Ultimate: The Collected Works - Part 4

Cookie (1983)
By: Ultimate Play the Game  Genre: Action  Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum  First Day Score: 4,630
Also Available For: Nothing

Ultimate might be legends in the Speccy world but they weren't perfect. Their last effort - Tranz Am - for example, was rather poor compared to the first two games, but with Cookie they've made a swift return to the simpler, single-screen action/shooty formula that worked so well before. As with those it has a unique and slightly strange concept - this time you're cast as Charlie the Chef who is trying to make cookies. However, his apparently sentient ingredients keep escaping from the pantry and running amok! Once they're out, Charlie must stun them with flour bombs and direct them into his mixing bowl at the bottom of the screen which is marked with a number indicating the required number of ingredients before the level is completed. It's not quite that simple though!

Top Five N64 Rare Games

We all have our favourite game system but what qualities earn it this prestigious rank for you? For most, it's probably the quality and/or range of titles available, pure and simple. Generally there are many game developers to thank for this but every now and then one appears who goes on to release a succession of high-quality titles on a particular system to such an extent that they alone become a major reason for owning said system.

Two examples I remember well are Ultimate for the Spectrum and Team 17 for the Amiga, but the period that stands out most for me was that of Rare, ironically the modern incarnation of Ultimate, and their run of releases on the Nintendo 64.

In the eyes of many, Rare's releases for Nintendo's black slab, whilst not always particularly original, were so consistently superb that they even eclipsed those of Nintendo themselves. I'm not sure I'd go quite that far myself but they certainly contributed a great deal towards the success of the N64 and my enjoyment of owning one. They released more than ten games for the system in total; none of them sucked but these are my five favourites:

5. Diddy Kong Racing (1997)

Many consider the N64 instalment of Mario Kart to be the weakest so you could say Rare didn't have to try very hard to improve on that particular title, but that didn't stop them from coming up with this stonking game anyway! It was very similar in concept though, to be sure. As well as offering four-player tomfoolery, there's also an 'Adventure' mode as well as the usual 'Quick Race' option. This offers a series of semi-explorable worlds which each contain several racing circuits and a boss. The worlds are based around four themes - a normal grassy area, bright sandy beaches, twinkly snow/ice, and fiery lava-filled caverns, and there are ten characters to choose from (including a pre-sweary Conker), but the best part is that there are three different vehicles to use, with aircraft and hovercraft in addition to the usual carts. It's still not a perfect game - the bosses are teeth-shatteringly tough for one thing - but all the other stuff helps make DKR more varied than Mario's game whilst remaining at least as enjoyable. Great fun for any number of players.

NES Platform Games #3

Wizards & Warriors a.k.a. Densetsu no Kishi Elrond (1990)
By: Rare / Acclaim Genre: Platform Players: 1 Difficulty: Easy-Hard
Featured Version: Nintendo NES First Day Score: ???,???
Also Available For: Nothing

I've mentioned here at Red Parsley a number of times how I pretty much missed out on the whole NES phenomenon due to my allegiance to Sega but I did actually own an NES at one point, albeit rather late on in the system’s life. I bought it from a charity shop with around 12 loose games. Sadly, it turned out that the grey toaster didn’t work so I never got to play any of the cartridges I had which included some of the classics and some I was less familiar with. Of the latter type, there was one in particular I was eager to try out and that was Wizards and Warriors, a title released by Rare in the late 80’s exclusively on Nintendo’s machine. I often find myself drawn to games with a fantasy setting and the simple-but-revealing title had intrigued me. I had imagined some sort of deep and involving ‘Metroidvania’ style arcade adventure, and now I have the opportunity to to find out if I was right.

Ultimate: The Collected Works - Part 3

Tranz Am (1983)
By: Ultimate Play the Game Genre: Action Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum First Day Score: Not much :|
Also Available For: Nothing

The platformy action games that comprised Ultimate's first two releases were well received and are fondly remembered today, but probably weren't the kind of thing they would become most famous for. Some of their titles, however, seem to get forgotten altogether by some. Arguably the most ignored of them all, of their Spectrum releases at least, is Tranz Am. Is that because it sucks donkey balls or is it simply because many of their other games were so much better? It was a bit of a departure for them but their trademark simplicity remains intact for it's an overhead-viewed driving game where the object is merely to collect trophies. Browsing through the instructions/inlay, however, certainly gives the impression that a great deal more thought was put into than it may initially appear.

Splendid Nintendo 64 Music #1

Blast Corps (1997)

As the final cartridge-based console, the N64 was also the last non-handheld system without the benefit of CD-based audio. On top of that, it didn't even have a dedicated sound chip, with the audio responsibilities instead falling to the system's 'Reality' co-processor, so the number of games featuring top soundtracks is all the more impressive. One of the best of these must surely be the fantastic series of tunes composed by Graeme Norgate for Rare's criminally under-played demolition game. The soundtrack consists of twenty-one tracks altogether, many of which feature twangy banjos more akin to a hoedown, but somehow they suit this superb game down to the ground. Here's my favourite:



Special Note: I didn't record this great tune myself, I'm just an admirer, so all credit goes to the original composer

Ultimate: The Collected Works - Part 2

Pssst (1983)
By: Ultimate Play the Game  Genre: Action  Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum  First Day Score: 15,070
Also Available For: Nothing

As one of the most popular and fondly-remembered early Spectrum games, Jetpac was a huge success for the Stamper Brothers and it didn't take them long to follow it up. Released later that same year, Pssst was a game that had a similar premise but its setting couldn't be much more different. The aim of both games is to shoot interlopers in order to protect a valued but stationary object, but whereas before it was your spaceman's rocket ship your efforts were concentrated on, this time it's... a flower! It's not just any flower though, but a prize Thyrgodian Megga Chrisanthodil, and its proud owner is Robbie the Robot! In order for this special plant to be nurtured into full bloom, you must help Robbie fend off the hordes of evil Interstellar Space Slugs, Scuttling Leeches, and Menacing Midges who want to eat it!

Ultimate: The Collected Works - Part 1

Jetpac (1983)
By: Ultimate Play the Game Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum First Day Score: 6,220
Also Available For: BBC Micro, Commodore VIC-20

Most gamers who grew up in the UK around the same sort of time I did (you know, the 80's 'glory days'), probably had one of the 8-bit micros that were doing the rounds at that time and for me it was the ZX Spectrum. I got into gaming late though, and missed the Speccy's early years which also meant I ended up missing most of the games released by the now legendary Ultimate and, to my eternal shame, I've never got around to playing them since either. This is once again where good old Red Parsley comes in handy for me as it provides a great excuse (not that one should be needed, admittedly) to rectify this glaring oversight! To that end, this series of features will look at all of the games released by Ultimate and I guess it makes most sense to start with the first game!

Overhead Racers #3

Cobra Triangle (1988)
By: Rare Genre: Overhead Racing Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: NES  First Day Score: 168,250
Also Available For: Nothing

One of the reasons I decided to start covering this genre of games is that it's one I've enjoyed immensely in the past, but so far this enjoyment has been limited only to a handful of titles. There are still many I haven't actually played before, so what better excuse to start? For the third game in the feature, I thought I'd take a look at one that tried to do something a little bit different. Enter Rare. This NES-exclusive is a bit unusual for an overhead racer for several reasons. Not least of these is the fact that it's single-player only! That's right, the feature that is often the main appeal of games of this nature is entirely absent! Do not despair, however - much has done by our ever-reliable friends at Rare to ensure the longevity of this, one of their first forays into the racing genre and, for a change, it features not cars but speedboats!