Spectrum Round-Up #2

Budget games were great, a real lifeline for kids my age back in the mid-to-late-80s. I fondly recall my good friend Luke and I frequently visiting our local Blockbuster video store and browsing the rack of budget games they had for sale, but both there and featured heavily in the magazines that covered the 8-bit micros at the time were games bearing the name of Joe Blade, but for some reason I never played them. They are a trilogy of flick-screen arcade adventures - a type of game that appeals to me, and they were always near the top of the budget charts and were well received by most of the magazines too, so I really don't know why I never gave them a try. Time, then, for this pitiful blog to do its job once again. Behold:

Joe Blade (1987)

This first instalment sees Joe as a lone commando sent into an enemy fortress to rescue six hostages, then set a few bombs, and escape before they blow. Sounds like a cinch! There are guards patrolling most rooms though, and you have limited ammo for your machine gun. Luckily you can pick up more as well as keys, guards uniforms (temporary invincibility), and food to replenish Joe's health metre which depletes rapidly from contact with guards or other enemies. You will also find the aforementioned bombs here and there (there are six in total). Touching one brings up a mini-game where you have to put letters in the right order. If you do, you'll have 20 minutes to find the other bombs and arm them in a similar way before escaping. If you don't, the bomb will blow, killing you. It's a good idea to find the hostages before messing about with these! It's simple like most budget games, but the monochrome graphics are really nice (colours change now and then), there are tons of screens, it's good fun to play, and would be addictive enough anyway, but the placement of all the items (hostages, bombs, pick-ups) is randomised every time you play which makes it even more addictive, not to mention great value for money... 8/10

Joe Blade 2 (1988)

The warm reception the first game received meant a sequel was soon on budget shelves too, and while it keeps the same sort of level/screen structure as the first game (left/right flickscreen, up/down through doorways), the gameplay itself is a bit different. Joe has apparently been discharged from the services and now operates as a vigilante. The streets he patrols are filled with many running, jumping thugs and hoodlums - an infinite number, in fact - which, oddly, don't seem to cause Joe any harm. He can take them out nonetheless by jumping on/at them, and must take out quite a few before the job is done. Whilst doing this you must also rescue 16 'citizens' who can be found wandering around in fewer numbers. This is done by 'touching' them and then completing one of four mini-games (putting symbols/numbers in the right order, etc). These are by far the trickiest part of what is otherwise a pretty easy game, with only a ticking clock against you. The graphics are very similar to the first game and again excellent, and they are displayed in the biggest game window of any JB game, but I didn't enjoy playing it quite as much. Even though there is an aim, I think it just feels a bit more aimless and unfocused to play. That said, it's still a pleasant enough diversion, and for the price, how could you complain? ...6/10

Joe Blade 3 (1989)

Happily (for me), this third game in the series returns to the style of the first game, just bigger. Indeed, it is set inside a tower block this time, consisting of eight stories (six above ground and two basement levels) and you can travel between all but the top two floors as you please. The story/objective is more or less the same too - find and rescue hostages, set bombs and blow up the building. It's done slightly differently to before but you still have to find the hostages and bombs lying around and there are still other items to pick up such as food (health refill), gun ammo, grenades, disguises (temporary invincibility), floppy discs (item map), and lift passes (to access the upper levels). It's described in the instructions as "Joe's toughest mission yet" and it very much is. As well as being a larger game overall, with object placement randomised again, the enemies are still infinite and your ability to deal with them (bullets) is still limited, and I found that additional ammo was rather hard to come by. Most of my game overs were for this reason, in fact. There are still some tricky mini-games of the same type as previous games but they are encountered less often here. It's an enjoyable game to play in any case, and would undoubtedly have kept me going for a good while back in the day... 8/10

Joe Blade 4 (Unreleased)

And lo, completely unknown by me until I was most of the way through this round-up was this, a finished but apparently unreleased fourth game! Except, subsequent research has revealed it's not actually a Joe Blade game at all, but a hacked version of another budget game by the same company called Prison Riot. Even the unhacked version looks and plays exactly like a JB game though, from the graphics and game style right down to the main character's attacks. Although interestingly, it seems to use Joe's attacks from both the first/third game and the second - i.e. he can shoot as well as jump on/near the enemies. This time, however, the enemies do cause you to lose health, so you can't jump at them too much, but bullets are far fewer in number too, making it a pretty tough game. The object appears to be to find seven ring leaders of the riot that is apparently in progress as you play, and there are lots of rooms to explore and pick-ups to find while you do it. JB aficionados should enjoy it as much as the previous games though, even if it's not a real entry in the series. There was actually a real fourth game in development until the publisher went bust, taking Joe Blade 4 with it, but in its absence, this is a perfectly enjoyable alternative...7/10

Final Thoughts:

It's odd that I have such strong memories of games I never played, especially budget games which are, generally, less well known than big-name, full-price titles, and it's even odder that I never bought them when, unlike many games of the time, they were well within my budget. I don't have any explanations but I'm glad I finally have played them now. In case you were wondering (*coughLukecough*), I think the first game would've been my favourite as I just found it a bit more atmospheric, but all the games would've proved great value for money and would've been in my tape deck often if I had owned any of them. Even Prison Riot!