Monday, 29 June 2020

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I dreamed a dream in times gone by

Not entirely enamoured with being recruited for babysitting duties, Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) invites the Goblin King (David Bowie) to whisk away her shrieking sprog brother, Toby. Overcome with guilt and remorse, thus begins a cat and mouse chase to recover the pest before he is lost forever. Embarking on an odyssey teeming with intrigue and wonderment, we're introduced to a cast of larger than life, delightful Jim Henson creations, and beyond reason, are lulled into believing they possess consciousness, unique personalities, hopes and dreams.

Lucasfilm themselves took on the mantle of converting the musical fantasy classic, Labyrinth, to various home computer formats. What they devised is a dialogue-driven enchanting embodiment of early point and click adventuring, without the mouse. I explore the merits of each medium side by side, joining the inspirational dots along the way.

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Once upon a time in the west

In Back to the Future III, the final entry in the trilogy, Doc and Marty find themselves in the wild west era of 1885, once again desperately striving to fix the future by meddling with the past.

Trilogies tend to deliver diminishing returns as they run out of steam, and that's definitely the case here. Part III is only 98% perfect and was choked to the rafters with steam, if you know what I mean.

Perfect fodder for gaming adaptation you might imagine given the potential for shootouts, cowboys and Indians, and high-speed train journeys. I investigate to see if Probe Software's playable companion for all the popular computers and consoles in circulation in 1991 honours the revered classic, or tramples it into the dirt under hoof.

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You mean you have to use your hands. That's like a baby's toy!

Back to the Future II will forever be remembered for tricking us into believing that one day we'd be ecstatically flabbergasted to find a hoverboard in our Christmas stocking. That in just 30 years time, cars would fly and everything - no matter how convenient and effortless it already was - would be automated, just for the hell of it.

I examine the fantastic, timeless (hoho!) movie and assess how successfully it was translated to the medium of 8 and 16-bit home computer gaming by Image Works in 1990.

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Wolfie's fine, honey. Wolfie's just fine.

When Arnold Schwarzenegger's T-800 reassured us "I'll be back", he can't have been referring to the franchise or merchandise as a whole. Is it possible to come back if you never went away in the first place? It's a mixed blessing in that not everything the series has spawned is a masterpiece like the first two entries in the celluloid field. Luckily I only cover Terminator II, the movie. Oh, and its translation to the medium of 8 and 16-bit home computer gaming in 1991 courtesy of Ocean Software, which erm... could have gone better. In their defence, it wasn't an inhouse creation, LJN were behind it. At least where the Amiga version is concerned, which is my main focus.

Saturday, 27 June 2020

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Merry-go-round broke-down

Disney's live-action, animated mystery comedy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, is so surreal you'd be forgiven for thinking you were looking at an anything-goes video game. It's funny you should think that right after I'd deliberately planted the idea in your head... because there is one. Inspired by several pivotal silver screen moments, it's a hodgepodge of action mini-games developed by 'Silent' and published in 1988 in conjunction with the movie, courtesy of Buena Vista themselves. Naturally, the quirky puzzle-platformer stars all our favourite characters, with Judge Doom taking his rightful place as Roger's dastardly bete noir. Marginally different iterations based on the same design were released for the Amiga, Commodore 64, Apple II, Atari ST and DOS PC.

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Licensed gaming finds a way

Jurassic Park and the prehistoric lifeforms (hopefully) contained therein. Has there ever been a movie franchise or chief supervillain more suitable for conversion to the medium of video gaming? My pet Tyrannosaurus rex insists the answer is an emphatic no, and who am I to argue? 42 licensed games published between 1993 and 2019revolving around themes emerging from Michael Crichton's novel source material, seemingly concur.

Over the years, every conceivable, popular console and computer has been furnished with at least one playable Jurassic Park venture into dinoland. Because I'm not immortal, here I solely focus on the seminal titles released in conjunction with the first movie, directed by Steven Spielberg. Ocean Software's Amiga top-down/FPS hybrid enjoys the bulk of the attention, whilst games released for other systems are touched upon in between joining the dots between celluloid and pixels.

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Is that all you've got little one?

Dark high fantasy adventure movie, Willow (1988), starring everyone's favourite Ewok, Warwick Davis, spawned a smattering of accompanying video games of widely divergent quality for various platforms. I take a bewildered look at Mindscape's contribution to the franchise for the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and DOS, attempting to link its core elements to those of the far more cherished source material. You may well wonder who approved the arguably broken game for release and if they kept their job in the wake. I did too.

Friday, 26 June 2020

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A storm in a proton pack

Ghostbusters II's pixely interpretation sequel is a menagerie of three disparate arcade-action mini-games that attempt to capture the exhilaration of a key sequence taken from the celluloid blockbuster. Comprising 2D scrolling and isometric viewpoints, they range in difficulty from hair-pullingly insane to a walk in Central Park, some more tedious than challenging as a result. Whatever the case, they're at least instantly recognisable and artistically reimagined.

Foursfield took on the developmental duties, whilst it was published by Activision in 1989 for all the popular 8 and 16-bit systems of the era. My assessment attempts to cover them all, tracing each element back to its source material, reviewing the game and movie in synchrony.

Thursday, 25 June 2020

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Worst feature - nothing dies

Owing to Disney's timely morality-steering interventions - specifically their animated musical fantasy film, Pocahontas - we've learnt that it's wrong to invade the land of indigenous American Indians, plunder their precious resources, and even annihilate them should they dare to object. Thanks Disney, I'll give that a miss in future then. Featuring the voices of Mel Gibson and Irene Bedard, it's very loosely based on the life story of the real Native American woman, Matoaka. By 'loosely' I mean it's about as accurate as Dumbo, seeing as the true story isn't especially palatable for young children, or in accordance with Disney's didactic diatribe.

In the same year (1995), an accompanying puzzley-platformer video game was commissioned by Disney, developed by Funcom for the SEGA Mega Drive, to hammer home the equality, peace, love and understanding message.

Is it possible to look beyond the preachy character-building manipulation to enjoy Pocahontas in either medium? And still emerge as a decent human being imbued with non-murderous, civilised values? Let's find out.

Wednesday, 24 June 2020

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In memory of Caprona

In 1988 Denton Designs made their Great Escape from 3D, isometric, arcade-adventure games... slamming down smack bang in the middle of a prehistoric lost world where ferocious dinosaurs stalk a Land That Time Forgot. It's an isometric, 3D, arcade-adventure game in which four hapless survivors of an aerial crashlanding must Escape from various perilous threats to their wellbeing and sanity.

'Where Time Stood Still' was published by Ocean and originally made available for the ZX Spectrum, DOS, and Atari ST. In 2014 the Atari ST port was reverse-engineered, allowing it to be enjoyed by Amiga users too.

However you experience it, Where Time Stood Still is an innovative and fun, yet traumatic ordeal that will have you running to Jurassic Park for rest bite. May as well review and trace its inspirational forebears then. Oh, look.

Monday, 22 June 2020

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I Know Kung-Faux

Contrary to common wisdom, you don't have to visit a parallel universe to witness Ted 'Theodore' Logan playing Jonathan Harker in Bram Stoker's Dracula. It truly-really-genuinely happened back in 1992 and performed pretty well at the box office. Produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola believe it or not.

A year later, Keanu was further immortalised in pixels courtesy of Psygnosis. First in a platform game for the SNES and SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis and once again in 1994, allowing Amiga owners to indulge their bloodlust too.

I gingerly crack open the musty crypt to take a peek at them all, paying special attention to the Amiga incarnation, linking its key elements to their movie-based corollaries.

Saturday, 20 June 2020

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Might as well face it, you're addicted to spuds

Amiga public domain games generally had a reputation for embracing slap-dash, amateurish production values. Despite essentially being a Lemmings clone with bells on, Blobz by Apex Systems broke the mould upon release in 1996. It's faster and prettier than DMA Design's classic rodent-herding, genre-defining, head-mashing puzzler, but can it compete in the all-important gameplay stakes? I investigate...

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Friday, 19 June 2020

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Angel of the City

Sylvester Stallone's maverick cop vs deranged Night Slasher flopbuster, Cobra, turned out to be one of the worst of his career. Ironically, the off-kilter platform game developed by Joffa Smith, published by Ocean, was considered one of the most technically brilliant for the underpowered ZX Spectrum upon release in 1986.

I give them both the once over, obviously through the lenses of my celebrity Ray-Ban 3030 Outdoorsman sunglasses, for good measure taking a quick sideways glance at the divergent, less loosely licenced ports for the Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64.

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Ordinary Superman

Of all the mass appeal entertainment franchises to be converted to video game format, Superman is perhaps the one to have fared the worst. One of the earliest titles - Superman: The Game published by First Star Software in 1985 - is a classic example. Inspired by vague tropes surrounding the Kryptonian superhero, rather than a specific movie, we're required to rescue civilians of Metropolis from imminent peril, defeat supervillain Darkseid and fathom out what we're supposed to be doing to succeed in the mini-games bridging the main event. Intriguingly our goals are reversed should we instead choose to play as Darkseid. An option that wasn't a common feature of video games this early into their evolution.

Superman: The game was made available for a plethora of popular computer systems including the Acorn Electron, Amstrad CPC, Atari 8-bit, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, Commodore 16, and ZX Spectrum. Given that they share identical design and play mechanics, I cover them all in my retrospective review, including an insight into their reception from the critics of the era.

Thursday, 18 June 2020

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I am lucky rabbit?

I answer one of life's most thoroughly perplexing, impenetrable BIG questions; who are the people featured in that wall mural in the beat 'em up arcade and home computer game, Shadow Warriors? Also known as Ninja Gaiden.

I suppose I may as well give it a quick review while I'm on a roll.

Wednesday, 17 June 2020

Tuesday, 16 June 2020

Saturday, 6 June 2020

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Fight fire with marshmallows

Toys - the 1992 satirical fantasy film directed by Barry Levinson, starring Robin Williams - is the most bizarre, yet intriguing commercial flop ever committed to celluloid. Fight fire with marshmallows is my (no doubt inadequate) effort to make sense of it, as well as its unlikely adaptation to the world of licensed video games.

Published in 1993 for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive and Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it was met with an equally bemused critical response. Many gaming aficionados aren't even aware it exists. Those who are, like to pretend it doesn't.

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