Tag Archives: Retro

Prince of Persia for PC

October 5, 2011 rolyretroadmin 3 Comments

Rather than attending another double-microprocessors lecture on a Friday afternoon, I would bunk off my lectures and play games on an early 386 PC that was owned by one of my housemates – this was when PC’s were not even used in the computer lab as they were deemed to be just for word processing and not serious programming machines. PC gaming was in its infancy, focused mainly on flight and other simulations, and 3rd person shooter games like Doom were still years away.

One of the exceptions of that time was Prince of Persia, a platform adventure game from Broderbund and programmer Jordan Mechner that was a landmark in computer graphics, due to its use of realistic character movement. Your hero, the Prince of the title, could run, jump, hang from ledges, climb and fight with incredible realism, as the sprites were based on video recording of real actors. Armed with a scimitar, he would stylishly fence with the various enemies encountered through the game, including skeletons, palace guards and eventually his nemesis Jaffar. A similar approach to animation could also be found in the later Sega Megadrive game Flashback, where your character had a huge range of abilities rendered in smooth flowing graphics.

Prince of Persia was a combination of free-running and pitfall type obstacles, with many traps along the way which required careful timing to avoid, including spiked pits and collapsing walkways. Your character had 3 lives which could fortunately be replenished by drinking potions littered around the various levels. The ultimate objective of battling the Evil Jaffar and rescue his princess.

Originally released on the Apple II, and later systems including Megadrive and SNES, as well as sequels for the XBOX. There was also a Hollywood film, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, where the Prince was transformed into a free-running hero played by Jake Gyllenhall.

For me however it is the original game that is the stand out in the series, and it was well worth missing all those lectures for.

ZX Spectrum

Top 10 Spectrum Games: the best Speccy games ever!

October 2, 2011 rolyretroadmin 6 Comments

Games every ZX Spectrum owner should play

Every ZX Spectrum owner will have had their own personal favourites on Sinclair’s popular home computer, and I have drawn up a list of what I believe to be the best. My Top 10 is based on my experiences of innovative games, that even 30 years later will spark fond memories of the fantastic little machine.

You could claim that I have made some noteable exclusions, such as footballing classic Match Day, perennial favourite 3D Death Chase, and various games featuring the Spectrum mascot Dizzy. All I can say is that this is my list, and I have my reasons for every game included here.

I have also included a mix of 16k and 48k Spectrum games, as I owned both versions and early arcade titles that fit into the smaller memory could be just as good as the (relatively) memory hungry versions. Remember this is a time when their were no hard drives, every game had to be loaded from tape (or usometimes micro-drive) directly into memory whenever you wanted to play.

So in no particular order, my Top 10 Spectrum games…

Jet Set Willy

Every Spectrum owner will have played one of Matthew Smith’s classic Spectrum platformers starring Miner Willy. The first game, Manic Miner, was a sensation and its sequel, Jet Set Willy was even better.

Having made his money in the first game, Miner Willy has bought a huge mansion and held the mother of all parties. Before he can go to bed, the housekeeper is inisiting on him tidying up the place, requiring him to explore the many rooms of the mansion and collect various misplaced objects. The first really good attempts at a platformer on the Spectrum, these games featured many tricky hazards including conveyer belts, melting walkways, devious enemies and also required some pixel perfect jumping skills. Jet Set Willy improved on the linear nature of the first game by allowing free movement between the rooms of the mansion, creating a truly unique sequel.

Knight Lore

This was the first game from Ultimate to feature the innovative Filmation graphics engine, which enabled rendering a game world in isometric 3d. This viewpoint was subsequently used in a number of classic Spectrum games including Head over Heels and Batman. Knight Lore itself was the third in the series of Sabreman games, this time our hero suffering from a nasty case of Lycanthropy, resulting in him spending half the game in werewolf form as he explores a huge castle seeking a cure. Each room of the castle featured puzzles and obstacles to overcome, in order to access the ingredients required to place in a central cauldron and create a potion. A smash at the time, it was a huge leap ahead in terms of graphics on the Spectrum, and set a standard for other games to follow.

Atic Atac

At the time this “haunted mansion” themed game seemed epic, a colourful and action packed game like nothing before it on the Spectrum. Your mission was to play as one of three medieval characters, each with different skills and different routes that must be taken through the game. Find the various pieces of key, avoid or kill the numerous monsters, and fight your way to the exit. This game featured some great graphics, shown from a top-down perpective, and some well animated creatures – but my favourite component was the chicken based life-meter which shows your character’s health.

One of many Spectrum games that required you to draw a map as you progressed in order to remember your way the next time, often resulting in lots of bits of A4 paper selotaped together as your map grew ever larger and more complicated.

Click here for the full review

Underwurlde

The sequel to Sabre Wulf, Underwurlde transported the hero Sabreman to a underground world, which saw him turned on his side and become a platformer rather than a top-down adventure. Much like Atic Atac and Sabre Wulf before it, the gameplay required you to explore a complex series of rooms, avoid baddies, and find specific items (in this case weapons) in order to escape. Along the way Sabreman would be required to jump gaps, climb ropes and ride on bubbles in order to traverse the huge maze of over 500 screens.

Some might say 3 Sabreman games in the the Top 10 but each had a different graphical style and unique gameplay elements that merit their inclusion.

Skool Daze

Another game that could really only work in the UK, Skool Daze was the closest thing to a Spectrum version of popular 80’s TV show, Grange Hill. Your mission was to survive the various challenges that school threw at you, from grumpy teachers through to evil bullies, and uncover the combination to the school safe, which held an incriminating report card. Get caught using your catapult, or any other number of misdemeanors, and you will be given lines, too many lines and you are expelled.

Another game featuring classic British humour, this was a unique game concept that was platformer, simulation, puzzle and adventure in equal parts, and a firm favourite with many Spectrum owners.

Daly Thomson’s Decathlon

Daley Thomsons Decathlon ZX Spectrum screenshot

Famous for its ability to destroy joysticks, Daly Thomson’s Decathlon was a clone of the Track & Field arcade game, which required players to bash buttons and waggle joysticks furiously in order to make the on screen characters run, jump and throw their way to athletic victory.

Ocean’s version for the Spectrum featured popular decathlete Daley Thomson, and gave the player the opportunity to take part in all 10 events. The game featured some great animation, although slightly strange graphics in that the black Olympian was portrayed as an all-white sprite – probably more due to the limited colour palette and attribute clash issues of the humble spectrum than anything else. My personal favourite was the Javelin, which required maximum speed and just the right throwing angle in order to get a qualifying throw.

A great game and must feature in any Spectrum fan’s Top 10 list.

Click here for the full review

Sabre Wulf

The third game from Ultimate in my Spectrum Top 10 game, this featured the first outing of Sabreman, reappearing in Underwurlde, in wolf form in Knight Lore, and finally as a wizard in Pentagram. Sabre Wulf was an adventure set in a huge flick-screen world of lush vegetation, back in the day when there were no maps on your head up display, if you wanted to find your way through the many screens you had to get busy with a pencil and paper. Avoid the jungle critters, collect 4 pieces of the amulet and you were free, but not without a long battle with numerous enemies and a lot of back-tracking through the game’s 256 screens. An obvious inclusion for my list of Top 10 Spectrum games.

Everyone’s a Wally

Microgen released the much loved series of platform / adventure games featuring the affable Wally on a number of platforms including the Spectrum. All of these games featured large colourful sprites and challenging gameplay, culminating in this version which allowed players to adopt the personas of various members of the Week family. Each had special skills which had to be used to full effect in order to solve the various puzzles required to complete the game, and each had their own health bar which had to be independently maintained.

A novel game with some innovative features, most Spectrum owners will have at least one Wally game in their collection.

3D Ant Attack

Before Ultimate kicked off the craze for isometric adventure games, Quicksilva gave us 3D Any Attack. Set in a scrolling isometric 3D world (think Zaxxon with movement in 4 diagonal directions), the objective was to rescue your partner, boy or girl depending on your chosen character. Avoid the giant ants, and climb ever more complex structures to locate your mate and escape the city, armed only with a few grenades with which to stun the overgrown insects.

Another unique Spectrum game, this was a great retro memory for me and still playable today.

Chuckie Egg

This game was available on a number of platforms, and everyone has their favoirite, but I loved the Spectrum version. As a farmer charged with collecting eggs from around a multi level henhouse, you used some fairly atheltic running and jumping skils to navigate the various levels and platforms whist avoiding the resident hens. Take too long to complete the level and the Boss Chicken would escape his cage and chase you around the level.

Some frenetic gameplay and excellent controls ensured that an apparently simple platformer became an enduring Spectrum classic and a dead cert Top 10 inclusion.

Arcade Games

Pengo Arcade Game by Sega – Retro review

August 28, 2011 rolyretroadmin 2 Comments

Pengo was an arcade game released by Sega in 1982. Kind of a cross between Pac Man and Space Panic, Pengo was a maze game with a twist. Rather than being constrained by the maze, you could use the blocks of the maze walls to flatten the chasing monsters. Your hero Pengo was pitted against the evil Sno-Bees in this game, strange blobby characters that would wobble around the maze in a hunt for Penguins.

The maze was made of ice blocks which could be pushed by Pengo, squashing any of the chasing Sno-Bees in the process, before smashing against the next ice block. The blocks would slide and collide in a very satisfying way, as you reformed the path of the maze on the fly. This allowed for a large amount of strategy, as not only could you crush your enemies you could carve new routes through the game maze to avoid being caught. The Sno-Bees could also destroy blocks by punching them, so you had to move fast to avoid being caught.

Crushing your enemies with ice blocks wasn’t the only way to defeat them however, you could also stun the sno-bees by pushing the outside walls of the maze, which would cause the wall to shake, and run over them whilst stunned. Some ice blocks contained diamonds, and bonuses were earned by lining up all the diamond blocks in a row.

Another similarity with Pac Man was the “between screen” show, which involved dancing penguins instead of ghosts. Early machines featured the popular synth tune “Popcorn”, which really got stuck in your head, but this was removed from later machines due to conflicts with the composer.

Pengo Home Conversions

The game made it onto some 80’s home computers including the classic Pengi clone for the BBC Micro, which was a reasonably faithful conversion. More recently, well in 1992, I found a cabinet entitled 3 Wonders, a multi-game which included a title called “Don’t Pull”. This was an updated version of Pengo, but with cute bunnies, that played almost identically to the arcade original.

A great game with some very good character animation, I spent a lot of money on this in my teens trying to get through all 16 rounds of the game.

BBC Micro

Arcadians retro game review for the BBC Micro

August 14, 2011 rolyretroadmin Leave a comment

In my retro games reviews I’ve covered a few BBC arcade conversions including Killer Gorrilla, so won’t repeat what I’ve aleady said about some of the liberties taken in the early days by developers like Acornsoft.

But if they hadn’t stretched the boundaries of IP infringement we would not have arcade perfect conversions such as Arcadians (a thinly veiled Galaxians clone). All seems to be in order, from the swooping aliens to the large player ship at the bottom of the screen. In fact the player ship was huge, making bullet dodging quite a challenge.

Arcadians was quite a repetitive game, sitting somewhere in between Space Invaders and Galaga in the arcades, with not much variation in gameplay if any between waves. Galaga took the Arcadians model with swooping aliens and added in bonus screens and dual ships, perfecting for many the formula and providing some much needed variety.

Anyway, back to Arcadians, in addition to the perfectly replicated gameplay, it also featured an arcade-style high score table and a novel “attract” screen with a demo of it being played, just like a real cabinet, making it feel really authentic.

Arcadians was also released later on the Acorn Electron, the BBC Micro’s younger brother, and it was just as good despite it being a less powerful computer. Anyone with a BBC or an Electron back in the 80’s should remember this game, another great example of what the BBC was capable of in the right hands and the closest thing to the arcades for a home gamer.

Projects

Time to sort out my retro collection #1

August 8, 2011 rolyretroadmin 7 Comments

I have been playing video games since the late 70’s, and through the 80’s had various consoles and computers, but I was never really a collector. Video games were just something that I played, sometimes completed, but then just moved onto the next game. Having a “collection” of video games was never really an option given the cost at the time.

Around 10 years ago, when I returned from a period working overseas, I remembered seeing someone with an original Game and Watch handheld, and wondering how much they would cost now. I didn’t have one as a kid, but my cousin did, and I would play it for hours. A quick visit to ebay, and 10 quid later I had the first game in my collection, a double screen Donkey Kong Game & Watch. I then started thinking about all the video and arcade games that I played, and would have liked to play, and the buzz I used to get from every new console and software release.

From here it snowballed, and I started my collection in earnest. My objective was fairly simple, to have a working example of every major console and home computer released in the UK, and the key software titles for each.

I have done pretty well with my collection do date, apart from one small issue, and that is I cant see any of it, as it’s piled in boxes in a cupboard in my spare room. With a business to run and 3 kids under the age of 11 I have been kept a little bit busy, and there is always something more pressing to do. As you can see from the attached photo, this is not an ideal situation as I now don’t know what I have in my collection.

On the plus side, I now get to rediscover my collection all over again, and over the next few weeks I am going to sort out my spare room and catalogue all my games. I will post regular updates and photos on the website as I progress, and if I find anything particularly interesting (that I forgot I had) I will write a more detailed update.

Arcade Games

Burger Time Arcade Machine Revisited

August 4, 2011 rolyretroadmin Leave a comment

Screenshot of Burger Time — screenshot of Burger Time

Burger Time was launched by Data East in 1982 to an arcade public previously starved of fast-food based gaming action.

Long before Gordon Ramsey and other so-called “celebrity” chefs, the hero of this game was burger tosser Peter Pepper. Transported to a massive kitchen with various levels, he has to climb ladders and cross platforms to assemble huge burgers, whilst being chased by angry foodstuffs. The burger components of bun, beef & lettuce must be walked across (very unhygienic) in order to make them fall to the plate at the bottom of the screen. The falling food item knocks each item below it down one level, meaning that the most effective method of creating your burger is to start at the top and work down.

Complicating matters are the evil ingredients Mr Hot Dog, Mr Pickle and Mr Egg, all of whom are out to stop you, possibly in some attempt to get themselves on the menu instead.

Fortunately you can stop the various menu items by trapping them between the burger components, or by spraying them with a limited supply of pepper (perhaps the inspiration for pepper spray) in order to stun them for a few moments. If you time your spray well you can take out more than one enemy at a time with a single spray, enabling you to walk straight through them whilst they writhe in agony. Not quite such how pepper hurts a sausage that has no eyes, but then Burger Time is a game about walking sausages..

As well as your burger components and enemy food items, there are also bonuses such as ice creams and french fries which appear pac-man style for extra points when collected.

Assemble all the burgers and the level is complete, and you move to the next, with slightly angrier sausages, and platforms which provide access to bigger burgers including slices of cheese and tomato. There are 6 levels in total before you loop around to the first again with an increased difficulty level.

Home Conversions

Burger Time was released on a number of home platforms, including a classic for the Colecovision console, which was host to a number of great arcade game conversions including Donkey Kong and Zaxxon. The game was also released on the Nintendo Entertainment System and Atari 2600, as well as a later release on Nintendo’s Gameboy.

In 2011 a remake of the game was released as a downloadable title across all the major consoles, titled “Burger Time World Tour” – a comprehensive revision in full 3D which sticks to the original burger building recipe (sorry).

My personal favourite was a conversion by Ocean for the ZX Spectrum known as Mr Wimpy, in honour of the mascot of Wimpy burger restaurants in the UK. Birmingham residents will also note the connection with late night fast food restaurant “Mr Egg”, which presumably was named in honour of this great game.

retrogames!now