MSX Games #2

Mr. Ghost a.k.a. Yuurei-kun (1989)
By: System Sacom Genre: Action/Shooting (kind of) Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: MSX2 First Day Score: 21,250
Also Available For: Nothing

Ever since starting this blog, I have kept a list of games I want to play and review at some point. Many, I will probably never get around to, but some I'm happy to say I will. Mr. Ghost is unsurprisingly such a game; one that has lain dormant on my list for around 8 years, I estimate - jeepers! My interest in the MSX systems was recently reinvigorated though, and this was the first title I thought of. It looked quite simple from what I recalled of it, so I actually thought it was an MSX game, but it's a later release for the MSX2. It stars a floaty white fellow who probably has a proper name, but as far as I can tell from the story (which is told via various static cut-scenes, in Japanese of course), he woke up one day as a ghost and can't remember anything from before that. So for now at least, he is known as Mr. Ghost, and it's your job to help him venture forth to discover who and what he is. Or was, as the case may be.

First Look NES #3

Kira Kira Star Night by Riki (2013) - Famicom/PC

Although the NES/Famicom serves as inspiration for many indie games these days, it doesn't seem to get too much in the way of homebrew releases itself. This one caught my eye a while back though, due to its dazzling graphics and pleasing accompanying artwork. That isn't enormously surprising upon learning its creator, Riki, is a manga artist! Indeed, his talent in that field serves to make KKSN a visual treat filled with neon backgrounds and sharp sprites. Well, I say 'sprites' as in plural but there's only one really - the main character, a young girl known as Fami-chan. Further investigations reveal a game of early 80's simplicity which tasks you, as Fami-chan, with collecting as many stars as possible. These drop from the top of the screen or zip into view from the sides and you simply have to run/jump around the totally flat auto-scrolling stages collecting as many of them as you can.

Puzzle Games #19

Bounder (1986)
By: Gremlin Graphics Genre: Action / Puzzle Players: 1  Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum  First Day Score: 55,340
Also Available For: Amstrad CPC, Amstrad PCW, Commodore 64, Commodore 16/Plus 4, MSX

I must've played a fair few games that involve a tennis ball in some capacity but this must be the first and only game in which I've played as a tennis ball. The reason for this is not explained in any way in the game's instructions which serve only as... well, instructions, on how to proceed, and even then only briefly. The object of the game is to steer your perpetually bouncing tennis ball through all ten of the vertically-scrolling stages, avoiding the many obstacles and hazards until you reach the 'goal' at the end. You can move it forwards, left, right, and... that's it. The only surfaces you can bounce on safely are the hexagon tiles and the two types of special tiles - arrows which gives you a super bounce, and question marks which give you a bonus, though not always a good one.

Adult Games #5

Lady Killer (1993)
By: Yanyaka / Mitchell Corporation Genre: Action / Puzzle Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 155,700 (one credit)
Also Available For: Nothing

The distinct lack of originality I've found while looking into these so-called 'adult' games thus far has been... not entirely unexpected to be honest, but here I may have found one that's had at least a little effort put into it. You play the part of a diver called Gonta and it's his job, quite simply, to de-robe a succession of lovely ladies! Well, reveal their splendour in pictorial form at least, and he does this by... ummm... diving into them. Allow me to explain in more detail. First you must choose a lady. There are six available who apparently reside in various cities across the world. Choosing one sees our hero fly to that destination where he's met by a series of single screen stages. Each initially features a watery silhouette of your chosen lady which is revealed by the aforementioned diving. Yes, it's as weird as it sounds.

3DO Games #6

Icebreaker (1995)
By: Magnet Interactive Studios Genre: Action / Strategy Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: 3DO
Also Available For: PC, Mac

I got my first 3DO whilst it was still a 'current' system and, thanks to its failure and the subsequent price reductions, I was also able to buy most of the games I wanted for it quite quickly too, but one that I was not able to was Icebreaker. It was described by magazines of the day as a puzzle game and the few screen shots I'd seen were quite intriguing, but I was never able to find it anywhere, not even mail order (which was the last resort in those days). So, once again, this fine blog gives me the chance to finally tick another box, so to speak, and the first thing I noticed when I did finally get to play it is that it's not really a puzzle game at all. It's more of a action/strategy mixture, and it's quite an unusual one at that. The emphasis, you see, is very much on pyramids. There's no back-story to speak of so it's difficult to know how or why they came to be, but there are a lot of them.

Adult Games #4

Celery (1989)
By: Parsley Genre: Action Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC-98 First Day Score: ???,???
Also Available For: Nothing

Many of the few 'adult' games I've looked at so far have been obscure arcade titles but most of them have also been Japanese. I guess our Far-Eastern friends are a little keener on mixing gaming and nude girlies than us Western prudes - so much so, in fact, that a few of the systems native to that region are positively heaving under the vast weight of games featuring saucy minxes of all descriptions. One of these is NEC's Windows-based micro, the PC-98, so when I decided to start covering more of its games I suppose it was inevitable I'd encounter a nudey example at some point. It was actually the rather amusing name of this one that caught my eye but it didn't come as too much of a surprise to find... that's right, naughty girlies!

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!

Arcade Classics #6

Frogger (1981)
By: Konami Genre: Action Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 12,310 (one credit)
Also Available For: PlayStation, Vita, SNES, MegaDrive, NES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, ColecoVision, Intellivision, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit, Game.com, PC, MSX, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, Philips G7000 (blimey, I think that's it!)
Download For: PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, Android, Apple iOS, Mobile

I've always rightfully regarded Frogger as a classic but I've never actually spent too much time playing it. With that exhaustive list of available conversions above I guess I don't really have much of an excuse for that but, as always, in order to take a proper look at the game, I decided to start with this delightful original version which first appeared way back in '81 courtesy of Konami. It has long been considered a slightly odd game though. It consists of a series of single-screen overhead-viewed stages on each which the object is to guide a frog (or in fact, five frogs, one at a time) from the bottom of the screen across a busy section of road, then across a river, to one of five 'homes' at the top.

Mobile Games #6

Flappy Bird (2013)
By: .GEARS Studios  Genre: Action  Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Android First Day Score: 30
Also Available For: Apple iOS

Aside from the odd flirtation, I've never really been too bothered about playing games on my smartphone. Consequently, many of the most popular titles drift by me largely unnoticed. One that I definitely did notice, however, was Flappy Bird. It was seemingly a rather popular game already, receiving millions of downloads during the short time it was available, but its developer, a Vietnamese gentleman called Dong Nguyen, thrust it immeasurably further into the limelight by abruptly announcing its removal from Android and Apple stores due to apparent guilt over its addictive nature. This is the point I first heard of the game - on the 'proper' BBC News website of all places! Soon afterwards I witnessed desperate pleas from fans for it to be reinstated, stories of how Mr. Nguyen had been raking in tens of thousands of dollars each day just in advertising revenue, and there was even news of people selling phones with the game pre-installed for hugely inflated prices. What on earth was going on? Could the game really be so amazing as to garner this much attention, even hysteria? I had no idea - I still didn't even know what kind of game it was at this point, but I decided to find this 'next Angry Birds' to see what all the fuss was about.

Gravity Games #3

Space Taxi (1984)
By: John F. Kutcher / Muse Software Genre: Action Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Commodore 64 First Day Score: $182.77
Also Available For: Amiga

One of my favourite games in my early days of Dreamcast ownership was the splendid Crazy Taxi. I bought it on launch day and spent countless hours scooting largely ungrateful oafs around the various locales the game-world offered. I remember thinking what a simple-yet-addictive idea it was and was surprised it hadn't been done before. It turns out, however, that it had been done before - quite a long time before, in fact. Indeed, I was recently made aware of this unusual title released way back in the early years of the C64 which is kind of the same thing. But not in 3D, obviously. And the fact that it's set in space. And that you 'drive' a flying taxi. Apart from that it's the same game! Almost.

Random Game I've Never Heard Of #3

Motos (1985)
By: Namco  Genre: Action  Players: 1   Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade  First Day Score: 11,700
Also Available For: Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum

Whilst I still think it was a good idea, I don't seem to have had much luck with this 'Random Game' feature so far. The first two I chose both turned out to be worse than finding a dead mouse in your hamburger, but surely I can rely on Namco to buck the trend? Actually, seeing as it is by Namco, and an 80's arcade game, I'm rather surprised to find that I hadn't already heard of Motos, but a mystery it was. Happily, first impressions were good. It's a simple game and so was quick and easy to get to grips with - each single-screen stage features a grid floating above the vacuum of space. Starting in the middle of each is a small bumper-car type craft, about the size of one grid square, which you can move around the grid at will, each of which is also populated by numerous enemies.

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!