reTHINK Pink

If you're rich, sleepwalk and reside in a mansion packed to the rafters with expensive ornaments, don't be surprised if you receive a visit from the Pink Panther, cat burglar extraordinaire. For it is his 'duty' to rob you blind whilst preoccupied roaming the extensive corridors of your home, obliviously unaware of the Panther of colour's crooked, clandestine scheme. Anyway, that's their problem. In Magic Bytes' puzzle-platformer we assume the role of the eponymous predator tasked with preventing our victims from awakening prior to pilfering their precious loot. In principle, it's a lot like Ocean's Sleepwalker, only with less virtuous objectives.

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Is cloning the future a pre-crime?

Dr A. Noid, perpetrator of the Great Biological Holocaust, remains on the loose in a post-apocalyptic world crawling with slime-oozing zombies high on 'SLU'. Naturally, as a totally coincidental Mad Max look-a-like bounty hunter, we're obliged to engage our ATV in obliterating all vehicular threats in our path whilst dodging mines and gun turrets. Because battering ram combat vehicles generally won't fit through pedestrian doorways, we must occasionally exit to explore buildings on foot with a view to euthanising anything that shambles or groans suspiciously.

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Heaven is a halfpipe when you're a sk8er boi

Skidz from Core Design aptly demonstrates that kidz can be kool as well as environmentally responsible. Whether we choose to ride BMX or skateboard wheelz, our mission is to collect 75% of the litter strewn across each obstacle course stage, earning bonus points in between for performing stunts. Scavenged refreshments boost health, whilst money can be exchanged for hardware upgrades. Skidz is pretty much what happens if you play Paperboy in reverse.

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When it's clear as MUD, in your neighbourhood. Who ya gonna call?

I explore the gaming life and times of multi-talented artist, coder and musician, Antony Crowther, quizzing him specifically on Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Because for no logical reason it fascinates me.

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Gremlins Not Included

A brief biography of Gremlin Graphics founder, Ian Stewart. This was to be the introduction to an interview with the gaming industry veteran that never happened.

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Extremely safe violence

Techno Cop is the kind of law enforcement officer who investigates criminal activity by blasting Death on Arrival gang members to smithereens with his .88 Magnum... and asking questions, never. To stay one step ahead of the delinquent punks he'll need to arrive at the scene of the crime before DoA even know which law they're about to violate. Fortuitous then that our high-tech crime-stopper comes equipped with a hyper-tuned V-Max Ferrari, neatly splicing the game into distinctive against-the-clock driving and scrolling shoot 'em up platformer segments.

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Alien ant buys the farm

Gremlin's Sonic-squishing hopeful, Zool, was in the '90s to be converted to run in coin-op arcade cabinets destined for seaside towns around the nation. Despite evidence of a prototype appearing on the Bad Influence TV tech show and in several gaming magazines, the finished product ultimately failed to materialise. I track down some of the key developers commissioned to make it happen and investigate why it didn't.

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Somebody stop me!

I take a look at Gremlin's 8-bit game inspired by the MASK animated TV series. Should you be wondering, an acronym for 'Mobile Armored Strike Kommand', nothing at all to do with that gurning prat with the rubbery slime-green face. From a top-down perspective, we assume the role of Matt Trakker who has been tasked with rescuing his fellow agents from the clutches of the team's perennial nemesis, VENOM, aka the Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem. This entails patrolling various past, future and present terrains from the comfort of his Thunderhawk Chevrolet Camaro, recovering essential technology and countering enemy forces using carefully planted bombs.

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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 not to decapitate bystanding grannies and 'ladies of the night' and the police might just chip in with a scintilla of support. Not that we really need it, we're Charles Bronson! With one arm tied behind our back and ten tranks nestled snugly in our belly, we could Chuck a Norris, Damme a Jean-Claude, Snipe at Wesley, Cage Nicholas, run Vings around Rhames and feed Steven to the Seagals. Do yourself a favour; make playing this your dying wish, it's an absolute riot! ;)

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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 to explore the far reaches of the planet.

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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 movies covering the same material. Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans, for instance. What results is a beautifully illustrated semi-Rastan-ish epic challenge that will test the dexterity of even pro gamers.

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Dicing with the Divil

In Gremlin Ireland's Litil Divil (spelling entirely correct), we undertake the curious tenure of Mutt; a lethargic Legions-of-Doom-Tasmanian-Devil-hybrid of sorts, harbouring the most underwhelming ambition in gaming history. To ascend into the overworld to explore a convoluted labyrinth in search of the almighty Pizza of Plenty. One so plentiful it will provide sufficient sustenance for all his hellion, underworld buddies.

Litil Divil is alternately a third-person dungeon crawler and arcade platformer, embellished with puzzle-solving elements. Commensurate with an evolved Dragon's Lair episode that you're more likely to want to play than watch. In fact, if you have to book computer-time you may like to levy a hefty bribe - this is an epic quest!

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Live the journey

Back when He-Man was just a flat cartoon on the small telly box, if you wanted to turn it into a live-action movie starring real, human actory type people - say in 1987 - you had to call it 'Masters of the Universe: The Motion Picture' and show it in a theatre near you. Soon. That struck me as odd even back then since we'd had 'movies' as opposed to static slideshows since about 1900. Nevermind, there's a He-Man film! It entails Skeletor teleporting around Eternia getting up to mischief of the evil variety by virtue of Gwildor's miraculous cosmic key invention. Chiefly, his royal boniness kidnaps the Sorceress of Grayskull, obliging He-Man and co. to dash to her rescue before he can sap her supreme mystical energy to become an omnipotent scary nutjob. They all end up on earth, transposing the battle to cheaper sets, but I'll get to that in good time.

I'll never forget the catchy little ditty that 'synthesizer' emitted whenever it worked its transcendental magic. Which reminds me, there's also an accompanying computer game of the movie courtesy of Gremlin Graphics. Assuming the role of He-Man, it's our duty to track down eight chords required to activate the cosmic key and return safely to Eternia. Gremlin took the game design route more commonly associated with Ocean; throwing every feasible genre at the wall and hoping what sticks hangs together nicely. So MOTU is a top-down shooter, a hover-disc-mounted fly 'em up, a first-person targeting affair, and a beat 'em up.

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I am Zuul. I am the Gatekeeper.

Any gamers who lived through the Sonic the Hedgehog era and didn't own a SEGA console will vividly remember their perpetual yearning for an official, authentic port, or failing that, a clone that could match the blue speedball's extreme pace and effortlessly nonchalant attitude. For Amiga owners et al, the closest we ever came to achieving this lofty ideal was prescribed by Gremlin Graphics' Zool; the ninja hailing from the Nth dimension. Note that I didn't for a second allude to the Formicidae family because I wouldn't dream of planting that absurd notion in your minds. He's definitely not an ant of any kind. Bearing any remote similarity to attributes that constitute antness are purely coincidental, so should be relegated to the attic of your brain where you store cobwebs, dead bluebottles and repressed memories of childhood trauma.

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We're only making plans for Bela, we only want what's best for him

To produce a successful, movie-based, licensed video game, you typically have to build from the foundations of respectable source material that potential players will gravitate towards. Yet, on the contrary, what's the likelihood that the complete opposite could be true? How would gamers react to a title inspired by IP dubbed the "worst film ever made" in Harry and Michael Medved's 'Golden Turkey Award' compendium? Gremlin Graphics were the only developers brave enough to find out. Reaching optimistically for the stars, they published 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' the detective-mystery adventure in 1992.

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