Top Five Master System Arcade Conversions

Some of the harsher critics of Sega's charming Master System might suggest that one of the few reasons to own one would be for the generally splendid quality of its arcade conversions. Many of these were conversions of Sega's own arcade games of course but, strangely, it wasn't the only place to find most of these. Games such as OutRun, Space Harrier, After Burner, Shinobi, etc, could be found on the NES, PC Engine, and other rival systems which meant the MS didn't always host the finest home versions of their games. It did still receive some spiffing conversions though, and here are five of the best:

Games-Related Top Fives Disclaimer: I've traditionally stuck to the games I know and love so far, and these game-related top fives reflect that. One of the purposes of this blog is diversify my gaming experiences, to play games I haven't played before, so I will do new game-related top fives in a few years to see how different they are!

5. R-Type (1988)

Considering its popularity, I've always found it amazing that R-Type was never converted to more systems, especially certain consoles. The PC Engine version is of course amazing (although split over two HuCards) but, unless you were lucky enough to own NEC's box of tricks, this MS version has long been widely regarded as the next best thing, and such a reputation is more than deserved. It suffers from the usual sprite-flicker, some sprites are a bit smaller, and the scenery and background graphics disappear to accommodate the large bosses, but apart from these points the MS has produced a splendid version of Irem's classic. The stages are well reproduced (and there's even a secret one!), the music is great, and the most difficult part of the arcade version to duplicate - the fancy graphics and large bosses - are also mighty impressive. A sterling effort then, and one of the best shmups on the MS.

4. Space Harrier (1986)

Unlike many arcade conversions for the MS, this was actually released quite soon after the arcade original, and considering how early it was it's pretty darn impressive, especially when you consider just how technically-demanding Sega's ground-breaking coin-op was to begin with. All eighteen of the bright, colourful stages have been crammed into this cartridge and, while they're understandably not as fast or smooth as the arcade game, they still look really nice and the MS moves them around as well as could reasonably be expected. That sprite-scaling that made the game famous is well-reproduced here too. Even better is the splendid music which helps to make this conversion among the most enjoyable there is. Sega even released a 3D version of the game for use with the Master System's special glasses.

3. Bubble Bobble (1991)

Yes, yes, I know, as immensely awesome as Taito's super-duper classic is, it was never the most processor-hungry game of all-time, even in its day. So, with this conversion arriving some six years later, it's only to be expected that it's at the very least close to the original, right? Well, yes, but such is the vast popularity of the arcade version and its deceptively-intricate gameplay, home versions were often unsatisfactory. Now, I'm not hardcore enough to know if this MS version includes every tiny detail, but I can tell you that it's a hugely slick and playable version of the all-time great. Plus, it was the first version I played at length as well which makes it my favourite, especially considering it has a handy password system which helped me reach the later stages for the first time, and it has a whopping 200 stages! The graphics are faithful, not as flickery as you might expect, and that catchy tune is present and correct as well which means, until the Saturn and PS ports arrived, this was one of the very best.

2. New Zealand Story (1992)

I've been a big fan of this cute-but-tricky Taito platformer since it was originally released and I rarely need much of an excuse to buy another copy of it. By the time this MS version was released, I'd already played the game to death on my Speccy and MegaDrive, the latter of which features different stages, so this was my first chance to play a version that may possibly be close to the arcade original. As it turned out, it was very close, more so than I had expected! The presentation is great and includes the short-but-appealing intro, and there's a map screen too - even the MD didn't have that! The insanely catchy music is perfectly reproduced here as well, the sound effects are nearly as good, and the stages and relevant graphics are spot-on. True, there is some flicker when too many sprites are close together, but other than that this is as close to the fantastic arcade game as is possible.

1. Gauntlet (1990)

The first version of this game I ever played was the decent Speccy conversion which kept me entertained for hours but it wasn't until I stumbled upon the arcade version that I realised just how great a game Gauntlet is. The prospect of this Master System version was something I was a less enthusiastic about though. As great as the console is, many of its games are rather prone to sprite-flicker when there's a lot of them about, and not too many games have more sprites on-screen at once than Gauntlet! However, to the immense surprise of me, and no doubt many others, this conversion features a typically high number of sprites whilst suffering from no flicker at all! This in itself makes it a tremendous achievement on Sega's console but it's also near-faultless to play as well. The speech is of course missing (even the MD version struggled with that) but aside from that everything is here making it almost certainly the closest version to the arcade until the MegaDrive's super-port arrived.

Shinobi Series - Part 5

Shadow Dancer (1990)
By: Sega Genre: Run 'n' Gun Players: 1 Difficulty: Easy-Medium
Featured Version: Sega MegaDrive / Genesis First Day Score: 395,200
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: Wii Virtual Console

It at least has a better title screen...

Sega's mighty MegaDrive was their most popular console and one of the reasons for that is the many ultra-spiffing arcade conversions it played host to. Among these must surely have been the second Shinobi game which had graced arcades of the world around the time the MD itself was being unleashed. Oddly, however, Sega instead opted to release a mostly-new game bearing the same name, but with the added subtitle of 'The Secret of Shinobi'. They seem to have had some trouble deciding whether to follow the same story or not though. The hero in the white pyjamas is either the legendary Joe Musashi in the UK version, or Hayate (Joe's son, as in the arcade game) in the Japanese version, both of which grace my collection. The objective in both versions is more akin to the original Shinobi than its sequel though, which sees you rescuing various hostages taken by evil terrorist organisation, Union Lizard, who have occupied New York City and run amok.

Yamato munches on an idiotic frisbee dude...

The many cretinous civilians are distributed over the five rounds which make up the game. The first four are each divided into three stages - two normal side-scrolling, multi-tiered examples followed by a scary boss stage (much like original Shinobi, and indeed Revenge of Shinobi, no less), while the fifth and final round consists of several rooms, each filled with a particular type of enemy, before the final confrontation. Joe is armed with an infinite number of shurikens to fling at the many enemies which are the usual mixture of gun-toting military dudes and ninjas, samurais, frisbee-throwers, and other Far Eastern-flavoured oafs. Some of them fall to a single shuriken strike while others need two or more hits, and Joe is also able to kick them or slash them with his sword if he's close enough which has the same effect. Helping to give you a safe opportunity to do this is one of the few things to return from the arcade game - Joe's (or Hayate's) faithful hound, Yamato, who can be send to chow down on any enemies you like (except bosses for whom he is mysteriously absent). Be careful though, as he can be fended off and turned into a yelping puppy!

The bonus stage - shoot all ninjas!

As well as these forms of attack, Joe also has access to that staple of the whole Shinobi series - ninja magic! There are three kinds available here - fire, earth, and wind - which the game cycles through from stage to stage, and all have the same effect; namely, eliminating all standard enemies who are on-screen at the time or damaging a boss. It's worth battling on without using them though, as doing so will give you a hefty bonus at the end of the stage. Saving the hostages on each stage generally just gives you bonus points (as well a sense of personal gratification, no doubt) but one hostage per stage will also kindly boost Joe's firepower, enabling him to take out any enemy (besides the bosses) with a single hit. The effect only lasts for the stage in question but it's very helpful! Something else that gives you bonus points is the appropriately-named bonus stage that comes after each boss encounter. It's similar to the one from the arcade game but instead of looking up a skyscraper at falling ninjas, this time you're the one falling and must take out the many ninjas attempting to scale the building.

Joe's ROS-style sword is highly satisfying to use!

The more of them you take out, the bigger the bonus! The boss contingent is made up of a large fire-breathing warrior, a living wall, a buzzsaw-wielding vixen, and a whirly wheel of fire before you reach the final, climactic confrontation, and at first they seem quite tricky. Joe is felled by a single touch from any enemy weapon after all (though the enemies themselves in the normal stages merely bump him away). It takes very little time, however, to work out the simple and predictable patterns the bosses move and attack in, and they'll soon become a pushover. The same can be said of the stages. Most feature the same multi-storey structure as in the original Shinobi, which allows you to perform sneak attacks of course (hee hee!), and they're quite well-designed, if slightly basic for the day, but they're also rather on the easy side. You'll have to start each from scratch if you do lose a life but they're not vast in size and once you've learnt where the enemies are lurking you'll be able to breeze through the entire game in less than half an hour.

The only stage based on one from the arcade game...

Predictably, this is where my only problem with the game lies. The rejigged graphics aren't bad, especially the first couple of rounds which feature a nice burning cityscape, earthquake-damaged buildings, and a decent bridge stage, and the sprites are detailed and appealing (the gunmen even have to stop to reload!) but, with the exception of a nice cave stage, the later backgrounds are a bit dull. The music is of mixed quality too. Some tunes are great, others barely noticeable, but there's certainly no stunning Yuzo Koshiro score here. The presentation is great though, and the slightly mixed quality of the aesthetics is by no means fatal - that special Shinobi gameplay is intact as always and the stages are never less than enjoyable to play through, even the pain in the arse ones likes the Statue of Liberty which features a helicopter gunship! I guess only Sega will know why they decided to make an almost entirely new game rather than simply convert the quite splendid arcade game but the result is a fine addition to the series; it's just a rather short and easy one too.

RKS Score: 7/10

Arcade Shmups #17

Raiden (1990)
By: Seibu Kaihatsu Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 96,400 (one credit)
Also Available For: PlayStation, PC Engine, FM Towns Marty, Lynx, Jaguar, Falcon, PC

For the longest time now I've been meaning to give the much-revered Raiden a thorough once over. I've played it a couple of times over the years and, while it never exactly blew me away, it did tickle me enough to leave this nagging desire to dissect it properly. Its name is arguably more famous than the game itself, which is understandable since, as well as giving rise to a long series, it also happens to mean 'Thunder and Lightning' in Japanese! A fearsome name like that certainly gives it a lot to live up to but you wouldn't know it from the story which is the usual nonsense: set in 2090, you (and a friend) are charged with seeing off some invading alien buffoons called the 'Cranassians'.

The name conjures images of a generic Star Trek 'race of the week' with a tiny facial difference to make them 'alien' but they've got some decent hardware at their disposal which is distributed with increasing intensity over eight stages. Their forces consist of several types of aircraft, tanks, boats, and all the usual stuff you'd expect to find in a non-spacey shmup. Your craft, the Raiden Supersonic Attack Fighter (which is based on alien technology, incidentally) starts the game with a weedy twin shot and three large bombs. Destroying some of the larger aircraft releases collectible icons, however, which include extra bombs, missiles, or power-ups.

The missiles come in homing or non-homing varieties while the weapon power-up alternates between red and blue. The former boosts your default weapon, gradually turning it into a formidable spread shot while the latter gives you a laser which is more powerful but only fires straight ahead. The only other things to look out for are medals which can often be found in the wreckage of destroyed tanks and give you bonus points. This type of thing is rarely worth risking your life for in any shmup though, and with Raiden that's even more the case! The enemies aren't as numerous as in some games but they appear from all sides of the screen and quickly send plenty of bullets in your direction.

The merest blow from any of them is of course enough to claim one of your lives here and there are no shields to offer a brief reprieve or even speed-ups to help you circumvent an enemy or their attack. You do have the bombs, admittedly, but they're not an instant save and there aren't many of them either. Accordingly, I found Raiden to be among the toughest shmups I've played! The collision-detection is pretty good and the ship moves well, if slightly slowly, but there's often so much to avoid that it's not too likely that you'll be able to fully power-up your ship, and even if you do you'll lose it all when you do die. This is especially true of the boss battles which can get a bit ridiculous!

These are usually much larger tanks and aircraft and things of that nature and they sure are well-armed! Some of the pesky normal enemies continue to attack during these confrontations too (although to a lesser extent) so it's not merely a case of working out the attack pattern of the boss. Having said that, the game does throw you a lifeline by releasing your previous power-ups when you lose a life which can (potentially) fully restore things if you can grab them, but if you're as crap as me you'll die just as often as not while trying to reach them! From a technical point of view, things are mixed. On the plus side, the music and effects are catchy and distinctive, although slightly repetitive.

The graphics, too, are quite detailed and move nice and smoothly regardless of how many enemies or bullets are flooding the screen, but the number of different sprites and variety of the landscapes is a little disappointing for a game of this age. New enemies appear now and then but old ones are reused throughout the game as well, and the scenery is often a little dull and uninteresting. There's some nice attention to detail though, like little guys running around on the ground or the debris of your ship destroying nearby stuff when you lose a life. How many of the stages you'll end up seeing is debatable though, and to be honest I wasn't all that inclined to keep trying. Many games are difficult, obviously, but the best ones make you want to show them who's boss. Raiden annoyed me often and, as I lost my fifty billionth credit on the same damn boss, made me shout many ugly words as well. It is of course a two-player game though, and in that capacity it's a rather unoriginal but quite enjoyable blaster which is noticeably easier than when played alone. The Raiden name may well be a proud one, and it's probably worshipped by many hardcore shmuppers with super-human skills, but for mere mortals like me it's just too hard and not special enough to devote the necessary time to.

RKS Score: 6/10

Commodore 64 Games #3

Gribbly's Day Out (1985)
By: Andrew Braybrook / Hewson Consultants Genre: Platform / Action Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: Commodore 64 First Day Score: Nothing :(
Also Available For: Nothing

Although I never owned a C64 at the time, I did frequently see games featured in multi-format magazines of the day, and one that always appealed to me was this one, thanks mainly, I don't doubt, to the peculiar main character I saw in screenshots and adverts. More recently I've discovered that he's something called a Blabgorian and has the rather splendid name of Gribbly Grobbly. His job, at least insofar as his game is concerned, is to locate and rescue infant Blabgorians called Gribblets which apparently have a tendency to leave their home in search of adventure. Blabgor is not a safe place though, so Gribbly needs to recover the careless oafs as quickly as possible, and since there are eight of them on each of the sixteen stages that make up the game, it's quite a challenge that faces him as well.

Gribbly hovers above some damaging rough ground...

The scrolling stages are each approximately six screens wide by three high and viewed from the side, and the gribblets are of course distributed across the whole landscape. They have the appearance of small mollusc-like creatures and can hop back and forth but never move far from their original position. To save them, Gribbly must collect them and take them one at a time to a cave-like area. As you may have noticed, he's a unique-looking fellow too, having no hands and just one foot with which he can hop around. While he's doing this there's little that can hurt him, but he also has the ability to levitate himself indefinitely by using the psychic powers that he and all Blabgorians possess. While he's doing this there's a lot that can hurt him which is unfortunate since it's how he needs to spend most of his time.

The scary Seon stalks poor Gribbly...

Pretty much everything in the entire stage can hurt Gribbly, in fact. Each of them is walled and features things like trees and rocks on the ground, and there are usually a few small floating platforms dotted around as well. Touching any of this stuff causes him to lose precious 'Psi Energy' (quite rapidly too!), as does hopping onto or trying to land on rough ground, water, or some other non-normal surface. There are also some unpleasant creatures lurking around the place as well and they're quite interesting as they evolve as you play! They start out as Seed Pods which look a lot like sycamore seeds, whirling about the place. When they land on a suitable surface they become Topsies which are worm-like things that flollop back and forth along platforms, flipping over any Gribblets that may be there as they go.

Three Topsies floople around atop the safety cave...

If Topsies are left alone for long enough they take the form of a Chrysalis from which Stompers will eventually hatch. These things are a bit more aggressive and if they encounter a gribblet they'll absorb it and take their final form - a larger Flyer which carry the gribblets away. The only enemy that doesn't form part of this evolutionary chain is the flying black crab thing called Seon which stalks Gribbly around the stages relentlessly. Luckily, Seon is the only enemy that drains Gribbly's energy - the others are dangerous only to the gribblets - but our hoppity friend is still able to see them off with his bubbly attack. This kills Seed Pods, Topsies, Chrysalises, and Flyers with ease, causing the latter to drop any gribblet they may be carrying (collect it as it falls in case it lands somewhere dangerous!), and temporarily stuns the indestructible Seon (very temporarily too!). The only enemy unaffected by bubbles are the mean Stompers so it's best not to let any of them evolve if you can avoid it!

Gribbly watches a Flyer carry a poor gribblet away...

More immediately troublesome than any of this, however, are the force-fields that span much of the stages. Although Gribbly is unable to pass them (and will lose energy if he tries), he can turn sections on and off by blowing bubbles near them. The 'energy web', however, is there to contain Seon, so if you turn the wrong parts off he'll be free to wreak havoc! There's no actual time-limit you have to stick to here but it's still a race against time to finish each stage as you have to rescue at least six gribblets on each - take too long and there won't be enough left, or Gribbly himself won't be left as he'll have been permanently grounded by Seon. Needless to say, with so much against Gribbly, his task is a mighty difficult one. He can fly nice and smoothly in eight directions, and at quite a speed too, but if he hits something he'll bounce off it with considerable force, and this can sometimes result in a pinball-like effect of bouncing back and forth between two objects until he's lost a life.

Blocked from the off!

A careful, tempered approach would seem sensible then but, as mentioned, this isn't really a game that allows you to take too much time. As a result, I found it super-tough going! Indeed, it took me a good while to even finish the first stage and it's massively unlikely that I'd ever be able to finish it so it's fortunate that the order of the stages is random after the first. This at least allowed me to see a good few of them (even if only for a short while!). In so doing, I found that graphically they're fairly varied in terms of the colour schemes used. Only a couple force you to reach for the sunglasses really (the purple foreground/cyan background one above, for instance), but the foreground scenery is much more repetitive. The enemies are the same over the whole game too, but they're animated nicely, better than Gribbly himself in fact.

Oops, trapped myself inside the force-field!

Even with those fairly samey visuals and almost non-existent audio, though, the appeal that Gribbly and his game displayed prior to my actually playing it remains prevalent now that I've spent some time with it. I didn't even know what kind of game to expect to be honest. I knew it was a scrolling adventure of some sort but, being a famous C64 game, I had a feeling it wouldn't just be a generic hop 'n' bopper either. I can now safely say that's definitely the case! I absolutely loved it to begin with - steering this peculiar green alien creature around such an unusual place was a lot of fun and the appealing graphics, original premise, and smooth controls certainly leave a great first impression, but after a while it became apparent that it's far too difficult for a wussy arcade gamer like me. The title 'Gribbly's Day Out' makes it sound like a happy, jolly stroll in the park; I think a more apt title may have been 'Gribbly's Hellish Ordeal'. I'm very pleased to have finally played it though, and it's enjoyable and addictive enough that I'll return to it often, but I doubt I'll ever get very far.

RKS Score: 7/10

Film Review #50

The Place Beyond the Pines (2013)
Director: Derek Cianfrance Starring: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Dane DeHaan, Emory Cohen, Ray Liotta, Ben Mendelsohn, Rose Byrne, Mahershala Ali, Bruce Greenwood, Harris Yulin

Certificate: 15 Running Time: 140 Minutes

Tagline: "If you ride like lightning you're gonna crash like thunder"

Usually it takes it certain kind of film to draw me to the cinema. I can't talk for any of you but doing so has become an expensive business in my part of the world, costing almost as much as a new DVD in fact. The Place Beyond the Pines is not the kind of film that usually succeeds in enticing me - as much as I love films, I'm usually pretty patient and therefore often wait until a film's arrival on home media - but there was something about this particular release. I'm not sure what either; I wouldn't call myself a particular fan of anyone involved and I hadn't even seen a trailer, I just knew I wanted to see it, so that's what I did, knowing almost nothing about it. Even the beginning of the film itself offered few clues, opening on a heavily-tattooed fellow swishing a flick-knife around in a cramped room as though killing time before abruptly pinning it to a wall and exiting what it's now clear is a trailer in a fairground.

It isn't long before we discover that he's actually Luke Glanton (Gosling), a slightly-famous motorcycle stuntman known as 'Handsome Luke' who works for a travelling fair. After his latest show he's visited by Romina (Mendes), a local hottie with whom he had a brief fling during a previous visit. It turns out she now has a baby boy and guess who the father is? Unlike many such men who unexpectedly find themselves in the same position, however, Luke does the right thing - he quits his job and subsequent life on the road to instead look for work in the nearby town of Schenectady, New York, and support his son. As admirable as his intentions may be though, they aren't embraced wholly enthusiastically by Romina who's now involved with another guy, Kofi (Ali). On top of that, he quickly finds it tough getting by on minimum wage working as a mechanic for Robin (Mendelsohn). This dilemma leads Luke and his new friend to put their heads together to come up with a faster and more efficient way of obtaining money.

The results of their scheming soon draws the attention of the local authorities and in particular Officer Avery Cross (Cooper), an ambitious former law student and now rookie cop. A decision then made by Luke puts both men on a collision course and triggers a series of events that have repercussions for years to come, and not just for the two of them but on the lives of their sons as well. I'm reluctant to say much more than that to be honest (although even the trailer reveals quite a bit more) but, while it may sound a little unspectacular on paper, it's quickly apparent that's it's much more than that. The film's three acts effectively form separate parts of the story but they're linked together nicely and everything is superbly executed - I haven't yet seen Cianfrance's previous film (the also-acclaimed Blue Valentine), but if this follow-up is anything to go by his style is immensely captivating.

The tracking shot that opens the film, for example, instantly draws you in whilst at the same time doing a fantastic job of wordlessly establishing Gosling's character. Both he and Cooper, as the reluctant hero cop, put in what must surely be career-best performances here too. Add Mike Patton's moody soundtrack to the mix and you're left with a film that's great in pretty much every way. The epic story is riveting from beginning to end and, while some events are more predictable than others, it remains a tale that's masterfully told by Cianfrance. It's a bit of a slow-burner, admittedly, and may not appeal to those used to non-stop action and snappy dialogue, but it's a wonderfully directed and acted film that exemplifies the ripple effect of reckless crime. I may not have known much about it beforehand but I won't forget in a hurry.

RKS Score: 9/10

Maze Games #10

Pulsar (1981)
By: Gremlin / Sega Genre: Maze / Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 10,150
Also Available For: Nothing

Considering I'm supposed to be a Sega fan, there's an embarrassing amount I don't know about their early years and the games released during that time, and this rather obscure title is a great example of that. I hadn't even heard of it until recently but as soon as I did I sought it out expecting it to be some sort of Space Invaders clone. Happily, I actually found that it's a maze game - a genre on which I'm strangely keen. If there's a story I've no idea what it is - the flyer shows several 'cool dudes' standing around a Pulsar machine while the cabinet artwork shows what looks like that Silver Surfer guy shooting lightning from his hand.

In accordance with none of this, however, the game places you in command of a small tank and plonks you in the bottom-left corner of the first in a series of mazes. They are all one-screen in size and viewed from directly overhead, and the object is simply to reach the exit which is located in the bottom-right corner of each. It is locked though, of course, and standing between you and the keys, which can be found at the top of the screen, are numerous 'Defenders'. There are four types of these - red, yellow, and green ones about the size of your own tank, and a larger, wibbly red thing which is the 'Pulsar' from which the game takes its name.

Curiously, none of the Defenders damage your tank by contact alone but all the small ones shoot lasers which cost you a life if accurate. These erratic oafs can be destroyed just as easily by your own shots but the Pulsar takes several shots to put down, and when you do it splits into six of the small enemies! It's not mandatory to destroy any of them but they do obviously get in the way of your objective - namely the keys. These must be collected and taken to the corresponding lock one-by-one. There are two colour-coded locks on the first stage, then three on the next, up to a maximum of five and they can be unlocked in any order you like.

If you open them in the numbered order, however, it earns you a bonus at the end of the stage. Also, while you're in possession of a coloured key, your tank turns that colour - if you then shoot an enemy of the same colour you'll get a bonus for that too! It's all fairly standard stuff so far, admittedly, but the most interesting thing about Pulsar is the way the mazes are constructed. Each features a seven-by-seven grid of blue columns (or posts or something) between which sections of wall span. However, these sections of wall are constantly changing - they appear and disappear regularly as you play which makes finding your way around considerably more difficult as you might expect!

Some of the gaps between posts are spanned by force-fields too. These merely stop you in your tracks if you run into one but if it appears on top of your tank, it'll be destroyed. As if all this didn't already make conquering the stages tricky enough, you also have a finite (and ever-decreasing) supply of fuel. Taking out the idiotic Defenders tops it up a little but you still need to move quickly. Any fuel remaining at the end of a stage is totted up and bonus points are duly awarded. Interestingly, the game also features an in-game ranking which shows your current position on the score board, so there's even more incentive to go after those bonuses points, hi-score chasers!

Technically, Pulsar is pretty average for its day - the mazes are presented in coloured vectors but each looks the same aside from the differing wall positions and there's no music at all with the audio represented only by a couple of sound effects (one of which is the constant clanging of the walls moving which is... spooky). Thankfully, the repetitive aesthetics do little to hinder enjoyment of what soon turns out to be a surprisingly addictive game. The going does get very tough very quickly but, despite ever-faster enemies and more numerous force-fields, it's not an unfair game - your tank only takes up about a third of the width between walls and so do the normal enemies, so when they shoot at you it's almost always avoidable - in theory at least! That's what makes Pulsar so addictive though - the knowledge that your failure was your own fault and if you have 'one more go' you can improve your score. It was a common lure of many games from that era but most of those are famous and revered; Pulsar, for some reason, is not. A lost classic? Possibly, but it certainly deserves more attention than it's received at the very least.

RKS Score: 8/10

Bomberman Series - Part 9

Bomber Boy a.k.a. Atomic Punk, a.k.a. Dynablaster (1990)
By: Hudson Soft Genre: Maze Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo Game Boy
Also Available For: Nothing

Usually with any long-running videogame series, the first few sequels stick to the same format as the original game while trying to add to it and improve it, but with the Bomberman series the opposite seems to be true. It was among the first few years of the franchise that Hudson experimented with it, trying new styles, features, even main characters, before settling into the routine that would comprise the later and more successful years of their hero's games. I've already looked at a few of these spin-offs earlier in this series of features, the last of which was exclusive to the Game Boy. Nintendo's handheld was blessed by another visit from our explosive friend though, and this game would be a bit more familiar to fans of his better known outings. Indeed, despite again being released outside its native Japan in a Bomberman-less guise, Bomber Boy was unmistakably a Bomberman game, but was it a good one? As always, I was eager to find out...

There are two one-player game modes to choose from and the first one I looked at was... umm, the first one, which is called, appropriately enough, Bomber Boy. There are sixty stages in total which are unevenly spread over eight themed locations (or towns) on the world map. Any of them can be selected except for the final one but once you've chosen one, all its stages must be completed before you can return to the map. With the exception of Hevol, which has a fairly standard Bomberman-ish theme, they all have unique features: Grad is a mountainous area filled with 'warp caves', Cuolece is an icy place with stronger soft blocks, Windria is an annoying area featuring winds that hinder your movement, Thulia is a hilly area where all blocks are destructible, Jagoraz is home to overgrown forests, Wather is a flooded water world, and Faria, the final area, is predictably a harsh and unforgiving place filled with fire and all manner of scary stuff!

Much like most other games in the series, each stage here is completed by finding the exit which is hidden under a random soft block, and unlocking it by defeating all the idiotic enemies present in the usual way. The power-up system, however, is slightly different. They are represented by tiles that you can choose from before a stage begins and there are three different items available initially - Bomb Up, Fire Up, and an Elixir which revives Bomberman if he's killed. Completing some of the towns then unlocks additional power-ups which are selected in the same way. There are six of these which include Speed-Up, Remote Bombs, Wall Pass, Bomb Pass, Fire Pass, and a Timer, which of course extends the otherwise mediumly-strict time-limit. Each tile can only be used once, although its effects last as long as your current life, but the world map also features a shop where you can buy extra power-up tiles using gold which is earned after each stage depending on time remaining and number of soft blocks destroyed.

There are also two rather similar variations of the two-player Vs Mode, and the second of the one-player game modes, which is called Bomber Man, is a port of the original Bomberman game released for the NES. It's a rather splendid bonus I have to say, but it was the Bomber Boy mode that was most interesting for me and accordingly it took up most of my time while playing this too. The graphics and sound are about as good as you'd hope for on the Game Boy - the latter features a smattering of short, repetitive, but catchy tunes while the former presents the stages in a slightly zoomed-in, scrolly manner thanks to the poor Game Boy's rather limited display, but they're quite well varied considering the lack of colour. There's a surprising amount to see and do here as well, and there are even password continues available to help you see it all. To be honest though, the thing I liked most about Bomber Boy is that, despite my initial fears, it's actually a 'proper' Bomberman game. Some of the spin-offs are okay but they're never as much fun as a normal Bomberman game, and this is a good one.

RKS Score: 8/10