade which looks nice and plays very well despite its age. A good example of earlier Spectrum gaming.
The tie-in from the famous film ends up on the Spectrum with a below-average effort. Sketchy graphics, almost no sound and pretty obvious puzzles make this a forgettable movie rendition.
This is by far the best boxing simulation available for the Spectrum. Not only can you choose your man's physical appearance and boxing style, but you must be very careful in your training choices if you want to have a chance to survive each match. You must learn your opponent's strengths as well, and try not to rely on the same tactics over and over.
This game wins hands down!
This arcade adventure is based on a British TV show which as far as I know was never seen in other countries (well, in Italy not for sure), so I can't judge how well its spirit has been translated into this digital incarnation.
However, it's a pretty average game, with monochrome but rather detailed graphics and almost no sound even on the 128K. Puzzles are somewhat obscure but the amount of items and characters you can interact with is limited, and that makes your task - getting out of the castle - a little easier. Cryptic clues are given by two oracles, but one of them is evil and will try to divert you from your path - however it won't be hard to understand who's who, so to speak.
Sometimes you have to throw rocks or fight with enemies, and since all commands are issued with a rolling verb/noun input it could be very difficult to deal with them. A keyboard shortcut would have been better.
Not bad, but not great either. Arcade adventurers will appreciate it, other kinds of players can move along.
A run-and-gun game where as the eponymous Dan you must prevent the evil Mekons to make an asteroid collide with Earth.
It's good, but not as good as many people seem to think, at least in my opinion - I found the action and setting to be a little repetitive for my tastes.
A great unofficial Spectrum version of the classic puzzle game, Atomino, where you have to assemble molecules with atoms of different valency.
Nice clean graphics, great sound and superb gameplay. It also comes with an editor to design your own levels if you want to. And it's free!
Gutz, 07 Jan 2012 (Rating: 3)
Trapped inside a giant alien's body (I wonder how did you end up there in the first place...), your only hope to escape is to find three pieces of a large weapon scattered along each of the four levels and use it to destroy its kidneys, lungs, heart and brain. On each stage you must also use different weapons to kill the nasty hosts roaming around.
It is one of the weakest Special FX games in my opinion - average graphics and sound, pretty repetitive gameplay. Not awful, but not great either.
This is a rather unusual Kung-Fu Master clone with you starring as Danko, the Soviet cop from the movie this game is based upon. Large, cartoony graphics and four different sub-games cannot hide the fact that the gameplay is very simple and the difficulty is due more to the sheer number of enemies than to the tactics you have to use to get rid of them. Still, it's good for some no-nonsense bashing, if you fancy it.
A nice action/strategy hybrid set in a large castle where, as one of three battling princes, you must become king by defeating all of your opponents. This is achieved by a) reaching the throne room at the top of the building, and b) killing your two brothers.
Each time one of your men - you can control only one at a time - meets the enemy troops, or with the castle guards, a duel will start, and if you do not personally manage it (a very simple beat'em up) you'll most probably lose. Reinforcements will arrive provided your prince stays alive long enough. The prince who manages to occupy the throne room will also take control of the guards.
Graphics are somewhat essential but clean, sound is minimal, but gameplay is taxing, easy to get into and hard to come out of. A good effort from the late Mike Singleton.
An average flip-screen clone of the much superior Green Beret. Graphics are colorful but sketchy, sound is essential and gameplay is not very varied. Moreover, you tend to die so easily that the game includes a "Continue" option as well - provided that you hit the "C" key before the extremely fast countdown reaches zero!
There's much worse, but there's also much better than this.
I remember this from one of the Video Basic course tapes. Not too much to be said - it's a feeble attempt at recreating the feel of early Ultimate games. No way Jose! It's repetitive, boring and with none of the charm and care typical of such titles. Avoid.
Despite the appalling graphics, this is a pretty interesting platformer full of surprises, which will put your reflexes to a good test.
Loosely based on the classical myth of the Labors of Hercules, in each screen you have to reach a target by jumping over platforms, climbing on ropes, avoiding nasties etc. You have to perform each "task" several times, each time with a harder screen configuration. It must be also noted that you will have to tackle them in a random order, just to add a little variety.
Some platforms will disappear as soon as you jump on them; others will turn to flames, instantly killing you; eventually, if you do not reach your target in a certain time, every platform will be set on fire.
A budget underrated quirky platform game which should appeal to every fan of the genre.
Very nice, colorful and taxing vertical scrolling budget shoot-em-up featuring 16 levels where you must shoot everything that moves, except for the discs which give you more weapons, additional points, defenses etc., and all flashing obstacles.
Can be frustrating at times but it's great blasting fun overall.
A pretty original budget title vaguely reminiscent of Joust where, instead of riding a bird, you speed around on a sort of anti-gravity skateboard, which is also your weapon! You must clear each different screen from the nasties within a given time, avoiding any contact with them. It's a simple concept but very well done: the game is fast, with clear and nice graphics and sound. Good for those who look for a slick and somewhat unique arcade game.
Yes it's a Pac-Man clone, so you most probably already know everything about it - unless you were born yesterday of course! Big, colorful graphics and different maze layouts make this stand out however. A tried and tested formula which never seems to get old.
A pinball multi-screen simulator which is sadly not much cop. The screen layouts are mostly confusing and the ball seems to go around at random. Pinball is a mostly physical game in itself, and a software simulation of it must be convincing in terms of speed, inertia etc., but there's no real "feel" of such features here. One of Topo Soft's most disappointing games.
This is my guilty pleasure - one of those games so shockingly awful I actually enjoy playing them every now and then, like watching a trash and over-pretentious movie just to poke fun at it. What should have been an action game of street warfare turns out as a hideous mess of garish colors, graphics which look like they were drawn by a 3-year-old kid and shoddy gameplay.
Ninja, 07 Jan 2012 (Rating: 3)
A neat if somewhat too easy beat-and-collect-em-up where you as the eponymous character have to find eight idols scattered around an area teeming with baddies.
The original release had a bug that prevented the player from accessing the highest room, which always hosts one of the idols. Luckily Einar Saukas fixed it and now the game can be completed. Not that it requires too much effort, however, since your enemies are less dangerous than an arthritic squirrel.
As Bennie The Burglar you have to steal everything you can from several households, jumping from platform to platform and avoiding the defenders of law, order and property.
The formula is well tried and tested, but the lovely presentation - in both terms of graphics and sound - and the slick gameplay make Crime Busters a very interesting example of the genre.
Not to be confused with the infamous Spellbound rip-off of the same name.
I'd rather meet with Jason in person than play this awful mess. Yes, it's horrible - but in a disgusting sort of way. Graphics are abysmal, sound is non-existent and the game itself, while on paper could sound interesting, is a real exercise in boredom. Avoid at all costs.
A fast-and-furious shooter reminiscent of the old Shoot-Out Data East coin-op. As a cop you have to dispatch a number of baddies before proceeding to the next screen - there are 10 in total, then the game goes back to the first one. You move along dodging bullets and Molotov cocktails; if you keep Fire pressed you move a crosshair around, which you should use to aim at your enemies.
Graphics are a little basic but clear and colorful with not so much color clash; sound is adequate; gameplay is frantic. A good game to kill a few hours indeed.
I had so much fun with this in my younger years, and still I have a go at it every now and then. It basically boils down to a variation on the Pac-Man theme, with several amusing cultural stereotypes which might raise a few eyebrows in these times of overwhelming political correctness.
Each screen must be negotiated in a peculiar way and in order not to find yourself without enough money to proceed to the next location, you must a) be as quick as possible in completing each task and b) choose your route around the world very carefully.
Although it looks very dated even by the Spectrum's standards, it's still enjoyable in my opinion.
Naff game which manages to be even worse than the already naff movie it's based upon (and that's quite a feat in itself, considering the direness of the latter). Bad graphics, almost no sound, boring gameplay and can be finished on the second or third go.
This game should have been more aptly titled: "Big Trouble in Little China, or How To Waste A Great Movie License". Beacuse that's what it is - a dreadful Kung-Fu Master style game with dire graphics, no sound and gameplay which is as absorbing as watching paint dry on walls. Even the various available weapons seem to have little or no effect on the continuous flow of copycat enemies.
John Carpenter's classic action movie could have easily been turned into a great arcade game, were it tackled by a more competent team. As it is, it's a great example of how to squander an enormous potential into a sub-standard final product.
Great no-nonsense old-school blasting here in this faux-3D shooter which pits you against an invasion by the evil Xylon empire. If you manage to defend your system planets from the Xylon attack, it will be time to turn the tables on them and destroy their bases!
Graphics and colors do look like they have been literally taken from the old system this game first appeared on, but the frantic pace of the action makes up for that and for the little variation in gameplay. Good ol' alien bashing.
IK+, 09 Jan 2012 (Rating: 5)
Together with the old and venerable Way Of The Exploding Fist, this is the best karate beat-em-up available for the Spectrum in my opinion, with the added novelty of a third fighter.
The sprites move quickly and convincingly although their blocky appearance reminds of their C64 counterparts. Sound is better on 128K with a lovely rendition of Rob Hubbard's tune.
Altogether, a great offering, much better than Firebird's Exploding Fist Plus.
Of the glorious Way Of The Exploding Fist only the last two words have been carried over here. The fighter graphics are the same of the second chapter - not very detailed and with some awkward animations. The background is however a lively rendition of a downtown metropolis street. Sound is limited to a few blows.
The problem is that the game is far too easy - you will probably go on and on by using a couple of moves instead of the refined tactics required in the first game of the series, the second being rather an adventure/exploration title.
There is an added bonus mode where you must hit some hideous masks by shooting shurikens at them, but it's poorly implemented and looks more like an afterthought.
A passable beat-em-up which can't hold a candle to the much superior International Karate Plus.
A strategy/adventure title designed by master Mike Singleton where you must, as told in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, bear the Ring to Mount Doom while fending off the forces of evil, namely Sauron's and Saruman's minions. The Ring is initally carried by Frodo Baggins, but if another hero is in your group, you can pass it to him/her.
The game is played in real time as a strategical scale on a map of Middle Earth, dotted with mountains, forests, roads, towns, cities etc. Should you meet an enemy force, the view changes to a green featureless field where you should direct each single character against the enemies, although your forces will fight automatically when attacked. At easier levels, it will be easy to dispatch them, but the harder ones will require you to outnumber them by a large scale.
Not all peoples of Middle Earth will be on your side at the start. To stand a chance of winning you must convince the neutral populations - such as the men of Dale or the Elves of Mirkwood - to follow you in your quest. You must also be wary of the Nazgul, for they will look for the Ring bearer, and one of them alone can wipe out dozens of opponents.
This is a curious blend of strategy with a little adventure and action thrown in for good measure. It will appeal to all fans of Tolkien and to those who look for a not-too-complex strategy game, probably before tackling something "drier".
A decent conversion of an average Sega coin-op. Graphics are rather detailed and reminiscent of the original albeit being monochrome, and sound is only available on the 128K version, which also loads all levels at once. Passable but not great.
Good, colorful and fast - if a little jerky in the scrolling department - conversion of a platform/shooter coin-op which wasn't exactly outstanding in the first place. You can also play it with a friend if you want to. Only major drawback is that it's rather easy to finish once you have memorized how to negotiate the 15 levels.
This run-and-gun game is not bad, but it could be better. Graphics are large and well drawn, but sprites tend to blend with the backgrounds, movement is rather sluggish and general impression is of something which could have been handled better with some more care. There is a hacked color version which improves the visuals so I would give 6/10 to the standard one and 7/10 to the hack.
This game reminds a little of the old Ghosts 'n' Goblins - a lone hero battles against a horde of demonic enemies. Sure it is pretty hard as the older title was! A good, solid effort for those who are not easily discouraged.
Boring, slow, dated even for 1986 standards and as much fun as sweeping horse manure.
A maze game which sadly hasn't aged well at all - simple graphics with garish colors and monotonous gameplay, plus an annoying beep tune continuously running in the background are not what I consider the better recipe for a Spectrum game. Even by 1985 standards this was to be considered archaic.
A colorful vertical shooter in the Lightforce vein, with the added bonus of a weapon power-up, end-of-level motherships, 32 stages and two different backgrounds. And it is a budget game! Superb no-nonsense alien thrashing.
Although it might put the least patient player off, Wizball is a highly rewarding experience in the long run. You must guide a wizard traveling inside a sort of head-shaped spacecraft in order to restore the colors to a land which was deprived from them by an evil power. You must collect power-ups even to let you actually control your craft and to call your Catelite - a smaller ship with your trusty cat as a pilot - which is required to collect the color drops you need to perform your task. To activate power-ups you must rapidly press the left and right keys, or waggle your joystick, à la Daley Thompson.
Nice and smooth graphics, lovely tunes (on 128K!), fast action - which becomes really hectic in later levels - and a quite original mix of traditional (the power-ups) and innovative game mechanics make Wizball a sure classic. The only differences with the first version of the game, made for the C64, are the absence of the bonus level and of the death animation, but they are just niggles when compared with the sheer brilliance of the gameplay. Moreover, I found the bonus level on the C64 a bit of a nuisance, since it breaks the whole action, so I personally do not miss it at all.
A true classic.
A good rendition of the classic pill-muncher game which became officially licensed from Atari after a dispute with DJL, the original author. While not being notably smooth as the coin-op, it's however fast and much better to play than the dozens of lesser imitations which were available on the Spectrum at the time.
For some strange reason somebody at Pirate Software thought about programming a videogame involving yuppies flying on rocket-propelled surf boards and shooting nondescript objects.
The result is a boring and frustrating shoot-em-up which is notable for an insane level of difficulty - contact with everything is fatal, even clouds! - and a tiresome tune playing in the background, together with a digitized voice saying "OK Yah!" every time you start playing and after losing a life. By the fourth time you hear it you will be probably reaching for the volume controls in order not to let it torture your ears anymore.
Maybe worth looking as a bizarre product of an '80s (now thankfully deceased and buried) subculture, but nothing more.
Xen, 22 Jan 2012 (Rating: 3)
A decent budget clone of Light Force, with large and colorful graphics, where you simply have to shoot wave after wave of aliens coming from the top of the screen over a top-down scrolling landscape.
Good if you fancy some casual alien blasting, but there's nothing more here.
An appalling attempt at crossing martial arts scrolling beat-em-ups in the Kung-Fu Master mould with Medieval Europe, Kung Fu Knights is a pathetic and amateurish effort. The gameplay is boring and repetitive, the graphics are bland and unimaginative with some "gems" as the badly masked arrows coming out from nowhere, and the sound is simply grating - with a particularly annoying rendition of the Air from J.S. Bach's third orchestral suite. When you lose your last life you don't even get a "Game Over" message - you are instantly thrown back at the title screen! Avoid like the Black Death.
A less than half-hearted attempt to cross quiz games with snooker. All you have to do is to answer to some (easy) questions and see your ball flicker in the distance.
I really don't understand how Snookered could be so highly regarded by WOS users, much more than dozens of other, much better games.
This is one of the very few simulations of judo available for any system, or possibly - to my knowledge - the only one.
Although several magazines rated it as a decent game, it has been constantly panned by WOS users. I believe the reason behind this is that almost everybody thought it was something akin to a beat-em-up, while ignoring that judo is not a martial art, but a sport where you are _not_ supposed to hit your opponent. Once you figure out how to perform the various moves, it becomes clear that you must use your brain as much as your keys/joystick, if not more.
Graphically wise it could have been much better, although you can still see where your hands and legs are, as well as those of your opponent. The small diagram with the position of both contestants' feet helps a lot.
On a scale of 10 I'd rate this with a 7, i.e. pretty good in its own merit although not excellent.
This game is a conversion from the IREM coin-op of the same name, which in turn is a late '80s version of their former classic, Kung-Fu Master - hence the strong similarities in gameplay. You control, not surprisingly, a vigilante whose task is to rescue Madonna (!) from the clutches of a skinhead gang (although your enemies appear to be much more varied than simple shaved-bald loonies).
Graphically it's colorful but sprites and backgrounds are merely adequate, and not very detailed. Sound is pretty sparse. However, Vigilante is a good conversion from the original, as much as it suffers from its same basic problem - it's a pretty shallow and repetitive game, which difficulty is based more on the quantity of your enemies than on the necessity of always adopting new tactics to negotiate the five levels it's made up with.
Proper conversion of a rather run-of-the-mill coin-op beat-em-up.
A simple but fast and addictive shoot-em-up in four levels by master Jonathan Smith, which was only available on a Sinclair User cover tape in June 1988. Good to keep you entertained for some time; it's nothing earth-shattering, but the presentation shows all the class the late Joffa was capable of.
A simple beat-em-up in the Yie-Ar Kung Fu vein which looks decent at first sight, but ends much too soon. Not worth it even on budget - choose the original instead.
A really nice shoot-em-up with some more variety than the average game of this kind, since you fight both on foot - à la Exolon - and with your craft, in a way not too distant from R-Type.
Graphics are pretty to look at, and add a touch of class to an already neat game.
It's another alien-basher at its core - but a worthy one.
Poor attempt at a multi-event beat-em-up, ending up in three sub-games, none of which manages to involve the player in any way. Fighters look and act more like dancers; available moves are few and look more or less the same; there is almost no "feel" of action coming from the screen.
A much better effort was Way Of The Tiger, also released by Gremlin, the previous year. I'd suggest you to play that one instead.
Superb rendition of the 16-bit arcade with a bit of light strategy thrown in as well, North And South is a comedy look on the American Civil War, as seen through a French comic book, Les Tuniques Bleues.
All the features of the original have been retained in the Spectrum version, which boasts great and colorful graphics, catchy tunes and smooth arcade action - a bit easy really, unless you play it on the hardest difficulty level and/or choose a particular historical scenario (e.g. the Confederates in 1864).
Best played on the +3 (disk version).
Well, what to say about one of the most reviewed games here?
I'll try to be as clear as I can. Target Renegade is good, but not as good as the first chapter. The action feels somewhat over-extended, in sharp contrast to the quick and brutal Renegade; sprite graphics are good but the backdrops aren't quite on the same level; weapons do make the fight far too easy.
On the other hand you can play it with a mate for more fun, making it in the end what Double Dragon on the Spectrum should have been, and sadly wasn't.
Good, but not excellent.
I played this since the dawn of time - well, in 1985. I hadn't played it any more since then, and do not want to do it now. It's slow, dated and boring even by mid-'80s standards. I'd give it a 4/10 for historical importance only, but nothing more.
As the eponymous Captain you must rid a huge space vessel of some alien robots which have run all over it. You must perform this by shooting them, but they can take a lot of punishment - and I really mean a lot! - and are able to shoot back as well. You must also be careful about your ammunition and oxygen, which you can replenish by docking at some stations; this implies entering a simple sub-game.
In 1986 this was moderately entertaining to me, and so is it even now. A passable Gauntlet-Paradroid type game, but nothing to lose your sleep on.
This is one of the best Spectrum coin-op conversion ever and a great game in itself.
Smash your way against waves of street thugs armed only with your fists and feet, in order to save the kidnapped girl. Each level poses a worse threat than the previous one, with the final boss being armed with a gun - one hit and you are history!
Superb graphics, sound, gameplay, and on the 128K you have the chance to throw grabbed enemies over your shoulder, just like in the original.
Kung-Fu Master, the classic IREM beat-em-up which spanned a whole genre, could have been ported much better to the Spectrum. Sadly this was not the case. Graphics are sketchy and slow moving, the scrolling is jerky and the tune playing in the background is really grating.
It's true that none of the features of the coin-op have been left behind, but the final result is far from being satisfying.
Tacky shoot-em-up which mimics superior products like Xecutor and fails miserably. Nice intro tune however.
Aliens, 26 Jan 2012 (Rating: 5)
Great tie-in of the notorious movie starring Sigourney Weaver, Aliens is a thrilling experience where you must manage your team of six through a Xenomorph-infested colony, get rid of the Queen and escape.
The palpable tension which follows your every move, with the enemies coming out behind you when you least expect it, and the necessity of avoiding stretching out your team too much in order not to make your men and women an easy prey, are what make Aliens an involving game even nowadays.
An unofficial port of the (overrated) Cinemaware medieval arcade-with-a-bit-of-very-basic-strategy-thrown-in-for-good-measure title.
And a poor one as well. Graphics, sound and gameplay are nothing but a pale imitation of the original. If you like it, play the 16-bit versions instead.
A bland rendition of the coin-op which wasn't exactly the most exciting shoot-em-up in its own time to begin with. Fly over sparse green backdrops shooting wave after wave of cookie-cutter enemies. No power-ups, no special enemies, no bosses...
As such kind of games are quite easy to find, they should have something special to make them stand out. Unfortunately Xevious just doesn't cut it; it's not awful, but it's simply a nondescript shooter without "personality".
An accident at the power plant threw a city into mass hysteria and now it's your task to escape out of it all in one piece.
Nice - if rare - graphics, out-of-the ordinary puzzles and locations (even a zoo!) make After Shock a good adventure of average difficulty. The only niggle I found is that descriptions are short and basic, and the unusual setting of the game could have made the way for some real literature. However I found it's the case with many Interceptor adventures.
A poor soccer game with mediocre graphics and very little feeling of player involvement. Sometimes it is even hard to tell who are you controlling and what are you doing. A waste of a license.
An unofficial conversion of the archaic Midway Boot Hill coin-op. For historical value only.
I tried to get the hang of this back in the day, but I wasn't able then, neither I am now. I believe the problem with this game is that it falls in between an arcade and a flight simulator. It has all the complexity of controls of the latter genre while retaining little of the excitement of the former.
It is competently programmed, and that's a pity, because it could really have been great with a more rational control layout.
A bad cross between an arcade and a flight simulator which manages to be both bland and frustrating.
For some reason it seems to be very highly rated by WOS users - to me it's a severe case of overrating.
A "light" flying simulator which is much inferior to earlier games like Psion's Flight Simulator and Digital Integration's Fighter Pilot in terms of speed, realism (well as long as you can get on a Spectrum anyway), player involvement etc.
A WWII-themed shooter from a software house more renown for simulators. It's an enjoyable experience - shoot enemy planes, make a bombing run and then go back to base while shooting more planes.
Fast, colorful graphics and some added realism like speed, altitude, limited ammunition and sector damage make this old shooter still worth your time even nowadays.
Another example of how to throw a potentially great license into the garbage can. Superman The Game is simply horrible. Everything in it seems to be gone completely awry, from graphics to sound to playability.
As tie-ins go, it's a rip-off second only to the infamous East Enders.
The idea is nice - find your way along an enemy complex searching for some precious items. However, the way it has been turned into reality leaves a lot to be desidered. Slow, basic and jerky graphics and monotonous gameplay - you never feel like you are really in danger - make All Or Nothing a bad game.
Compare it to the sheer brilliance and thrilling gameplay of Ant Attack, which was released a year earlier, to fully understand how it should have been done.
Good, large and clear graphics; great 128K sound; unusual enemies including smileys, pizzas and the Mona Lisa; a pretty steep learning curve. These are the features that make Moon Strike not your usual shoot-em-up. A winner.
Tries to be like Bomb Jack and fails miserably, due to bad graphics and animation, poor sound and confusing gameplay. A lame attempt at copying from a classic.
Boring and lackluster horizontally scrolling beat-em-up which manages not to be completely awful due to its unusual graphics and setting.
Nice to look at for about a minute, but that's all about it. Melbourne House's Fighting Warrior is much better despite being graphically not as detailed as this.
Horrendous platform game inspired by the eponymous tale, in which you control Jack trying to rob the Giant of his gold.
Badly drawn sprites move along a handful of poorly designed screens with garish colors. The whole experience does not retain any of the precision and finesse which is the backbone of a solid game of this genre.
There's almost to be glad that this piece of garbage is not available anymore due to copyright reasons.
If Jack And The Beanstalk was bad, Giant's Revenge is not better in any part.
It's hard to believe that, but it's really so. The same features of the first chapter are there to be found here - eyesore inducing graphics, frustrating gameplay and sloppy, unresponsive controls.
The game came with a copy protection sheet - as if anyone would want to make a pirate distribution of this utter waste of tape!
I spent many of my early Spectrum gaming days playing Krakatoa, and I still enjoy it now sometimes; there's so much to do in it.
You control a helicopter and have to perform a series of actions. Basically you must protect a tanker from marauding V1s and small submarines and rescue people from a volcanic eruption. Shoot, bomb, throw ropes and pick up, and if you are low on fuel or are hit by volcanic debris go back to your starting point to receive assistance. If you crash, or the tanker sinks, you lose the game.
Your involvement with the game starts quietly and keep growing with all the tasks you must accomplish, which become increasingly more difficult. In the end it will be quite hard to keep up with all the chaos going on. And for some added fun - try flying with a damaged rotor!
A maze game where you control an ant which must collect some items and then find the exit for the next level. Sounds easy? Well it isn't! There are enemies roaming around whose touch is fatal. You can however push some blocks to trap or crush them.
The game is very simple but neatly made and added longevity comes from the random distribution of mobile blocks as well as from a different set of levels on the other side of the tape.
A futuristic race game. You must drive your car through the inner surface of a ring-shaped circuit, taking care not to be hit or shot at by rival drivers. With each victory you earn credits which can be spent on power-ups or even better cars.
The game is somewhat let down by its graphics - cars are small and not very detailed; explosions look drab; the playing are is rather limited. It does however convey a good impression of speed and smoothness of movement, which makes up for that.
How anyone could find this pile of code waste entertaining is beyond me. There are much better soccer games on the Spectrum than this - even the old Match Day, as dated as it is, is tons better. Super Soccer is slow, jerky, graphically confusing and bugged, and ends up being downright irritating.
Boring and tired faux-3D space-themed shooter with absolutely nothing to make it distinguish itself from superior similar titles like 3D Starstrike, Dogfight 2187, Starfox, Star Raiders II, Deathscape etc. Flickery graphics, weak sound effects and monotonous gameplays are the most notable features of this poor budget game; as you can see, it's not a pretty picture. This Starfighter never really takes off.
Frustrating maze game loosely based on the film Tron. You must lead your character to the center of the maze while being chased by a sort ghost which can go through walls - while of course you can't! If you ever manage to accomplish your task, it goes on again and again...
Not one of the best games available for the 16K Spectrum - one of the worst, in fact.
Target, 26 Jan 2012 (Rating: 4)
A game by Don Priestley which does not feature large sprites and abundance of colors? Yes there is - and it happens to be his last game for the Spectrum.
You must guide a ball bouncing inside a squarely-shaped well seen from above and hit some targets which appear on the bottom. Unfortunately that's all I could understand from playing the game because there are no instructions available for it and I do not know what you are supposed to do in order, say, to advance to another level or to perform other tasks.
The ball goes around convincingly and there is a great deal of patience required in controlling it, since it's very sensitive to the keys or joystick movement, therefore allowing a finely tuned action.
A strange, quirky, unusual and yet to be fully discovered little gem from a master of Spectrum game programming.
Yes it's a collect-em-up game - but with some differences which make it stand out.
For a start, your character is always on the move until he meets an obstacle. Then, you can move in four directions on the whole screen, you are not limited to the usual platform action of left-right-jump.
The screens are deviously designed and will need a careful and pixel-perfect action to be negotiated within the given time.
Not for the easily discouraged player, but ingenious and highly rewarding in the long run.
Sub-standard multi-level arcade game based on an aged woman with supernatural powers, a British TV character completely unheard of here (Italy).
Graphics are very basic even by 1984 standards; the action is at best monotonously easy, while getting nothing short of irritating in the third stage (the car race). About the music and sound, the less said, the better.
Wasn't very good in its time, has definitely aged badly. Awful.
Good conversion from the Midway coin-op where the player(s) control a monster resulting from a human unfortunate enough to eat some sort of radioactive food. The objective is simple - hit all of the buildings in each screen until they collapse and keep an eye on the soldiers, helicopters, tanks and angry citizens who continously attack you.
If your energy drops to zero you return to your human form and are forced to leave the screen - with only your birthday suit on! Luckily you can eat food or even those pesky humans to regain energy; avoid eating everything else.
The action of the coin-op has been transposed on the Spectrum well; the pure bashing fun of the original is all here to be found. Yes, graphics are pretty basic, except for the quite well depicted monsters, sound is minimal and the game does not feature any complex strategy, but while it lasts, it's an enjoyable and refreshing ride.
A clone of Commando where you must liberate a stereotypical South American country by killing its dictator, Fernandez. You can go around on foot or fetch one of the many jeeps lying around, and get rid of Fernandez's countless henchmen with bullets and hand grenades.
Unfortunately the game does not excel in anything: graphics and sound are bland to say the least, and enemies pose a threat for their quantity only, since they look and behave the same.
Good for some quick blasting fun, but rather shallow and uninspiring in the long run. I doubt you'll have the patience to go all the way to Mr. Fernandez.
Shallow, bland and uninspiring shoot-em-up where you, at the controls of an advanced fighter and a bike, must stop a ring of smugglers and dealers who trade in a powerful new synthetic drug, the Sky.
Unfortunately the game fails to keep the player's attention. Graphics and sound are nothing to write home about, while the gameplay offers little in terms of interest and excitement. Sky Runner is not rubbish - it's competently done -, but does not offer anything special or memorable.
What this game is all about: going around closed corridors, shooting badly drawn sprites of people standing still. Doesn't sound really exciting, does it? In fact it isn't - this is a really bad conversion of a coin-operated clone of Operation Thunderbolt.
I did not play the arcade game, but this conversion looks nothing like the original, judging from the screenshots. Anyway, Line Of Fire on the Spectrum is an utterly pathetic and feeble effort, which is best left aside.
Dire conversion of the C64 unusual multi-event sports title. While the original game in itself is a mixed bag, with some interesting and original twists (Foot Bag, Surfing) coupled with more ordinary stuff (BMX, Roller skates), the Spectrum version is a real disaster. Shoddy graphics, almost no sound and sluggish gameplay make it a weak and pale imitation of the original.
As a member of an elite military force you have to accomplish twelve missions in enemy territory, ranging from stealing some top secret plans to sabotaging an aircraft prototype.
However the actual gameplay is much simpler than it could be imagined by the complex presentation. It basically boils down to a clone of Commando. Graphics and sound are basic but funtional, and the game manages to keep your interest alive throughout the different missions.
With several weapons available and three different terrains, there's enough variety, although the game can be in the end considered as a shoot-em-up thinly disguised as a simulation.
Superb sci-fi adventure based on a short story by Isaac Asimov. Puzzles are ingenious and logical, and graphics are well above the average of such games on the Spectrum. It's true that it puts you right at the beginning in a situation of imminent death - a thing which personally I never liked in adventure games -, but apart from this the game is a real gem and should not be missed.
Bland and dated vertically-scrolling shoot-em-up with an unusual feature. You control a military aircraft on a bombing mission over enemy territory, and must defend yourself against AA missiles. When you must drop your bombs, the playing area shifts to a wider view of your surroundings, otherwise only your plane and the enemy missile are shown.
Graphics are bland and sparse even for 1984 standards, and the sound is pretty limited as well. The biggest fault, however, is that there is nothing enough to do here to hold the player's attention. Mediocre and unremarkable.
This is one of Activision's earliest releases for the Spectrum, one of a number of conversion from its cartridge games for Atari consoles.
On the Spectrum, River Raid is as minimal as it was on the Atari 2600 - your plane, which flies on a bombing run along a river (hence the name), is only one UDG wide, and the scenery is made up with a blue twisted line on a green background.
It is a rather average game, but it plays pretty well even nowadays, and conveys some sort of 'retro' flavor even for a Spectrum user.
Zenji, 02 Feb 2012 (Rating: 4)
A nifty hybrid between maze and puzzle, where you must connect all the platforms in each screen (by rotating them when your pointer is in the middle of each one), while avoiding the nasties against which you cannot do anything but escape.
While not being particularly interesting in terms of visuals and sound, Zenji is original, rather fast-paced and becomes increasingly complex and difficult level after level, so it should be a good challenge for anyone wanting something a bit out of the ordinary.
The officially licensed game from the movie based on Clive Barker's novel - he also wrote the screenplay for it and directed it.
I did not see the movie, so I do not know whether the game adheres to the spirit of the original work or not. As a game in itself, however, Night Breed is a competently done, but not particularly original neither particularly involving maze/platform arcade with some hints of adventure. As the main character, Boone, you must explore the underground realm of the Night Breed, a race of sentient beings with shapeshifting abilities he belongs to, and perform various tasks which will enable you to fight the ultimate menace threatening the already precarious existence of the NB - the Mask.
Graphics are well defined and colorful, with some interesting effects like the flashes of lightning in the first stage. Sound on 128K is quite pleasing. The game is large and multi-loaded from tape, and it will take a fairly long time to be completed. It is not very challenging, so there's more quantity than quality here, but it should appeal to all those who like to mix exploration and combat.
Paul Kersey - a name which is synonymous with bad luck, judging by what happens to anyone who is closely associated to him - in the third instalment of its saga, has agreed to help New York City police to quench a riot
The film is rather useless and so over the top in being reactionary to become laughable in the end. The game, however, goes even further and lands right in the territory of parody - how could you explain in any other way the fierce fights between the aged women and the villains, or the long-nosed girls waving their mini-skirts, who do not appear to serve any purpose whatsoever other than bring a smile to the player?
There is nothing but "kill or get killed" and "do not hit too many cops, or they will get really pissed" here. While it lasts, however, it's a nihilistically satisfying experience. Try shooting people from the windows or keeping your finger on the machine gun trigger to see what I mean! Of course you'll love it if you are a fan of the great, late Charles Bronson.
An original dynamic adventure based on a book written by Ade Edmonson, a British comedian no one here (Italy) has ever heard of, but appears to be very popular in his homeland.
In the book, and the game, your task is to gatecrash at a yuppie party and spoil all the fun they are having. You must use the objects lying around to light up the "Complete-Bastard" caption at the bottom of the screen by performing some ludicrously evil deeds like covering a guest's hair with machine oil or toothpaste, tying him/her up with a hose or making a custard pie and slapping it on his/her face. You must do this while getting as drunk, smelly and generally unpleasant as you can - some of the tricks can only be performed when you are completely intoxicated!
The screen is divided in two areas, each showing a different angle of view of the room you are in. While rather confusing at the beginning, this unusual presentation - named 'Bastavision' - proves to be very valuable in helping you understand your surroundings.
Yes, the graphics are pretty sketchy - you do not get to see the effects of your actions, just a caption or in some cases a large writing - and the sound is minimal, but the sheer, sadistical fun you have in doing the most offensive things to those hateful and unbearable icons of '80s Western society is simply too good to be missed. No matter how crazy it sounds to you - you will be surprised at how nasty you can get here!
A budget golf simulator featuring the traditional "bird's eye" view that was somewhat anachronistic at the time the game was released (1990). Not bad, but unlikely to attract gamers other than golf addicts who just want to taste everything.
Bedlam, 12 Feb 2012 (Rating: 3)
Slick, colorful and fast vertically scrolling shooter in the vein of Light Force. It was one of the first games only available for 128K Spectrums.
The action is very simple even for 1988 standards - just shoot anything that moves and try to score as many points as possible. Therefore no power-ups are available for the player, except for a fire rate increase. An odd bonus screen features a (very basic) pinball simulator.
It's been however done in such a smooth way that it will be enjoyed by any Alien zapper.
Batty, 12 Feb 2012 (Rating: 4)
This bat'n'ball game where you have to tear down "walls" of colored bricks seems to be held in a quite high esteem by WOS visitors. Too much high in my opinion.
I believe it to be slightly overrated - while the graphics and movement are well made and give a convincing impression to the player, the screens do not tend to be as much varied as in, say, the two Arkanoids or Krakout. And there are only 15 of them.
The games attempts to compensate for this by making some of the screens extremely difficult to negotiate. Not a great choice of game design in my opinion.
In a nutshell, it's good - I rated it 8 on the WOS archive - but not as good as other similar titles. It should however be said that Batty is overall better than the average £ 2.99 title.
Havoc, 12 Feb 2012 (Rating: 4)
A fun and taxing vertically scrolling shoot-em-up where you have the choice to pilot either the MiG Mi-28 (NATO codename "Havoc") or the AH-64 Apache "Gunship".
The usual choice of power-ups and different enemies apply for a well made budget shooter. There's not much difference in piloting the two helicopters, but it's nice for a change, even if it is essentially a cosmetic one.
The black and white spies created by Antonio Prohias for MAD Magazine in 1961 are now stranded on a tropical island from where they must escape by finding a submarine, before a volcano erupts flooding the place with lava. In the meantime they also have to find three pieces of a missile.
The sequel to the classic ambassy escapade is inferior to the first chapter in many ways - messy graphics, slower movement, and the fact that you act in an open environment rather than in a maze of rooms makes the use of traps more tricky.
Luckily the third chapter - while still not being as great as the first one - was better than the second, which I'd recommend to fans of the series only.
Being a long-time fan of the cartoon series, I was expecting some nice rendition from Hi-Tec, which was responsible for several other interesting Spectrum games based on Hanna-Barbera characters.
Unfortunately I was severely disappointed. You only get to command Dick Dastardly in a series of feeble attempts to arrive first to the race by carrying out the usual dirty tricks. Bland monochrome graphics, repetitive action and superficial player involvement mean the game does never really take off. A real waste of a potentially great license.
A blatant rip-off of the Archery event in Hyper Sports.
A variation on the well-known "snake" game. Fun for a while but ultimately pretty thin.
Converted from the C64, where it was hugely popular for some unknown reason (I always suspected C64 users had much less sophisticated tastes when it came to games than Spectrum ones), this horizontally scrolling shoot-em-up is not bad, but it isn't any better than other similar titles already seen from the Spectrum at the time, namely Zynaps and R-Type.
I never watched the TV series; I don't believe it was ever broadcast in Italy. I only knew about its existence by this - let's call it this way - "game". Well, if the series is as horrible as the game, then it should be banned from view! The game seems some reject from 1982, let alone 1987; it's so bad it makes you laugh - just like some cheap and trashy movie!
The much awaited conversion of the popular street gang beat-em-up by Technos Japan was a feeble result to say the least.
Sketchy graphics and unremarkable sound effect could have been excused if there was some real impression of involvement in the on-screen action. Unfortunately the gameplay is shallow and bland; enemies go down with unbelievable easiness to the point that an averagely skilled player is likely to complete the whole game at the first attempt.
On other platform things went even worse - the C64 version coming with written excuses from the programmers for having been unable to fully put the players and enemies sprites together was a particularly infamous example - but this conversion will always be remembered by Spectrum users as a largely missed opportunity.
To my knowledge this was the only title of the very short-lived Mastertronic MAD-X range. The idea was to offer you two games on a same tape for £ 2.99.
It is a competently made, but ultimately rather shallow shoot-em-up, where you command a hunting flying vessel battling different patterns of aliens on a nicely rendered background, complete with three different layers of parallax scrolling. Anyone who knows how the Spectrum display is managed will wonder at this piece of technical marvel.
Other than that, there's not much. The game on the B side, Molecule Man, is more complex and involving.
I didn't like this game in the arcades, and the Spectrum version leaves me even colder.
Unremarkable graphics and animation, almost no sound, shallow and boring gameplay. Need I say anything else?
As a budget simulator of 5-a-side soccer this is not bad; the movement of players and ball is smooth although not really fast and graphics are clear enough to let you instantly know who's who.
The real problem is that there are no other modes than against the computer and another human player; the lasting appeal of the game would have benefited from different levels of computer skill or a tournament mode.
Mediocre clone of Zynaps/Nemesis which is no better in any way than the games it takes inspiration from.
Play the originals instead of this pale imitation, that's what I say.
Aaargh - this is one of the worst shoot-em-ups available for the Spectrum. It makes very early - but much more playable - efforts like Space Zombies or Firebirds look like masterpieces in comparison. It's a mess of flickery shoddy sprites, jerky movement and dubious collition detection. The horribly distorted speech only makes it even more pathetic.
A bouncing ball game based on a line of toys (never seen in Italy, so I can't really comment about them) consisting in rubber balls with "horror" features.
The aim is to drive the balls around six different courses of increasing complexity, avoiding various obstacles and hazards. You can capture several balls, which have different masses and therefore tend to react to the scenery in a different way. This adds a bit of strategy to a game which would otherwise be rather shallow. Graphics and sound are not outstanding but they do their job nonetheless.
Good for a while but not very much satisfying in the long run.
This conversion was the cause of a heated debate among Spectrum users, and it's not hard to understand why. The original coin-op had so many features which simply weren't able to be ported on 8-bit machines, Spectrum included. It would have been impossible to convey the same sense of speed and smoothness of movement of the original coin-op to those platforms, so the different programming teams chose to do as much as the hardware restrictions allowed them to.
That said, the Spectrum version is far from being an unsuccessful effort. The game is there to be found - no levels have been left out: the scenery and opponent cars are all there. The sheer amount of detail slows down some levels noticeably, but on almost all of them the speed is not worse than other similar games on the Spectrum.
Yes, the multiload is a pain in the neck - but it's very quick and at least on 128K Spectrums you don't always have to load the levels you already negotiated. The +3 version benefits from almost instantaneous loadings from disk and is therefore the closest to the original.
As Chris Jenkins aptly wrote in his review of the game on the January 1988 issue of Sinclair User, the Spectrum version of Out Run suffered from a heavy burden of expectations which wouldn't have been there were it not for the complexity of the coin-op, and the final result was as close as we could get given the limitations of the Spectrum itself.
A shallow and almost useless game which can't decide whether it's an arcade or a simulation, PSHM takes its name from the infamous "hand of God" goal scored by El Pibe de Oro against England in Mexico '86.
You are a goalkeeper and all you must do is try to save as much shoots as possible. Exciting isn't it? Well, not exactly. The game is a complete mess of bad graphics - you can't even understand who belongs to each team since all players including you are completely white! - and utterly boring gameplay.
Wasn't worth it on budget, let alone at full price. A waste of time and code.
A cheap-and-cheerful tennis game. Competently made and moderately entertaining, but it isn't any better than Konami's Tennis or even the ancient Match Point. At least it came on budget.
Another game based on some TV show no one outside the UK (and maybe Ireland) has never heard of, Run The Gauntlet is in fact a collection of sub-games all featuring some off-the-wall racing competitions.
Technically it's good - clear, colorful graphics and nice sound effects - but in spite of the different parts, there's no much variety there. The game basically boils down to racing around a circuit trying to arrive before the other contestants. There's simply not enough to do to make it hold the player's interest for a long time.
Converted from the Taito coin-op, Slap Fight is a classic example of the scrolling shoot-em-ups which were so popular in the second half of the Eighties: fly over a terrain with your vessel collecting power-ups and turn your puny fighting machine in an almighty mean of destruction, battling wave after wave of enemies and the occasional "boss".
The Spectrum version features detailed, if black-and-white, graphics and some sparse sound effects. Movement and scrolling are quite smooth and all features are where they should be, if you know the coin-op. Would be a real hit were it not for a noticeable flaw: the enemies' bullets are rather hard to see since they tend to mix in with the background. It does not happen to the point of making the game unplayable, but at the time I doubt that your average TV (I was lucky to play it on a brand new color 15" TV) could have let you see them clearly.
Other than this, Slap Fight is a proper conversion of a not-too-original coin-op.
The Epyx classic multi-event sport arcade/simulation game lands on the Spectrum. Is it a successful landing? I'd rather say an adequate one. Graphics and sound are nothing special, and gameplay gets at some times really convoluted. A moderately entertaining effort which is not bad, but inferior to titles released as the same time like Daley Thompson's Olympic Challenge.
A budget racing game where you control a motorbike in a series of different stages. The action is seen from behind your back as in Super Hang-on, but SBTA has neither the complexity nor the finesse and smoothness of the Electric Dreams title.
That said, it can be interesting if you are a racing games addict, but for everybody else, there are several better titles available for the Spectrum, starting from Super Hang-on itself.
An average budget shooter, which can be entertaining for some no-nonsense zapping but ultimately fails to offer much more to the player than dozens of other similar games already do.
An interesting racing game, a bit more polished than the already good Out Run, but still suffering from the limitations imposed by the Spectrum architecture. There is not much originality to be found here either - if you played Out Run you will already know what to expect here, with the addition of a turbo mode (hence the name) which can be useful for catching up with the opponents when things start to get difficult for you.
A simple 16K game which looks like a lame attempt at copying the Ultimate classics like Jet Pac, Cookie and Pssst. TGT has however neither the polish not the finesse in graphics, sound or gameplay of the aforementioned titles and ultimately (no pun intended) reveals itself for what it is - a half-baked copy of a winning formula.
Just like the first chapter - since it's a verbatim copy of it -, a mediocre flip-screen left-right shooter with bland graphics, almost no sound, boring and repetitive action. There's nothing here to hold your attention for more than a couple of minutes.
A mediocre flip-screen left-right shooter with bland graphics, almost no sound, boring and repetitive action. There's nothing here to hold your attention for more than a couple of minutes.
Tuareg, 19 Mar 2012 (Rating: 3)
A maze/adventure game where you must save your loved one by penetrating a mysterious Oriental city full of people who for some reason want to take your life.
A potentially interesting topic has been turned in a game which looks nice, but suffers from not enough variety in the gameplay department.
Compared with other Topo Soft games, this is one of their weakest works, although not their worst.
One of the first soccer games for the Spectrum, WCF was not one of the best ones to begin with. It can't even be compared with the old and venerable Match Day, which came out the same year: featureless graphics littered with attribute clash, slow and jerky movement, irritating sound, absolutely no sense of involvement for the player put Artic's WCF at the lowest ranks of Spectrum gaming history.
Way Of The Tiger, based on the Avenger series of adventure books, is one of the best martial arts games available for the Spectrum, for a number of reasons.
First of all, its wide variety. It is a collection of three sub-games, each featuring a different way of combat - unarmed, pole and sword fighting - and different enemies with their strengths and weaknesses. You can tackle the several parts in sequence or you can practice them separately. They load independently from tape, but the multi-load does not make you wait for a long time.
Technical realization is also great. Graphics are mostly monochrome but sprites and backgrounds are detailed and feature some nice touches, like parallax scrolling and animated scenery. Sound is limited to the noises of hits and a brief tune, but it is there. Gameplay benefits from the variety of situations available to the player and to a properly implemented collision detection, so you get the impression your moves and blows have an effect on your enemies.
Way Of The Tiger stood the test of time very well and is still one of the finest beat-em-ups available for the Spectrum in my opinion.
A nice little maze game/shoot-em-up for the 16K Spectrum. Stuck in a wrap-around maze creeping with Androids - which despite their name do not resemble human beings at all - you must find the exit, which is always located in a different place, and proceed to the next maze, which has always the same layout, but is filled with more Androids. You have a five-shot laser gun to defend yourself, and five shields as well, which you can replenish by collecting Gs and Ss tokens scattered on the maze floor.
Fast and furious action make Androids a no-nonsense zapping fest, although the ever-repeating maze limits its lasting power.
A simple pseudo-3D shooter which looks and plays far too dated, besides featuring some particularly grating sound effects.
An exploration adventure game featuring an interesting mix of wire-frame and sprite graphics where you, as a member of an elite military force, must penetrate a heavily defended island in order to steal the plans of a revolutionary aircraft codenamed "Catch 23".
The action is viewed in first person and the whole game is more an adventure than a shooter, although you must also have quick reflexes to shoot the guards who appear from time to time and avoid the patrolling tanks. The island itself is pretty large and it will take you not a little deal of time to unveil its secrets. You must in particular hack some computer terminals in order to get passwords and other clues which will be needed to succeed in your task.
Catch 23 is a game which requires patience and thought, so I would not recommend it to anyone. It is however an original title which offers a different challenge from the majority of Spectrum games.
The game was originally released with a bug - one of the passwords had been mistyped. There's enough documentation available now on the Web (mainly in the Tipshop) to let you overcome this problem.
Chicago 30's is a platform-shooter set in the 30s where you must, as a cop, defeat a Mafia ring by simply shooting everyone you meet.
The game is nicely presented, with good graphics, smooth scrolling and an unusual setting - your lives are the audience of a cinema which shows your game as a movie. Every time you lose a life a person leaves the place, until it's Game Over.
However, the gameplay is too much simple and repetitive, relying its difficulty just on the sheer numer of cookie-cutter enemies, to hold your interest for anything more than a relatively short time. More variety would surely have been welcome.
Despite pretty basic graphics and sound this is a convincing conversion of the old Data East coin-op.
As a Wild West outlaw, you must first get on board of a train carrying gold and then proceed to the locomotive jumping from wagon to wagon and defeating its defenders in hand-to-hand combat. The subsequent stage has you trying to do the same, this time shooting the defenders from the back of a horse running aside the train.
Good classic fun for all, although, as I said earlier, it's not one of the prettiest-looking Spectrum games ever.
Conversion from the Nichibutsu coin-op of the same name. You are a member of the Cosmo Police, and your task is to defeat all the androids and outlaws which populate the underground Techno Caverns of the planet Cynep.
Playing area is small and unusually enough it its limited to the central vertical third of the screen; graphics are colourful and rather detailed - this is a Denton Designs game after all, and their games never look lousy! At the end of the maze of platforms lies a monster you must shoot several times to destroy. Then it's back to the caverns, but with a slightly different layout and more enemies. You start unarmed but can find other weapons by collecting triangle-shaped tokens.
I only played the arcade game a few times and found the Spectrum conversion is pretty close to it although the restricted playing area certainly does seem odd when considering that the original has a whole screen for you to play with. It might seem simple and not very varied, but it's wide - you will have a long way to go before reaching the end of each level - and competently done. The only really noticeable fault I can find in Galivan is the jerky scrolling, but apart from this I believe, in the end, that it's pretty good.
A Zaxxon clone which was inspired by a ZZ Top song promo video! Now that's quite an unusual inspiration. I can't really remember which song it was - I am not a fan of the bearded duo although not disliking it -, but the game could have been much more playable than it is, if you could have been able to tell your ship better from the overly-detailed backgrounds which form each of the three levels.
128K sound is great and it's the best part of the game. Unfortunately the messy graphics take a heavy toll on playability. The idea is overall interesting - it's the technical realization which leaves a lot to be desidered.
The classical run-and-jump Namco coin-op is converted for the Spectrum by Probe Software, and the end result is good albeit not excellent.
The action is fast and the sense of "speed against time" of the original is all there to be found. Graphics are a little bland however, and sound is almost non-existent.
A platform game which dates from 1985 but looks and plays as if it was programmed a couple of years earlier. Graphics,sound and gameplay look very dated, and the game itself is boring and shallow. Not awful, but less than mediocre.
Good conversion from a rather obscure Konami coin-op (I remember it in the arcades anyway) which mixes martial arts with run-and-jump platform action. Five different levels, each one splitted into two rounds, put you against hordes of enemies; some of them are so powerful you'll need the three different power-ups available to dispatch them.
Graphics are pretty colorful and cartoonish, reflecting the style of the original coin-op; sound is present with some sound effect and tunes. The game is rather easy at the start but becomes increasingly difficult, with more and more enemies trying to overcome you.
Like the coin-op, the game could do with some more variety; as it is, it's good but not outstanding.
In this rather unusual game you have to negotiate various enemies and obstacles to reach the head of a runaway train. Although being and looking very old (1983!), gameplay wise it is one of those games which stood the test of time well enough to be recommendable even nowadays for a quick play. The real fault is that it is very difficult and could easily give way to frustration. In addition, it's really short, so it will probably take you a long time to finish it not because of its size but of its difficulty.
A platform action game based upon an obscure Spanish cartoon character. Slow and sluggish action with absolutely nothing to redeem it in the graphics and sound departments, Capitan Sevilla fades quickly into the obscurity he came from.
Freddy Hardest is one of the best titles of the "wave" of Dinamic games which came around between 1986 and 1987, together with other classics like Army Moves and Game Over.
Compared with those titles, Freddy Hardest is a bit easier - yet no cakewalk either! As them, it's divided in two halves, where the eponymous character, having accidentally collided with a small planet, must find a way to return home. The trouble is, the planet is filled with sentient lifeforms that appear not to like Freddy's presence at all!
In the first half, Freddy must walk from left to right, leaving the wreck of his spacecraft behind, in order to find an alien base, where - in the second half - he must hack the computers in order to unlock the take off sequence of an escape shuttle.
Large, clear and detailed graphics, nice sound effects and two wildly different but equally challenging parts make Freddy Hardest a great game and one of Dinamic's best offers ever.
Meganova is a classic take on the usual left-to-right space shoot-em-up formula. While not being outstanding in any department, it is a good example of such kind of game and should be entertaining enough for everyone who just wants to zap some aliens the way we were used to in the good old days.
A very simple and utterly frustrating game from the first years of Spectrum history. Nothing to write home about - can be of some nostalgic value for some, but to me it holds no candle even to contemporary, much better and more involving titles (Ultimate, anyone?).
A mildly entertaining shoot-and-bomb-em-up which was, apparently, quite popular among 16K Spectrum users. I especially remember it for all the times your plane exploded in the air for no apparent reason (especially when flying through clouds). Hasn't aged well but still retains some of its original addictiveness.
Rocky, 22 Mar 2012 (Rating: 1)
A less than mediocre boxing simulation where you have to fight four boxers who all look the same and fight the same (despite having different portraits and weights shown in the lower left corner). You only have a left and right punch and a left and right defense. Graphics are unremarkable, sound is limited to a couple of sound effects, and all you have to do is to push the left and right blow alternatively until your opponent's energy goes down.
The only good feature of Rocky (renamed Rocco by Gremlin Graphics for copyright reasons) is the cover illustration by comics master Alfonso Azpiri. All the rest can be completely and safely avoided.
An early game for the 16K Spectrum - one of the first by master Don Priestley - where you must stop enemy tanks from crossing a bridge from the right to the left of the screen. Your ammo is limited and you will get more if you stay alive. Points are deducted when tanks safely get to the other side.
In 1982 this could be state-of-the art, but it was soon superseded by much better looking and playing games. Anyway, it's still worth spending some time on.
Poor platform/slash-em-up game with large but messy graphics and slow and dull gameplay. Not one of Opera's best by any means.
A simple but well made clone of Asteroids, with fast and slick graphics. Programmed by Jon Ritman, he of Match Day, Batman and Head Over Heels fame.
A decent football game, with an aerial view similar to that of the classic World Cup coin-op by Tehkan. Good fun for everyone although not being revolutionary in any department - movement is fast but scrolling is a bit jerky, graphics are simple but clear enough to let you tell your players easily from the other team's.
Boxing game with a Spanish athlete as its testimonial. The action is viewed in isometric 3D perspective and the game puts more emphasis on action rather than on tactics. Still, it's nicely made - slick and polished to look at and to play. One of the best boxing games on the Spectrum altogether.
This driver-view racing game was one of the first of its kind to be available on the Spectrum, if not the first ever. It features three different cars and ten racing circuits, plus some touches of realism which make it lean more on the simulation side, rather than on the arcade one.
Certainly for 1983 standards it was very advanced. However, the rather slow pace of the game, plus the absence of any opponent - you can only race against the clock - did not play in its favor, and nowadays it can be pretty much of historical interest only.
One example of the wave of platform games mainly aimed at children that sadly marked the end of the Spectrum's life as a commercially active product. Graphics are colorful but a bit messy at times; sound features some nice AY effects and tunes; gameplay is tried-and-tested platform fare, but not very fast; originality is quite scarce, since what I wrote until now can be said for several other games released by Code Masters for the Spectrum in the same period of time as this. A crepuscular game indeed.
Zaxxon, 22 Mar 2012 (Rating: 3)
One of the first official arcade conversions for the Spectrum, Zaxxon is the classic diagonally-scrolling Sega coin-op game which was very popular at the beginning of the Eighties.
The Spectrum version is decent but does not stand out very much: graphics are sometimes unclear, scrolling is pretty jerky and gameplay does not feel very slick. Still, it's not bad, but could have been done much better, even for 1984 standards.
As a member of the eponymous Police your task is to penetrate a small island near to the coast of Colombia and destroy a large drug processing unit by placing dynamite charges in several strategic points.
The unit is a network of underground tunnels you must run through shooting any enemy which crosses your way. Unfortunately the playing area, which occupies the lower left portion of the screen, is rather small, and the action - viewed from behind your character - is monotonous and repetitive; almost all of the time you run around tunnels, shooting messy sprites as you meet them. You have several weapons at your disposal but there seems to be no real difference in their effect. All of the strategical premises found in the instructions seem to be missing from the actual gameplay.
Narco Police is a potentially good idea which has been turned in a dull and bland game. One of Dinamic's worst titles.
A poor block-moving maze game which reminds of Silversoft's Hyper Action - only a good deal less polished and playable. Movement is too fast, graphics are bland and littered with attribute clash, sound is almost absent. Mediocre.
As Tarzan you have to negotiate the dangers of the Big Apple and jump from platform to platform, defending yourself by throwing coconuts, until you manage to find the way to go home.
Looks and sounds pretty grotty - it was one of several simple platform games released by Code Masters at the end of the Spectrum commercial "life" - but as a budget run-and-jump game is not bad. Good for some mindless fun, but there's nothing here to hold your attention for a long time.
A poor game which has aged very badly, unofficial conversion of the Boot Hill prehistoric coin-op. Beeper sound (together with the infamous death march) is the most annoying feature of a game which should have faded into obscurity a long time ago. There was so much better stuff available for the Spectrum at the time!
In 1983 this was probably the best arcade/racing game available for the Spectrum, and is still fondly remembered by many, including myself. Although it does not look very well when compared with games of the following years - mainly for the basic, flickery sprites - and the gameplay can lead to frustration, since when one of the other contestants touches you, your speed goes to zero (making catching up with them next to impossible), Full Throttle is still rather enjoyable, due to the different tracks available and the fast action. 6/10
I must say never liked the TV series this game is based upon, but my judgement is not influenced by this. The Dukes Of Hazzard is a frustrating and dull race game, with some bland shoot-em-up features patched on, where you have to drive the General Lee through an obstacle-ridden course viewed from the right-hand side. Graphics and sound are unremarkable, and gameplay soon reveals to be boring and unrewarding. I'd turn to another channel if I were you.
This is a basketball simulation where you control just one player instead of a whole team. Graphics look pleasingly cartoony-ish and an unusual "replay" feature is displayed in slow motion on full screen whenever the ball goes through the basket.
After years of reading instructions and several actual attempts, I still can't figure out how to play this game. I'm sure there is a good game hidden somewhere - at least there seems to be when watching the demo mode - but I haven't found it yet.
Just as the earlier game, which was a (shockingly bad) rip-off of Donkey Kong, KSB is another "unofficial" conversion - this time of a much lesser known coin-op, Mr Do!'s Wild Ride. The aim is to run through the fairground tracks avoiding obstacles, mainly cars going around.
Although the game looks much better than the appalling Kong, it's still not good - the action is so straightforward that playing looks more like an exercise in keypress. KSB is monotonous, shallow and unexciting.
Oddly enough the Spectrum version was the last one I played - Atari ST and PC came before it, respectively. I didn't even know, neither could imagine, that such a game - which is much more complex than your average beat-em-up - could have been converted to the Spectrum! In fact I only discovered it when I began my activity in emulation at the end of the '90s.
The transition has been carried out in a proper way - the game feels almost as solid as it was on the 16- and 32-bit platforms. Unfortunately it is also as hard as it was there, especially when you begin the championship! Spectrum users can be satisfied of this conversion.
Gauntlet is a great conversion of the arcade game which spawned a whole genre of titles featuring characters running along maze corridors fighting enemies and looking for treasures, keys, food etc.
As in the coin-op, graphics are simple but they serve their purpose quite well; sound is nice, especially on Spectrums with AY sound capabilites; gameplay is frantic and often claustrophobic due to the variety and large number of adversaries. A large number of mazes, each with its different layout, adds even more depth to the game.
A bona fide classic indeed!
Jet Set Willy II is a re-hash of the classic platform collect-em-up game which in turn was a follow-up to Manic Miner. It does eliminate the infamous Attic Bug and adds a few rooms, but that's it - it basically adds nothing substantially new to an already beloved classic. Ah yes, it has a loading screen too!
Nemesis for the Spectrum is a reasonable conversion of the Konami arcade game, although it does not reach excellency status for a number of reasons.
Graphics are adequate; sound is limited to a grating beeper rendition of the coin-op first level music and a few blips; gameplay suffers from a collision detection which sometimes seems too sensitive, especially considering that enemies' bullets are pretty tiny and hard to avoid. Power-ups are all there, with the partial exception of the Option add-on - you're only allowed to have one, when the original allows for four of them.
A conversion not to be ashamed of, but it could have been better with some more polish.
Sidewalk is a great mix of arcade, adventure and exploration characterized by some of the most unique graphics ever seen in a Spectrum game, from French artist Didier Chamfray.
Set at the time of the Live Aid concert (13th July 1985), it features a lad who must get two tickets - for himself and his girlfriend - and at the same time try to find and assemble the pieces of his stolen motorbike. The trouble is, he appears to live in a tough neighborhood, since in order to find those pieces he will be forced to fight some very nasty guys! Moreover, his time is limited - if he is not able to call his girlfriend with the tickets and the fully assembled motorbike by 7:30 PM, she will go to the concert with another guy, John - and that means Game Over.
The game is filled with humor and really manages to let you feel you are part of a micro world, with all its various inhabitants - the mechanic, the hippie, the record seller etc. The beat-em-up part is pretty simple, and the playing area is small, but apart from this, Sidewalk is a real winner.
A colourful and taxing budget shoot-em-up which is well above average for this kind of game and price range. I would assign this a 6.5 rather than a 7 - nice but nothing particularly original or impressive. Good for a quick blast though.
An original pool game featuring a hexagonal table. A budget game which although not being outstanding is nice for a change from the usual titles of its kind.
An early game from Quicksilva which is basically a waterski simulator. It is easy enough at the start but becomes infuriatingly difficult in a not very long time. Apart from the novelty setting, there's really not much more here.
A free game - clone of Space Harrier - which was given with Sinclair User in November 1988. Graphics and sound (especially on 128K) are worth noting - the digitised cartoon portraits of the SU staff and Kamikaze Bear (which I found quite useless by the way) look convincing.
The problem is that you should shoot only one bullet at a time; if you shoot again before the bullet hits its target, it will disappear and be replaced by another one. This makes the game much less entertaining than it would have been. As it is, it's just average.
The best bat 'n' ball game for the Spectrum bar none, and an excellent conversion from the Taito coin-op as well. 'Nuff said.
Booty, 27 Oct 2012 (Rating: 4)
Even after all those years, the classic search-and-collect platform game with a "pirate" setting is still nice and enjoyable to play as it was back in the day. An iconic and historical Spectrum title, no doubt.
Conversion of the eponymous Konami coin-op. Not a bad job - much worse conversions were unfortunately made for the Spectrum - but even taking the limitations of our beloved computer into account, it's not a great effort either. Graphics and sound are merely adequate, and some levels have also been skipped. Gameplay only shows a fraction of the smooth, frantic experience of the coin-op.
Not an essential title in the Spectrum's gaming history.
IJATTOD is a conversion from the Atari coin-op, written by the same Paragon team which would be later known as Tiertex, author of other good and great conversions (720°, Street Fighter, Strider, Thunder Blade, Alien Storm etc.).
The action is frantic and in the main levels, where you have to rescue the children slaves, does really not give you a moment of pause! Luckily the other two sections are less intense, although not a cakewalk either. Nice conversion of an interesting, although not outstanding, coin-op.
I must admit I had a lot of fun with this game when I was 11 and still have a go at it every now and then. It is a clone of Panic with minimalist (to say the least) graphics and sound. However, the different types of enemies, the constantly dropping energy which has to be replenished by collecting crosses and the resulting frantic pace are what make me evaluate this game with an overall positive mark, although it's no masterpiece even by 1983 standars.
The story and setting of this game are quite interesting - you, as the last member of a dying race, must activate the incubators scattered around a vast spaceship (142 locations!). The place is populated by hostile creatures, against which you only have an acid spit and your jumps as a defense.
The game is competently done on a purely technical level, with colorful and detailed graphics and an imaginative design of characters and locations. Unfortunately your task is very difficult - you only have one life, are often outnumbered and negotiating the different screens is often frustrating due to an intricate platform layout.
With more emphasis on playability, Survivor could have become a classic. As it is, it's not bad but it feels severely limited.
While this sequel can't hold a candle to the first and great Bomb Jack, I believe it's not so awful as many seem to think. You must jump from platform to platform, collecting gold sacks and trying to fend off the baddies with a knife, which allows you eventually to push them off the platforms. A careful timing is essential to avoid them do the same to you.
Maybe if it had been released with a different title it would not have gotten the bad reputation it got.
Pang, 29 Oct 2012 (Rating: 5)
A superb coin-op conversion! Excellent bubble-bursting action around the world from the Mitchell arcade original. One of the latest peaks of Spectrum gaming.
A dire early maze game with sketchy graphics and monotonous gameplay. Don't bother.
Dingo, 29 Oct 2012 (Rating: 4)
A nice and colorful maze game, unofficial conversion from a little known coin-op by Ashby Computer Graphics (!) The action is fast but ultimately a bit repetitive. Still, an entertaining title with all the flavor of yesteryear. And it's free!
Aaargh! One of the worst shoot-em-ups for the Spectrum. As it is based on an extremely old game formula, you would expect it to be noteworthy in some aspects.
Unfortunately graphics are dire, and gameplay is severely hampered by the fact that you can shoot only one bullet at a time.
Even as a budget game this doesn't quite cut it - there was much, much better you could get for £ 1.99 at the time this monstrosity was released.
Fun, colorful no-nonsense mindless horizontally scrolling blaster where you can control three different aircraft against a whole lot of historical opponents.
Not the most original or outstanding title in its class, but for its price it's a deal.
A superb hybrid of Solomon's Key and Panic, Karlos und Schatze der Azteken (the broken German of the title is intentional according to the authors) is a platform and ladders game where you as the eponymous character must overcome screen after screen by collecting treasures and finding the exit, avoiding many deadly traps.
Presentation is excellent and gameplay is taxing yet easy to get into. Best game of 2010 and one of the finest 'new releases' ever for Spectrum in my opinion.
A poor Bomberman lookalike which never really takes off. The dull looks of the game do not help holding your attention more than a short time. The game itself soon becomes tiresome and boring.
Apart from the novelty value - the game puts you as Eddie Kidd in the attempt to fly with your bike over an ever-increasing row of obstacles - there's almost nothing to be enjoyed here. The action is repetitive and frustrating, and this causes the initial curiosity and interest to plummet in a matter of seconds. Original may it be, but fun, certainly not.
A below average platform and collect-em-up title with graphics looking worse than earlier similar offerings like Jet Set Willy or Technician Ted, and nothing of the finesse of such games.
Even the editor is of not much use, since it only allows you to change the position of the nasties, not to redesign the screens altogether.
Unremarkable.
The classic adventure TV series starring Lee Majors (known in Italy as 'Professione pericolo') would have potentially been a great material for a fast-paced, gripping arcade game. What Elite came up with was a boring, messy, unplayable affair instead. A huge disappointment.
Another potential great subject for a game - gladiator fighting in ancient Rome - is turned in a nondescript game with absolutely no remarkable features.
The game looks and plays bland - there is just no feeling of involvement while playing it.
Havoc, 29 Oct 2012 (Rating: 2)
All right, so Zaxxon - the official conversion - was passable, but not great on the Spectrum, due to slow movement and sometimes messy graphics.
However, this mediocre clone of it is much worse. Bland monochrome graphics, almost no sound and dull action.
I'd stick with Zaxxon instead, even with its limits.
As Super G-Man your task is to explore the Sea of Dreams region, using your jetpack and laser to negotiate some alien-littered landscapes.
It is, in fact, a Scrambler clone - but a good one. Although graphics are decent but nothing exceptional, and sound is rather sparse although with some nice tunes by David Whittaker, the fast pace of the game, the necessity of keeping a constant eye on your fuel and ammo levels and the many different obstacles you must overcome - including a careful choice of teleporters, which can help as well as hinder you! - make Super G-Man a little and pleasant budget shooter.
Dandy, 30 Oct 2012 (Rating: 3)
A flip-screen Gauntlet clone which originally had to be a porting of the old dungeon crawl game for the Atari 8-bit range.
Not one of the best in its class - action is pretty slow and not much varied, graphics can be confusing more than often, and sound is sparse. Moderately entertaining, but nothing essential.
Converted from the 1983 Nintendo arcade game of the same name, Mario Bros. unfortunately is not a great effort. Action feels a tad slow when compared with the smooth, fast one of the original coin-op. Graphics are not very detailed - they even look somewhat messy at times - and sound is almost absent.
What's worse, however, is that this conversion came too late: by the time it was released, the old coin-op was already dated. The Spectrum game feels just like that: a game which was born already old, so to speak.
In a nutshell, it's not bad, but as a full-price game it leaves a lot to be desired.
In this colorful remake of their old Box BASIC game, Beyker Soft put the player in command of Pancho, whose task is to arrange the boxes in 9 storerooms, combining them according to their colors. When matched, the boxes disappear, allowing Pancho to move through one of two possible exits, which in turn will lead to a different storeroom.
The arrangement of the boxes is ingenious and requires the player to carefully plan his route in order to avoid being left without a way to proceed further. The fact that you can choose different exits prolonges the game's longevity.
Box Reloaded is a simple but involving brainteaser, and it's free as well.
Big and boring. That's the best way to describe The Pyramid in my opinion. A game where you have to proceed zapping aliens and carefully collecting crystals in order to reach the base a 15-level pyramid would sound interesting on paper.
However, after several minutes of playing and repeating the same task as a sort of household chore, the game becomes tedious and does not make you come back at it anymore.
It's not badly done, but as it is, The Pyramid soon becomes a repetitive exercise and kills any potential enjoyment that could be had from it.
An average vertically scrooling budget shoot-em-up in which you command a craft that looks suspiciously like a distorted smiley face.
Graphics and sound are pretty bland, but the game is competently programmed and should keep you busy if you fancy some mindless alien blasting. However, even in the same league of budget shoot-em-ups, there are better titles available for the Spectrum - Gunstar, Tornado ECM, Star Farce, Xarax, Octan etc.
This Infogrames title takes a lot of inspiration from the Seibu Kaihatsu Street Fight coin-op, also known as 1931 Empire City, although not to the extent of being an unofficial conversion of it.
I quite liked the coin-op back in the day, and the game mantains much of the feel of it. As a police agent in some American city of the '30s you are being chased by gangsters. Basically, you must shoot them before they shoot you. The action is viewed in first person, and you must move your sight to reveal the scene and find the baddies. Arrows and a counter will help you understand where your foes are and how soon will they shoot you. You can also hide by keeping ENTER pressed - but that will use up your bullets.
The game's strongest point are undoubtedly the detailed and atmospheric black-and-white graphics, combined with the constant pressure exerted by the foes. Sound is however almost non-existent.
Army Moves is the first and foremost example of the "new wave" of Dinamic games coming around from 1986 on: big, colorful and definitely not a walkover!
You must retrieve some documents held in an enemy base, and in order to do this you must cross the frontline by jeep and helicopter. Then you can access the second part, where you are on foot and must reach the base by passing through a dangerous swamp, then look for the safe holding your objective.
The bad reputation this game got from the British press (as far as I know the impression was more positive in other countries) was, I believe, due to the fact that the first 2-3 sections are not easy to negotiate, and many reviewers were probably not patient nor constant enough to overcome them. On the other hand, the game looks good if sometimes plagued by attribute clash, is large and varied and will be a fierce test of your gaming skills. Army Moves is a winner.
Inspired by Sega's Astro Fighter arcade coin-op, Starclash is a less than mediocre vertically shoot-em-ups which is inferior to many Galaxian clones released in the early days of the Spectrum. Bland appearance and dull gameplay do not make Starclash stand out in any way. There are many better similar games available for the Spectrum.
Definitely not Derek Brewster's best.
You, as Oscar, must get rid of the unholy presences which haunt the castle you've just bought and moved in. To do this you must use different weapons and items, including a jet-powered suit which will help you store items and defend yourself from the nasties.
Graphics and sound could have been reasonable in 1983, but by 1986 standards they were primitive to say the least. Still, for those who liked old classics like Atic Atac or Firelord, Con-Quest is an exploration arcade adventure which can be of some appeal. As a budget game it is certainly adequate, although it came in the same MAD range as Magic Knight's games, which are far superior.
This is an unique study about a confrontation in Central Europe between the NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Key to the victory is West Germany - within a month, NATO must defend it while the Pact must occupy it. Therefore your strategy will vary according to which side you decide to command. The Pact also has access to some specialized units and has overall more forces at its disposal, but individually weaker than their NATO counterparts.
You also can choose from three different levels of complexity, which determine whether you can employ certain tactics as well as the use of chemical and nuclear weapons. In fact you should try to win the game without resorting to the use of weapons of mass destruction, because you could trigger a response that could potentially lead to a global nuclear war - a scenario where everybody loses.
Theatre Europe is played in turns, and each turn is split in four phases. It's possible to decide the outcome of battles by means of an arcade sub-game, but it's much more satisfactory to turn it off since it feels quite unrelated to the general pace of the game.
In the end, Theatre Europe is a complex strategy game which manages to convey a believable impression of realism with a relatively simple and player-friendly gameplay. The fact that you can also play against a human opponent enhances its longevity.
Kong, 30 Oct 2012 (Rating: 1)
Of all the unofficial arcade conversions made by Ocean in the first phase of its existence, this is by far the worst.
Kong obviously takes 'inspiration' from Donkey Kong, but the primitive graphics - Mario has turned into a sort of matchstick man! - and the shoddy gameplay, with some very bad collision detection, mean any similarities end on a very superficial level.
Ocean would have produced a proper official conversion of Donkey Kong in 1986, but it would have been too late by then.
Sequel to Ninja Master, a game which was already dire by itself, Oriental Hero manages to descend even lower into the abyss of bad game design and programming.
You have almost no control over your man as he trots off unconvincingly around the screen, harassed by some badly drawn enemies. Then you face the first enemy, a giant cobra snake, and voila! you understand that defeating it it's a pure matter of luck.
Oriental Hero looks nasty, plays worse and it's not worth the tape it's recorded on or the time you will waste trying to play it.
A dreary clone of Pac-Man, one of those early games which abounded in the very first years from the Spectrum's launch.
Bad and unoriginal. Need I say more?
Joust, 30 Oct 2012 (Rating: 1)
Horrendous game with monotonous gameplay, flickery sprites and almost no sound which in the intentions of who produced such a monstrosity should have been an unofficial Spectrum conversion of the Williams coin-op of the same name. Bland, pointless and frustrating, it pales in comparison of practically everything, even from the same era. Avoid.
Tuma 7, 30 Oct 2012 (Rating: 1)
This was the first title from Spanish programming team Comix, the other and last being the frustrating and punishingly difficult Mythos. The game is a run-and-gun title putting you against some sort of alien invasion, which you must defeat both on foot and on a motorbike.
Well, maybe 'run' is not the right word. You tread very slowly and jerkily around the screen, as your enemies do. Sprites are large but badly drawn, and backgrounds are sparse and lack detail. Sound is almost absent. Gameplay is dull, with very little sense of involvement.
By the way, 'tuma' is a Sicilian cheese. A cheesy game indeed, then? :-)
Bad, boring and utterly pointless budget game inspired by Boulder Dash but completely lacking the charm and finesse of that historical title. No redeeming features at all are present in Dogsbody to save it from oblivion.
A sombre, atmospheric dynamic adventure based upon Werner Herzog's 1979 classic movie starring Klaus Kinski, which in turn is an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula novel.
As Jonathan Harker your task is first of all to escape from Count Dracula's castle, battling giant spiders and bats and avoiding, should you meet him, the Count himself. Once this has been done, you must cooperate with other characters - Jonathan's wife and Dr. Van Helsing - in order to lure Dracula out of his place and destroy him, while avoiding or neutralizing the fellow townsfolk, who are been largely vampirized by the Count.
Graphics are effective, although characters look a bit woody, especially when moving. Sound is limited to a grating tune, which can thankfully be turned off, and some effects.
The whole game is more than the sum of its parts, though; although it feels a little sparse at times, it will require some considerable efforts to be completed, due to the many tasks you will have to perform and the many things you must discover by yourself.
Weird and politically uncorrect in the extreme, a game where you as a maternity ward nurse must prevent babies from being electrocuted by inserting their little fingers into wall sockets or falling to their doom into the elevator shaft. To tranquillize them you can even use some sort of gas! They just do not make games like this anymore.
Although rather thin on actual gameplay, this budget arcade title scores high on novelty value. Nice graphics too.
Another licensed Hi-Tec title from Hanna-Barbera, The Jetsons stars the futuristic family we all know and love in a mixture of arcade and adventure with more quantity than quality. That's not to say it's a bad game; it just feels like a collection of mini-games put together, none of which are particularly impressive.
Welltris is basically a three-dimensional take on Tetris, where the pieces, although still being flat, must be placed on the bottom of a three-dimensional well (hence the name). The game is a fresh twist on a classic and although it is nothing special as far as graphics and audio are concerned, it should appeal all puzzle fans.
A nice circus simulation cleverly adapted from the 16-bit original. Plays like a multi-event sport game a la Daley Thompson's Super Test, but with the added novelty value of an unusual setting.
Graphics are a bit sketchy but of course keeping the detail of the original on the Spectrum would have been quite difficult. Sound on the other hand is nice, with several atmospheric tunes. The only real nag is the multiload system even on the 128K, but apart from this FFBTOF is nice and enjoyable.
Licensed from the horrendous movie with Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella playing as He-Man and Skeletor respectively, this franchise product is merely average. The action sequences, which are not bad per se, are unfortunately few and far between, placed amidst a long and repetitive maze section which accounts for the majority of gameplay. It is also confusing to keep track of your direction due to the peculiar system used.
With a better balance between its parts, MOTUTM could have been a much more convincing tie-in. Still, it's better than the movie itself (not that it would take a lot of effort).
Ahh, Hunchback. It was one of the first games I played on the Spectrum; I also played it extensively many years ago on an early edition of the Speccy Tour, managing to get the top score; even nowadays I have a soft spot for it.
Yes, the timing is unforgiving, especially in the rope swing screens; it reveals to be very short once you learn how to negotiate its 13 levels; and as far as visuals are concerned, it was already dated a few years after its release. But - how to say it? To me, it conveys the feeling of simple things which are enough to entertain you when you are young and not used to more sophisticated stuff.
From Astros Productions, authors of the excellent Solar Fire, comes this eastern-flavored turn-based tactical strategy game pretty much aimed at beginners since you have a limited range of troops to choose from and scenarios are not too hard to tackle even at the highest level of difficulty. Could be good as an introduction to the genre, pretty much like the old and venerable Rebelstar was for several of us.
A lovely maze-shooter hybrid from Hewson's budget label Rack-It, programmed by none other than Dominic Robinson, author of Uridium, Zynaps and Flying Shark. You must drive a tank through 16 devilish and colorful mazes, shoot ammunition crates and proceed to the exit.
Sounds easy? Not at all! Enemies patrol the maze, and you cannot kill them - only stun them temporarily. Time goes away and if it reaches zero, you lose a life, so you must not dilly-dally and try working out the best possible route for each level in order to accomplish your mission.
Way above the average £ 2.99 game.
Avenger came in an era of computer gaming when Gauntlet clones were the "in" thing. Although being part of a crowd, it is good to see that Avenger manages to stay on the good side.
Set in the same universe of Way Of The Tiger, licensed from the eponymous gamebook series, Avenger puts you as the same ninja from the earlier game in a very difficult adventure. You must retrieve the sacred scrolls of Ketsuin and defeat three evil guardians. To do this you walk around gardens, a palace, dungeons etc. defending yourself from many foes, with your hands and feet as well as with shurikens (in limited supply). You must also open locked doors with keys in order to proceed in your quest and be careful not to waste them, otherwise you won't be able to go on. Some sections of the maze cannot be entered unless you have some specific object with you - you will be killed instantly in that case.
Graphics and sound are pleasing and easily convey an exotic atmosphere. Unfortunately the game is rather hard and will require a lot of patience just to keep going because it is easy to make a fatal mistake which will force you to start all over again. Apart from this, Avenger is still one of the best Gauntlet clones available on the Spectrum.
This kind of game was already dated in 1984, let alone in 1987. Poor graphics, and sound, shoddy programming, repetitive and tired gameplay make The Colditz Story just not worth your time.
One of the best arcade conversions for the Spectrum ever, Flying Shark is a smooth, taxing and addictive shoot-em-up where you must negotiate four levels of pure mayhem controlling a biplane flying over jungles, beaches and sea against tanks, ships, gun turrets etc.
Sounds similar to 1942 and 1943, and in fact, it was the same with the original Taito coin-op - but this is better than the two Capcom titles put together. A truly excellent game.
Based on the Gary Chalk line of gamebooks which seven years earlier served as the basis for Flight from the Dark and Fire on the Water, Lone Wolf - The Mirror of Death is an arcade game instead, putting the adventure elements aside in favor of action. Slightly reminescent of Psygnosis's Barbarian, it is a platform-and-ladders title where you, as the eponymous hero, must fight your way, armed with your trusty sword, within the evil Dhazag-Oud's fortress. You should also make use of the Kai powers, which will allow you, for instance, to see hidden traps. These must be chosen at the start of the game and give an interesting twist, although their impact on the actual gameplay is pretty limited.
The game is a bit slow-paced but altogether pleasing, also due to its atmospheric graphic style. Like many late Spectrum games, it is not particularly original, but solid and entertaining nonetheless.
This is definitely not one of these games I have a fond memory of: Plummet is a novelty idea badly translated into an actual game. Your character - an obese-looking thing wearing a brim hat - scuttles along three badly drawn screens collecting flashing UDGs supposed to be pieces of an elevator chain, in order to save the mayor of New York from plummeting (hence the name) to his doom.
Graphics that already looked poor and dated at the time of release, together with very limited gameplay, and just three screens of action are the highlights (so to speak) of Plummet. As a budget game it would have been merely passable, but as a full-priced title it just didn't cut it then. Now it is simply bad.
This was a favorite of mine at the time and I must say it has stood the test of time rather well. Ostensibly inspired by the famous Tuthankamun coin-op, this maze-collect-shoot-em-up hybrid features large and colorful, albeit not very detailed graphics, functional audio together with fast-paced and often frustrating gameplay. However as the mazes keep rolling it manages to hold your attention and let you remember the times when games were simple and fun.
Athena, 28 Jun 2014 (Rating: 4)
Converted from one of the least known (to me, anyway) SNK coin-ops, Athena is a large and lovely platform where the eponymous heroine must battle her way through nine levels against bizarre creatures, using a variety of weapons including an impressive flaming sword that's almost as high as the playing area (!) Useful objects like pieces of armor and weapons can be found by destroying rock blocks, and walking upon certain locations can make a rose bloom, which in turn releases a heart that will replenish Athena's energy when collected.
Cute and detailed graphics, nice sound effects and tunes (on the 48K!) and frantic gameplay make Athena an interesting, although a bit repetitive, arcade game.
As far as run-and-gun games go, Gunrunner is a pristine example. It also requires good memory in order to remember where the major hazards are, e.g. avoid shooting where a mine lies or how many jumps you must perform in order to avoid falling to your doom in a pit.
The problem is, it's derivative - there is little here in terms of presentation and gameplay to let it stand out of the crowd of similar games. It's cleverly programmed but ultimately does not feel very satisfying. With some more polish or features it could have been a classic. As it is, it's good but not exceptional.
A great example on how to botch a potentially good idea by turning it into a real mess of a game.
The Paranoia Complex is set in a dystopian, Orwellian world where everybody is under the surveillance of some totalitarian technocratic regime. This interesting premise unfortunately gives way to a boring and pointless maze game with shoddy graphics, where all you seem to do is eat food, go to the toilet and answer some stupid questions each time you bump into a guard.
There's simply no excuse to such a butchering. The Paranoia Complex should be avoided at all costs.
Obviously a clone of the better known Bomb Jack, Super Seymour Saves the Planet stars Seymour, hero of several late Spectrum games from Code Masters, into his quest to liberate Earth from toxic waste, by jumping over platforms, collecting canisters and power-ups and stomping over baddies.
Graphics, audio and gameplay are above average and the game is overall good fun, if you don't mind its lack of originality. A nice budget game from the Spectrum's twilight era.
The first true 128K game, Tai-Pan is based upon the eponymous novel by James Clavell. Set in the Far East in the 1840s, it is basically an open-ended game of large proportions where you must earn your living as a smuggler, pirate or honest trader - the choice is up to you.
Starting from a humble beginning you must first repay your debit with a benefactor within six months, otherwise your head will be chopped off! Then you can roam the South China Sea freely, hoping to amass a fortune and earn yourself the title of Tai-Pan.
Although most of the times you will be wandering through the streets of the various cities of the game - which incidentally all look pretty much the same - there are several twists and turns that will help avoiding the impression of "being there, done that" which is the bane of this kind of video games. For instance, you will have to defend yourself from pirate assaults, or even conduct one if you choose to be a pirate yourself! You can also gamble if you like, hoping to earn a few bucks more.
Tai-Pan is a truly epic title, and for its sheer size and scope it deserves a classic status.
It is the end of the 19th century. At the controls of a diving craft, we are undertaking the mission of exploring the murky waters of Loch Ness, where some unidentified objects recently fell from the sky. Our task is to investigate the phenomenon.
Question: Who knows what we could find at the bottom of Loch Ness?
Answer: A dull and uninspiring pseudo-simulator game which throws out of the window a potentially great subject. Gameplay is limited to moving a hand-shaped cursor on the screen in order to activate the oxygen pump, shoot a harpoon etc. and watching white dots and lines move on an oval-shaped black background which is supposed to be the window of our craft.
Another waste of a good idea, Terror of the Deep is best left on the bed of Loch Ness.
Think about Spy Hunter with a motorbike instead of the car and in isometric 3D, and you will have a pretty close idea of what Mean Streak is. You can also make your bike leap into the air and should be careful not to damage it too much or make it run out of fuel.
A no-nonsense driving/shooter hybrid based upon an unusual twist of a well-known formula, Mean Streak is pretty easy at the beginning, but becomes increasingly more taxing as it goes on. Coupled with decent graphics and sound and an absorbing gameplay, the whole of this makes Mean Streak an interesting title. Its weak point lies in the controls, which are not very intuitive and require some time to master.
A superb coin-op conversion, one of the finest from Tiertex, of a game I knew well from the arcades. Taking the sheer size and speed of the original game's graphics into account, it is clear that the authors managed to pull off some clever tricks in order to let the humble Spectrum perform in a way as close as possible to the original.
As to the game itself, it is a shoot-em-up articulated in four stages, each one divided into three phases (top-down, frontal perspective and end-of-level boss). As an action title, it performs quite well on all fronts. Top notch!
Excellent conversion by Tiertex of the Capcom coin-op, UN Squadron keeps the gameplay features of the original whilst not sacrificing too much the visual and audio departments in its transition to the Spectrum.
UN Squadron is basically a horizontally-scrolling shoot-em-up where you, at the start of each game, can pick your pilot/aircraft combination from a choice of three, each of them being different in speed, resistance and firepower. You can also buy several power-ups in order to enhance your offensive and defensive capabilities.
Thumbs up all the way!
Coin-op conversions by Tiertex have a mixed record: some are great, some just average and some other simply bad. Unfortunately Dynasty Wars falls in the latter category.
The playing area is fairly small and cluttered with unnecessary details. Sprites are confusingly drawn and tends to blend with the background. What's worse, the action is bland and repetitive; you do not feel any involvement in what is happening on the screen. A real waste of a license.
Sai Combat is an unusual one-on-one martial arts fighting game where you and your opponent battle it out with Bo sticks as well as with your bare feet.
Graphics for the sprites are well drawn and animated, whilst backgrounds look pretty simple in comparison. Gameplay is smooth and involving, with your opponents becoming smarter as you beat them. On later levels you must also be wary of shurikens thrown by assistants placed on both sides of the screen.
Although not as refined as Way Of The Exploding Fist or International Karate Plus, Sai Combat is a worthwhile example of its genre.
An utterly pathetic title where you must drive a scooter around a maze collecting tokens whilst avoiding a similar vehicle roaming around. The problem is that you just seem not to have any control on the scooter; it endlessly revolves clockwise (the other one going in the opposite directions) and changing lane, even at the lower speed, is very hard and more than often you end up where you do not want to go.
Amoto's Puf is as fun as having your teeth smashed with a sledgehammer. It is unfair and irritating, seeming based on luck rather than skill, and repetitive as hell. Avoid.
Inspired by the coin-op of the same name, Tutankhamun is a maze game where you, as the explorer of an Egyptian tomb, must brave several dangers in order to collect as much treasure as you can and find the exit on the opposite side before the time runs out.
However, this is not a game for reckless shooters. Running along the corridors with guns blazing will get you killed in a short time. You must take a lot of care in order to avoid the enemies, timing your moves accordingly.
Despite its basic appearance and sound (hey, it's a 1983 title after all!), Tutankhamun is old-school, no-frills action gameplay at its finest.
An unremarkable and shameless rip-off of Tetris. There is no reason whatsoever for preferring this to the official Mirrorsoft Spectrum version.
Tetris, 07 Jul 2014 (Rating: 5)
Forget all the clones and rip-offs - the official version of Tetris is the best, pure and simple, in terms of graphics, sound and - most of all - gameplay available on the Spectrum.
Increasingly difficult as levels go by, Tetris will put your reflexes to the test like few other games of its kind can.
Froggy, 07 Jul 2014 (Rating: 4)
Frogger, like many early coin-ops, spawned a whole lot of clones on the Spectrum in the first years after the launch of our beloved 8-bit home computer. This one is the best of the bunch in my opinion, and although it looks pretty primitive - all movement is UDG-based - it manages to convey the look-and-feel of the original arcade game much better than its "brothers".
Maze Mania is yet another maze game where you must color all the tiles in order to open the exit to the next level, so originality is not exactly its high point.
However, the game is very pleasing, with large, colorful and rather well-drawn graphics, decent sound and fast action. It's easy to pick up since the purpose is very simple, but hard to leave, also because the task you must accomplish is not always the same: sometimes you must avoid recurring the path you already took because this will make the tiles revert to their original color; in another level you must run through the path twice for the tiles to take the intended color; and so on. This means there is enough variety in the game to keep you interested.
I don't understand why this unusual and quirky simulation title got so many low votes on the WOS archive. It baffles me - from the documentation to the actual program, it is clear that a lot of effort and care has been put into Space Shuttle. To date, it is the only simulator putting you at the controls of NASA's reusable space vessel, and the result is quite convincing: plenty of detail, different missions, pleasing if minimalistic visuals.
Maybe people were expecting laser duels with alien craft, establishment of colonies on other planets and/or satellites or god knows what. Space Shuttle missions are not like that. They are much more down-to-earth (no pun intended) affairs and the game reflects this in a noticeably realistic way.
Of course it might not appeal to everyone's tastes, but simply dismissing a well-made program like this just because you expected a different kind of game is totally unfair in my opinion.
Based on Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur, Lancelot recreates the well-know tales of the knights of the Round Table as an interactive fiction where the player takes the role of the eponymous hero. The game is very large and spans over three parts, starting with Lancelot riding to Camelot in order to be knighted by King Arthur, and ending with the quest for the Holy Grail, which will be the final task.
Level 9 adventures were among the finest you could ever play in the '80s and Lancelot is the pinnacle of their range of games, well exploiting a fascinating subject and turning it into a memorable gaming experience. Descriptions are aptly detailed and rich, and the parser lets you write complex sentences in proper English. For +3 users there is also the added bonus of some pictures, although they look rather sketchy in comparison with other formats the game appeared in.
Loosely based on the adventures of the eponymous comic book hero, Flash Gordon is an arcade game spawned into three distinct phases, none of which is particularly great, but the sum of its parts is definitely better than each one of them taken by its own.
In the first one - reminiscent of Martech's Tarzan - Flash must cross a jungle filled with assorted dangers, from large spiders to gorillas, and jumping across ravines, in order to get to the cae where Prince Barin is hiding. To win his trust, he must defeat the Prince with his bare hands and feet. Then, having obtained a sort of hovering bike, Flash must face and defeat Ming at the end of a dangerous course seen in first person view.
Again, none of the parts Flash Gordon is divided into stand above the rest - they would be merely average on their own. However, for a budget game, there is as much substance as you would expect, and the different stages fit in pretty nicely.
As Drak, the last of the Obliterators - an elite corps of space warriors -, your task is to penetrate a seemingly invulnerable alien mothership and sabotage it. To do this you are equipped with a fairly ineffective pistol, but along the way you will find heavier weapons that will allow you to punch a hole in the enemy's defenses and score as much points as possible.
In an interesting and original twist, points are not, in fact, just a measure of your progress, but will become very important as soon as you disable all of the vessel's self-defences and weapon mechanisms, allowing Federation fighters to attack. The score will then begin to count down; you must escape from the alien mothership before the score reaches zero, otherwise you will get killed as the ship will be destroyed. You only have one life to accomplish your mission.
Faithfully converted from the 16-bit original, Obliterator is a superb hybrid of exploration, platform and shoot-em-up, where you must care not to waste ammunition and energy running recklessly around the alien craft shooting just at everything. The careful and patient player will be rewarded in the end.
The icon-driven system does not get in the way of the action as much in its precedessor Barbarian; it feels much better integrated in the gameplay of Obliterator than in the previous title. Owners of a 128K Spectrum will also get a nice AY rendition of the atmospheric soundtrack.
A little known title from Icon Design published by Quicksilva, Sector 90 is a maze/shoot-em-up game which pits you as an elite soldier against an army of aliens and robots. You have broken your way into the alien base complex and must destroy what the game documentations refers to as a "sector intelligence unit" by placing a bomb which will give you only 90 seconds to escape safely.
When translated into an actual game, all of this is limited to a black-and-white window representing a side view of the base corridor, with sketchy sprites running along endlessly shooting each other over poorly drawn backgrounds. Every now and then you pick up a key and enter a door just to find yourself in a corridor looking exactly as the one you left, against the same enemies - which, it must be specified, seem all to be cookie-cutter humanoid robots.
Icon Design has a varied record. This is definitely not one of their best efforts. It's not awful, but shallow, repetitive, boring and not worth your time.
It is May 1941 and the Bismarck, the most powerful German battleship, is sailing the Atlantic Ocean in order to attack British warships and let its sister vessel Prinz Eugen destroy Allied convoys. You can play either for Germany, and in this case you only control the Bismarck itself, or for the UK, which will let you manage several British ships in order to discover and hopefully sink the Bismarck, as it happened in real history.
The game is an icon-driven strategy/simulation hybrid with some arcade elements thrown in for good measure. For instance, in battles between ships you must raise or lower your guns accordingly to the distance of your enemy, a là Beach Head; or if you take the British side, you will have the chance to bombard the Bismarck with Swordfish naval bomber airplanes in a pseudo-3D sequence.
The fact that gameplay changes considerably according to the battling side you choose, and the presence of some interesting features, like the weather conditions, adding further depth to the action, manage to conceal the underlying fault of Bismarck - its hybrid nature, which makes it neither a strategy nor an arcade title, thus never reaching a true identity. "Light simulation" could be more appropriated. However, it is competently done and should appeal to beginners as well as to experienced players.
Prodigy is yet another interesting idea which fails to translate itself into reality. As Solo, a synthetic humanoid creature locked into the labs of Wardlock, a mad scientist who aims to create a stable and complex form of artificial life, you must escape to your freedom while tending to the most advanced life form so far created by Wardlock: Nejo, an infant who needs to be fed and kept clean! You must then act as a sort of foster father to him, while looking for the four keys that will allow you to exit the complex together with Nejo. While doing this, you must avoid the Globewels and the Bloberites, nasty beings originated from Wardlock's previous attempts.
The novelty value of the curious setting soon wears off as you trundle along a nondescript isometric 3D landscape, jerkily moving your sketchily drawn character in what seems a domestic chore rather than a fight for freedom. Everything you do seems limited to replenishing your oxygen supply, feeding and cleaning Nejo and wandering around avoiding bizarre-looking shapes. There is very little substance for the player in Prodigy, on the presentation side as well as on the gameplay one. Boring and repetitive, Prodigy is a waste of a concept that should have been much better implemented.
Dervish can be described in a few words like a very poor clone of Druid. The main character, which is supposed to be a spinning dervish but ends up looking like a sort of spinning top, has even got three offensive spells at his disposal which echo the ones present in the Firebird game, as well as being constantly followed by what should be a servant - the equivalent of Druid's Golem.
That's where the similarities end. Instead of the well drawn and laid out maze of Druid, all we have here is a horrendous scrolling mess looking like something drawn by a pre-school kid with a white chalk on a blackboard. It is also extremely easy to die, and since you only got one life, the sense of frustration this pointless monstrosity generates is enough to push you to reset the computer and wonder what on earth made you waste your time with Dervish in the first place. This is Garbage with a capital G.
This was the first game authored by Binary Dynamics (Martyn Hartley and Paul Scrivin). The duo later went to write some decent titles for Code Masters, but their beginning is all but forgettable - a truly bad platform-shooter with amateurish graphics, flickering sprites and absolutely no feeling of involvement in what is going on the screen.
Even in 1987 and at £ 1,99 Call Me Psycho simply wasn't worth the tape it was recorded on. Nowadays it stands as a monument to shabbyness.
Even by 1983 standards this is pretty shoddy. A Wild West-styled shooting gallery featuring crudely drawn backgrounds and sprites, and action which is all but thrilling.
There were much better titles around for the 16K Spectrum at the time: my mind goes to a rather similar game, Micromega's Deathchase 3D, which is incomparably superior. Gun Law is just to be left buried in Boot Hill instead.
I loved Thundercats from the first time I played it: pure, no-nonsense action coupled with great graphics and animation and an increasing level of difficulty which, far from being frustrating, takes you into the realms of that dangerous land known as 'just-one-more-go'.
Probably the most arcade-oriented title programmed by Gargoyle Games, Thundercats is licensed from a cartoon series that was briefly shown down here as well. I have no knowledge of that and therefore cannot say anything about it capturing the feel of the series or just being an arcade game with a superficial Thundercats gloss. Whatever it might be, this is an excellent game and I still enjoy it as much as I did in 1988.
720° is a respectable conversion from an unusual Atari coin-op. As a skateboard fanatic, you must perform several feats in four different event parks - Downhill, Jump, Ramp and Slalom - in order to win prize money that will allow you to purchase other tickets to the parks themselves as well as equipment like shoes to go faster or knee pads to get up faster after a fall.
The conversion is faithful enough to the original although graphics are just yellow on black and sound is very limited. The problem is that the coin-op itself is not very varied nor exciting, and the game reflects this as well.
Based from the Nichibutsu coin-op, Mag Max is a competent if rather uninspiring conversion. You start the game as a simple craft hovering on the ground and must assemble Mag Max, the ultimate fighting machine, by recovering his head and legs, and an extra piece which destroys obstacles while on the upper level, and launches homing missiles on the lower one - you can alternate between the two by going through passages. On the 2nd and 4th level you meet a huge boss - a sort of three-headed hovering mechanical dragon - which can take a lot of punishment (and I really say a lot!) before being destroyed. Then, if you are on the 4th level, the game restarts from the first one.
Mag Max is a shooter without any particularly memorable feature. Graphics are pretty bland, sound is nothing to write home about (except for a snazzy tune in the title screen) and gameplay is your standard horizontally scrolling shoot-em-up fare.
And that's all about it really. A well-executed task, but nothing exceptional.
LED Storm is a conversion from a Capcom coin-op which can be described as a futuristic car race full of dangers. You must drive your vehicle avoiding other contestants - some of them quite dangerous, as the truck on the first level - while keeping an eye on the fuel level and making sure to dodge falling rocks, jump over chasms, shake off roller skaters who will hold on to the car slowing it down and so on.
Graphics are bi-chromatic, with the main color changing from one level to another, and do their job while not being outstanding. Sound, on the other hand, is superb: the AY tunes are among the most catchy and atmospheric I ever heard in a Spectrum game - Tim Follin at his best.
In the end, LED Storm is a well made conversion of a pleasing, but not awe-inspiring coin-op.
In Bionic Commando, conversion of a Capcom coin-op, you manoeuvre the member of an elite combat force who must penetrate the enemy lines of an alien invasion in order to reach and destroy the opponents' main base. To do this, you are equipped with a gun as well as a bionic arm which extends for a certain distance, allowing you to grab platforms and other pieces of the scenery, or briefly stun your foes, and proceed in your mission. This unusual feature has been very well ported from the coin-op, and the overall impression coming from the Spectrum version is that of an accurate enough job.
Although your sprite and those of your enemies look somewhat sketchy, and the scrolling is far from being smooth, the Spectrum version of Bionic Commandos manages to effectively capture the thrills of the game, even down to the level of difficulty, which isn't exactly what you would call a walkover! Another mention should go to Tim Follin's excellent AY rendition of the coin-op's tunes.
The Spectrum conversion of this Capcom platform/beat-em-up does not look exceptional at first glance, but at least passable: graphics could do with more detail, scrolling and movement are rather jerky, but apart from there are no big problems. Troubles begin when you realize this is a cut-down conversion: instead of the five levels of the original, only the first one made its way to the Spectrum. After the end of it you go back to the start.
Of course, there have been in the past decent coin-op conversions for the Spectrum which only featured a (large) part of the original game - e.g. Ghosts 'n' Goblins -, but being forced to play a mediocre rendition of just one level out of five is a real rip-off. Thumbs down.
Black Tiger is a competent conversion of the Capcom coin-op where you must battle your way through five levels of platforms full of enemies and traps, collecting coins which will allow you to buy better weapons and armor to aid you in your quest.
Graphics and sound are not exceptional but not bad either. Action is fast and captures the spirit of the coin-op well enough. Spectrum users won't be ashamed of this conversion, although it's not the best ever you can find for that computer.
This is a really atmospheric adventure where you take the role of a secret agent who's just been informed that Valkyrie 17, a Nazi super-weapon which was thought to be lost after the end of the war, has been completed and now it could be used to threaten our world's already unstable peace.
The game comes with some extra material which - in a fashion reminding of Infocom adventures - should involve you deeper with the game: interrogation transcript, audio messages left on your character's answering machine and so on.
Location description are reasonably detailed and come with clean if pretty basic graphics. The parser is well implemented and lets you enter rather complex sentences in plain English. Difficulty is pretty high - sometimes it is easy to get killed if you do not follow a certain set of actions as closely as possible.
Anyway, Valkyrie 17 is a finely crafted adventure and should appeal to all fans of interactive fiction.
Classic car race game where you must run through an endless road battling enemy cars and helicopters, avoid harming innocent bystanders (although the only penalty you get are some points less!) and be ready to turn your vehicle into a motorboat when that damned broken bridge looms ahead. Oh, and be sure to get that artificial fog and oil to get rid of enemies creeping at your back!
A classic title in every respect, Spy Hunter is certainly not the deepest title you will ever play on the Spectrum, but it conveys enough of the thrills of the arcade game while being a good action driving/shooter escapade in its own right. Large and colorful graphics and fast action are its main strenghts.
Yes, it's a Metro Cross clone, and ninjas are nowhere to be seen, but apart from this, Ninja Scooter Simulator is a lovely budget action title with few frills and many thrills. Graphics and sound do their job, but playability is very high, with non-stop action and devilish tracks which induce you into having another go as soon as the game is over. For its price, Ninja Scooter Simulator delivers a good experience.
How could a well established name in home computer budget games like Silverbird release such a bad joke of a title like Pogostick Olympics in 1988 is beyond me. Although the idea of a multi-even sport simulation with your athlete using a pogo stick instead of his own legs could seem interesting on paper, realization is simply atrocious. Bad graphics, slow and jerky movement, absolutely no sound and the impression that whatever you try to do you are unable to make any impact upon what is going on make Pogostick Olympics a candidate for the Wooden Spoon. There are five so-called 'events' but I doubt anyone will have the patience and strong stomach to get past the second.
A split-screen collect-em up game where you must swim underwater in order to collect keys to proceed, air tanks to keep you going and bubbles to shoot at the enemies roaming around. The final aim should be to reach the end of all of the eight levels (about eight screens long each) in order to save some kidnapped youngsters.
Now, despite being set underwater, Scuba Kidz is a very shallow title. Graphics look very much like a 1983 game, let alone a 1988 one; sound is almost non-existent; gameplay is dull and tired, a formula that has been done much better in previous years. Even at £ 1,99 Scuba Kidz wasn't worth it. A poor show indeed.
A bad example of a genre with much better titles available for the Spectrum - shoddy graphics, almost no sound, repetitive and far too easy action. It's not utter trash, but there is absolutely nothing here that has not been done much better before, even sticking to budget games.
A platform/shooter game reminiscent of the classical Dan Dare, where as the last member of the Starwarrior elite squad you must arm bombs scattered around an alien-infested former space colony.
Nice graphics and a large playing area cannot however hide the fact that the enemies are all the same, and the bomb arming mechanism is too similar to those seen in other Players titles. But the game is certainly interesting if you like the genre, and well above average for a £ 1.99 - Pts. 650 - Lit. 5000 range title. 3.5/5
Tank, 05 May 2017 (Rating: 4)
Tank - Despite the blocky graphics this is a well-made conversion from the SNK coin-op I have fond memories of. Fight your way aboard the eponymous tank through a jungle and an enemy fortress shooting tanks of various kinds - some are tougher than others - and enemy soldiers, which can also be ran over for added fun. Collect tokens in order to improve your offensive capabilities. 4/5
Programmed by Ernieware, the Dutch team behind the notorious Split Personalities, and released in a two-game pack together with Thunderceptor. As the title itself says, it's fast and furious - a frantic shoot-em-up where you, aboard a flying carpet, must battle against some very strange creatures, dodge obstacles and collect tokens to deliver to a character at the end of each level. There you must discover which tokens will please the character, thus rebuilding your energy. Action is very fast, enemies come to you in thick formations so you often cannot dodge them, and this weakens playability to some extent. However it's nice to look at, and the original setting adds novelty value. 3.5/5.
A horizontally scrolling space shoot-em-up with large, detailed and colorful graphics. An interesting feature is that before starting the game you can select how much points to allocate to shields, normal laser and super laser (required for end-of-level enemy spaceships). A fine example of a tried and tested formula. 4/5.
Tie-in of the eponymous 007 movie, the first where Bond was impersonated by Timothy Dalton after Roger Moore. The game follows the plot of the movies rather closely, and is basically a runny-jumpy variation of the old Missile Command: you move Bond making him run and roll to avoid enemies' shots from left to right, and shoot back by moving a crosshair around. From the second level on, you can choose one out of four objects from Q's laboratory at the start of each stage, but only one of them will aid you in your quest. For instance, in the third level the hard hat will protect you from wrenches falling from above.
Despite the simplicity of the gameplay, there is some variety in the game to be found. In level 3 (Industrial Complex), besides avoiding the aforementioned wrenches, you must also avoid the pipes by rolling under them, a feature not seen in any other level. In level 4 (The Mansion) a helicopter flies above the scene - another feature not seen in any other level - and you must get rid of it with the bazooka. Level 5 (The Fairground) is unique: there is only one enemy, the screen does not scroll and you must hit the balloons with the crossbow before they reach you, so that you can in the end dispatch the enemy himself. Level 6 (Tangiers) features gaps to jump over and enemies which must be hit repeatedly in order to go further. Finally, level 8 (Whittaker's House) only features the arch-villain you must kill in order to finish the game.
All of this cannot however hide the fact that TLD is thin on gameplay, rather short once you learn how to negotiate the various levels, and the graphics of both sprites and backgrounds are pretty sketchy - not what you would expect from a major license game. It is just average for a full price title in fact, but I must say that back in the day I found it strangely appealing, and completed it in fact a year after its release. One thing is for sure - it's better than the movie it is based upon. 6.5/10
A well-known horizontal space shooter by the Wetherill/Grunes duo. Looks pretty at first sight but after some goes it shows its obvious limits: the attack waves are mostly repetitive, too many times enemies and bullets are so thick and fast that they give you no room to move, and those fast-moving walls are an useless nuisance. Not bad, rather good in fact, but would have been better without those annoying features. 3.5/5
WWII-themed maze game that stands well above the plethora of Gauntlet clones. Colorful and well-drawn graphics, and on 128K you also get some nice AY tunes (three, one for each of the game's releases, no less) and sound effects. Playability is also made longer by the large, complex levels and the different missions, plus the two difficulty levels available.
What to say about this title that has already not been said? In my opinion, it is the finest isometric 3D game available for the Spectrum (and other systems as well, I guess; I also played it on the C64 and Atari ST) bar none. Join the eponymous characters in their quest to liberate the galaxy from the evil Blacktooth empire. The different strenghts and weaknesses of both of them and the large, varied worlds you will have to negotiate, where almost every screen is a challenge requiring brains and precision as well as fast reflexes, ensure a whole lot of taxing fun even nowadays.
If there was a groundbreaking Spectrum game released in 1987, I believe the honor should go to Driller. An original, intriguing and absorbing title, and a technical feat of massive proportions as well. The first Freescape game, where you have to prevent the Mitral moon from exploding by drilling the gas accumulated under its surface in each of the 18 sectors it is divided into, may be a bit slow for the sheer amount of data being processed on the screen, but the atmosphere and the sense of "being there" are strong. If you find the reconnaisance jet you can see it all from a new perspective!
Rygar, 06 May 2017 (Rating: 3)
Converted from the Tecmo coin-op, Rygar takes its name from its main character, the one controlled by the player, that runs on each screen from left to right hitting his enemies with a peculiar weapon, a sort of round blade connected through a wire - much like a lethal horizontal yo-yo - and jumping over obstacles such as rocks, trees, pits etc. Power-ups make the weapon more lethal or able to do a 180-degrees swing. Each level must be completed within an allocated time, otherwise Rygar will be pursued by a giant, deadly skull which is very difficult to avoid.
The transition to the Spectrum of this well-known coin-op is unfortunately not of the highest quality. Rygar is a bland, featureless sprites and the backdrops are mostly repetitive. Sound is almost non-existent. The coin-op gameplay has however been retained to a certain extent, which is the main reason this Spectrum version is just passable as a whole. 3/5.
Coded by the late, great Jonathan "Joffa" Smith, Hysteria is basically a run-and-jump action game which might be mistaken by a careless eye for a fantasy version of his previous title Cobra - the hilarious tie-in from the movie of the same name starring Sylvester Stallone - but the only thing the two games have in common, besides the author, is the use of an excellent left-right scrolling routine (which causes the same lock-up problem on the +2A in the first release versions of the game in fact).
Hysteria is conceived as a travel through time where the player character must collect puzzle pieces and lemons (yes, you read it well) in order to battle the same end-of-level monster each time, a large two-headed creature. By picking up small worms popping from the groud, you can gain power-ups ranging from a long-range shot to a jet-pack which will be required in the third and final level to collect some of the aforementioned pieces and lemons.
Hysteria has none of the complexity of the Cobra levels: there are no platform to jump over and the enemies follow mostly predictable patterns. This is the main point that keeps the game well under the previous work by Smith. However, Hysteria looks good with large, detailed graphics in the typical style of its author, features some nice plip-plop music and sound effects, and the gameplay feel is noticeably slick. 3.5/5
Professor Eyestrain discovered it twenty years ago: a wandering asteroid would end up striking the Earth. Unsatisfied and disdained by the academic community, the professor retired to a distant and hostile territory. Now his prophecy has been confirmed by facts, so it is necessary to send an explorer to find him, and persuade him to devise a way to destroy the asteroid.
Our alter ego in the game can be chosen from five valid characters, each representing a humorous stereotype of a different nationality. This will have just a minor impact on the actual gameplay however, because it will affect just one of the different situations the player will face.
Terramex is in fact a bizarre and zany arcade adventure, as you can see from the puzzles themselves. For example, a party manifesto is used as "hot air" to make a balloon fly!
Terramex is competently programmed, filled with many nice touches - such as the way your character shows he is thinking when you "ask" him for a suggestion - and requires the player to reflect in a creative and unusual way - taking your sense of humor into account as well as logical thought.
The last chapter of the Magic Knight saga, Stormbringer sees our hero looking for a way to reunite with his alter ego, the Off-White Knight, which originated from to the dimensional laceration in space and time that occurred when he returned from the future experienced in Knight Tyme. Magic Knight must therefore use various objects, interact with many non-playing characters - many of them possessing skills required to help him in his predicament -, cast spells at the right time, and avoid lethal dangers found throughout the place.
The game is driven through an original and functional pull-down menu system named "Windimation" by its author, David Jones. Stormbringer is the most complex and articulated adventure starring Magic Knight, as well as one of the best examples of this genre ever appeared on the Spectrum.
Similarly to Spellbound and Knight Tyme, an 128K enhanced version, with more rooms, characters, puzzles and AY soundtrack is available.
Super Sprint - Converted from the Atari coin-op, Super Sprint has one or two players competing against other two CPU-controlled cars in a series of tracks viewed from above each one in a single screen. Tracks feature bends and twist, ramps, barriers etc. and become more and more complex the further you progress into the game, although you are able to start to play from any one of them. Collect golden wrenches in order to gain power-ups to make your car more competitive, such as faster top speed or tires to make the car stabler when following the curves. Sound is pretty minimal and graphics are essential, but inertia and acceleration are pretty well implemented. Of course you cannot play with a steering wheel like in the arcades, but other than that it's a competent and well-made conversion, best played with a human companion. 3.5/5.
A well-presented flip-screen game where you control a flying sphere bound on a mission to bring three objects to a super sentient being (hint: it's the Latin word for "peace"). Along your way you will face enemies which will sap your energy, and - most important of all - gravitational fields that will require patience and skill to be negotiated, avoiding deadly obstacles. Luckily there are some items like weapons that can help you on your quest.
Kinetik is great - original, pretty to look at and absorbing. The only thing it lacks is some variety and "spice" in screen layouts - the really taxing ones are just a handful, usually those with strong gravitational fields. 4.5/5.
A budget 8-way scrolling shoot-em-up converted from a Namco coin-op dating back to 1981 (!) - hence the " '87" in the title. The aim is to control a spaceship seeking and destroying enemy bases in space, by shooting six pods that constitute them or straight in the middle, which is harder due to the missiles shot by the enemy. You must also fight against other spacecraft and keep an eye on your fuel levels; teleporters will make you travel around the play area instantly, and a special power-up will let you shoot also from the back of the ship. A fast-and-furious, no-nonsense space shooter which relies mostly on a frantic pace rather than gameplay depth. Great AY tune when loaded on 128K Spectrums. 4/5
Converted from the Taito coin-op Gladiator, this is a hack-and slash game where your fighter must run from left to right hitting various targets with his sword and defending himself with his shield, and defeat various guardians at the end of each section. Graphically rather interesting, with a good use of color and large sprites; a novelty value is the presence of armor, which will leave you - and your enemies - vulnerable to a deadly hit. Luckily you can restore it if you hit a flying icon with your sword. Otherwise the gameplay is rather shallow, and
as a full price game it would be rather overpriced, but it was part of the Trio compilation - its weaker title although not being so bad after all. And back in the day I was strangely compelled to play it right to the end, where I found an invincible enemy! Many years later I read an interview to David Perry where he explained that it was deliberately so, because there was no memory left for a proper ending. Oh well... 3/5
Feud, 07 Jun 2017 (Rating: 4)
The battle between enemy wizard brothers Learic and Leanoric (a quite strange choice for names, I thought back in the day...) is a well-known example of an above average Spectrum budget game. For just £ 1.99 - or Lit. 5,000 if you lived here - you had a nice maze/collect title which unfortunately became too easy when you understood that just by collecting every spell ingredient whilst avoiding Leanoric and Hieke, the gardener, and then hitting Leanoric with everything you had got for his quick demise, the game went to a successful end. But I still have a soft spot for this game, due to several pleasing afternoons I spent by playing it. 4/5
This would be a competent Scramble clone were it not for the excruciatingly bad controls. Whoever heard of a scrollling shoot-em-up where the same key acts as forward and fire! The pit at the end of the red stage is also terribly difficult to hit, considering that bombs do not follow a straight direction but seem to fall erratically.
I always thought Penetrator was overrated as everyone else seems to rave about it, and I don't. The absurd key choice is an example of plain bad game design.
Gunhed, 26 Jul 2020 (Rating: 2)
Boring, unoriginal example of a genre - the horizontally scrolling shoot-em-up -which counts many better titles on the Spectrum. There is absolutely nothing here to hold your interest for more than a couple of minutes.
Converted from the eponymous Sega coin-op, Scramble Spirits is a competently made vertically scrolling shoot-em-up which came a bit too late at the party, so to speak; in 1990 the genre was already filled with plenty of titles and it ended up being slightly uninspiring. A standard example of its kind, with everything you would expect - power-ups, stage bosses etc. so if you like the genre, check it out. 7/10
On of the very first games I experienced for the Spectrum (on the 16K!), Slippery Sid is a noteworthy example of the classic "snake game" which becomes harder and harder as you go on. Still good for a few goes every now and then.
After BMX Simulator and Formula 1 Simulator, Code Masters offers us the Jet Bike Simulator, but gameplay is substantially the same: drive your water bike around several courses avoiding obstacles and staying ahead of the other contestants. Rather derivative, but still pretty good if you like the genre.
A platform/collect-em-up where you, as Captain Dynamo - a curious character - must jump through a well from top to bottom collecting diamonds and avoiding dangers such as spikes and various types of nasties. Not very original, but nicely presented - the eponymous character's animation in particular is very well done - and playable, Captain Dynamo is one of the best titles among the final run of Spectrum games, shortly before the machine went out of production.
One of the most pristine example of how to waste a potentially great license. The game spans over two screens (three if you count the initial interface) which see Cap trying to overcome some dastardly plot which involves a deadly toxin to be released within an hour. Movement is jerky, graphics are confusing, sound is virtually non-existent and, worst of all, there is no real gameplay to speak of: all you do is wandering through the two screens trying to hit fast-moving, crudely drawn sprites with Cap's shield, which is lost forever if you miss - you have got 6 of them. Nothing like that was ever found in the original comics, and this pathetic excuse for a game is best forgotten forever.
Well at least it's competently programmed - there are no bugs to speak of and controls work as expected. However, that's basically everything good that can be said of this game. The attempt to turn the gritty atmosphere of Renegade and Target Renegade into a time-crossing comedy fails miserably. If it hadn't the word Renegade in the title it would have been a passable, if derivative, beat-em-up. But the fact that it is supposed to be the final chapter of the gang warfare saga makes it all the more disappointing. It's better to make Renegade III fade into history.
Karate in China? Preposterous! And so is this sort of "game". Bland, derivative and boring beat-em-up which isn't even worth its price of £1.99 (or the equivalent in your local currency in 1988). The fighters looks like old age hippies and move as if they were filmed at 16 frames a second like in the first decades of cinematography. The Way Of The Exploding Fist came out 4 years before and is tons better than this trash.
Not bad for a tennis game, and some touches like the referee following the action and the peculiar angle of view gives it some personality. And it went out on budget too. Surely, the old and venerable Match Point still reigns supreme, but Grand Prix Tennis is not to overlook.
A quirky and taxing platform game set into a giant fridge. Additional dangers like the freezing ray, that you must avoid while on the ladders, require a great deal of coordination. I had good fun with it back in the day and although it has not aged very well, I still regard it with some nostalgia.
Two titles in a single offer for Mastertronic's short-lived MAD-X label. Molecule Man is an arcade adventure, previously released on its own, in isometric 3D starring a cute character. Energy Warrior is a horizontally scrolling shoot-em-up where you have to save a planet from alien invasion by destroying wave after wave of nasties.
Molecule Man is the most interesting title of the two, deeper and more varied than Energy Warrior, which is notable for its parallax scrolling but otherwise unoriginal and not very enticing. However the two games make a pretty good bundle for £2.99 (or the equivalent in your local currency in 1987).
3DC, 26 Jul 2020 (Rating: 4)
An isometric arcade adventure which was released with the Hit-Pak Trio compilation, and in my opinion is the best of the bunch. As a diver stranded on the bottom of the sea, you must explore the various screens looking for the parts of the submarine which will let you escape from your predicament. Your ally is an eel (!) which will look for useful items going into places which would normally be unaccessible to you.
3DC plays well, has some nice touches like the air bubbles coming from the main character's suit, and the novelty value of your "companion" adds personality to an already interesting game. It would have already been good as a stand-alone release. 8/10.
After The War is a side-scrolling beat/shoot-em-up divided in two parts. In the first, you are armed only with your arms and feet and must make your way through a destroyed city taking on various kind of baddies and avoiding dynamite charges thrown at you from the remaining buildings' windows. In part 2, you are armed with a large machine gun and your opponents are robots and turrets.
The game is as difficult as your average Dinamic offer, which may put several users away. However I find the difficulty very progressive and not unfair. That said, I managed to reach the end of the second stage but did not complete it yet... Graphics are detailed although black and white only, with large, well-defined sprites. Sound is very sparse.
In a nutshell, a good release from Dinamic, especially if you like challenges! 7/10.
A good conversion from the Sega coin-op which is basically a Gauntlet clone in an Aliens setting. As in the original, you can play as a man or a woman - one of the very few games on the Spectrum where you can choose this, along with Ant Attack and Rocky Horror Show! - and must rescue at least 10 comrades before gaining access to the level boss room. You have various weapons at your disposal and up to 2 droids can follow you protecting your back from the enemies.
Graphics are colourful but smallish and a bit sketchy, and sound is limited to some blips and beeps. However the game is quite playable and should be tried by all Gauntlet fans.
Toobin' is a conversion of an unusual Atari coin-op where the player floats down a river full of dangers while riding ...an inner tube. Bizarre isn't it? Well, the game is all about collecting points while avoiding the nasties, some of which can be knocked out by hitting them with cans. It gets somewhat repetitive after a while, but the cartoonish and colorful graphics, coupled with some pleasant AY tunes on the 128K, make up for that. 7/10
Zybex, 26 Jul 2020 (Rating: 5)
Great budget horizontally scrolling shoot-em-up where... you don't actually shoot, the fire key is used to change from 4 possible type of weapons.
Your character moves around the screen shooting waves after waves of enemies and avoiding obstacles. Destroying a wave of enemies gives you a token which will be used to reinforce one of your weapons. I reckon it does not sound very original, but the large and pretty detailed graphics and the slick, fast gameplay make up for that. This is also one of the very few Spectrum games of this kind where two people can play simultaneously. For its price, Zybex is a real bargain.
A poor man's Operation Wolf with fixed screens and none of the sleekness of the original game. Even as a magazine giveaway it was substandard. Avoid.
Xcel, 26 Jul 2020 (Rating: 1)
Bland, monotonous shoot-em-up disguised as some sort of space exploration simulator. How it could be so well received at its time is beyond me.
This is not a game for the easily discouraged. The Spectrum version of Jukka Tapanimaki's C64 classic is competently done and retains the difficulty of the original, while of course it cannot count on the hardware scrolling capabilities of the light brown machine. However graphics are detailed enough and colorful, and sound on the 128K is nice. The biggest problem for me is the time limit, but on the whole Netherworld is a noteworthy title and a welcome addition to the shoot/collect-em-up genre.
As the sheriff of a Wild West town which for some reason is continuously targeted by the worst outlaws west of the Rockies, it is up to you to maintain law and order with your six-shooter. Engage the baddies in a duel and remember - do not draw first!
Gunfright is an old favorite of mine and never ceases to give me plenty of fun. Now, if those nasty townsfolk would move a bit less erratically... They end up being more annoying than the outlaws themselves!
Conversion of a Taito coin-op where you as the young Kage must save his beloved Kiri from an evil wizard, battling against wave after wave of ninjas. Bland graphics, sparse sound and incredibly easy gameplay make Legend Of Kage one of the lamest coin-op Spectrum conversions. Mind you, the original wasn't exactly Taito's most exciting title to be honest, so as a conversion in itself it's not that bad.
An unusual, quirky arcade adventure where as "Grumpy" Gumphrey, an aged vigilante in a department store, must keep an eye on shoplifters as well as performing several tasks in order to avoid being fired. There is plenty to do and several objects scattered around to use in order to accomplish your tasks.
The colorful and cartoonish graphics, with fast-moving sprites make GGS quite eye-catching. The game is deep, varied and definitely not for the casual player. It requires patience and constance. For this reason it might not appeal to everyone, but I really liked it although I am still far from mastering it. 8/10.
A great puzzle games where you must put together the portraits of some celebrities from Ronald Reagan to Marilyn Monroe (although to this day I still don't understand who the couple of level 8 is supposed to be). The catch is that you cannot just put the pieces into place and get away with it; the walls of the assembling area get progressively filled with cracks which push the blocks away when hit. You play against a time limit and on later levels, pieces will also push each other if there is not an obstacle in their direction.
Apart from the puzzle pieces, you will also find several icons. Some can give you more points or time, or even kill you instantly when colliding each other (the gas can and the lit match). You also have to stay alert for bombs - which can be neutralized with a faucet icon for 5000 points.
Split Personalities is a puzzle game with fast arcade traits. Original, well-presented and addictive. A real classic.
Ghosts 'n' Goblins was one of the first coin-ops that I played, and I really liked it although I never managed to finish it (with one credit of course). I first saw and played the C64 conversion and thought it was pretty good despite not liking the music so much, which had no relation with the coin-op soundtrack at all.
Then I saw and played the Spectrum version... and was disappointed. Graphically it was much less attractive, with the same sprites being recycled over and over, and it was almost completely silent. Gameplay wise, it was not bad, but it was not better than the C64 version. While Elite had done a better effort on the Spectrum than on the C64 with Paperboy, Bomb Jack and Commando, the opposite was true for GNG, while 1942 was a decent conversion on both machines.
In a nutshell, I always found GNG rather overrated. It's not rubbish by any means, but pales in comparison of the C64 version.
A bizarre maze game where you play as a poor fellow who's been sent to Hell and must find three crosses before confronting Beelzebub himself (who looks a lot like Alice Cooper, no less) and make your escape.
The "gory" graphics come from the warped mind of John Jones, who will create the even weirder Soft And Cuddly in 1987. Apart from the novelty value, this is a pretty average maze game, decent but not exceptional.
Marketed as Cerius II, Interalia is not a platform game with slight adventure tones but a shoot-em-up where you drive a spaceship around evil Rogorf's domains in order to defeat him once and for all. Enemies come at you continuously but luckily you can replenish your shields and improve your firepower.
Interalia is not bad, but there are many better similar games for the Spectrum, even on budget. I still prefer Cerius over this.
Converted from the Irem coin-op, Ninja Spirit is a side-scrolling game similar to Green Beret but set in feudal Japan. As the main character Tsukikage (the human incarnation of a supernatural being known as the great white wolf), you have several weapons at your disposal and must run through several levels full of enemies before facing the final boss, the Last Warlock.
The game is altogether not bad, but its real weakness are the graphics. Little use of color and overly detailed backgrounds in some levels mean it's not very easy to see what's going on. Unless you are severely visually impaired, you should nonetheless be able to have some fun with this competent, although not outstanding in any way, conversion.
A conversion from the Capcom coin-op, a vertically scrolling shoot-em-up where you have the chance of driving a car and piloting a space fighter against the usual alien invaders. The large and detailed sprites can sometimes be not very easy to discern from the backgrounds, also because the game does only use two colors at a time, and the enemies come to you thick and fast as their bullets. Sound is unfortunately almost non-existent. On the whole, this is an adequate job, although there's much better around - but also much worse.
A platform game where you control the eponymous rectiles in a rescue mission to save April O'Neil from the evil Shredder. You must face hordes of enemies through sewers and the occasional rooftop taking advantage of several items like shurikens or the inevitable pizza slices.
Graphics are colorful and move quite fast, while sound is very limited, but on the whole the game does not fare any better than many other similar titles already available for the Spectrum. Moreover, I was too old for the Turtles craze, so there is no added nostalgic value for me, also because I only played this game first in the late 1990s through emulation. For this reason I find it OK but nothing really special. 6/10
If this is a joke, it's a particularly bad one.
A poor platform/collect-em-up game which already looked and played very dated when it came out in 1985 (I was going to add "sounded" but there is no sound to speak of). Tales Of The Arabian Nightmares, rather.
A chase maze game with bad, jerky and flickery graphics, irritating and repetitive bleeping sounds and repetitive and frustrating gameplay. How on earth could they ask you money for this stuff is beyond me - they should have payed you for playing it, actually!
Seriously, how could you expect people to receive well in 1986 what looks and plays like a reject from 1982, at full price to boot, is one of the great mysteries of the Spectrum world. "Bad" is not enough to describe the "quality" of this waste of code.
Hotshot is an interesting idea turned into a neat if a little shallow game. It is a variation on the Breakout theme where you control the ball by shooting it with a sort of magnetic gun. You must clear each screen from the bricks to proceed to the next level, and take care not to be hit by your ball, or the other shot by your opponent in one-versus-on screens. Other hazards include bumpers and blocks.
The idea has been well executed, the game looks and plays pretty well, but after a few goes you'll see everything it has to offer. 7/10.
A sort of single-screen Boulder Dash-styled game where you have to pick up rings avoiding 20 Tons weights (hence the name).
As long as Boulder Dash clones go, this is a particularly bad example. Everything is UDG-sized, there are no variations in color and graphics between screens, sound is absent save for a fart-like noise the main character emits while moving (maybe that's how he leaves an empty space behind him) and a couple of beeps. You would not believe this stuff was made by the same man behind Tau Ceti, Academy, Micronaut One, Earthlight etc. 3/10
Guido, 19 Nov 2020 (Rating: 1)
As Guido the rabbit, you have to find carrots to eat before you die of hunger. You also have to avoid balls and other dangers. Once you find a carrot, you eat it by digging.
This game is so bad to look at and frustrating to play, even at the easiest difficulty level, that it could be used as a form of mild torture. Any form of precise jumping is next to impossible - Guido even dies if he hits another platform with his head while jumping - and the slightest contact with the other sprites populating the screens (as jerky and flickery as Guido) will make you lose a life.
Shallow, ugly and for self-haters only.
Converted from the Tecmo coin-op of the same name, Shadow Warriors is a horizontally scrolling gang beat-em-up characterized by large, well-drawn and colorful graphics. It is every bit as taxing as the original arcade game, which may put easily frustrated players away from it, but if you like this genre - which has not many worth playing examples on the Spectrum - you are going to have a good time with the Shadow Warrios. 8/10
Sad clone of a game called Delfox which wasn't much cop to begin with. A mediocre shoot-em-up with no feature whatsoever to make it stand from the crowd of similar games.
A horizontally scrolling platform game where you guide the eponymous bear running and jumping along six levels. In the last one Yogi flies aboard a hot-air balloon.
Graphics are monochrome and sound is limited to a few blips. Not very original, but competently done and decent for its price. Good for younger players.
If made with (much) more care, Sabrina would have been an hilarious spoof of Kung Fu Master. As it is, however, it looks poor, plays very bad - enemies come at you endlessly, and each one can only be defeated with one of Sabrina's three attacks, not to mention the bombs which seem almost impossible to kick - and ends up as an exercise in frustration. Only interesting for its novelty value, but there is nothing else here able to hold your attention for more than a few seconds.
A racing/shooter game where you guide a motorboat is not very common, and this tie-in from the 007 film of the same name manages to convey a rather decent experience.
Graphics are big and colorful although not very detailed, and sound is unpleasant even on the 128K. Sprite movement is unfortunately rather slow and does not give you much of an impression of speeding around on a motorboat.
As for the gameplay, it's not extremely difficult and you can complete the three training courses and the final mission without too much effort once you learn how to steer your boat.
Not the best 007 tie-in game in fact, but neither the worst.
Bland graphics, non-existent sound and so easy it can be completed while playing blindfolded (well, almost). Not a patch on the first episode. Thinking that this waste of code was released at full price gives the idiom "daylight robbery" a new meaning. Avoid at all costs.
Unlike some of the other reviewers, I loved Guerrilla War (or Guevara as it was originally titled in Japan before someone at SNK thought Americans could be offended by the obvious references to the Cuban revolution) in the arcades, so I had high expectations for the Spectrum conversion. But when I had the chance of playing the actual game - ay caramba! Jerky and badly drawn sprites scuttling around a jerkily scrolling landscape with lots of green "stuff" around posing as jungle. Poor sound as well, and mostly unchallenging gameplay, which only occasionally makes you feel the heat of the battle. And what about the bug that makes you die when you try to pick up a flamethrower from below?
In a nutshell, a really disappointing conversion. Hasta la victoria? Not at all, this is a resounding defeat.
A "futuristic" sport simulation composed by five different events, where you perform some tasks like running while being pursued by a hideous beast or fly around in a jetpack shooting nasties.
A collection of mini-games which is better than the sum of its part. None of the events are particularly complex or refined, but together they make a pretty solid combination. Graphics are simple but clean and colorful, and the sound department can count on some nice tunes by beeper maestro Tim Follin.
A honest, no-frills budget game with some variety. 7/10
I played this game back in the day and I liked it due to its cartoony, colorful graphics and no-nonsense action. You had to be careful where you moved and learn which weapons were effective against the various enemies. A bit like a flip-screen Green Beret, with less action but more thought.
Nowadays I find it a bit bland and not as exciting as I remembered it, but still decent nonetheless. 6/10.
An isometric 3D arcade adventure in the vein of Batman and Head Over Heels, with Bernie Drummond, author of the aforementioned titles together with Jon Ritman, in the programming team.
As the Super Hero of the title, you have to eliminate five Evil Guardians. To do so, you must find four magical items, use objects like keys to activate teleporters or gold to purchase useful supplies from the traders you can find along the way.
Graphically the game is nice with detailed sprites, although several areas are just plain empty. Action is sometimes on the slow side, but this is more of an adventure than a fast-paced arcade after all.
For its price, the game is much better than average, if somewhat derivative - it puts together ideas already seen in previous titles without adding much else. 8/10.
Dull, unoriginal and badly programmed clone of Project Future. An appallingly bad waste of code way below the standards of its time, even for budget games. Avoid at all costs.
A Painter-style game with UDG-sized sprites? In 1986? Yes. Had it been released in 1983, it would have been worth about 10 minutes of your time; in 1986 it was already completely and utterly forgettable. Not worth the tape it was recorded on.
I always had a soft spot for this budget platform/exploration/shooter hybrid that reminds of Starquake. In the game, you guide LINDA (Laser Incorporated Nasties Disposal Android) around a futuristic sewer network, looking for eight bombs that will be needed to get rid of the mega-baddie, the Green Slime, lurking in the depths of the place.
Action is slick and fast, graphics are clean and colorful and sound is adequate for the 48K. Of course originality is not a strong point of Scumball, but I find it to be well above the average £1.99 (or Lit. 5000) title.
In 2731, a mysterious alien artifact the size of our Moon, named Omega by Earth authorities, is heading towards the Earth. The Windraith spacecraft is the only ship close enough to approach Omega before it reaches Earth.
At the command of the Windraith, you must send robots aboard the Omega - which appears to be a gigantic automated spaceship - in order to find and destroy its four engines. You only have an hour to do so, before Omega collides with the Earth. Engines can only be destroyed with rockets, and your only robot able to be armed with rockets can only carry five of them.
You can assemble several types of robots through a curious menu/icon-driven interface, selecting their chassis, weapons and special equipment. Then you must drive them through the depths of Omega.
I must say I have always been fascinated by the basic idea of Mission Omega, and the interface used in the planning and design part is something you very rarely experience on a Spectrum title: it works well and is pleasant to see. Unfortunately, the final outcome is not that great. Graphics are sketchy and make the vast game world look plain and dull, while sound is almost non-existent. The problems you may face on Omega limit themselves to negotiating the odd guard robot and flipping some switches to turn off barriers blocking your way. The time allotted for the mission also seems quite tight given that you have to navigate around a large area where it is not hard to get lost, due to the similarity between screens.
Mission Omega is a brave attempt at creating something different from the average Spectrum "fare", but it should have been turned into a much better and captivating game than this.
A pretty bland racing game. Sprites for the cars are well done but the backdrops are basic to say the least, and maybe it is for this reason that the game conveys a good impression of speed. Aficionados of racing games will find themselves at home here; others (including yours truly) will probably stay away.
Crazy Cars II is a definite improvement over the first chapter of the series. You now can drive only one car, a Ferrari F40, but at least all that speed has a purpose. You must destroy a stolen car racket racing against corrupt policemen in pursuit of you. There is also a bit of planning in choosing the right route in order to proceed and evade from your enemies.
Graphics, sound and gameplay are all better than Crazy Cars, and I see no serious motivation to prefer the first game over this.
On a side note, one of the reviewers wrote that you can never shift the gear down. Of course you can, just press FIRE and DOWN, the same way as in order to shift it up you must press FIRE and UP.
This budget offering from Firebird puts you in command of a nice little robot called ARNOLD. Your task is to defuse a bomb planted by evil Aliens into a terrestrial space station orbiting around Neptune. To do this, you must find four tools and finally go to the bomb, before the whole place blows up. You could also run straight to the exit, but that would be lame to say the least (boo!).
The playing area is huge and is presented in semi-isometric 3D. Luckily, there are 8 teleport stations scattered around which can make your exploration easier, once you get to know their names in order to move between them! Alien invaders infest the area, you can zap them with your lasers but ammunition is limited, as well as your energy, which inevitably drops when you make contact with your enemies.
Graphics are neat, although there is not much variation between the various screens, and sound is your average collection of 48K bleeps and noises. Gameplay is based on exploration, and the nasties are best avoided, since the droid moves rather fast and hitting them with the laser can be tricky.
Although neither very original nor complex, Bombscare is competently made and gives the player a respectable amount of entertainment, as every game in the £1.99/Lit. 5000 price range should do.
Bozxle, 30 Aug 2021 (Rating: 4)
I am a fan of puzzle games, although Sokoban and its clones are not among my favorites of the genre. That said, Bozxle, an unofficial conversion of Boxxle, i.e. the Sokoban game released for the Nintendo Game Boy in 1989, is a title worth considering. Made using the ZXodus engine, predecessor of the better known Bifrost and Nirvana, Bozxle looks pleasing although sprite animation and sound are both very limited.
One of the best renditions of the classic crate-pushing puzzle on the Spectrum in my opinion.
How could anybody at Dro Soft or Mastertronic consider this pile of absolutely wasted code for commercial release is beyond me. There is practically no graphics, no sound (except for a couple of fart-like noises), no gameplay to speak of - nothing.
Some atrocious games like Sqij or LA Swat are so crap they even manage to be somewhat funny. This is not. It is just dire.
Split Personalities was published as Splitting Images first, then due to the similarity of its title with that of a British TV show called Spitting Images, it was renamed as Split Personalities. For this reason, my review below is copied and pasted from that of SP, except for the obvious name change towards the end ;-)
A great puzzle games where you must put together the portraits of some celebrities from Ronald Reagan to Marilyn Monroe (although to this day I still don't understand who the couple of level 8 is supposed to be). The catch is that you cannot just put the pieces into place and get away with it; the walls of the assembling area get progressively filled with cracks which push the blocks away when hit. You play against a time limit and on later levels, pieces will also push each other if there is not an obstacle in their direction.
Apart from the puzzle pieces, you will also find several icons. Some can give you more points or time, or even kill you instantly when colliding each other (the gas can and the lit match). You also have to stay alert for bombs - which can be neutralized with a faucet icon for 5000 points.
Splitting Images is a puzzle game with fast arcade traits. Original, well-presented and addictive. A real classic.
A boring shooting gallery arcade simulator inspired by the ancient Carnival coin-op, with simplistic and flickery graphics. It has definitely aged badly.
A novelty feature is that you can shoot the stall holder, killing him and being arrested by the police, thus ending the game. How could you kill someone with a shooting gallery gun is something beyond my understanding possibilities, however boredom was so high that I ended up doing that instead of carrying on shooting badly drawn squirrels and ducks.
Appalling rip-off of Breakout with 1982-style graphics, nasty sound effects and atrocious collision detection.
For some unknown reason, when the ball hits the first brick it is reduced the size of a dot and doubles its speed so that it becomes impossible to catch, and even if you do, the collision detection is so idiosyncratic that it will pass through the bat.
If you press BREAK when the so-called "music" plays on the title screen, you will enter the BASIC management program. Press it thereafter, and the Spectrum will reset. Well, I think that it fits with the general crudeness of the game.
I will always have a soft spot for this unusual dynamic adventure. Yes, even back in the day it did not look and sound exactly state-of-the-art, but the strange, dystopical setting makes up for it.
In a near future (for 1984, i.e. 1996), the Earth is ruled by a centralized government which plans to solve the problem of supernatural infestation once and for all. You have been assigned the task of eliminating a malignant being - a sort of archdevil - which settled in Liberty Island in New York City, where your adventure begins(*). The city has been overrun by ghosts and evacuated. You must battle against ghosts by hitting them with a laser and trapping them into an ashtray - a bit like Ghostbusters -, exorcize an evil spirit which haunts a church, and find your way past the last humans and animals left in the city and barring your way.
I loved so much this game that I even recorded a playthrough RZX file and wrote an illustrated hint guide for it. Were it for nostalgia alone I would award it 5 stars, but I'll try to be as objective as I can and give it 4.
A pristine example of the quirkiness which characterized many games "born" on the Spectrum.
(*) Bizarrely enough, the government has renamed all cities in the world as "New York", but the game should be set in the original NYC, as the presence of Liberty Island and the Twin Towers on the background would suggest.
