Tag Archives: Review

Daley Thompson’s Decathlon for ZX Spectrum

August 7, 2011 rolyretroadmin 2 Comments

Like many sports games, definately a game “of it’s era”. Who over the age of 35 could forget Daley Thompson’s cheeky performances in the 1980 and 1984 Olympics? He was a hero to every boy in the UK at the time, me included, and I once got to meet him at my local athletics club, albeit fleetingly…

Daley Thompsons Decathlon — Daley Thompson Hurdles

Anyway, this game was loosely based on Konami’s Track and Field, and was notable for 2 reasons:

1) Daley Thompson was a black athlete, and yet (probably due to the Spectrums dreadful pallette and colour clash) he appeared in the game as a totally white sprite

2) Daley Thompson’s Decathlon broke a LOT of joysticks due to the frantic waggling required to make Daley run – you could use the keyboard but the rubber membrane would also give up the ghost after too much bashing.

Like the regular Olympic event, the game is set over two days in which Daley must compete in the 100 metres, long jump, the shot, high jump and the 400 metres, 110 metres hurdles, pole vault, discus, javelin and finally the 1500 metres.

Using a similar approach to the Track and Field game on which it is based, waggling or button bashing is required to build speed, and buttons pressed at the right time to either jump or throw depending on the event. My personal favourites were the Javelin and the High Jump, which required both speed and perfect timing in order to progress. Each event required a certain score to qualify and move on to the next stage.

Despite looking a bit pale, Daley himself had some very smooth animation, with reactive controls that enabled some pixel perfect jumps to be executed, important at the later stages of the game which became very tricky.

The game was followed by 2 sequels on the Spectrum, Daley Thompson’s Supertest and Daley Thompson’s Olympic Challenge, as well as conversions for the Amstrad CPC and C64, but it was the original Spectrum version that will be best remembered by retro gaming fans.

Arcade Games

Tempest arcade classic from Atari

August 7, 2011 rolyretroadmin Leave a comment

Atari had huge success in 1979 with the vector graphics based Asteroids, followed by 2 further classics in 1980, with Battlezone and the fantastic Tempest. Tempest was host to a number of “firsts” for an arcade game, including the first game to feature to feature a kind of “continue”, based on the player’s performance in the previous game. It was also one of the first games to feature full colour Vector graphics (rather than using coloured overlays), and to great effect. My favourite cabinet was the cocktail version, which had a two player “flip” screen, and a glass top you could balance your shandy on.

The design of the game is fairly unique, being a 3D “out of the screen” shooter, where the player rotates around the rim of a 3d tunnel, and aliens emerge from the centre. The shape of the tunnel changes between levels, sometimes not even a tunnel at all, but more of a stepped 3d panel. The player shoots down into the tunnel as the aliens emerge, firing back up the tunnel. The player can also use a smart bomb once every level to destroy everything on the screen. Reach the end of the level, and the player warps down into the tunnel, avoiding debris on the way left by some of the more nasty aliens.

The aliens vary, from basic shapes that just come out and try and crash into you, to electrified beings that can zap you if you linger in the wrong part of the tube. There are basic 16 levels, increasing in difficulty, which then loop in variations including invisible levels, with a total of 99 levels.

As per the standard Atari approach, the game was ported to several consoles, including a rubbish 2600 port, and I remember playing a version on the BBC Micro. No console can really recreate the Vector graphics feel, and it was a crime that Atari never ported any of its games to the Vectrex console which really could have done it justice.

Playstation 1

Dino Crisis for the Playstation 1

August 7, 2011 rolyretroadmin Leave a comment

Dino Crisis for me was the first introduction to the survival horror genre of gaming, and one of my favourite games on the original Playstation. Being chased by dinosaurs in a video game is nothing new of course, as fans of 3D Monster Maze on the ZX81 will recall, but Capcom takes the tension to a new level on Sony’s first console.

The story to the game is all a bit Jurassic park, with scientists bringing back Dinosaurs from the dead, this time through a rift in space, and you are sent in as part of a team to investigate the facility.

Dino Crisis PS 1 Playstation — Facing a Veloceraptor in Dino Crisis

Like another classic Capcom survival horror, Resident Evil, the game relies on lots of creeping around claustraphobic corriders, with appropriate creepy violin music to highten the tension as you wait for the next raptor to leap out at you. The gore level is ramped up to 10, with lots of blood, and some great character deformation, your player limping when injured and dripping blood on the floor. Careful management of weapons and ammo is required to make it through the various stages in one piece, especially when faced with the Tyrannosaurus, with whom you fight on several occasions but never seem to kill.

The controls are an improvement over Resident Evil, allowing some quick movements appropriate for blasing fast moving lizards.

The game used a novel multiple ending mechanic, the ending you are presented with being based on certain decisions made towards the end of the game about when to leave, who to rescue and how to get off the island. This adds a level of replay value, with the game keeping track of which endings you have discovered, and there are side quests and bonus to unlock and extend the life of the game.

Like the Resident Evil series of games for the original Playstation 1, Dino Crisis uses pre-rendedered 3D backgrounds to provide a level of detail not possible in real-time, leaving the Playstation’s graphics processor to focus on the player character animation and the dinosaurs.

Alone in the Dark may have started the survival horror genre, Resident Evil will often feature on lists of the top Playstation 1 games, but Dino Crisis should definitely be in your collection.

Dreamcast

Crazy Taxi for Sega Dreamcast

August 4, 2011 rolyretroadmin 3 Comments

Crazy Taxi for the Sega Dreamcast — Dreamcast Crazy Taxi

Crazy Taxi began life in 1999 as an arcade driving game on the Sega NAOMI platform, and was soon ported to the Sega Dreamcast.

The objective of the game is to pick up fares in your taxi and take them to their chosen destination as fast as possible, somewhere in a town resembling San Francisco (probably for the stunt potential of the roads).

The twist is that you are rewarded with a higher fare for reckless driving, including near-misses, jumps, drifts and playing chicken with oncoming traffic. Stunts such as rapid acceleration and braking can be pulled off using the forward and reverse gears, allowing extra stunt points to be racked up and to help complete the levels in record time. Strangely this reckless driving was rewarded by passengers rather than penalised, although botched stunts and crashes resulted in a reduced overall score.

On arrival the fare is totaled and a rating awarded based on time taken and stunts pulled off. Playing under Arcade Rules, the clock reduces as you go and you need to finish in good time to extend, and this is my favourite mode of play. Once you have memorised the characters and the destinations (as well as the short cuts) you can play for a long time on a single “credit”, with ever increasing difficulty.

This game was also ported to the Gamecube, and was pre-cursor to games such as Simpsons Hit and Run, which featured similar gameplay mechanics.

For fans of the arcade the Dreamcast port really excelled, mainly due to the similarities in the NAOMI and DC hardware, and it was a must-have game for any console owner. The gameplay, the music and the replication of the coin-op mode really did allow users to have an arcade experience at home. Couple this with great music and some unlockable mini-games, this is one game I continue to play on my aging Dreamcast to this day.

Atari 2600

Combat game for the Atari 2600

August 4, 2011 rolyretroadmin Leave a comment

For many of us Atari’s Combat was the first introduction to a cartridge-based console game, and for that reason has a special place in many people’s retro memories.

As one of the launch titles for the Atari 2600 (VCS), Combat was included with every console sold (a bit like Wii Sports now), and as such had a massive exposure amongst the Atari fan-base.

As a classic 2 player game it introduce the concept of the party game – lots of different mini-games that could be played out between 2 human opponents.

Atari fans are aware of the limitations of the 2600 kit, which was built around the concept of “pong”. The system is happiest when there are 2 independently controlled players or “bats”, 2 “missiles” and a “ball” which can interact between them, as well as scenery the missiles or ball can bounce off. Combat took this concept and used tanks (or planes) for bats and the missiles, with scenary you can hide behind, and hey presto a classic is born.

This is a great example of cat and mouse style game, with a simple risk reward mechanism. You could move your tank around the maze to get a clear line of sight on your opponent, or wait for your opponent to move and try and get the first shot in. Such a simple concept, but the same basic premise as the multi player FPS games of today.

Add to this the standard Atari 2600 twist of including more than one variation of the game (27 in fact) in the cartridge, and the longevity is extended hugely. Admittedly the games are not that different, but in addition to the Tank battle there was also an Aerial dogfight, and a number of variations on the use of guided missiles and invisible tanks or planes. The dogfight was actually quite strategic in that the planes flew at a constant speed and you could only manage direction and firing, requiring you to pilot them skillfully in order to get behind the other player to shoot them down. Cue long sweeping chases, waiting for the other player to twitch or make a mistake.

I have very fond memories of this game, which I only got to play at a friends house when I was a kid, and have recently introduced my son to after he played something similar on the Wii (The Wii Play title has a similar mini-game called Tank Battle).

A great excuse to dust off the Atari 2600 Woody again.

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.

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