Reviews

I don't like Knight Lore. Yes, it's very highly regarded by many people, yes it helped both to kick start and also define the isometric 3D arcade adventure genre. And yes, it's graphically very good, but I don't think it's much fun to play. And a game without fun is pointless.

Seeing Knight Lore for the first time was a revelation. As I've said before, I think that setting eyes on Knight Lore for the first time must have been like seeing King Kong on the screen back in the 1930s when the film was released. It (Knight Lore) was the single most staggering thing I've ever seen on a Spectrum. Of course it's been (far) bettered as a game since, and many other Spectrum games and especially demo programs are much more impressive now, but it was Knight Lore that staggered me more than any other game on any machine before or since. Nothing can take that away from Knight Lore.

But where's the game play? Alright, so it's not a terrible game, but it's not much good, and there are a huge number of more playable games on the Spectrum, so why should I want to play this one? It's an extremely impressive game graphically, and is devoid of bugs or glitches, which is all well and good, but it doesn't exactly grab me and scream to be played. Some of the screens are empty (how pointless is that), the puzzles are largely too simplistic to be fun, frequently you change form at the wrong time, which results in you getting killed as you are rooted to the spot when you change from a human to a werewolf and vice versa, and if you use the keyboard then it has that horrible rotate-and-move-forward control method, as opposed to the move-in-the-direction-of-the-key-that-you-pressed method which is far superior.

Alright, so I'm maybe in the minority here (I do seem to be, but I suspect that many people only rate the game so highly for nostalgia - how many of them do load it up and play if for fun?), but I don't see the fun in this game. When it was released it was OK due to being a newish game-type, but it was quickly overshadowed by vastly superior games like Fairlight and Head Over Heels. Just my opinion, but an honest one.

I really like this game, it's a fun, easy to play, variable platform game, with minor arcade adventure elements - nothing too taxing, such as you can use a spade to dig, a gun to shoot enemies (until it runs out of bullets), a detonator box to blow up a bomb, etc. And unlike in most platform games, when you kill an enemy they stay dead, even if you leave the screen and come back again!

Some of the graphics are very nice, although sometimes a bit flickery, and there's lots of imagination throughout, and the continuous in-game music is the theme from Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Flaws? The screen layout is sometimes illogical, although this does add to teh surreal feeling of the game, and it's a very hard game to play with just the standard lives, although emulator users or people with Multiface or disc snapshot devices won't complain! That and the fact that there was never a sequel are the only flaws I can find in the game. If the ratings here were out of ten, I'd give it nine, as the slightly steep difficulty, and the slight flickering of the sprites stop it from being a 10/10 game for me, but since the ratings are out of 5 it will have to be a 4. Consider it a 4.5 .

Another thing to note is that each of the screens is suppose to be a different city or town in Great Britain, so presumably the one with the green sea monster is Loch Ness, the pool table screen is Poole, etc.

All in all, a great platform adventure game, that's sadly under-rated by most people. Recommended if you like this sort of game.

Skooldaze is fantastic. I can still remember going back to my mate's house in 1984 (or whenever the game was released) after messing about in the snow* at the park, and seeing Skooldaze for the first time. It was amazing. It was one of those few times where, like with Knightlore or Doom (PC) you stare at the screen in disbelief. Here was something you hadn't thought possible, in this case a large number of independent people, moving about a realistic game world in the shape of a school, and doing all the things that traditionally went on in schools, such as kids rushing about, teachers shouting, both pupils and teachers writing on blackboards, kids being late for lessons and the teachers dishing out lines, etc. The pupils also used catapults, which was a bit anachronistic in 1984, and totally ancient now (it's all knives and guns now, in our American-ised schools). And wow!, the game was so atmospheric.


* Snow - white, wet, freezing stuff that used to fall from the sky around here in winter. Now it's just rain and the occasional sleet. Thanks global warming...


And playing Skooldaze was even better than watching it! It played like a dream, with you able to catapult teachers (and if you were quick you could scarper, and so some other poor kid would get the blame, and the lines), punch your mates, write on blackboards, skive of lessons (or turn up for them, but thankfully you don't have to do any actual work when there), and the controls are very easy to use.

And when you tire of messing around causing havoc, there is the actual game objective to do. Either shoot or touch each shield that hangs on the walls, until they all flash, and then catapult the teachers who will each say a letter. These letters, chosen randomly at the start of each game, together will form the combination of the safe that you have to open to get your school report, so you can alter it before your parents see it. Only... The history teacher is so old that he cannot be trusted to remember his letter, so it's been hypnotically implanted into his mind - to get him to say his letter you have to write his date of birth on a blackboard for him to see. And to find his DOB you have to listen to the questions and answer in his classes.

Believe me, it's far, far more fun than it might sound. And speaking of sound, the ingame sound is sparse but effective, the graphics are very nice indeed, and the controls are well laid out and easy to use. You can even rename the skoolkids and the teachers (a real stroke of genius, as it made all of us schoolkids (at the time) relate the game to real life).

Minus points? Well, it's too easy when you get used to it (although still enormous fun), there's no pause or abort function, and, well that's it really. Oh, you can't delete something on a blackboard, you can't wipe it off (the teachers do, when they start a lesson, though). Those minus points don't lessen the game by anything much, though, so it's a 5/5 game for me!

Dynamite Dan 2 is a 48K Spectrum game, released in 1986 by Mirrorsoft. And to me, Dynamite Dan 2 is definitely the best 2D platform game on any system ever. Forget Manic Miner, Super Mario Bros, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, Earthworm Jim, Sonic the Hedgehog, Chuckie Egg, etc, I've played them all, and excellent as they all are (well, apart from the Sonic games, they just never appealed to me), they can't hold the proverbial candle to Dynamite Dan 2.

Dynamite Dan 2 excels in many ways. To begin with, it has some of the best graphics and music on the (48k) Spectrum. Not just the quality, but also the variety. It's amazing how much is packed into one game.

Still, great graphics and sound mean absolutely nothing in a bad game, and fortunately the game is very, very good indeed. We're talking the sort of quality you mostly only dream about. You (as Dan, a sort of secret agent) have to infiltrate the islands of the dastardly villain Dr Blitzen, and blow up his record factory (he's been corrupting the youth of the world with subliminal messages in his records, the cad). To do this, you have to visit all eight islands one after another, and find a record then play it on a juke box, before leaving for the next island in a Zeppelin.

The game is very large indeed for an 8-bit platform game, with each of the eight islands being made up of twenty-four screens, making a total of a hundred and ninety-two screens in total. Each island has a different layout (no repetition here, thank you very much), and each island also has it's own "them" (such as woodland, Chinese culture, Aztec, etc) complete with items and enemies unique to each island.

Yes, items. As you go through each item you find and pick up (by touching them) different items. A few items are common to all islands, such as bombs (to blow up locked door), goggles (to stop Dr Blitzen from hypnotizing you), and cans of fuel (you need a can of fuel to start the Zeppelin to get to the next island). Most items are unique to one island, and perform special tasks such as allowing you to use hidden passages, killing all onscreen enemies, walking on water (otherwise Dan drowns on contact with water, as he can't swim!), become invisible for a time, and so on. I won't list them here, as part of the fun is discovering them and their use.

Oh, and the location of all items are randomized at the beginning of each game! A feature that really adds to the replayability of this truly classic game.

And as for the enemies, well they are unique to each island too, at least so far as their looks go, but their behaviour is common across all islands. All enemies sap your strength on contact, and some enemies also steal an object off you, if you are carrying an object that's the same colour as they are. Especially bad news if you're carrying only one jerrycan full of fuel as you make your way back to the Zeppelin ready to leave for the next island, and you see a magenta coloured enemy approach you - quick, run!

There are some other variations in enemy movements too, such as the way the white enemies always walk, the purple ones fly, and also move faster if they rebound off something, the red ones fly in a butterfly-style way, etc.

Oh, and that rascally Dr Blitzen appears occasionally, and tries to zap you with his hypnotism ray - avoid him as much as you can, but if you have a pair of goggles then he can't hypnotize you (if he does, then Dan loses control for a few moments and walks forward - very bad indeed if he's facing a deadly drop into water, for example).

There are more nice touches too, such as the way each of the eight records plays a different classical tune when used in a jukebox, or the way you can hide behind some scenery (and if you do then the enemies just go past you without hurting you, as they can't find you).


So is the game perfect? Sadly not. Like everything else in life, it has it's flaws. Dynamite Dan 2 has three flaws that I can think of:

1. There's no end sequence - due to memory constraints or lack of time before release, there's no successful ending to the game - after you complete the game then you just return to the title screen. This is a real pity, although since the game is so long and so hard most people won't get far enough to discover this anyway. Still, a simple message of congratulations would have been nice.

2. The game keeps track of a high score, but badly. By which I mean, the high score is displayed when the game is played, but then you're usually too occupied to look at the high score display (or your own score, for that matter), and when you die the game immediately goes back to the title page, with no message about you having achieved a high score, no displaying the high score you to read it, nothing.

3. The game doesn't have a "lives" system, it has one health bar, and you replenish your health by eating food which is found all over the island, and of course if your health falls to zero then it's game over. This is great, and much better than a lives system, except for one "feature"; when you lose most of your health, your jumping height is suddenly diminished. This can make it impossible to get to any food, meaning that it's game over. I really could have done without this design decision...

Apart from those three problems though, all of which are minor (you play this game for the immense fun it gives you, not for the satisfaction of seeing the ending, I don't think that anyone would really care about the score in this game, as it's about exploring and having fun, and it's rare (though annoying) that you'll get a low enough amount of health that you can't jump high but are still alive) the game really is superb. No exaggeration. It not only does everything I've described in this review (and all on a 48K Spectrum!!!), but it does it fantastically well, moving at just the right speed to be fun, with no slowdown, no graphics tearing, no bugs, no gameplay hitches at all.

And all with some of the best graphics and sound on the Spectrum.

Best. 2D. Platform. Game. Ever.

And it's now free for non-commercial use for anyone. Just go to:

worldofspectrum.org

and download it (and an emulator, if you don't have a real Spectrum), and play this example of what a first class programmer/artist/musician can achieve on our humble friend the Speccy.