Boasting gameplay mechanics more addictive than heroin on toast, Rainbow Islands is a strong contender for the best arcade game of all time, ever. As if you needed convincing, I wax lyrical listing all the multifarious reasons nothing else comes close. I hope you've packed your Speedos and a towel; this could take a while!
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Friday, 31 July 2020
An alien that is positively pink
With platform games festering in a quagmire of predictability, in 1994 Data Design Interactive attempted to revive the tired genre by adding a dash of Yoshi's Island-esque nuance. Aside from charming us with sumptuous, console-style aesthetics, Pinkie's task is to gather a harvest of dinosaur eggs strewn across the galaxy to avert their extinction. On foot, he's susceptible to one-hit premature death....
Maid in Yapan
We all know that point and click adventure games live and die by the alluring depth of their narrative. Not so much with Nippon Safes, Inc. Set in Tokyo, Italian developers, Dynabyte, really pushed the boat out to confound expectations chiselled in stone by Lucasarts, rowing it back to shore bursting at the seams with nonsensical dialogue, bizarre protagonists and obscure puzzles. Epitomising quirkiness,...
The Wormfather
Total wormage on a hook; exploring the origins of Andy Davidson's comical turn-based strategy game, Worms. Why did he part company from Team 17 with the spawn of his legendary IP still wriggling up the charts, and where did he go from there?
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A chipmunk off the old block
Despite the misleading name, Valhalla and the Lord of Infinity is to Viking lore what Viking the stationers is to, erm... well, Viking lore. Plotwise, it revolves around the protagonist's quest to reclaim his rightful title as heir to the Throne of the Kingdom of Infinity. I expect he didn't realise at the time there would be more to it than filling in a couple of bureaucratic, box-ticking forms....
Oooh, chimpanzee that!
Bangers & Mash, the game, not the British gastronomical delicacy, is an elementary Rainbow Islands style platformer modelled around the kid's TV show of the same name starring two inquisitive, simian mischief-magnets. Monkey business will ensue.
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Like a phoenix from the Escom inferno
With ten training missions under our belt, we're fast-tracked to UN fighter pilot status, coaxed into covert action by the promise of several snazzy supersonic toys and the rare opportunity to spread peace and joy to the world's mankiest cesspits. In Digital Image Design's ambitious TFX (Tactical Fighter eXperiment) flight simulator, a Lockheed F-117 Stealth Fighter, Eurofighter 2000 or Lockheed F-22...
Soldier of Misfortune
Pick an alien-infested planet, annihilate every last critter that dares to breathe in your vicinity, jet off to the next, rinse and repeat. As a crack stormtrooper of the Federation (or Soldier of Light if you prefer) you'll casually take the Empire's feeble assaults in your exoskeleton-enhanced stride. If anyone tracks you down following retirement from active duty, just change your name to Xain'd...
Chaos is more than a theory
And Chaos Engine is more than a shiny, polished Gauntlet clone garnished with a steampunk makeover. The Bitmap Brothers' run-and-gun overhead shooter is as intrinsically entwined with the Amiga's gaming legacy as any other venerated title you care to mention. It demands no further introduction... or review, but here's one of each regardless.
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Advice to live by - Kill the babies!
A malicious alien race has descended on earth determined to reduce the entire planet to rubble. Little is known about the whereabouts of their covert Caribbean base of operations beyond the vague suspicion that it's located in an underwater lair somewhere within the lost city of Atlantis. Stepping into the breach as the eponymous Aquanaut, the future of humanity rests on our flippers! Accordingly,...
World's most mundane plot discovered inside Snoopy game!
Linus has misplaced his comfort blanket. Can the no. 1 super-sleuthing Beagle, Snoopy, save the day? I'm not selling this to you, am I? Contrary to first impressions, it's actually a competently constructed, very nicely illustrated/animated, endearing adventure game aimed at a younger audience.
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G.I.s and dolls
In 1991 Rogue Trooper, the haunted-bio-chip-assisted genetic infantryman of 2000 AD comic book fame, became the aforementioned starring protagonist of his own Amiga and Atari ST game courtesy of Krisalis. It's an infuriatingly difficult blend of traditional platforming and first-person perspective flying levels reminiscent of Space Harrier. Reaching the end of the much more interesting platforming...
A complete and utter screw-up
I was quite fond of the diminutive, perfectly sculpted Amiga 600 I owned as a kid in the early '90s, yet realise this wasn't a universally held view. I trace the history of the beautifully misguided system, the next in line to the far more popular Amiga 500, examining its critical reception amongst industry insiders at the time of release.
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A snowball's chance in hell
Snow Bros is Toaplan's lesser-known attempt to recreate the addictive two-player magic of Taito's iconic arcade classic, Bubble Bobble. Analogously, it's a single-screen, arcade-platforming coin-guzzler that pits us against the almighty malevolence of the razer-toothed King Scorch who - swept up in his supreme, feral nastiness - has pounced upon the wintery wonderland inhabited by Nick and Tom to...
u-nye-loo-lay-doo
Demon Blue is what happens when you accidentally leave a gnarly hell's angel lying around in a telepod whilst teleporting an electronic pet Furby toy. Emerging dazed and confused I expect you'll want to "unlock the mysteries of an ancient fantasy world". You may as well now you're here.
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Send in the clowns
Couriering is far more fun if you do it dressed as a goofy circus clown, scooting between gigs balancing precariously on rollerskates. A statement that has stood me in good stead over the years, ever since discovering Starbytes' Rolling Ronny delivery boy simulator in 1991. Honking in the face of inertia, Ronny is the star of his own urban, errand-running platforming adventure, his only humble ambition...
Thursday, 30 July 2020
Now if we make a stand, we'll find our promised land
The gnarly Shadow cast by Psygnosis' infamous Beast of Amiga origin spread far and wide to every conceivable system during the zenith of its beastliness. Peer outside your bedroom window on a sunny day and even now you'll see it creeping up the drainpipe to infiltrate your shiny new PlayStation 9, or whatever the current model is. So, that's one way of suggesting Shadow of the Beast has cultivated...
Dystopian blancmange
Jonathan 'Jungle' Rogers isn't a huge fan of nuclear radiation fallout, which is unfortunate since the dreaded apocalypse has transpired on his doorstep, making itself comfortably at home in Manhattan circa 2019. Asking it politely to leave has failed miserably so it's time for Plan B; race across the derelict city, dodging/slaughtering rabid dogs and psychopathic escapees from Mad Max's Wasteland...
Who cares what picture we see?
Premiere has to be the ultimate movie license game in history in that it's a homage to all the movies encapsulated within six of Hollywood's major genres. Rather impressively, The 8th Day accomplished this feat without paying a penny in royalties to a single studio. Genius!
Cast as a distraught movie editing assistant, we're culpable for the safe return of six stolen film reels. Tirelessly tracking...
I want your nappy, your booties, and your tricycle
Just lately baby Nathan has been playing Lemmings a wee bit more than is advisable for his health. Despite the 'do not try this at home' warning label, the precocious Brat (TM) is determined to toddle over the precipice of his isometric, levitating playfield in honour of his lolloping, mop-haired, dopey heroes. Because there's no Dirt Devil for eradicating ground-in baby-splatter, we may as well have...
Duck season, wabbit reason
Being a community-spirited anthropomorphic samurai duck, landlocked in an Amiga-based platform game, naturally, the onus is on us to Donk!, sword-swish and Taz-spin our way through 112 eggtraordinarily zany levels gathering an endless stream of crystals to protect earth's precious atmosphere from the villainous Eider Down. It goes without saying really.
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You can take the cat out of the alley
A wealthy old lady bequeaths her fortune to Benny the Ball in the absence of Amy, the true heir to her luxurious Beverly Hills estate. What better excuse for Top Cat and crew to descend on her posh mansion to live the high life at Madam Van Der Gelt's expense? With Snerdly the butler next in line to inherit her fortune, we're honour-bound to protect Benny from premature expiry, then locate Amy before...
It's going to be one of those days
Give My Regards to Broad Street. That's not a personal request from me, it's the name of Paul McCartney's musical drama megaflop movie named after a defunct London railway station. Released in 1984 to an underwhelmed frog chorus, written, sung and acted by Paul McCartney as himself, it revolves around a fictional day in the life of none other than Paul McCartney. If you think I'm making this up as...
Win the trip of a lifetime to the Land of the Aztecs, Mexico
Former special forces commander, Bret Conrad - Gold of the Aztecs' starring protagonist - is, in essence, Indiana Jones without the official license. One day he serendipitously (?) stumbles across an ancient map to a stash of gold buried deep within the lost city of Quetzacotl. Just a thousand or so little snags stand in the way of recovering this priceless treasure/jetting off into the sunset to...
Never believe it's not so
If you can imagine taking the top-down, vertically scrolling shooter, Commando, and replacing protagonist soldier, Super Joe, with a giggling schoolboy on an implausible pilgrimage to become the supreme magician, you may well have attended the same board room meeting at Infogrames that led to the development of 'Mystical'. Replace the marauding waves of Nazi foes with bizarre monsters, monks and Ents,...
Revisiting Dennis with former Ocean artist, John Lomax
To investigate if there is any truth to the rumour that Ocean's Dennis the Menace Amiga/SNES licensed platformer was deliberately sabotaged to cover up its unfinished status, I contacted one of the artists who worked on it. With that myth neatly dispelled, we discussed his contribution to the game and its critical reception amongst gamers and journalists.
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If Pinocchio reviewed Amiga games
I explore the capricious relationship between games magazines, their staff critics and the games publishers who supply them with review copies of their creations. Does relying on games publishers for advertising revenue account for some of the unfeasibly positive reviews printed in supposedly impartial magazines? Which, if any of them, could you trust to tell you the truth during the Amiga's heyday?
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Shambo
Rambo's problem is that he takes all that survival-affiliated death-dealing murder and mayhem merriment far too seriously. Luckily, in 1990 PAL Developments waded in to show Sly the error of his misguided ways, injecting a vital touch of humour to all those Commando-style junkets to far-flung regions of the world in desperate need of obliteration and human limb dissemination. In Blazing Thunder, our...
Raven hair and ruby lips, sparks fly from her finger tips
In the same year in which Titus the Fox jaunted to Marrakech and back, Titus France also conjured up Super Cauldron to empower would-be wand wavers of the magical persuasion. It shares a similar cutesy, platforming approach, only now stars a friendly witch by the name of Zmira whose duty it is to rid her infested home forest habitat of a demon's curse by recovering her necromancy nouse, obliterating...
The mane event
It would be tricky to assert from a gameplay perspective that the cutesy zoological Amiga platformer, Brian the Lion, was the king of the genre's jungle. While it does nothing to advance the field's tired tropes, every wheel Brian reinvents is without doubt stunningly beautiful, and technically dazzling. Designed by the same outfit who brought us the visually sublime Shadow of the Beast, you might...
Wednesday, 29 July 2020
Come on twist again, twistin' time is here
While money can't buy you love, you'll discover that it's extremely handy should you find yourself mooching around one of Blood Money's munition emporiums in the market for helicopter/submarine/spaceship/jetpack enhancements. First there was Menace, now DMA Design offer us the chance to indulge our penchant for wanton capitalism in this hard-as-nails vertically/horizontally scrolling shmup, culminating...
Crimes of fashion
Should you be in the mood for blowing criminal scumbags to smithereens with guns aptly formidable to bring down three T-rexes lined up like a bullet-sponge depth-penetration experiment, yet can't bear to insert that blood-soaked copy of Narc in your fragile floppy drive, you might instead like to ride the Crime Wave courtesy of Access Software. It's a shameless clone of Williams' notoriously violent,...
8 piracy killers that weren't
An investigation into various novel techniques tried and tested by Amiga game publishers in the '90s with a view to combating software piracy. Did any of them deliver financial benefits, or just annoy honest gamers who purchased legitimate software?
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A life on Ocean's waves with Gary Bracey
I've been reading and writing about Ocean Software's erstwhile games development director, Gary Bracey, with great admiration since the '80s, so when he agreed to a Q&A session it was quite a surreal moment to put it lightly. That probably explains why I ended up asking an approximation of the most obvious question in the history of game development questions; which is your favourite of the games...
When Jetsons attack! The game that sunk its publisher.
I investigate the direct connection between MicroIllusions publishing their graphical adventure game, George Jetson and the Legend of Robotopia, inspired by Hanna-Barbera's 1962 Jetsons cartoon, and shortly afterwards filing for bankruptcy.
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What became of New Star Electronics?
China, as a nation, being relegated to the doghouse is nothing new. One Chinese company, in particular, was partially responsible for the failed rescue buy-out of Commodore; the revered vintage computer brand responsible for the groundbreaking Commodore 64 and Amiga home micros. Rescinding their proposed $25m investment in 1994, for all intents and purposes, sounded the death knell for the current...
Hide and seek sub-gaming with Shaun Southern
It's no secret that some old-school Amiga games are so light on content, they can be completed in under ten minutes. Which is one of many reasons it can be an unexpected joy to discover hidden mini-games within the main event. Let's see how many we can identify and fathom out how to activate them. Don't be surprised if former Gremlin coder, Shaun Southern, drops in for a chat. He's no stranger to...
Teaming with promise
If anything about Team 17's inaugural gaming release, Miami Chase, evokes memories of Miami Vice, that's purely at the discretion of your own predilections. Certainly, there was no intention to plant in the player's mind allusions to the New Wave hot property in order to surreptitiously inflate the game's street credibility. With that disclaimer subtly dispensed, in Miami Chase we play as tough-talking,...
Homage fraise
Paul Clarke's one-man Amiga shareware project, Bazza 'n' Runt, is an addictive single-screen platformer revolving around Bazza's quest to track down Old Man Misty who harbours the secret to concocting the perfect platformer plot. Planting bombs and fleeing beyond the blast area to exterminate a fixed number of nasties per level forms the crux of the game's simple, yet satisfying premise. Runt is only...
Pudding on a show
Jonathan 'Joffa' Smith's first published game introduces us to a winged Pacman-like creature known as Pud Pud and the Weird World in which he inhabits, yet would rather escape from. This he achieves by eating 10 bowls of non-descript pudding whilst walking or flapping throughout a series of surreal mazes stalked by Mrs Pud armed with her toxic kiss. A unique game from the delightfully...
No teddy bears' picnic
Risky Woods is an insanely intense, dagger-chucking scrolling platformer completely ruined by the necessity to master pixel-perfect jumping whilst deflecting a neverending fusillade of Harryhausen style living skeletons. Check out the longplay to ensure its immaculate presentation doesn't go to waste, camouflaged behind an impenetrable difficulty curve.
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Play it Again Herman
Old Nick has unleashed hordes of ghouls, zombies, vampires, and ghosts into The Munsters' mansion and kidnapped Marilyn as punishment for being too nice. Playing sequentially as Herman, Eddie, Grandpa and Lily, we're tasked with deploying our most potent spells to banish them back to the underworld and rescue Marilyn.
Alternative Software's officially licensed TV show accompaniment is a goulash of...
I've got the secret, I've got the key to another way
Environmentally speaking, Fire & Ice features two prominent scenarios lodged at either end of the temperature scale, yet also more moderate ecological habitats that sit somewhere in between these two bipolar extremes. Fire and Ice (subtitled The Daring Adventures of Cool Coyote), aside from being climatically jarring for those of us susceptible to chilblains, is a traditional platformer escapade...
Burn after playing
I examine the Amiga's only migraine aura management simulator/platform game hybrid. Don't Breathe Now is an enigmatic title no-one has ever heard of, let alone played. So obscure and efficiently whitewashed from the history books that it may as well never have existed.
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Don't need no credit card to ride this pain
Top Banana is most accurately summated as Rainbow Islands starring Betty Boo on an ecstasy-fuelled, environmentally-aware crusade to save the planet one recyclable home computer game box at a time. It's visually, auricularly and conceptually hideous no matter what state of delirium you find yourself under whilst imbibing its own special brand of insanity. Top Banana has no redeeming features other...
It's a magical place, we're on our way there...
Stranded on the 'The Hippest Place in The Known Universe' following a crash landing, as the only remaining Fuzzy Wuzzy at liberty, it's Clyde Radcliff's duty to rescue his clan from incarceration, averting certain torture and probable death at the stubby hands of the devious demon inhabitants.
Creatures is a game of two halves spliced with a shopping trip to visit a potion emporium hosted by an overly...
A barnacle on the dinghy of life
In a one or two-player, one-on-one, single-screen beat 'em up tournament, fuelled by hamburgers and spinach, Popeye grapples with a ragtag assemblage of alien opponents to protect his home planet. Popeye 3: WrestleCrazy would be fantastically absurd fun if only it played and controlled better. Predictable is boring, nobody predicted this.
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Tuesday, 28 July 2020
Especially for roo
Read or watch any review of Zeppelin's isometric street-racing Neighbours game published in 1991 and you'll immediately be battered over the bonce with the notion that the genre choice was the craziest slathering of nutty paste on toast, dished up on the wrong side of Planet Looney Bin. What they don't trouble themselves to explain is what would be more suitable. A World War II shoot 'em up?...
I have prayed many times for God to send me a friend
Playing as the eponymous Bride of Frankenstein, it's our mission to scavenge the various human organs required to build our dream monster, then zap him to life at the apex of Castle Frankenstein with a bit of help from the power of lightning (and love if Huey Lewis will agree to serenade us). All that stands between us and eternal happiness is the undead and a series of locked doors.
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Obscura Ninjata
From hamsters to rabbits, turtles and grannies, I examine the most bizarre extremes of the ninja gaming phenomenon that swept our home micros in the '80s and '90s.
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The pantomime must go on
Ocean's first WWF wrestling game wasn't exactly fantastic, yet merits a nostalgic, reality-blurring pass if it happens to represent your earliest experience with pixelated wrestling hijinks. A year later, lessons learnt and improvements made, with the advent of European Rampage Tour, all bets were off. It's the tag-team upgrade that should have kicked Wrestlemania into the dirt, mashing its brains...
My friend Wildey's coming
You are Bronson in Death Wish 3! When the game's box features a picture of legendary vigilante crime-fighter, Paul Kersey, wielding a .475 Wildey Magnum, aimed right at our forehead, who's going to argue with Gremlin? Now you need to make him - I mean us - proud by cleaning up the filth-ridden New York streets, flushing out the drug-dealers, pimps, rapists, muggers and murderers. Make an effort...
A page right out of history
Junior, Son of Chuck, demonstrates he's a chip off the old block in the sequel to Core Design's prehistoric platformer, Chuck Rock. As before, it's hard to play without imagining being trapped inside a vintage Flintstones cartoon, except now we're in charge of a nappy-clad, further regressed Bamm-Bamm, wielding a club taller than he is on a quest to save his kidnapped dad from the clutches of the...
Have you slimed an Ameboid today?
I examine the Amiga's lesser-known Wipe-Out game. At its core, it's Tron with hoverboards rather than light cycles, played against enemy AI or a friend via the split-screen view. Whilst avoiding collision with energy trails and walls, power-ups can be collected to confer enhancements such as brakes or a suped-up engine.
Betting on the outcome of bouts and climbing the leaderboard represents the other...
Stick a red nose on your conk, and let's stonk
Playing as man's best friend, bipedal wonder dog Ralph, it's your duty to protect your pet human, Lee, from sustaining injury as he obliviously sleepwalks around his home town. Don't be silly, if you just woke him up, there would be nothing to do, and where's the fun in that?
It's a lot like a one-Lemming reinterpretation of DMA Design's famous suicide-prevention puzzler, only we manipulate our charge...
Former Magnetic Fields artist Andrew Morris answers our questions on Kid Chaos!
Everything you ever wanted to know about the Amiga's wannabe Sonic the Hedgehog beater. Includes a scan of Andrew's previously unseen original protagonist sprite design artwork.
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Full speed ahead Mr. Parker!
Being a movie stunt performer is an exhilarating career that pays a fortune, seducing the admiration of zillions of swooning groupies. The only drawback is not living long enough to spend your accrued pocket-busting mega-bucks. Clearly Rainbow Arts spotted this dilemma, publishing the stunt gig simulator, Danger Freak, to offer a convenient alternative way to enjoy all the thrills and blood-spills...
I sit and wait, does an angel contemplate my fate
Probably in the interests of not wanting to glorify violence, The Guardian Angels have never been keen to involve themselves with gaming. Luckily (?) Amiga game publishers, Screen 7, were on hand to do it for them, commissioning Emerald Software to devise 'Fallen Angel'. A Double Dragon style beat 'em up unofficially themed around the non-profit, unarmed crime prevention group, set in the underground...
Former Ocean France coder Michel Janicki launches homebrew console Kickstarter
Michel shares the particulars of his proposed 'Console 101' hardware project. A custom-built system tailored towards the development of simple games that promote gameplay ahead of presentation.
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It's (not) hammer-time
Amiga puzzle-platformer, Crystal Palace, should really have been included in my shameless gaming rip-offs article. It isn't merely because the cutesy curio was a late contender and so is awarded its own dedicated micro-showcase - there really isn't a lot to cover. Crystal Palace is in no minor way related to the Selhurst-based English football team of the same name. In fact, a P.P. Hammer And...
Xeroxmorphs in Dittoland - the medley edition
There were so many cheap knock-off games on the Amiga vying for a slice of a recognisable franchise's cache that if I dedicated a separate article to each of them something, something, unworkable etc. Instead, allow me to present my far more digestible rip-off roundup. Shockingly enough, not all examples are taken from the public domain realm. Some actually had a price tag!
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If RoboCod had a hammer...
Thanks to Paul Driscoll's purchase and scanning of the lesser-known multi-system gaming magazine, Games-X, we learn that at some point in its development, RoboCod was to be equipped with a hammer weapon. Not quite representing the magazine's legacy in its entirety, it does denote that there's plenty of exclusive information to be gleaned from this seemingly poor relation in the Amiga magazine...
Monday, 27 July 2020
We are never ever ever getting back together
Quicksilva's 8-bit conversion of Raymond Brigg's festive classic, The Snowman, is a single screen snowman-building affair in which we embody James, the bewildered child who learns that sentient life can be generated and lost within the space of a single night, and is actually jolly rotten regardless of what he might have forgotten. We can laugh and joke and sing all we like, but, if in the morning,...
Let's get physics-al
Alien, teardrop-shaped blob, Puggsy, began life as an unexplained visitor from elsewhereland, the unlikely star of his own rolling Amiga demo, before evolving into a fully playable, platforming protagonist devised by future LEGO gurus, Travellers' Tales. Fundamentally, Puggsy is a reimagining of the puzzle-adventure Dizzy concept, albeit remarkable for its introduction of convincing physics effects....
Guppies Are Forever
Underwater Agent is the parody-packing-platformer that first introduced us to the fi5hy James Pond franchise, culminating in a cheese-chasing trip to space. A superspy-themed, 007-mission-based action escapade comprised purely of aquatic episodes that was nevertheless forgiven, evolving into a far more playable, landlocked sequel; RoboCod. Loath or loath oceanic acrobatics, there's no denying the...
You've got me. Who's got you?
If you took the Justice League of America, wrung every last drop of fun out of them, supplanting their nuanced personalities with a single group-think ecologically-minded conscience, you'd be left with a set of plaster of Paris rubber moulds of Captain Planet and the Planeteers. A hexad of bland, unpainted moral crusaders who on a break from saving our souls wangled their way into the Amiga 500 Cartoon...
Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got, I'm still, I'm still Moley with a Glock
Gremlin's fifth Monty Mole jaunt signalled the humble, furry miner's transition to the 16-bit systems in 1990 as well as smooth scrolling platforming. A fluttering cape can work wonders for one's superpowers, evolving our dirt-munching workhorse into a Rick Dangerous style Impossamole, ready to burst loose, kung-fu-kicking from his 8-bit shackles equipped with smart bombs and a gun, fearlessly prepped...
Trolling's for girls
Anyone who bought the Amiga CD32 launch pack in 1993 will be familiar with the Academy Award collecting huckster, Oscar. It didn't win any, but the power of suggestion can't have hurt the zany, movie-themed platformer's prospects. Except, that is, if you'd already forked out for Trolls and realised too late that one was essentially a re-skin of the other. Swap the bridge-patrolling protagonist sprite...
I tawt I taw a puddy tat
Lionheart is the licensed tie-in game ThunderCats should have been... assuming the goal was to produce a mesmerisingly delectable Rastan-esque hack 'n' slash platformer that looks and sounds like the cat's whiskers without actually being much fun to play. Hobbled by uncomfortably awkward controls and the lack of feasible attack manoeuvres, the latter is cat-egorically guaranteed. Possessing the eye...
Probably been moved on from every place, 'Cos she didn't fit in there
Paradise Lost is, without doubt, the best Turkish Amiga-hosted Shadow-of-the-Beast-wannabe-platformer based on John Milton's 1667 epic poem of the same name the world has ever seen. Bar none. Launching from the fluffy-clouded heavens on angelic wings of divinity, it shames the competition, pulling off an Academy-Award-winning Wonder Woman impersonation before hitting the ground, shimmering golden...
One toy soldier stands alone in the attic
Tin Toy Adventure in the House of Fun is another visually stunning, Disneyfied Amiga platformer courtesy of one-man development team, Adrian Cummings. Tin Toy's forte, aside from mastering the usual genre tropes, is the deployment of a quadruplet of utilitarian spells conferring spontaneous platform-construction, the capacity to float, invulnerability and smart bomb conjuring. An audio-visual feast...
Nine inches under tall
Garfield: Winter's Tail comprises three mini-games geared towards ensuring the lasagne-loving moggy's dream ends on a high note. Playing as the eternally sarcastic, eponymous feline, we must slalom down a snowcapped mountain, dodging obstacles and leaping ramps en route towards paradise; the roof of a lasagne factory. In the chocolate factory stage, we must ensure pipework is maintained to guide a...
Can you tell what it is yet?
Doodlebug is Mutation Software's prettier follow-up to Bug Bash. A visually enticing platformer, crammed with cute, endearing touches and the novelty of drawing your way out of trouble, as in the animated kid's TV show, Penny Crayon.
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Things are about to get grizzly, please bear with me
Mute, magician-wannabe bear puppet, Sooty, and his pals, Sweep and Sue, have been sadly underemployed in the gaming world over the years given their longstanding popularity on the old tellybox, spanning many generations of viewers. Mostly they appear in extremely limited educational titles aimed at tiny, ickle whipper-snappers. Not hardcore gamers such as myself who'd rather play as Sooty in an edgy,...
I wasn't lookin' but somehow you found me
Think Rolling Thunder with an aquatic theme and hey presto, it's ThunderJaws! Go SCUBA diving, wrestle sharks, and breach the underwater fortress of arch-nemesis villainess, Madame Q. Invite a pal to join the fray, thwarting her diabolical Bondian schemes and it's twice as much fun.
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Saturday, 25 July 2020
Boats, automoboats and boatomobiles
Elite's Live and Let Die movie tie-in game began life as a generic boat chase/escape simulator that was later re-branded to capitalise on the cache of the 1973 James Bond movie when Domark acquired the conversion rights, semi-vintage as it already was by this stage in 1988. Play it for five minutes and this becomes glaringly apparent since only the bare minimum was changed to fool the audience into...
The pugs don't work
Why did Williams Electronics' think 'Narc', an abbreviation for anti-narcotics officer (or something like that) needed to be capitalised like an acronym? What would it stand for if that were true, and would it be publishable within earshot of a family audience? Perhaps we'll never know. Perhaps it's explained in my article about the ultra-violent, 2D scrolling, arcade-action platformer in which you...
Let the rivers run red
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is one of those obscure movies people remember fondly, looking back through tomato juice tinted glasses, yet only if they have very hazy memories of the 1978 ultra-cheap parody of classic horror B-movies. It does feature a few notable moments and I plan to put together a 50 second 'best of' video one day to showcase those assuming it hasn't already been done...
DJ FrankenWizkid featuring Jops
I analyse the torso and limbs off Sensible Software's Wizkid (that's how that happened!), the game that defies all logic, gravity and explanation. I give it a go regardless, posing questions into the ether along the way. Well, not exactly like shouting into an empty forest as it happens - the annotations you'll see next to my inquisitive ponderings were contributed by none other than Jon 'Jops' Hare,...
Fury of the furry fandom
A very brief look at furry fan culture, Eric W. Schwartz's contribution and its connection to the Amiga.
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Of Mice and Terminators
It wasn't only the lucrative success of Sonic and Mario that developers aspired to duplicate on the Amiga. Another pot of jewels at the end of the neverending rainbow was Street Fighter II. We did receive a port of our own in 1992 courtesy of US Gold... which beat 'em aficionados considered a pale imitation of the SNES and arcade iterations. Regardless of the port's quality, it sure isn't a Team...
Turn West for serious comedy
Ocean's isometric Batman game was followed up by a 2D scrolling platformer, also from Ocean. Well, published by Ocean at least. Special FX took care of the development duties, creating a memorable riff on the dark knight's vintage comic books, rather than any of the movies or TV show. It's a plodding, puzzle-solving, adventure game at heart, glued together with minimal arcade-action elements.
What...
Strangers are friends you have yet to maim
If the intention was to revitalise and enhance Double Dragon 10 years after its introduction, you might end up with something like The Strangers, an Amiga-exclusive, 2D, scrolling beat 'em up featuring fatalities, and a 3D rendered intro/backgrounds. It sounds tempting on paper. Hmm, we'll see...
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No Future In The Past
Renegade III, subtitled The Final Chapter, tempts players to make the inevitable joke, incorporating a sigh of relief at an apposite moment. When a franchise whips out the hackneyed 'send protagonist back in time/to space' plot device, you know fibreglass sharks have been jumped and it's game over. Renegade III's previously unknown development path and the trivia surrounding its mysterious release...
Ignore the pain!
For the third Rambo movie, Sly Stallone treks to Afghanistan on another perilous rescue mission. This time to emancipate his incarcerated former military commander/lifelong best friend, Colonel Trautman, drawing him into deadly conflict with his brutal captors, Soviet Colonel Zaysen and his henchman, Sergeant Kourov. Seeing as he's already deeply embroiled in fraught Afghan-Russian dissensions, Sly...
Input. That's information! Listen, I am full of it.
In Ocean's Short Circuit gaming incarnation of the comic sci-fi movie we, naturally, play as Johnny 5, a NOVA laboratories designed robot who gains sentience when struck by lightning. As in the movie, rather than serve as a US army puppet following orders in relation to Cold War operations, Johnny 5 breaks loose from his military prison to live an independent life. With free will now hard-wired into...
A total eclipse of the heart
Upon occurrence of a full moon, cursed by a millenarian spell, Bully is transformed into a fish, while his girlfriend, Monica, switches back from a hawk to her human self. Next cycle, the scenario is vice-versa-ed, guaranteeing that the lovers can never reunite in their human form. To reverse the spell, Bully must free Monica from her cage and together head towards the submarine temple of the sun...
Mash of the sprite-ans
In Gremlin's platformer-shmup hybrid, Pegasus, we actually play as the mystical white horse's rider, Perseus, rather than the eponymous gee-gee. Well, except when we assume the role of both simultaneously for the airborne levels. They're co-stars, shall we leave it at that?
Unsurprisingly, the game takes its cues from Greek mythology. Particularly that filtered through the medium of classic fantasy-adventure...
Can you just stop saying stupid things and free me from this lovely, cute, fragrant cheese
One of the many Monkey Island wannabes that failed to grab a piece of Lucasart's point and click pie back in the '90s is Sixth Sense Investigations. You play as a private eye detective solving supernatural mysteries for rich people. Whilst this premise has potential to be intriguing in its own right, it's...
Friday, 24 July 2020
I give up. This whole thing's very Russian.
Red Heat is Ocean's gaming interpretation of the lesser-known Arnie Schwarzenegger movie of the same name, co-starring James Belushi. One superficially mirrors the other in that we steer a heavyset, stilted Arnie sprite throughout the same locations seen on the silver screen en route to tracking down Georgian drug kingpin, Viktor Rostavili. Initially, he's rumbled in Russia, hence the movie title....
Even heroes have the right to bleed
Christopher Reeve was no doubt 'The Man of Steel' in the movies. In Tynesoft's multi-system Superman game, paper mache would be more appropriate. We begin by steering Supes into the path of hordes of Darkseid's oncoming airborne aliens in third-person flight mode. And that's all most people will get to experience of the genre-mashing homage to the greatest superhero to don underpants over his leotard....
Sense and Unsensibility
This was to be the introduction to an interview with Jon Hare that never happened through no fault of his, or mine. It seemed a shame not to post it. Kind of a mini-biography.
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Bahd to the bone
If Gods doesn't float your boat due to its stodgy, unforgiving controls, you might like to give Deliverance a fair hack and/or slash of the current blade being wielded like a medieval maniac. It's far more manoeuvrable and therefore accessible as a pickup and play arcade platformer, otherwise featuring analogous mechanics and visual themes.
Raising the bar (well, for anyone who enjoys Gothic horror...
Faith, trust and a little pixie dust
You have to admire Jaleco for having the guts to create a game starring two cute, cherubic little fairies and release it into a target market comprised largely of adolescent boys. I have no idea how much money Rod-land made in the arcades or the proportion of male/female gamers who fed coins into the cabinet. Nevertheless, it was sufficiently well-received to be treated to various home computer/console...
Warning - May contain Timets
Prior to release, NEON Software's Amiga version of Mr Nutz (subtitled Hoppin' Mad) was known as 'Timet: the Flying Squirrel'. How Timet ended up starring an anthropomorphic squirrel taken from a totally different Ocean Software game, Mr Nutz for various consoles, developed by Ocean France, is an intriguing story. I assess both of the immensely fun, lusciously beautiful pixel art platformers, as well...
Don't worry, bee happy
Apidya II is a German-born, Japanese-style insect-based shmup with no prequel. You play as a prince who has willingly undergone transformation into a wasp to seek an antidote to his wife's black magic curse dilemma. Confused? It doesn't matter; it's a surreal, spellbinding experience either way. Animation, graphics and sound are impeccable, their aggregate undeniably elevating the package to Amiga...
A touch more magic
I told you everyone loves Simon the Sorcerer, so much so he came back for a sequel, subtitled 'The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe'. I won't insult your intelligence by explaining the literary reference. It's more of the same point and click adventuring with some characters making a welcome comeback, others totally unique to STS part II. Most dramatic in the 'ring the changes quiz' department is...
Thursday, 23 July 2020
You'll like this, not a lot...
Adventuresoft's magical, fantasy point and click adventure, Simon the Sorcerer, evokes a number of superficial parallels to Secret of Monkey Island... points them out with glee, giggles and then moves on to do its own thing. For many British people, it's considered far superior to Lucasarts' gold standard piratey shenanigans given that the dialogue, humour, pop-culture references, Chris Barrie's voice-over,...
You left me with everything, Knowing it would never be enough
Precocious super-tyke, Ruff Rogers, has lost his marbles, yet nothing is going to stand in the way of retrieving them. Not even gargantuan, mechanical end-of-level bosses. Initially armed with a heavy-duty sub-machine gun, edgy '90s attitude and cool quiff, his fate is looking progressively sunny. While Ruff 'n' Tumble's plot is flimsier than a soggy sherbet saucer, thankfully the gameplay is rock-solid,...
Water bombs at dawn
Can you assist Hipopo the Hippopotamus in tracking down his misplaced girlfriend? Come on, it's a Taito, coin-op, 2D platformer, it'll be fun. Especially since you get to pelt water bombs at enemies, use them to drive water wheels, insta-grow climbable beanstalks, and freeze then kick assailants off-screen!
Originally released to arcades in 1990, Ocean UK never got round to pulling the...
Will you have some Amiga cake Father. Ah, go on...
Streetfighter II, an Amiga 600 and a priest walk into a Craggy Island rectory. It's not a joke, but an episode of Father Ted. I screen-capture the evidence.
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What did Atari have against thousands?
I ruminate over another of life's big mysteries; why did Atari insist on calling the Atari two thousand six hundred the Atari twenty-six hundred?
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Xeroxmorphs in Dittoland - to Cimmeria and beyond!
Have you ever dreamed of becoming Conan the Barbarian without troubling yourself with all that inconvenient weight-lifting, cardio workouts and extreme dieting? Meet Core Design's Torvak the Warrior! Wield a spell-bound melee weapon or four, slay a meddlesome necromancer, have tea and biscuits with Rastan and talk tactics - it's all here hack 'n' slash fans! Arnie Schwarzenegger isn't so you...
Giddy-up jingle horse, pick up your feet
Here's a novel concept for a game; an arcade-converted scrolling beat 'em up played on horseback, set during the Three Kingdoms Era of Chinese history during which stout warriors would charge about yelling and introducing sharp steel objects to your delicate internal organs. Best of all, Dynasty Wars bears no relation to the awful '80s TV show of not the same name, but similar.
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A boy's best friend
Hollywood horror and the slasher genre, in particular, owes a huge debt of gratitude to Psycho (the proper 1960 black and white original obviously). It's an undeniable, 40,000-carat gold, timeless, bona fide classic. So how could you possibly treat it with suitably decorous gushing reverence in gaming form? You can't! Simple as that. Starsoft Development Labs gave it a shot regardless, translating...
Hydra and seek
An abundance of glowing praise was heaped upon Gods from day one, though over the years a more dichotomous spread of opinion appears to have emerged, slathering it in Marmitey confusion. Gods no doubt nails the desired emblematic Greek mythological ambience through its masterfully illustrated environments and sprites, and certainly has fans and detractors alike nodding along to its physiologically...
Give me Mr Fuji and paper mache
Leander is one of the many convincing retorts to critics who claim the Amiga never hosted a decent platformer. This one is exceptional for its responsive controls, wondrously atmospheric aesthetics and audio, endearing in-game cameos featuring other Psygnosis characters and its accomplished emulation of Japanese console-style fantasy-action games. Being a human knight, Leander's locomotion is accordingly...
We need to talk about Kevin
In Manley & Associates' puzzle-platformer Home Alone game of the movie, we star as Kevin McAllister who is allocated just one hour to rig his house with traps to thwart two approaching burglars, Harry and Marv. Once our preparation time expires they enter the house obliging us to flee between rooms to avert capture. As they do so, our deviously placed traps are triggered, causing them 5 points...
Not my body, I need that! It's got my arms and legs attached!
With their platform-gaming translation of The Incredible Crash Dummies, Gray Matter taught us the benefits of not being run over by traffic, buckling up when in the car... and how to waddle along on a decapitated torso should we come a cropper and lose both of our legs. All useful life lessons.
Further novelty comes in the form of our dummy's unique health status system. Succumbing to each penalty...
Wednesday, 22 July 2020
Sugar, ah honey honey, you are my candy girl
A fair few Amiga platformer games are criticised for placing heavy emphasis on collecting randomly scattered, gaudy sweat treat clutter from already congested environments. Gremlin's Zool is the no. 1 example that immediately springs to mind. Curious then that Brain Bug's Lollypop seems to have been born out of the desire to laugh in the face of this sensible warning to prospective developers. To...
Man who catch fly with chopstick, accomplish anything
If you've ever wondered how Prince of Persia would handle as a karate grandmaster, wonder no more. Jordan Mechner's earlier foray into silky-smooth, rotoscoped animation, Karateka, should offer a few pertinent clues. You might like to fill in any gaps in your knowledge by reading my retrospective review detailing its origin story, play mechanics and plot.
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The Amiga is good for your mental health
I investigate the mental health benefits of revelling in nostalgia, justifying round-the-clock Amiga game marathons, neglecting everything and everyone else in your life. If anyone is in need of a personal life-coach don't hesitate to give me a call.
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The preloved Christmas Schnauzendar
Still chomping at the bit for more Christmas-themed Amiga quiz delicacies? You've come to the right place. This one is centred around guessing the name of Amiga game developers rather than their creations. Each clue encapsulated within a given montage should trigger associations with the developer's gaming back-catalogue or other details synonymous with them, hopefully leading you to that delirious...
Christmas quiz re-gifting
Don't you hate it when there's nothing Amiga related on't telly box at Christmas? Ta-da! Behold my 'name the Xmasy Amiga game screenshot quiz'. Simpler the premise could not be. In each collage, I present a small, obscure segment of a screen capture from several wintery-themed Amiga games, and all you have to do is guess the name of the games. I know! It's better than Quality Street and Baileys. Together.
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You're not the game you think you are
Upcoming party and no idea what to do for entertainment? Allow me to present my 'name the Amiga game screenshot quiz'! Try and tell me that's not rock and/or roll.
Your task, should you be geeky enough to attempt it, is to try not to be blind-sided by the recognisable sprite cameos (or other graphical homages) seen in the screenshots and name the actual game in which they appear.
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Jumpers for goalposts
Reviews of Sensible Soccer's Cannon Fodder have never been so much fun! I analyse the life out of the masterpiece, spinning off into two separate articles. One covering the origins of the 'Boot Hill' graveyard scene, and another that dissects the overinflated controversy concerning a certain red flower used as a charity organisation emblem by the British Legion.
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Game Assets that Weren't
Games, much like movies have 'cutting room floors' where discarded audio, visuals or narrative ends up, never intended to be seen by the public. Often these remnants are captured within the data without actually being called at any point by the programme so are potentially open to being unearthed with a bit of code-digging. I explore some of the most interesting examples from my favourite gaming era;...
Team 17 - the untold(ish) story
Martyn Brown, co-founder of veteran, revered games developer and publisher, Team 17, explains the company's evolution and where Debbie Bestwick - now CEO and co-owner - fits in.
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Ghosts of gaming shops past
Remember the local game shops you used to scour for new releases with military precision as a child? I bet they've not been game shops for a very long time, many locals will have forgotten they ever were. Whilst premises change hands and brands over the years, sometimes their former lives come back to visit.
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The perfect venue for the next Commodore convention - Amiga Island!
There exists an 'Amiga Island'! Who knew? Well, except for the people who live there, and the ones who have visited on holiday. Oh and the tourist board. Also cartographers. Still, a hidden gem and no doubt named after the vintage computer we all know and love.
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We never really made it baby, but we came pretty close...
Published in April 1992, C&VG's initial assessment of Sony's then-upcoming PlayStation console. A wee bit embarrassing, then that's the magic of hindsight for you.
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Turn and face the change
Many games across all platforms employ a face avatar to represent our health status. See how many of these you recognise. The first person to guess all the right answers wins a goldfish in a bag!
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Grab a seat. Enjoy the show. This is history.
Ten years on from the first Predator movie, the sequel's setting is dramatically shifted from the steamy Mexican jungle to LA suburbia. Arnie is nowhere to be seen so the future of humanity rests in the capable hands of disgruntled, veteran cop, Danny Glover. His normal routine revolving around nailing viciously unscrupulous Colombian and Jamaican drug cartels must be put on hold when the Predator,...
A trip down Light Shock Lane
I take a nostalgic look back at the most significant output of the Italian games developer, Light Shock Software. Not only the titles that made it to retail and modern game databases, the ones that sadly fell by the wayside and remain largely incognito today.
To get the inside story I contacted as many of the former Light Shock staff as I could track down. What follows is their memories of the highs...
The sea will grow larger with our fall
For reasons that now escape me, I explain and review the most popular and ubiquitous puzzle game of all time. One that certainly needs no introduction or explanation, Lemmings. Who knows, maybe some aliens who have been living under a distant rock in a galaxy far away will find it interesting.
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Quiet please - gurus meditating
My verdict of the Caulfield's documentary, From Bedrooms To Billions - The Amiga Years, analysing the impact this influential system had on modern gaming and computers as we know them today.
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Tuesday, 21 July 2020
They sold a million
I explore the Amiga's highest-selling video games, citing sales figures and sources for proof. A selection of data relating to some of the best-selling non-Amiga games is included for comparison.
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All Bound for Mu Mu Land
One of the most polished, unreleased Games That Weren't for the Amiga is no doubt Microprose's Boo! An 80% finished tamely horror-themed platformer also destined to appear on the SEGA Mega Drive and SNES. We were to play as a deceased teenager who whiles away his haunted existence roaming the quarters of a vast mansion unleashing boo-based jump-scares to fend off assailants. At key points, it would...
If Poundland published Amiga games
One thing you can always guarantee in the world of gaming is that if a developer hits upon a winning formula, it will be xeroxed mercilessly until the star fades from the flimsy packaging and you can no longer tell which is the genuine article. On the commercial side, Impulze took their chances with an Edd the Duck-themed Rainbow Islands clone, while then-Nottingham University student, Alastair Murray,...
Amigo Scour - the ultimate Amiga magazine!
Obviously far superior to any of the individual Amiga magazines of the '80s and '90s, my handy scrapbook compendiums swipe the most intriguing news snippets from each, while investigating if anything ever came of the promises and often over-optimistic projections.
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Jules Rimet blaspheming
Soccer Kid isn't the only platform game in which you play as a footballer, wielding the football as a weapon. It is, however, the best of the tiny species. Enter plot stage space; aliens have descended, attempting to steal the precious World Cup. In their vast incompetence, they crashed whilst fleeing, causing the trophy to smash into smithereens... or at least enough pieces to place in each foreign...
Close is a lingerie shop without a front window
Ocean Software's Lethal Weapon, whilst dropping the three, was published in conjunction with the second sequel, inspired by its themes and plot. We choose to play as Martin Riggs or Roger Murtaugh, though there's no simultaneous two-player option. Between the five levels, the LA cop buddies must infiltrate illegal drug facilities, apprehend suicidal terrorists, defuse a bomb in a busy shopping mall,...
Kiss of death
Charley Brewster discovers he's living next door to a vampire in human disguise. What's he to do? One option is to draft in TV host, Peter Vincent, who formerly played a fictional vampire hunter in various horror movies. There's a chance he might know something about exorcism. Another alternative is to turn the tables, becoming the vampire, Jerry Dandrige, veering off at a tangent to engage in a spot...
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