Simon Lethbridge – Page 7

Pipe Dream

The pieces of pipe you lay are each the size of one grid square and they appear one at a time in a random order. They include horizontal pieces, vertical pieces, corners, crossroads, and small reservoirs (which buy you a little time when the flooze is on its way!). Much like Tetris with its ‘next piece’ indicator, here you get to see the next five pipe pieces in the queue so you can plan ahead to some extent, but if you get any pipe pieces you don’t want, you can dump them elsewhere on the grid.

Arcade Games

Simon Lethbridge

Bomb Jack

One of the best features of Bomb Jack is its scoring system. As soon as you grab your first bomb on any given stage, another bomb will start fizzing. A fizzing bomb is called a Fire Bomb and collecting one will then cause another to start fizzing, and so on. Collecting a fire bomb gives you double the points of a normal bomb and if you collect more than twenty of them in one round you’ll receive a large bonus at the end of it, increasing to fifty thousand points if you manage to collect all 23 of them.

3DO

Simon Lethbridge

Captain Quazar

The game is viewed from one of my favourite perspectives – 3D isometric. There are ten large levels which are divided over the three planets, and each has a different objective. On level one, for instance, you must destroy a set number of rockets containing an addictive spice, though you’ll only get a short time to do this as they start to launch as soon as they appear on the screen.

Arcade Games

Simon Lethbridge

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

So, given my dislike of the subject matter, it’s a little annoying to find that this is a pretty decent quality scrolling fighter, and that in itself makes it a precious commodity, especially when you take into account the four-player mayhem it offers! It has its faults, and I’m sure fans will enjoy it more than I did, but it’s a solidly playable effort – entertaining in short bursts for a solo player, great fun with multiple players.

Editorials

Simon Lethbridge

Exploring the Commodore 64: Part 1

My original idea was to ask my fellow Retro Gamer Forum members to vote for a single game that they felt best represented the old beige breadbin, and then do a detailed report on that, but I was soon besieged by many suggestions covering a great variety of genres. So, instead I will have a quick play of some of these titles and present my first impressions of both the games themselves, and the system generally, here in this series of features.

Blog

Simon Lethbridge

Bubble Bobble: Game Gallery

Among them was splendid Retro Gamer forum user, Tepid Snake, who helped me get past Round 98, on which I’d been stuck for a few days. It was then that I discovered that those crafty scoundrel’s at Taito don’t give you the proper ending unless you finish the game with two players. So back I went to complete the game again, after adding a few credits for a non-existent second player, so I could detail the ‘proper’ ending here. Then I find out that I’ve still not earned the full ending! To do that I have to decipher the mysterious code that I received on earning the ‘Happy Ending’, but I think I’ll leave that for another time! Taito sure know how to get the most out of a game, huh? As I mentioned in my review, this is a game full of intricacies and secrets!

Sega Genesis

Simon Lethbridge

Star Control

Movement and combat in Star Control is achieved via the use of Starships – you can move your Starbase (which takes all three actions of your turn), but you cannot fight with it. You might start your chosen campaign with a full compliment of ships or you might start with no ships – it again depends on which scenario you choose. You can have no more than seven ships in your fleet at any one time, however. If you start with none then you must build them at your Starbase.

Commodore Amiga

Simon Lethbridge

Morph

One of the most appealing things about Morph, at least initially, is the graphics. They really are quite lovely. Moprh himself is fairly basic in appearance but is pretty well animated, nicely defined, and has some amusing expressions. The backgrounds are also fairly basic but feature some lovely shading, and the foreground scenery looks particularly nice. Each area is colourful and distinctive, with the Gardens being particularly pleasing.

Sega Genesis

Simon Lethbridge

Marble Madness

Possibly the most horririfying thing about this game is the ‘music’. Examples featured herein range from poor right down to ghastly I’m afraid. Some of it can barely be considered music! The only reprieve is on level two which features a fairly reasonable tune, although it is looped and frequently repeated. Sound effects aren’t much better either. I don’t usually like to criticise someone’s hard work too much unless it’s obvious that they’ve put in no effort, but this one will have you reaching for the volume button pretty quickly.

Sega Master System

Simon Lethbridge

Double Dragon

Graphically the game is a bit of a mixed bag. From static screenshots it probably looks like one of the best versions of the game outside of the arcade, and the four stages are nicely varied, consisting of inner-city streets, a factory, a large wooded area, and finally the big boss’ hideout. The sprites aren’t enormously varied but all look suitably thuggish. However, the problem is a familiar one for Master System fans – sprite flicker. Lots of it. It’s often easy to overlook this problem with Master System games as it doesn’t usually affect proceedings to any significant degree, but this is one of the worst cases I’ve seen on the poor old MS.

Arcade Games

Simon Lethbridge

Shinobi

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though, there are far more enemies to deal with than just the Ring of Five. The stages are set in such locales as city streets, dockyards, warehouses, etc, and each is predictably populated by many lesser-skilled goons too, initially consisting of gun-wielding thugs, baldy-musclemen who fling their scimitars at you, and even a few spider-men (although these are probably just ninjas in coincidentally-coloured outfits).

Arcade Games

Simon Lethbridge

Beastie Feastie aka Super Glob

Before the accidental discovery mentioned earlier, I had never heard of this game. I have no idea how it was received or how popular it was, but I’m guessing it passed a lot of people by, and that’s a shame. It’s not spectacular or remarkable in any way, and I’m sure that was the case when it was first released as much as it is today, but it’s an enjoyable little game and it must’ve been pretty original back then. There is apparently 24 stages to play through here and that should prove a challenge for most gamers, but even if you can’t get very far, you’ll keep trying.

Arcade Games

Simon Lethbridge

Badlands

In addition to the missiles, the courses feature some hazards of their own, though mostly less extreme! They include the mildly inconvenient water and oil spills and broken/damaged surfaces (including a jump or two), and the more dangerous mines and retractable spikes. Some courses, particularly later ones, also feature the ‘gates’, first seen in Super Sprint, which allow short cuts, but only when they are open. Timing the use of these well can often make the difference between first and last place!

SNES

Simon Lethbridge

F1 ROC: Race of Champions

Well, in real F1 I guess you can change wings, tyres, engines, etc, but I’m pretty sure they don’t use nitrous oxide! For yes, the cars here are able to employ the use of nitro’s amongst other things, and very useful it is too. The customisation options are actually pretty extensive for an arcade-style racer, allowing you to alter front, middle, or rear downforce, add faster/lighter components, change brakes, chassis, fill up the nitrous tanks, and install more powerful engines. This all costs money of course, which must be earnt by doing well in races (or by doing badly many many times).

Game Reviews

Simon Lethbridge

Blazing Lazers

As any shmup fans knows, however, all the window dressing in the world doesn’t necessarily make a game great, and excitement over being shown what a flashy new system is capable of can often conceal a game’s design flaws. The fact that Gunhed is such a fantastic game, therefore, is testament further still to its greatness. Unlike a lot of shmups, however, especially the arcade ones which Gunhed mimics so well, this game eases you in slowly and the increase in difficulty is very gradual the further you get.

Editorials

Simon Lethbridge

Memories of Gaming: II

The only game of note here is After Burner Climax, which admittedly is a fantastic game worthy of the great name, but it seems lonely amidst all the crappy novelty machines. Anyway, from the sad present back to happy memories while I remember some of my favourite arcades games (aside from the already-covered-OutRun) from those awesome trips to Hayling with Stu and his family (and a belated thanks to you, mate!) …

N64

Simon Lethbridge

Wave Race 64

If there’s one thing that you can pretty much always rely on Nintendo for, it’s the very high quality of their games. The presentation here is of outstanding quality and the game really is an amazing experience. What with the lush graphics, relaxing music, the water constantly splooshing and tossing you around, you can almost feel the spray in your face! It’s not all superficial either, the game is immersive and thrilling to play and is one of the few videogames I’ve played which is more of an experience than a mere game.