Spectrum Computing

Hades Nebula [Nexus Productions, 1987]

If you get past the terrible first impact and you manage to learn how to avoid the swarms of bullets shot at you since the very start, then you have a pretty decent, and challenging, vertical shoot'em up.



Great loading screen and very nice music too.

Guerrilla War, by Imagine.



A mediocre conversion of a cool arcade game in the Commando/Ikari Warriors style.

Anyway, not a bad game to play on the Spectrum. One of the few Imagine games I hadn't known so far.

Completed Kryssy the other week.



It's the first in a series that culminates in 'Sliders' (though this one doesn't have an English translation). The rough edges show in comparison, but it's still a charming little game. I managed to solve some of the puzzles by accident, and didn't really understand why (the one with the magic exit door).

More Tea Vicar!

One of my favourites from Jonathan, but probably his anti-fave because it's the least innovative. Very sexy graphics and music and, apart from the last level (128K and 48K), excellent level design.

Am I the only one that (silently) crowbars the words "more tea vicar? w-w-w-ould y-y-you like some more tea vicar?" to the music?

If it had an inlay it'd say "Excellent workout for the pollicis muscles!"

R-Tape wrote: ↑Sat Sep 21, 2019 8:25 pm Am I the only one that (silently) crowbars the words "more tea vicar? w-w-w-ould y-y-you like some more tea vicar?" to the music?

I can only think of Iron Maiden’s joke song.

Ast A. Moore wrote: ↑Sat Sep 21, 2019 9:50 pm I can only think of Iron Maiden’s joke song.

I'm not familiar with it. Do you mean this?

Tsk, very unprofessional. Even when he was too drunk to see, at least Mark E Smith turned up and sang to the punters*.

*granted, he may have thrashed about the stage and vomited instead, but he tried.

R-Tape wrote: ↑Sat Sep 21, 2019 10:20 pm

Ast A. Moore wrote: ↑Sat Sep 21, 2019 9:50 pm I can only think of Iron Maiden’s joke song.

I'm not familiar with it. Do you mean this?

Heh. No, I mean this. (WARNING: A lot of silliness ensues.)

Krunel.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=30037

It's a fairly gentle hopper game, with brilliant AY that rumbles the game along nicely. It becomes hypnotic quite quickly, but sooner or later you lose it. Happens around level 11 for me.

It's nice to have a choice of icons to play with, but many of the them are naff or indistinct and don't fit the mood of the game. Robots for me every time.

The Running Man.



I didn't plan on playing it for long, in fact it was only for a bit of research for Woot. It was a piece of P?s?—I completed it in about 10 minutes. The stalkers just walked back and forth, and barely attacked. I didn't see any dogs to boot in the head. I was playing the original release as far as I can tell, and didn't use any POKEs. Is it meant to be like that?

When I played this BITD I remember quite liking it. I had a genuine sense of nervousness wondering when the stalker was going to appear. I certainly couldn't complete it.

There's a nice bit of digitised speech and an intro sequence. If it was a Joffa game, the horsey clip-clops when you run would be a quirky humorous touch, but it's not, and they're a bit naff. Not the worst game in the world, but it could have been a lot better.

Just fired it up. The dogs were there. Never was a big fan of the game, to put it mildly. The intro is very nice, and the graphics are sort of okay-ish (aside from the main character). I like the moving spotlights on the top of the screen to remind you this is a game show. Other than that, I can’t find anything else to like about it. I kept falling through the gaps and quit playing a couple of minutes into the game.

It's that time of year, and it came to mind, so I loaded up Kweepa's Advent Calendar.



I'm still not sure what everything is. Besides the obvious, I can see the Christmas zen master, Saturn and several amorphous blobs.

Snodgits by Creative Sparks.



An isometric adventure that seems cool, big graphics. You're Benton, the butler in a mansion when things dissapear. Detective & mistery-novel style.

Now I'm trying to lookk for a dissapearing teapot through the mansion, but an annoying monster is always impeding my way.

[mention]pavero[/mention] , this game needs a map!

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Thu Dec 12, 2019 7:08 am Snodgits by Creative Sparks.


@pavero , this game needs a map!

Yep, but I still waiting for RZX firstly.

Cowboy Kidz by Byte back.



An interesting find. Similar to Desperado/Gunsmoke, worse graphics but a cool feature: You always ride around a running train while baddies try to shoot you. Sometimes the train can be either a 'shield' or a problem. I like it!

I've started to play The House on the Tor, a 1990's text adventure by Zenobi Software.
It's pretty playable, with no Sudden Death Syndrome, in fact, with no death at all until now.
It's a mystery concerning a house that your uncle left you. No elfs nor trolls.

Backpackers Guide to the Universe by Fantasy Software.



If you love exploring, this is your game. The third in a series (The Pyramid, Doomsday Castle, BGTTU) starring Ziggy.

What did Bob Pape do after the miraculous R-Type conversion? Another horizontal space shoot'em up conversion of a Irem coin-op: Dragon Breed [Activision, 1990]. Not spectacular as R-Type but still a high level effort. Damn hard though.

As far as I remember, there was a combo in The Running Man to turn yourself into a dog. But I've never seen it in walkthroughs. Am I mistaken?

ST. DRAGON [Storm, 1990]
As in Dragon Breed, released the same year, you control a sort of dragon which can use its tail as a shield or as a lethal weapon, while shooting at myriads of nasties in a horizontally scrolling enviroment. It was a Crash Smash. Pretty tough too.

Hammerfist [Activision, 1990]
Never understood back in the day how this peculiar sci fi game works, but now that I know, looks like I can't stop playing it (played it for hours last night). After all, it was a Crash Smash (95%), a Sinclair User Classic (92%) and a TGM Star Player too (92%).

Robocop 2 [Ocean Software, 1990]

Simply too hard. You even have to make the old heap of rusty iron jump from platform to platform.
Well done, but a bit overrated: Crash Smash (93%), Sinclair User Classic (91%) and Your Sinclair Megagame (93%).

WIWC wrote: ↑Wed Jan 15, 2020 8:16 pm ST. DRAGON [Storm, 1990]

Impressive loading screen.

WIWC wrote: ↑Fri Jan 17, 2020 11:31 pm Robocop 2 [Ocean Software, 1990]

Simply too hard. You even have to make the old heap of rusty iron jump from platform to platform.
Well done, but a bit overrated: Crash Smash (93%), Sinclair User Classic (91%) and Your Sinclair Megagame (93%).

I don't know why they had to turn the sequel into a crappy platform game.

Even if they'd just re-hashed the original with some new levels, baddies and graphics it would have turned out a much better game.

Morkin wrote: ↑Sun Jan 19, 2020 10:51 am I don't know why they had to turn the sequel into a crappy platform game.

I think it’s pretty good. Certainly impressive both technically and graphically.

Robocop 2 doesn't even give you the chance of mindless destruction because some of the baddies must simply be arrested by touching them, and if you shoot them, your energy is drained, so you must constantly be careful. A pain in the iron bottom.