Tuesday 16 November 2021

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Ocean Software's child abuse escape simulator for the Super Nintendo

Ocean Software's child abuse escape simulator for the Super Nintendo

If you'd prefer to watch the video version instead, ta da!

Radio Flyer, the 1992 movie, not the kid's little red pull-along wagon that's apparently iconic in America and can neither fly nor broadcast radio waves, revolves around the harrowing plight of two young brothers' naive attempts to escape an abusive homestead reigned over by a domineering stepfather. Pompously self-proclaimed, The King, Adam Baldwin portrays the alcoholic bully otherwise more mundanely known as Jack Marshall. By virtue of stylistic cinematography choices rather than shoddy camera work, we rarely get to see the face of this suburban devil directly. Obscured by crepuscular illumination and irregular filming angles, he's further demonised as the nemesis of children's worst nightmares, much like the overbearing housekeeper from classic Tom and Jerry cartoons.

Bobby, the younger, eight-year-old sibling played by Joseph Mazello aka Tim from Jurassic Park, is implausibly singled out as the exclusive human target of the drunken tyrant's vitriol and brutal assaults. Were it not for the intervention and ingenuity of his far wiser, more mature ten-year-old brother, Mike, played by future Hobbit, Elijah Wood, we're led to believe Bobby would be a sitting duck with a limited shelf-life. That Mike is left alone unmolested - supposedly owing to being more capable of defending himself - should offer an early clue all is not as it seems.

His inverted comma-ed 'Big Plan' is to convert Bobby's Radio Flyer birthday present into an ultralight aeroplane to be launched from their secret cliff-top 'wishing spot' piloted by the tortured tyke and animal entourage. Fuelled by daydreams and, well, actual petrol, he's envisioned to soar away into a utopian sanctuary nourished by eternal sunsets, liberated from terror.

So Tom Hanks informs us anyway. In a mostly unseen narration role, he plays an adult Mike, relaying the defining events of his troubled childhood to his own enthralled offspring. Twist-tastically, as alluded to by this self-professed prevaricator, all this is potentially pure fantasy concocted by Mike as a self-defence mechanism to protect him from the horrific, not-so-Hollywood truth; that Bobby's maiden voyage was an inevitable suicide mission exit strategy.

Running with Hank's admonition that history is arbitrated by the tale's teller, reality could alternatively equate to a case of imaginary brother displacement syndrome. Perhaps Mike was the one really being abused and Bobby merely a figment of Mike's overactive imagination. By shifting the focus of his suffering to a third party, then extinguishing him, Mike might have been able to dissociate himself from his unfathomable situation, shielding his fragile psyche as only a child knows how.

If there's anything more unpalatable than child abuse in Hollywoodland, it's violence against our canine best friends. Guess what? The King also turns on the kids' German Shepherd, Shane, beating him within an inch of his adorably loyal life. In the aftermath, Shane lies motionlessly for what seems like an eternity, the director callously deceiving his audience into assuming he's dead! Just before our erratically pulsating hearts fracture jaggedly down the centre, Shane revives and we can breathe once again. Not exactly the soppy, heartwarming movie of the century, despite taking many of its Spielbergian cues from ET.

A strange choice then to base a licensed gaming adaptation upon you might imagine, yet it almost happened courtesy of prolific pop-culture IP hunters, Ocean Software. Snarky hindsight gloaters would no doubt sneer at the apparent logic bypass inherent in the decision-making process. Amongst them some members of Ocean's own staff.

In the 'Developer Lookback' article featured in Retro Gamer issue 23, Ocean artist, Brian Flanagan, expressed his doubts concerning the gaming potential of its irksome inspiration.

"We went after some crazy stuff, like Michael Jackson's Thriller for the NES and there was mention of a U2 bid - neither came to fruition. There was also Radio Flyer, a licence apparently based around a popular American child's 'pull kart' thing. After reading the script, it turned out the film was about child abuse! Great gaming material there."

Then again, Dennis was a slapstick celebration of child on adult abuse. No-one deemed that inappropriate when Ocean immortalised the precocious brat's bullying antics in a cute, cartoony platform game a year later.

Veteran pixel artist, Simon Butler, wasn't entirely convinced Radio Flyer made sense as a playable form of light entertainment either.

"A perfect example of just buying any bloody license and trying to make a game out of it. It was perfectly obvious that no-one had a clue what the film was about... but it had Tom Hanks in it... a voice-over part that he isn't even credited for as he asked for his name to be removed.

Directed by Richard Donner, the man behind The Goonies and Superman 1 and 2, so it had to be good... bound to be a game in there somewhere, eh?

Oh yeah right... if you fancy playing a game based on a film about two small boys terrorised and subsequently molested by their evil stepfather. Wonderful."

Former software development director, Gary Bracey, who was normally responsible for securing such licensing deals was quick to distance himself from the ill-fated project. However, was met with tough opposition from a certain anonymous colleague who shall remain nameless.

"Unfortunately, I can't take the credit for Radio Flyer - R.M. qualifies for that particular one. Believe me, it was the cause of many heated arguments between us as - from my perspective:

1) The script was no good (licenses were acquired on the strength of the scripts, as that was pretty much all we had to go by).

2) The story was about child abuse. A 'challenging' subject for a videogame, second only to 'Rainman' for innovative game design material.

Interesting that the pitch from Universal was that it's about a boy who goes on wonderful adventures via his flying cart! Thinking back, I must have been the only person to actually have read the script.

So, no, I'm afraid I can't take the credit for that. You'll have to find something else to have a go at me about (red rag).

As an aside, was the game ever actually developed? I genuinely don't remember..."

Radio Flyer was always going to be a movie plagued by its controversial, fundamental nucleus. Nevertheless, how the children affected dealt with their circumstances would be the key factor in determining how bleakly pessimistic it transpired to be. Drastic script revisions implemented before Radio Flyer's final cut landed in a cinema near you, soon, resulted in a radical shift in tone and appropriateness towards its target audience.

David Mickey Evans who wrote the first draft screenplay, selling it to Columbia Pictures for a record-breaking $1.25m, was also initially hired to direct the movie adaptation. A dream job that rapidly turned sour upon being axed by producer Michael Douglas owing to his perceived poor performance and inexperience. He was just 27 years old at the time and had never taken the lead on a film before. Radio Flyer's original cast subsequently followed him to the job seeker's queue, the assumption being that salvation could only be accomplished via a clean slate.

Veteran director, Richard Donner, was instead drafted in to extricate the calamitous project, almost doubling its budget to $35m in the process. His reinterpretation of Evan's earnest coming-of-age fable led to its imagination-conquering-adversity thesis metamorphosing into a metaphor for flight-of-fancy, intangible wish fulfilment with no basis in reality. Not even the rendition of it fabricated by the Wright brothers, nurtured by a steady diet of comic books and superhero cartoons. That's their genuine surname by the way, Wright. Subtle, eh.

Most critically, the finale was transformed into a Rorschach test for the audience who were left to ponder the intended significance, their own psychological predilections steering supposition.

For better or worse, published in 2014, Evans finally lifted the lid on his seminal, literally uplifting narrative via a novelisation known as 'The King of Pacoima'. Even the retrograde title is more grounded, notwithstanding mythical elements playing a more substantial role, and the Radio Flyer wagon remaining a prominent fixture on the book's cover.

'Robert Radio Flyer, The King of Pacoima' actually began life as a novella, written in the summer of '89 (hmm, sounds like a follow-up Bryan Adams song). When 26 publishers ignored the bait, a friend of Evans suggested adapting it for the silver screen. So the novel of the movie technically isn't a reverse-engineered, fleshed-out affair as is typically the case whenever the movie emerges first. Rather a tweaked revision of its manuscript foundations.

Judging by preview screenshots sampled from video game magazines, Ocean's cancelled title would entirely have revolved around flight mechanics, despite this aspect of the movie only occurring as a late resolution to the brothers' dilemma. Their officially licensed Super Nintendo tie-in was to be an overhead perspective, makeshift plane-navigating gambit, loosely comparable to certain aspects of Pilotwings.

Unveiled in the developer's 'Ride the Ocean Wave' upcoming lineup brochure, accompanied by multiple screenshots and captions, and further showcased at the Winter 1992 CES event, Radio Flyer must have reached a fairly advanced stage in its production cycle. A consideration clearly not carrying sufficient sway to grant pardon from beta oblivion. Radio Flyer was unceremoniously quashed long before its emotionally scarring potential could be wreaked upon any vulnerable minors falling prey to the same unfortunate predicament as the movie's protagonists. Would it really have been prudent to reinforce the misguided belief that children can evade an abusive home life by embracing fairytale pipedreams?

Evan's alternative vision was hardly any more judicious with regards to advising afflicted scapegoats. It makes one wonder how many distraught, impressionable victims considered emulating Bobby's solution. Meant literally or metaphorically, young children would likely take the conclusion at face value, catalysing a barrage of inadvisable exodus scenarios.

A more socially responsible script might have made provision for Bobby and Mike to confide in town Sheriff, John Heard, aka Kevin McCalister's dad from Home Alone. He did offer to help, after all, suspecting that something untoward was afoot. Then again, taking the sensible route in movieland is often anathema to cultivating gripping fiction. Who was craving a prematurely neat resolution, schmaltzy ending and predictable, Hallmark grade production? Bobby and Mike eschew the thorny issue by agreeing to keep stum for fear of rocking the boat at a juncture when their mum finally appeared to be happy. Plus, The King isn't beating Mary and she's too off with the fairies to notice that Bobby is hiding a deep, dark secret.

I suppose you have to applaud the risk-taking bravado of Donner and co., throwing caution to the wind for the sake of delivering a unique, thought-provoking peregrination of prepubescent emotion. I think. It's certainly memorable in its recklessness.

Had the movie unravelled in alignment with its blueprint, Evan's intention was to expedite a more aspirational, positive tone. One that intimated children are not defenceless pawns to be manipulated and mauled by omnipotent, morally bankrupt adults. That they can in fact take charge of their own destiny, overcoming seemingly unreconcilable trauma, even if it means resorting to implausible Houdini-style feats. All a smidgen "the future has yet to be written, make it a good one". Doc Emmett Brown would certainly approve.

Attempting to reconcile the contradiction, Evans, in a blog article addressing the butchered ending of his hijacked movie, elucidates that unwavering faith in the viability of the Radio Flyer masterplan made the preposterous possible. As if by magic. It's the miraculous potency of fledgling imagination and optimism that spares Bobby's life! That and an unhealthy fixation on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the musical fantasy film released in 1968, a year before Radio Flyer's plot takes place.

But nevermind all that mullarkey. In-game, such portentous, overarching themes appear to have taken a back seat in favour of nuts and bolts arcade flight simulation. 'Simulation' in the Codemasters sense that is. More specifically, it would have entailed harvesting a predetermined number of coins, dice or whatever to progress to the next level. To aid in this rudimentary pursuit, the plan was to deploy an overlayed mini-radar display, eradicating any tediously meandering guesswork.

DIY biplanes don't run on tortoise juice, so whilst navigating various diverse landscapes including our own California home town, an amusement park and whimsical dreamland, we'd be compelled by fuel collection, to remain airborne. Gusts of wind were to further challenge our aviation skills, blasting Bobby off course whilst attempting to avoid or obliterate obstacles such as birds, hot air balloons and flying saucers, thereby keeping damage to a minimum. Crowbarring Mike into the proceedings, he was to serve as an overseeing adviser, guiding Bobby around an assortment of impediments on route to his destination. A bit like a Big Brother figure. Hoho.

I'd be curious to discover what the ultimate goal would have been. Tricky because in the movie we're led to believe (by a self-confessed yarn-spinner) that Bobby spends the rest of his life exploring the clouds with only Samson and Shane for company, with no pragmatic explanation as to how that would work. A climax verging on supernatural, fusing seamlessly with the incredulous "seven secret fascinations and abilities" of the pre-teen childhood belief system introduced earlier.

To confirm Bobby's survival beyond doubt, the preliminary script wrapped up with a flash-forward visit to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Here an adult Mike and Bobby reunite, Bobby proudly bedecked in an Air Force uniform alongside the intact, inexplicably levitating Radio Flyer contraption. To emphasise the prestige of this groundbreaking invention, it's displayed equitably adjacent to the Wright Brothers' inaugural flying machine. Had this contrived epilogue been incorporated, surely it would raise as many questions as it laid to rest. Could the beleaguered audience possibly interpret the flimsy scene as anything more tangible than an apparition? More wish-fulfilment? Once you've cried wolf, everything has fangs!

All academic pedantry of course since Radio Flyer's corresponding game never came to fruition... irrespective of being listed for sale by Rochester-based Chips and Bits in Electronic Gaming Monthly issue 29 priced at $54. Big bucks for vapourware!

Given that the success of licensed games is inextricably dependent on the appeal of their preceding IP, Ocean's jinxed homage may well have been shunned by the public to the same extent as the movie on which it was to be based. That earned just $4.6m at the box office, yielding a major loss for Columbia Pictures and the production companies owned by Michael Douglas, Richard Donner and his wife, Lauren.

Excoriated for its ostensible trivialisation of child abuse, critically speaking, Radio Flyer was a depressing flop, no doubt scuppering cinema attendance at the time of release. On the contrary, it has since been more positively received by the general public, who are typically far more forgiving of its ethically dubious denouement and awkward juxtaposition of whimsy and gritty realism.

Whilst the movie is clearly driven by themes of neglect and vicious cruelty against defenceless children, it was hardly advocating such behaviour and Ocean had already created games based on more problematic material. RoboCop, for instance, is an 18-rated gorefest awash with foul language, blood-thirsty violence and unashamed criminality. Did anyone pause to consider the suitability of that particular hot property in terms of gaming translation?

Fleeing from a malevolent stepparent isn't a terrible premise on which to construct a video game in any case. Shane or Samson could have been deployed to dispatch The King in a side-scrolling platform segment. Earning funds to support the kid's ineffectual, ditzy mother (played by Lorraine Bracco on-screen) could have been achieved via a mini-game revolving around the recovery of abandoned golf balls, as in the movie. Any intrusion from The King could be dealt with via a mail-order anti-monster potion. Obviously.

Perchance another stage of this multi-genre romp could have focused on tackling the neighbourhood bullies who make Mike's life a misery while The King works on ruining Bobby's peace of mind. And naturally, it goes without saying that I'm going to say the melancholy, animatronic, southern-drawled talking bison should have been incorporated in the most surreal way technically possible. In the novel, Shane too has plenty to say for himself, so we'd require a strong cast of voice talent to hike the authenticity factor.

Regrettably, the game appears to have been dismissed as abruptly as its celluloid inspiration. Even the '100 Years of America's Little Red Wagon' commemorative book published in 2018 merely dedicates a single paragraph of text to the forsaken movie, timidly failing to mention its core motifs out of fear of being associated with unpleasant subject matter. Whatever deal - if any - the movie's producers forged with the Radio Flyer company appears to be a trade secret. It's as though critics and the public alike have collectively agreed never to broach the topic.

Following Tom Hank's lead, reshaping history has seemingly culminated in the Radio Flyer company erasing any unwholesome intricacies of the movie from its enduring, illustrious legacy. Normality restored, once again they solely cater to the idealism of carefree, sanitised childhood joy, emotional and physical abuse having been rendered an anachronism of '90s cinematic fantasia.

Friday 8 January 2021

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Amigan's obsession with Sonic the Hedgehog

Amiga platform gaming's abiding holy grail was to trounce SEGA's blue-rinsed spiky mascot in the velocity department so we could proudly stand by our computer system of choice and declare we don't need a naff kiddie console to validate our gaming credentials. There were many plucky European contenders to Sonic's throne, yet none really captured gamers' imagination or piggy bank contents to the same extent.

Nevertheless, is it remotely feasible that one of these wannabe substitutes runs as fast, or even faster, without necessarily rivalling Sonic's allegedly unique panache?

Obviously, the only cast-iron guaranteed way to deduce the truth once and for all is to place each side by side to compare their locomotive performance scientifically using a proper formula and measuring tools, and stuff.

Methodology then. Despatch all the baddies patrolling a short, flat segment of terrain and race across it at full pelt, capturing the moment for analysis. Easier said than done when enemies respawn incessantly and creative level design aims to eliminate mundane plateaus.

Calculate the distance travelled in pixels employing a calibrated screen ruler and divide by the time taken in seconds to traverse the designated area and we arrive at the velocity in pixels per second. Compare this to our control figure (Sonic's running speed) and we can establish which platforming protagonist is the quickest.

Some of these contestants can ambulate faster still when emerging from a steep descent or loop, yet that's cheating since they're not accelerating entirely under their own steam. As such I've discounted these incidences so as to compare more fairly. Other treacle-treading entrants were included simply for contrast purposes.

So without further preambley pretentious waffle, let's acquaint ourselves with the hyperactive challengers. Those notable for their quick-footed speedy fastitude and do the maths. Ssssss.

  • Kid Chaos - Magnetic Fields/Ocean
  • Mr Nutz - Neon/Ocean Software
  • Oscar - Flair
  • Quik the Thunder Rabbit - Stywox/Titus
  • Superfrog - Team 17
  • Tearaway Thomas - Global Software (DMI)
  • Wiz 'n' Liz - Lunatic/Psygnosis
  • Zool - Gremlin
  • Zool 2 - The Warp Factory/Gremlin

And there we have it. A definitive answer to the perennial conundrum at last. Ultimately, what this demonstrates is that I need to get a life and would benefit from immediate intervention of the mental health variety.

P.S.

To further cement the point, I went to the trouble of extracting every reference made to Sonic the Hedgehog in old-school magazine reviews of the Amiga games under consideration... and then didn't use any of them in the video because surely no-one wants to read this much text via YouTube. To save it going to waste...

Zool

It is a sort of platformy thing but not, and it is a sort of collect a lot thingy, but not really. The closest thing it is, is Sonic the Spikey Haired Git of a Hedgehog, but this knocks the socks off Sonic.

Amiga Computing (issue 54, November 1992)

For an age now the Amiga world has been alight with tales of Gremlin's new Sonic-beater. Now it's here, can it outgun the blue bomber? We put it to the test...

Amiga Format (issue 39, October 1992)

Gremlin finally unleash their hedgehog-challenging ninja ant on a platform-hungry public. Can it beat the consoles at their own game?

For the last few months those nauseating little console owners have been raving about how good their machines are compared to the likes of the Amiga. You know the sort. They are all the same. Talk about games and all they can say is 'Sonic is this fast,' or 'I can do this on Mario'. These sad types who are obviously in need of a holiday in Yugoslavia can brag no more. The age of the hedgehog is over, the age of the ninja ant is here.

Amiga Power (issue 18, October 1992)

Tony Dillon checks out Gremlin's self-proclaimed Sonic beater, to see if it lives up to such claims...

We have a lot to thank the likes of Nintendo and Sega for. Although we may never experience Mario or Sonic on the Amiga, they have opened the way for a stream of highly-playable clones, such as Millennium's RoboCod or Ocean's The Addams Family. The latest of these console-esque platform extravaganzas is Zool - The Ninja Of The Nth Dimension, and, as far as I'm concerned, it's the best of the bunch.

This is where you step in. As everyone must already know, the game is billed as a 'Sonic The Hedgehog Beater'. Having played both, all I can see that Zool has in common with Sonic are the huge sprites, its gaudy use of colour, and its incredible speed.

I can't say it really beats Sonic outright and The Addams Family is slightly more polished in appearance and control. However, it is definitely one of the best platform games released on the Amiga, and you'd be absolutely out of your tree to miss it.

CU Amiga (August 1992)

Well I never - Zool's very fast, dead easy to pick up and totally, totally addictive. In fact, it has a definite consoley feel to it - one might even say a certain hedgehoggy feel (if you get my drift). Through Gremlin would no doubt purport to not caring if Sonic were to end up as roadside pizza, the two games do have a similar atmosphere and that certain playable style. In fact, as well as gracing the Amiga and ST, there's a distinct possibility of Zool eventually appearing on a console near you. You jammy swine, you.

Zero (issue 35, September 1992)

Zool - Ninja of the Nth dimension, hedgehog-beater and self-proclaimed mascot for the Amiga - caused a sensation last year, hitting the charts big time and staying at number one for a Bryan-Adams-ly long time. At last, a character to give Amigans someone to champion, and supposedly one who could beat up both Sonic and Mario in a fight (if any of them actually existed).

Amiga Power (issue 24, April 1993)

Zool 2

This is really the game to make people forget about that damned hedgehog.

Amiga Format (issue 55, January 1994)

Zool has finally sold out. No longer can it be claimed that he is to the Amiga what Mario and Sonic are to the Toys 'R' Us consoles. That is right, he is appearing at a Sega and Nintendo console near you know. I do not know about you, but quite frankly I do not care what Zool chooses do. He never once said that his relationship with the Amiga was a monogamous one.

Amiga Power (issue 33, January 1994)

Tearaway Thomas

As we all know, one of the most impressive things about Sonic is its speed, and Tearaway Thomas does for the Amiga what Sonic did for the Mega Drive. This is so scorchingly fast, I hardly thought it possible.

Amiga Power (issue 22, February 1993)

Easily carrying off the award for worst title of the year is this new offering from newly-formed Global Software. Tearaway Thomas is being touted as the fastest-moving game on the Amiga and a potential Sonic beater, but you'd never guess from the title - it sounds more like a children's bed time story than a state-of-the-art home computer game.

CU Amiga (January 1993)

All Amiga programmers want to write a Sonic beater at the moment. Gremlin managed it with Zool, and now Global Software have gone for a rather shameless attempt at emulating the hedgehog in blue with Tearaway Thomas; an unspecified creature from outer space.

To be frank, Thomas wants to be Sonic. He's probably gone to Sonic classes. You can imagine him as a kid: "Mum! Mum! Can I be Sonic? Please can I?". "No! Go away and jump about a bit, you little... er... whatever you are. And stop using that blue paint, you'll poison yourself."

It's obvious from the packaging that Global Software are a low-budget outfit, but they've tried hard to come up with a credible Sonic alternative for the Amiga. It hasn't come off, because a) Zool's so much better, b) on a standard A500 it's just not fast enough and c) the game's a bit dull.

For instance, there are no continues. To complete the game, you would to play all 50 levels right through with just three lives. Not even the most rabid Sonicophile would have the time or inclination for such a gargantuan task, let alone Mr Average Punter Who Wants To Play Sonic On His Amiga.

Amiga Format (issue 44, March 1993)

Kid Chaos

He can spin and knock everything out of the way and... oh, I can't go on with this. Kid Chaos is Sonic The Hedgehog - replace the blue spiky thing with Kirk Brandon from popular Eighties rock combo Spear of Destiny, bring to the boil and simmer. A recipe for success or half-baked nonsense?

Amiga Format (issue 63, September 1994)

And yes, it does look like Sonic.

Does not just half-heartedly mimic Sonic, but manages to capture all the best bits of it. In places, it is truly uplifting as you get sucked along pipes and thrown from bumper to bumper.

Amiga Power (issue 41, September 1994)

So Sonic can't be done on the Amiga, eh? Since Sonic appeared on the Mega Drive it's been the bone of contention for Amiga kids, jeered at in school playgrounds by smug Mega Drive-owning peers. And seemingly every time an Amiga is mentioned in a Mega Drive magazine it's described as an 'older person's machine, with a great line in RPGs and flight sims, but no great shakes in the platform stakes'.

Kid Chaos, from Lotus creators Magnetic Fields, wields a pretty hefty club in the direction of these doubters. Technically superior to any other platform game (Sonic included) Kid combines fast, smooth-scrolling, an incredible number of parallax layers, and colours and sounds so vibrant it makes you wonder what the hell the other platform creators have been doing for the last few years.

Thankfully, as you've probably gathered by now, the stunning technicalities don't overshadow the gameplay. It makes no claim to be original; indeed, it copies (parodies?) many other games like Zool and Sonic. The Toy Factory, say, could be directly taken from Zool (or any one of a number of other platform games), while the underground rollercoaster tubes and 45-degree springs which cannon you into the air are classic Sonic features.

CU Amiga (issue September 1994)

Mr Nutz

It all bears more than a passing resemblance to Sega's Sonic, with the levels' sweeping curves and the way Nutz turns into a ball of fur when he speeds up. The map section is reminiscent of Super Mario.

Amiga Format (issue 59, May 1994)

Schizophrenia is a funny thing. (No it isn't. - Ed) Take Mr Nutz, for example. (Blimey, that's an uncharacteristically early plunge into relevance. - Concerned reader)). For one thing, he's not sure himself who he wants to be. At first, he seems to want to be Sonic The Hedgehog, but then he changes his mind and reckons he'd be better off as Super Mario. But then he has another change of heart and goes for Zelda (eponymous star of several Nintendo RPGs) instead.

The game is also structured a lot like Super Mario World (look, sorry about always bringing up this kind of thing, but it's so blatant and deliberate I wouldn't be doing my job properly if I didn't tell you about it, okay?), but the actual platform bits are (oh no, not again) the closest yet that the Amiga's come to cloning Sonic.

Amiga Power (issue 38, June 1994)

Have Ocean Software come up with their own Amiga Sonic beater? Tony Dillon isn't so sure.

CU Amiga (June 1994)

This competent platformer is let down by a complete lack of originality and a very high frustration level. Mr Nutz tries so hard to be Sonic that it hurts.

Amiga Format (issue 59, May 1994)

Quik the Thunder Rabbit

Quik: Sob. Okay, okay, so the first of the four worlds looks every such a lot like the first level of Sonic, even down to there being different ways through each level. And I do spin a lot, but whereas Sonic does it facing the direction of travel, I face out of the screen and smile at you, so that can't count, can it? (Chokes) Can it? And I'll admit that my speed power-up may look a little like the Sonic's speedy boots, but it wasn't deliberate, honest. (Blubs.)

Oh, please don't kill me, I'm just a little fluffy blue rabbit trying to make an honest living. (Begs.) Have a pity on me.

DEATH

Interviewer 3: Okay, well, I suppose I'll give you the good news first. I've checked your credentials and you're actually not at all bad. I can see that the hidden nasties that lurk behind foreground scenery are supposed to be tricky when in fact they just slow you down, but I'll let that one side.

The inherent Sonic-ness of your game's frankly a bit naff, but seeing as you're just another generic platform game, I'll drop that one too. The long and short of it Mr Quik is that I'm not going to blow you away with the shotgun.

Quik: Phew

Amiga Power (issue 40, August 1994)

Superfrog

It's a cute platformer of the Sonic clone school - lots of fast scrolling (but stupidly dead-stop obstacles) and coin collecting.

Amiga Power (issue 42, October 1994)

What ensues is one hell of a good platform game. Released at a time when the rest of the Amiga world was cloning Super Mario Brothers, Superfrog borrows more from Sonic The Hedgehog than anything else.

CU Amiga (November 1994)

Oh dear. Here it comes. Oh no! Sorry, I can't stop myself... here I go... yes, yes, yes.

Superfrog is (shock, horror) based on Sonic The Hedgehog. There's no getting away from the fact - you can smell traces of the spikey speed-merchant all over this latest game from Team 17. And as it turns out, this is no bad thing, for two very good reasons.

First, as anyone who owns a console toy will tell you, Sonic The Hedgehog is a very fine game indeed. It pretty much redefined what platform games were all about, but so far the bluey blur hasn't appeared on the Amiga.

But before you all start whingeing that you don't want 'Sonic The Bleedin' Hedgehog on your Amiga anyway, thank you very much, and that you'd rather have some real gameplay (something Amiga programmers have proved themselves to be really good at) as opposed to some half-baked attempts at recreating some here-today-gone-tomorrow console's fancy custom chips whizzing through their paces, here comes Good Reason Number Two...

Amiga Format (issue 47, June 1993)

Oscar

You can run but you can't hide. And there's no escaping the fact that cutesy characters sell game platforms. Sega and Nintendo would be nothing without Sonic or Mario. So it's no surprise Commodore have joined the fray by bundling Oscar with the A1200.

Amiga Format (issue 53, December 1993)

I'm going to be the Sonic for Amiga, for crying out loud, and all you can do is go on about some superficial similarities to another Flair game, damn you!

The Amiga equivalent of Sonic? Yeah, right.

Amiga Power (issue 31, November 1993)

There are loads of nasties and power-ups which add to the fun and frolics. In many respects, Oscar has all the classic features of your platformer, but for one exception - it's better, both in graphics and playability, than the likes of Mario and Sonic could ever dream of becoming.

Amiga Computing (issue 68, Christmas 1993)

Wiz 'n' Liz

Sonic watch out! Wiz goes crazy whenever he changes direction in mid-jump. It's funny but I can't remember my granny ever doing this, well maybe after a few sherries.

CU Amiga (November 1993)

Tuesday 24 November 2020

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The rise and demise of a classic adventure game anti-hero

Simon the Sorcerer parts 1 and 2 constitute a treasured double act amongst fans of traditional point and click adventure games. 'Upgrading' to the 3D realm for the long-awaited third entry in the series wasn't met with quite the same degree of approval. It was tantamount to wringing the neck of Adventure Soft's prized golden goose and flushing it down the toilet. Then events really took a turn for the worse... nosedived downhill and fell off a sheer-drop cliff face. Allow me to explain. 

Friday 6 November 2020

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Why there's a stampeding rhino enemy in Ocean's Hudson Hawk Amiga/Atari ST platform game

Undoubtedly one of life's great unresolved mysteries... until now!

Stompy is present in the two 16-bit games, yet none of the five 8-bit interpretations for the home micros/consoles. FYI precisely zero rhinos feature in the 1991 movie starring Bruce Willis, Danny Aiello and Andie MacDowell. Gosh! How intriguing! Almost makes you want to delve into the article or watch the YouTube video version for a thorough explanation.

Monday 12 October 2020

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Games for girls

Traditionally, video gaming was a hobby principally participated in by young boys, which from the viewpoint of capitalist-oriented publishers, left a vast portion of the potential market untapped. In 1984, Case Computer Simulations sought to remedy this by releasing a series of games aimed specifically at girls. To eliminate any shred of doubt, they coined it 'Games for Girls', in the process inciting the wrath of many gaming journalists regardless of their gender. Whether to be politically correct (even back then!) or because they were genuinely offended, many reviewers alleged it was supremely sexist to assume certain games would appeal to the fairer sex due to them being inherently wired differently. Possibly they even relished the self-perpetuating controversy.

It wasn't that the nature of the games in question was insulting, or stereotypically derogatory towards girls in any way. On the contrary, in fact, they emerged from the supposition that girls were less inclined to be motivated by violent tendencies, preferring to employ logical reasoning and negotiation techniques to solve problems rather than brute force bravado. All three titles (two action-adventure games and a show-jumping 'simulator') are driven by intelligence-based quizzes designed to engage the brain, one distinctively from a mathematical perspective. A field in which proficiency is typically associated with boys. Positive discrimination then if any at all; far from the insinuations you might have imagined given the backlash.

'Games for Girls' was intended to be an ongoing series, yet in light of its acrimonious reception, terminated at just three titles. All a bit silly seeing as the games were seemingly released with the best of intentions and selected for the brand rather than being designed from the ground up to compliment proposed interests and aptitudes of girls. Had they been unveiled minus such new-wave headlines, the mediocre games would likely have flown under the radar with little fanfare, before rapidly fading into obscurity. Cynics amongst could claim that the whole episode was a rouse to profit from games so dull they weren't worth the tapes they were recorded on. And who knows, they might be right? Certainly no-one is recording playthroughs of them for YouTube, and it's only myself talking about them. I haven't even offered to identify the titles yet: Hicksted, Diamond Quest and Jungle Adventure. There, fixed.

In the ensuing years, rarely has a publisher made similar inflammatory declarations regarding the envisioned audience of their wares, while today gender engagement more closely approximates equilibrium. Games for girls (without the capital letters) are produced, marketed and retailed now by default, often the epitome of sexism. Far more so than CCS were admonished for supposedly being back in the '80s. What has changed is that they're sold without the superfluous gender banner; no-one needs to be informed that Barbie the computer game, for instance, is aimed at prepubescent girls, it speaks for itself… and also, I'd imagine, features little in the way of educational value.

Without the labels, few sane people campaign against the existence of patently gender-biased computer games today, finally mirroring the general acceptance of toys that have targeted boys or girls for as long as they've existed. Had they too been outlawed, Argos and Toys R Us would have been strung up for segregating their departments or catalogues from day one. Making it all the more curious that computer games were scrutinised under an entirely different rubric, as though held responsible for being the gatekeepers of child-rearing morality.