Computer Platform Games #9

Bomb Jack II (1987)
By: Elite Genre: Platform Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum First Day Score: 10,400
Also Available For: Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64

I was a big fan of Tehkan's classic bomb-collecting platformer, Bomb Jack, and as detailed in a previous post, I spent a great many happy afternoons playing the excellent CPC version at a friend's house on the way home from school. As you might imagine, I was therefore keen to acquire the game for my Speccy too, but I never saw it in the shops for some reason. I did see Bomb Jack II though, and soon bought it hoping it would be more or less the same as the game I had been enjoying so much. Sadly, I quickly learned that aside from using the same name and main character, it bore little resemblance to the original. Okay, it was also a single-screen platformer and there were still small platforms dotted around the screen and you still had to collect stuffs and there were still enemies to avoid. But it still didn't play much like the mighty Bomb Jack (no, not Mighty Bomb Jack). But was it enjoyable in its own right?

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

Game Gallery #9

It has once again been far too long since I did one of these gallery posts - something I must address henceforth - but they were mainly intended to showcase big name games of the past, in any case. Then why am I using this gallery post to showcase a Speccy homebrew game that, to my knowledge, not many people know about, you probably aren't asking. Well, because 1) I like it, and 2) it has pretty graphics for a Speccy game - a wonderful system, but one for which colours are not often seen in huge numbers. Check out the colours here, especially the borders of each level.

Crap Games #14

Rigel's Revenge (1987)
By: Smart Egg Software / Mastertronic Genre: Text Adventure Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum First Day Score: 16/50
Also Available For: Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64

Unlike most of the games so far in this feature, I never saw Rigel's Revenge getting slated in reviews of the day. I don't remember even seeing any coverage of it at all, in fact, and I found out many years later that it was actually very well received, so why is it here? Well, that's entirely down to me and my good friend Luke, I'm afraid. It was a cheapie budget release which we both had for our respective 8-bit micros (Speccy for me, CPC for him) and we both hated it. I'm not even sure why if I'm honest, but I recall Luke once angrily refusing to even acknowledge it as a legitimate computer game! With advancing years comes a more mature and rational mindset, however (in theory, at least), not to mention an enthusiastic appreciation of the 80s and the games released during that glorious decade, so after recently remembering this game randomly, I decided to give it another try to see if it really has sucked all these years, or if Luke and I were just idiotic youths without any taste.

Bat 'n' Ball Games #12

Batty (1987)
By: Elite  Genre: Bat 'n' Ball Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum  First Day Score: ???,???
Also Available For: Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC

One of the great things about being an 8-bit home-micro owner in the 80s was not only the many cool magazines we got (or our parents got for us), but that the mags often included cover-mounted tapes that featured demos of new games and other bits and pieces. On the odd, rare occasion, however, they had been known to feature a full game! This was a time of celebration and revelry, even if it was often short-lived when the game turned out to be as much fun as shovelling rhino poop without a shovel. BUT!! One game has gone down in legend as being more fun than any kind of poop-shovelling, and that game is... Batty, shockingly! Yes, that's right, 'mounted' on the cover of the October 1987 issue of Your Sinclair was a cassette containing the full Batty game! I mean, it was never going to be another Lords of Midnight but it was still a full game which was obviously wonderful news to us cash-strapped urchins.

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 lot 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.

Gaming Flashbacks #3

Ask ten different retroheads what their favourite Atari arcade game is and you will be guaranteed two things. Firstly, that everyone will have an answer, but also that you'll probably get ten different answers. They had so many classics, from the early years with addictive coin-guzzlers like Breakout, Asteroids and Centipede, up to what in my opinion was their heyday in mid-to-late 80's with innovative titles such as Paperboy, Marble Madness, STUN Runner, and the marvellous Escape From the Planet of the Robot Monsters, but my vote would usually go to Gauntlet.

It was originally released way back in 1985 and, over the intervening years, I've played just about every version of it to have seen release. The first version I played, though, and still probably the one I've spent the most time with, was the stonking conversion the Speccy received. Despite being a pesky multi-load game it was indeed a fine version of what was already considered a classic. It offered simultaneous two-player action - an option that was duly pursued enthusiastically by myself and friends. As wonderful as the Spectrum was, though, it did sometimes struggle as a result of its meagre 'spectrum' of colours (chortle!), and as a result, the colours of many of the sprites and backgrounds are different to the arcade original. This kind of thing was standard with conversions on the 8-bit micros, naturally, and some enemies such as the ghosts and demons were the correct colours anyway, but one that wasn't was the 'grunts' which were originally brown, but here they were... pink!

Isometric Games #4

Batman (1986)
By: Jon Ritman & Bernie Drummond / Ocean Genre: Arcade Adventure Players: 1
Difficulty: Medium Featured Version: ZX Spectrum First Day Score: 824
Also Available For: Amstrad CPC, Amstrad PCW, MSX

Pretty much ever since I first got (or was given - thanks mum and dad!) a Spectrum, one of my top five favourite games for it has been Head Over Heels. Not only was it a wonderful adventure in its own right but it also made me a fan of isometric games generally, so it's strange that it has taken me such an extraordinary amount of time to get around to playing this example. I've never really been a fan of the Caped Crusader in general but this, possibly the first Speccy title to bear his name, is one that has long been considered the spiritual predecessor of Head Over Heels. Both were products of the same ace two-man team of Jon Ritman (programming) and Bernie Drummond (graphics), so it's not too much of a surprise that they have a lot in common, and there are similarities in both the visuals and game design as well.

Computer Platform Games #8

Wanted: Monty Mole (1984)
By: Peter Harrap / Gremlin Graphics Genre: Platform Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum First Day Score: 2,555
Also Available For: Commodore 64

I'm not sure if systems having their own gaming mascot has ever really been that big a thing outside of the world of Sega/Nintendo and their rivalry but when I was young I always used to consider Monty Mole as the Speccy's unofficial mascot. Some might go for Miner Willy over Monty but the latter had more games and I was for some reason much more familiar with him at the time, so I went for him even if some of his games did appear on rival systems. He was created by Peter Harrap, at the time a 'fresh face to Spectrum programming', and Wanted: Monty Mole, sometimes just known as Monty Mole, was his first adventure. From the title I had assumed he was some sort of cat (or mole) burglar on the run but no, apparently he's just looking to snaffle some coal from the local mine for the 'bone chilling Christmas ahead'. No one wants to see him frozen solid so let's grab that coal bucket and get collecting!

Speccy Homebrew Games #2

Circuitry (2017)
By: John Blythe / Rucksack Games Genre: Platform Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum First Day Score: 368k

Splendid loading screens always make a game better...

When I first started this feature a few months back I thought I was pretty lucky to find a single-screen platformer to start it off - they are one of my favourite types of game after all - so imagine how happy I was to find another such example just recently! This one was made by John Blythe, a.k.a. Rucksack Games, using Jonathan Cauldwell's Arcade Game Designer and casts you as Nan'O'Bot, a tiny robotic AI which you must use to infiltrate the mainframe of Revanox, the R&D branch of military contractor SecuriCorp, and save as much of their data as possible from a rogue AI activated by a heinous hacker before Revanox cut their losses and pull the plug. This is done by hopping around twenty appropriately-themed single screen stages, each of which features two 'data packets' which come in the form of floppy discs (both 3.25" and 5.25" varieties) or cassettes. Hopefully these are just symbolic though - I'd hate to think of an R&D dept using such outdated storage media nowadays!

Single Screen Platform Games #16

Manic Miner (1983)
By: Bug-Byte Software Ltd Genre: Platform Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum First Day Score: 11,800
Also Available For: Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, C16, BBC Micro, Dragon 32, MSX, Oric 1, Memotech MTX, PMD 85, Sam Coupe, Amiga, Game Boy Advance

Okay, time for another Red Parsley embarrassing confession. I am of course highly familiar with Manic Miner, the towering masterpiece of Matthew Smith, and have played it before, but I've never really played it properly on its home turf. I think I even completed one of the other versions but the Speccy original has been sadly neglected by me. Thinking about it now I genuinely have no idea how I missed it in its day, what with the game's already legendary status and all that. Its release came before I joined the ranks of the home computerers but you would still think a game this popular would find its way to me anyway, even a few years later, but no. I don't recall seeing it on sale and I'm pretty sure I never saw magazines going on about it excitedly either. It really is quite strange looking back but the end result was that I, a self-professed Speccy fan, wasn't even aware of one of its most recognised, landmark titles until many years later.

Speccy Homebrew Games #1

Gloop Troops (2010)
By: Little Shop of Pixels Genre: Platform Players: 1 Difficulty: Easy
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum First Day Score: 22,500
Also Available For: iOS

When I gave the wonderful mobile game I Am Level a good going over last year its Speccy-style graphics and presentation made me realise something. For most of the time I have been running Red Parsley, I've covered a few doujin games here and there as well as a number of indie/download titles for PC and PSN, but I don't think I've played a single homebrew game for the Spectrum in that time, much less reviewed one. This is odd since the continuing passion shown by these talented, dedicated gamers never fails to impress, and the Speccy is of course one of my favourite systems too. So it's about time I started taking a look of some of them, and the first one I've chosen is Gloop Troops which was released back in 2010 by Little Shop of Pixels (also known as Andrew Oakley and Simon Franco). I can't recall where I first saw it now but it clearly did something to catch my eye.

Computer Shmups #4

N.O.M.A.D. (1985)
By: Ocean Genre: Shooting / Maze Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum  First Day Score: 10,355
Also Available For: Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64

It seems like a loong time ago now that I spent most of my evenings in front of my trusty Spectrum. In retrospect, they probably would've been better spent doing homework but never mind! One of the first of its games to ensnare me, and one of the very first video games to ever do so therefore, was this one which was actually a freebie that came bundled with the computer. It's a flick-screen multi-directional shooter set within TALOS, a man-made asteroid which is apparently 'spreading evil through the universe' thanks to its chief occupant, the 'unspeakably vile' Cyrus T.Gross. To combat this terror, the 'rulers of the Free Worlds' have sent in N.O.M.A.D. (Nemesis Organisation Mobile Attack Droid), a floaty shooty robot to blow everything up and kill him. I guess we're ignoring whatever judicial system is used in this part of space for now then, so let's get killing!

Even More Speccy Loading Screens!

Jeepers, just when I thought I'd finished posting selections of my favourite Speccy loading screens (see the last of the five parts here), I discover yet more evidence of the awesomeness of the retro community. This latest selection of images, you see, were all created by talented Speccy fans and posted over at the 'ZX Art' page.

I've only just discovered this superb site but it's chock-full of fantastic examples of Speccy artwork. The ones I've posted here are just a random selection of ones that caught my eye and as you can probably tell, most of them are made in the style of loading screens. Some are even 'remakes' of existing loading screens.

If you've perused these gorgeous images and like what you see, I strongly urge you to visit the ZX Art site and take a look at some of the other great work there. And just for the record, I didn't make any of these myself - the name of each artist is in brackets in the filename of each image - full credit goes to them...

Dizzy Series - Part 5

Fantasy World Dizzy (1989)
By: Oliver Twins / Code Masters Genre: Arcade Adventure Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum
Also Available For: Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Enterprise 64/128

Yet another lovely Codies loading screen...

A common topic of debate among gamers, especially Speccy fans, is thus: which of Dizzy's magnificent adventures is the best? There is no correct answer, obviously. Lots of fans still vote for the second game, Treasure Island Dizzy, but my answer has long been Fantasy World Dizzy. This might be because I can actually finish it without too much trouble (kind of - more on that later) but it sure is a mighty pleasant game anyway. It sees a return to the fantasy-theme of the original game - it's actually even more fantasy-ish here - and is also notable for introducing the 'Yolkfolk', a bunch of unhelpful buffoons who comprise Dizzy's family. The object of the game, however, is to rescue another of his associates, his ditzy girlfriend Daisy, who's gone and gotten abducted by the evil King Troll while walking through a forest.

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.

Favourite Speccy Loading Screens - Part 5

Oh, hello again. It's now accidentally been a startlingly long time since I last posted selections of my favourite Spectrum loading screens, but nonetheless, here is the final part of this feature which has actually turned out to be among my most popular features for some time! I suppose visually-stimulating posts are always popular but, whatever the reason, I'm very pleased you've enjoyed this extensive gallery...

Budget Games #7

Zub (1986)
By: Binary Design / Mastertronic Genre: Platform Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum  First Day Score: 1,044
Also Available For: Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64

If I recall correctly, one of the first budget games I ever bought (or was given, as was more likely the case in those days) was Zub. It was an immediately eye-catching game, mainly due to its splendid comic-book style cover, but it was memorable for a few other reasons as well. It puts you in the shoes of Private Zub who is summoned by Sergeant Zub and briefed on a mission he is to undertake on the orders of King... umm, Zub. The task at hand is to recover one of the king's crown jewels, the Green Eyeball of Zub, and return it. This dazzling jewel won't be easy to grab though - your quest begins on the planet Zub One while your quarry is all the way over on Zub Ten. Getting there isn't as straightforward as you might think either, as the planets don't simply lead from one to the next.

Favourite Speccy Loading Screens - Part 4

Oh, hello again. As some of you may well have noticed, I've recently been posting selections of my favourite Spectrum loading screens. Actually, I imagine rather a lot of you have noticed as they have turned out to be among my most popular posts for some time! I suppose visually-stimulating posts are always popular but, whatever the reason, I'm very pleased to now present the fourth part of the extensive gallery...

Almost 3D Shmups #2

Luna Crabs (1983)
By: M J Estcourt / Micromega Genre: Shooting Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum  First Day Score: 560
Also Available For: Nothing

As any student of science knows, the moon has long been suspected of harbouring some type of scary, malevolent horde of creatures. Having somehow concealed them-selves from our acutely cautious gaze, they've been there all this time, waiting, biding their time. But no longer! Having crawled from their lairs en masse, they are now on the move, but what exactly are they? Lord save us, they're crabs! This is actually not the set-up for this 16k Speccy game - the real back-story sets the action on an unnamed Saturnian moon (which kind of negates the whole 'luna' thing) where some research team has stumbled upon the rather aggressive crustaceans who are apparently in residence there. Does mean we're playing the part of the evil invading interloper? Quite possibly, but I think I like my own back-story more anyway.