Random Game I've Never Heard Of #15

Banana (1986)
By: Victor Musical Industries Genre: Puzzle Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo NES First Day Score: 2,170 (yes, I'm crap at puzzle games)
Also Available For: Nothing

Selecting the next game to review for this series of posts isn't usually a very complicated matter - just look at lists and see if any names stand out! For some reason, I've always enjoyed games that feature fruits and vegetables. They usually take the form of collectibles for bonus points but here was a game that was actually named after a fruit! The reason for this is unclear but it made it stand out to me in any case. A quick perusal revealed that it was a pretty early release for Nintendo's sprightly Famicom and never made it out of Japan for some reason, which goes some way to explaining why I hadn't heard of it. I also soon learned that it was a puzzle game starring a nameless mole, who for review purposes we'll call Gronk, and it's his job to rescue a nameless female mole, who we'll call Fleeple. She must be a bit of an airhead too, as she apparently gets re-kidnapped (or lost, or whatever is going on) prior to every single stage of the game! C'mon Gronk, sooner or later you've just got to accept that anyone who takes such bad care of themselves perhaps doesn't deserve to get repeatedly rescued.

Currently Playing...

Tetris Worlds (2002)
By: Radical Entertainment / THQ Genre: Puzzle
Players: 1-4 Difficulty: Easy-Medium
Featured Version: Microsoft Xbox
Also Available For: PlayStation 2, GameCube, PC

Despite good old Nintendo being knobbers about the license back in its early days, virtually every system since the early 90s has had a version of Tetris, so when I was having my 'cheap Xbox game splurge' a few years back and saw a Tetris game was available, I thought why not? After all, any game with 'Tetris' in its name is a pretty safe bet, surely? Especially one called Tetris Worlds. It's a name that conjures an image of a vast and timeless game with lots of depth and options, and the more Tetris we can get, the better, no? There is a backstory, somehow. It is some sort of nonsense to do with 'unlocking the secret of the Tetrions' who were apparently a long-forgotten spacefaring species. The only evidence of them is the existence of special Gateways which orbit distant stars, and they can only be opened by those intelligent enough to unlock the secret of the falling blocks. There is more too, something about a mechanical species called the Minos and terraforming various planets, but does anyone really care?

Indie Nuggets #6

Clam Knight (2020)
By: Hector Toro & Bibiki Genre: Maze Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: PC First Day Score: 1,052
Also Available For: Nothing

It must be two years or more since I regularly nosed around Facebook (or indeed any other social media), but shortly before my self-imposed exile, one of the many retro pages I follow mentioned this game which caught my eye due to its appealing graphics. It's was made in just 11 days by Héctor Toro (with audio assistance from Bibiki) for the 2020 Summer Game Jam tournament and, though made only for PC, is modelled on the games for Sega's wonderful Master System. It has a backstory from that era too. It's set in a place called Summerland where tales are told of the legend of the Clam Knights who held the forces of the Crabbers at bay for centuries, but were finally defeated. Since then the pesky crustaceans have held Bikini Beach’s castle, but a young clam named Marvin has stepped forward, determined to become a Clam Knight and rid the castle of their filth. Who will help him with this brave, perhaps foolhardy quest?

First Look PS4 #1

The Witness by Thekla, Inc (2016) - PS4

I'm often a bit wary of games that require more than perfunctory use of one's grey matter, chiefly, I suspect, because I have little in the way of processing power in that area, but when an offering is free as this one was last year from the PlayStation Store, I'm more than happy to give them a go. For a few minutes, at least, until I get stuck (chortle!). The Witness is a puzzle game but it definitely doesn't have much in common with the shape/colour matching games that we generally think about when people say 'puzzle games' which, let's face it, aren't really puzzle games at all. No, this one is an actual puzzle game, and a mighty challenging one at that, which puts the player in the shoes of an unnamed human (or at least humanoid) who we'll call Grimpleforth.

Puzzle Games #23

E-Motion a.k.a. Sphericule, a.k.a. The Game of Harmony (1990)
By: The Assembly Line Genre: Puzzle Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Amiga First Day Score: ???,???
Also Available For: Game Boy, PC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum

You know how sometimes there are games you kept seeing screenshots of and kept seeing good review scores of, but they just didn't seem appealing? E-Motion is one of those games for me. It was pretty heavily advertised in its day and the few magazines I bought had pretty decent opinions of it. It just didn't look interesting to me so I never gave it a try. Then, however, many moons after its original release, I happened upon it on an Amiga and found that it's actually not bad. Imagine that! I can kind of still see why I wasn't enticed by it in its day though. Colourful it may be but it's still just screens of different coloured spheres. How much fun could that be? As it turned out, I'm not sure 'fun' is the most appropriate word for the game.

Dizzy Series - Part 6

Kiwk Snax (1990)
By: Oliver Twins / Code Masters Genre: Maze Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum First Day Score: 9,262
Also Available For: Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC

Another Dizzy game, another great loading screen...

My good friend Luke and I used to regularly enjoy playing Fast Food all those many moons ago, despite its simple and repetitive nature. Maybe that was its appeal in those days, but little did I (we?) know that it actually got a sequel a few years later too, in the form of the slightly-annoyingly-named Kwik Snax. It's not one of those pesky 'data disc' sequels either - the basic mazey game style is similar but there are definitely a lots of differences between the two. I don't think Fast Food even had a backstory really, but Kwik Snax is apparently set in the 'Land of Personality' where Dizzy and the Yolkfolk are finishing their tour of Yolkland. Unfortunately they had an argument which woke Zaks the evil wizard, and his resultant spells sent all but Dizzy to the furthest reaches of the world! Luckily, this leaves Dizzy free to rescue their sorry arses and bitchslap Zaks while he's at it. If he feels like it.

First Look Xbox #1

Mojo! by FarSight Studios / Crave Entertainment (2003) - Xbox

Since I've been collecting for the original Xbox, a lot of the games I've encountered have been ones already familiar to me - I'm sure you all know the big hitters as well as I do - but it's finding the more obscure titles like Mojo! that I've enjoyed the most. It cost me a mere £1.50 so it was undoubtedly a bargain and I was really looking forward to giving it a try. It's a platform/action/puzzle game which places you in command of a ball of some sort, much like the splendid Kula World. The objective here, however, is a bit more destructive than it was in the PS1 classic, but also somewhat simpler - just destroy all the colourful cube blocks on each stage by rolling into them. You have to change the colour of your ball to match the blocks you want to destroy using special 'infuser' transformation things but there isn't a great deal more to it really. Sounds like it could be a lot of fun!

Puzzle Games #22

Quarth a.k.a. Block Hole (1990)
By: Konami Genre: Shooting / Puzzle Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: MSX2 First Day Score: ???,???
Also Available For: Arcade, Game Boy, NES, X68000, NEC PC-9801, Master System (unofficial)
Download For: Wii Virtual Console

Near enough every game over the years has been fairly recognisable as belonging to one particular genre or another but there have also been quite a few hybrids too. That is, games that result from the fusion of two or more often very different genres. Some of these have been pretty weird but I can't think of many stranger unions than a block falling puzzler and a shoot 'em up, but that's exactly what we have here courtesy of Konami! No doubt there is some peculiar back-story intended to explain the weird set-up but since most versions of the game were Japanese exclusives (all but arcade and Game Boy I believe), it's hard to say. All I can tell you is, it places you in control of a somewhat bulky blue spacecraft located at the bottom of the screen (you actually get to choose between four craft but it makes no difference) which apparently achieves flight by way of an angel attached to either side!

Puzzle Games #21

Binary Land (1985)
By: Hudson Soft Genre: Puzzle / Maze Players: 1Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo NES First Day Score: 153,400
Also Available For: MSX, Fujitsu FM-7, NEC PC-6001, NEC PC-8801

I don't get game-related gifts for Christmas that often but this year my wife bought me a cool little clone handheld thingy. It looks like a PSP but is actually filled with NES games along with an emulator, and the first one I've spent much time with is Binary Land, an early Hudson Soft puzzle/action game which tasks you with reuniting two penguin lovers. This is done over a series of single-screen stages, each formed from a grid of 15x10 blocks and viewed from overhead, in which both penguins - Gurin (male) and Malon (female) - are dropped in separate locations. Your job is to bring them together at their special meeting point - a heart at the top of each stage which grows cold and diseased in a harsh metal cage until their combined splendour liberates it. The twist is, in an unusual and initially-confusing move, you control both of the stumbling flappers simultaneously, with the movements of one mirroring those of the other!

Puzzle Games #20

Kero Kero Keroppi no Daibouken (1991)
By: Character Soft Genre: Puzzle Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo NES First Day Score: 14,400
Also Available For: Nothing

There are several members of the animal kingdom whose presence in a game is usually a good sign of its quality. Everyone knows if a game stars a monkey or a penguin, it's likely to be good, for example, and frogs have a pretty good track-record so far too. I was therefore keen to check out this game after seeing its smiling amphibious star beaming out from its cover, who is, I believe, named Keroppi. It's hard to be totally sure as the game was perhaps unsurprisingly a Japanese exclusive, but he shall henceforth be referred to accordingly anyway. After muddling through a couple of options screens (which allow you to choose one or two players, and whether to start a new game or enter a code), it quickly becomes clear that his game is not only a puzzle-based one but also aimed at younger players too. As Keroppi (probably), it's your job to rescue what appears to be a female frog named Keroleen (so identified by her large eyelashes and what look like pigtails) who has become 'trapped in the castle'.

Steam / GOG Downloads #1

Pang Adventures (2016)
By: DotEmu / Pastagames Genre: Shooting / Puzzle Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: PC
Also Available For: PS4, Xbox One, Android, iOS

As you may recall from the preview here a few months back, one of the numerous retro-flavoured indie projects I've been looking forward to is the latest game to feature the Pang name. Some of you may be more familiar with the series by its rather annoying American name, Buster Bros, but whatever you knew it as (and I'd like to applaud the use of the correct name here), it sure is great to see it back. Unsurprisingly it's more of a reboot than a sequel and follows a similar format to the original game: aliens have invaded and unleashed their devastating 'attack balls' on the world's major cities. It's your job (and an optional friend's) to take them all out by bursting them with your harpoon gun.

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.

Indie Games News/Previews #8

Pang Adventures by DotEmu / Pastagames (2015) - PC, PS4, Xbox One, Android, iOS

Whichever of its many names you might know it by, I'm sure most gamers remember Pang. I suspect most liked it too, so it should come as most welcome news that an update/reboot is on the way! Yes that's right, continuing the trend of giving old favourites a new lick of paint, DotEmu and Pastagames have turned their attention to Mitchell Corp's 1989 classic balloon bursting harpoon 'em up. The last game in the series, the oddly-named Pang: Magical Michael for the Nintendo DS, dispensed with our usual heroes (the 'Buster Bros' of the game's American title) but they're now back and looking better than ever!

Puzzle Games #18

Be Ball a.k.a. Chew-Man-Fu (1990)
By: Hudson Soft Genre: Puzzle / Maze Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 First Day Score: 232,810
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: Wii Virtual Console

Puzzle games can often be among the stranger titles hosted by their respective systems and this PCE release by Hudson is definitely no exception. A brief perusal of the American instructions (Be Ball is the Japanese version) reveals that 'the people have been deprived of their favourite foods - fried rice and egg rolls - by the evil Chew Man Fu'. To what end? Your guess is as good as mine, but luckily 'two feisty twin sisters' named LaLa and LingLing have bravely stepped up to 'turn the tables on the wrong-doers'. Jolly good then! Of course, as you probably already guessed, this is done by... moving four coloured balls around. Obviously. Each stage, you see, features four different coloured balls and four plates of matching colours. Your job is simply to move each ball to the corresponding plate before moving to the next. This may not be as easy as it sounds, however, especially when you learn that there are supposedly a somewhat bewildering 550 stages to battle through.

Random Game I've Never Heard Of #12

Skooter (1987)
By: Pieket Weeserik / Byte Busters Genre: Puzzle Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: MSX
Also Available For: Nothing

Since the MSX series wasn't very well known here in the UK, looking through its back catalogue now proves very interesting. Many well known game series' were born here but there were also some rather more obscure titles. Take Skooter, for example, which I'm pretty sure originates from Holland - a country where the MSX was popular. It's a single-screen puzzle game starring a highly appealing white robot of some sort, and his job is seemingly to collect all four items from each of the sixteen stages, or 'sheets', while avoiding the four brick-like robotic enemies that also inhabit them. They trundle around fairly slowly and predictably and they're more of an inconvenience really - the main challenge is usually getting to the items. The publisher actually describes it as a "game of jigsaw puzzle" (translated) and that's not very far at all from the truth.

First Look PSN #4

Chime Super Deluxe by Zoë Mode (2010) - PlayStation Network (PS3)

Video games have not often fared well as far as charity is concerned, in my experience at least, and it seems Chime here is the first title released by non-profit publisher OneBigGame, so naturally I feared the worst. I bravely gave it a try anyway though, and what I found was a fairly simple music-based puzzle game. The idea is to choose from a list of dance/trance music tracks, charitably donated by such artists as Moby and Paul Hartnoll, which then play while you attempt to arrange a succession of various shaped blocks within a (nearly) screen-sized grid. As you're doing this a 'beatline' continuously sweeps the playfield from left to right. If your block-placing antics has left behind any completed blocks of 3x3 or bigger, known as 'quads', they are permanently added to the 'coverage' of the grid when the beatline passes over them which means you can then place more blocks on top.

Puzzle Games #17

Zooo a.k.a. Zoo Keeper (2003)
By: Success / Ignition Entertainment Genre: Puzzle Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo Game Boy Advance First Day Score: 74,900 (normal mode)
Also Available For: PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS
Download For: Android, iOS

You know, I think there has to be something about having animals in video games that automatically makes them much more appealing, at least to certain people like me. Take those tile-matching puzzle games for example - you know, the ones like Bejeweled? Despite there being dozens, perhaps hundreds of different versions and clones of them on everything from proper gaming systems to mobile phones, web browsers, and Facebook, the only one that's ever appealed to me in all these years is Zooo. And, as you might've guessed, it's an animal-themed one! The creatures in question are apparently the occupants of a zoo and have run amok. You play the part of a zoo keeper and it's your job to 'keep the animals orderly'... by arranging them in lines, obviously!

First Look NES #2

Lot Lot by Irem / Tokuma Shoten (1985) - NES

I've been playing video games for a long time now and I'd like to think I've got a pretty good general understanding of them, so it's not often I play a game that baffles me beyond recourse. When I gave Irem's puzzler here a try, however, I was and remain stumped. The object is to guide the many pellets from the top of the screen down to one of the 'scoring pits' at the bottom of the screen by moving them from cell to cell, making sure to avoid the evil orange crab in the process who is eager to grab as many pellets as he can. This is done by using two arrows. One is under your control, the other mimics its actions with a four-second delay. The only trouble is, I've been unable to find any kind of connection between what I do with the arrows and how the pellets move. This has proven mighty frustrating to say the least! I've watched clips of the game being played and looked for instructions online but all of them make it seem as though it should be obvious how to play. Can someone explain to me how in the blue blazes this game is played? Unless I'm just too stupid to learn, obviously... :(

RKS Score: N/A
 

First Look PSN #3

Elefunk by 8bit Games (2008) - PlayStation Network (PS3)

My interest in this game originally stemmed pretty much entirely from the curious elephant used on its cover image, and in particular its amusing 'stomping' animation, but I had absolutely no clue what kind of game it might be. I guessed it might be a platform game and that turned out to be the case... kind of. It turns out, however, that you are required to build the platforms yourself! Well, they're actually bridges you must build - each stage features a ravine or waterway or something and at least one elephant (though often several) that needs to get to the other side. Your job is to build a bridge by choosing from a set selection of small pieces made of metal, wood, and even rope. It needs to be strong enough though, or the poor elephants will fall through to their deaths.

Gaming Memories - Part 14

As a slightly strange person, there are many things about me that are odd, and that includes some gaming stuff. Indeed, ever since I discovered video games I've been interested in every system around to one degree or another, and I've owned most of them some stage too. However, despite numerous attempts, I've never really managed to embrace any handheld systems.

The first one I owned was Atari's Lynx which, though technically impressive and home to many decent games, failed to keep my attention for too long, so I decided to try the less advanced but much more popular Game Boy. Indeed, even though in my eyes Nintendo's machine was little more than an updated Game & Watch (which I also never really got on with), the various games magazines of the time were constantly burbling on about it to such an extent that figured it was worth a punt. It was duly acquired, along with Tetris or course, and even I, as a seasoned Sega fan-boy, could concede it was a decent bit of kit. It looked quite nice, the batteries lasted a while (unlike my Lynx - eeek!), and even better, it fitted perfectly in the inside pocket of my leather jacket which meant I could carry it around effortlessly and 'whip it out' at a moment's notice, looking undeniably cool in the process - reason enough to own one by itself!