Bomb Jack (C64)

He's Jack, there's bombs... what more do you want?

Time for a fun little quirky game now, Bomb jack on the Commodore 64. One of those arcade conversions from the big all-powerful graphics down to the clunky little home computer. But first and foremost, what exactly is Bomb Jack and does it even have a plot? Probably, shoehorned in somewhere just for the sake of it.

Speed is essential in this level, as all the enemies spawn at once.

You're a superhero, complete with leaping ability and cape and the lovely little talent of being able to float and stutter your descent should you need to with your cape. Your sole task to collect bombs that some thoughtless little shit has left around various tourist-traps and locales. Avoiding enemies and collecting bombs is all there is and once you've cleared the room, that's it and you move onto the next one.

I suppose it's slightly less insulting than telling you how to play.

There's a little more behind this however, once a bomb is collected another will flash. This is not a timed game however, it's merely the one you should get next if you want a bigger bonus. Collecting enough bombs (either flashing or not) will spawn bonus collectibles such as bonus points or the more important P ball that gives you the same effect as Pacman eating a power-pill, all the enemies turn into smiling faces and collecting them nets ever-increasing points in a short amount of time. Or ignore the enemies and just get the remaining bombs to finish the level.

More winning, much dancing.

The levels get increasingly harder, the enemies get faster and home in quicker and that damn bird thing flying about really ramps up the speed after level 10. But the game is pattern based, so if you know the sequence of bonus bombs, you could max out your bonuses and bombs very quickly and in short order have yourself a wealth of extra lives before very long at all.

Those last 2 bombs in the top left are going to be a bitch to get.

Controls for the game are fairly simple, you move from side to side and press fire to jump, holding up while jumping will make you jump a little higher, enough to get from bottom of the screen to the top in one go and tapping fire while falling will stop your descent and let you glide down safely in order to avoid enemies or that damn bird thing. Death is instant from a single collision from enemies and the collision box is a little bigger than your sprite, or so it would seem... A situation I like to call, cheating fucking computer. So don't risk going alongside enemies please.

Odd choice of a tourist trap... They couldn't think of anything better?

The levels become more fiendish as you progress with the start point for monsters often being right beside 2-3 bombs so you'll have to wait until a FULL set of monsters are on the field of play before you can resolve the issue of kicking arse, taking names (bombs actually) and generally winning the day.

Get bombs, avoid enemies, simple pick-up-and-play approach

The music, the lovely little Sid Chip Tune ensemble that it is, plays along quite happily within the game. The same tune for each level, different music for the bonus power up, endings and the starting splash screen which seems to have some odd warbling effect that makes me think this was composed underwater for some reason. Sound effects are your usual squibs and plinks that one might expect, there's little to write home about on this one while you're waiting to go over the top.

Thank god, now I can play something better.

As an arcade game from the early 80s it does fairly well, but it's a short little romp that will come back and see you every now and then but has no real long term lasting appeal, really should have just stayed in the arcade and not worried about a home port when something with more substance could have been used instead.

Ghostbusters (C64)

You too can sing alone, in 3...2..1.."Repetitive Music.... repetitive music"

It's odd, but there's a lot of conflicting views around this particular game, more specifically based around which port of the game you happen to be playing. Some will slate and attack the Spectrum version, others will lambast the NES, some will applaud and love the Megadrive (.......genesis) version while I'm taking a look at the C64 version of Ghostbusters.

At least one of the cars lets you pretend you're in the film. It's shit too.

Let's start off. "GHOSTBUSTERS" and that's the digitised speech coming from the faithful old Commodore 64 (k of ram I'll have you know) and introduces us to the splendours and wonders that are voice synths. Followed by a slightly charming rendition in SID of the original theme tune with bouncy-dot lyric sing-a-long session for those thinking they bought a karaoke set instead of a game. And it might even work at first.

Whoo I caught it, only about 40 or so to go... for fucks sake.

The sad part is that this is the ONLY song in the entire game. On loop. You'll relish the start and end of the game where it's silent. At least, not at first. The novelty of humming along while singing "something strange...... in the hood.... call.... GHOSTBUSTERS!" while trying to recollect the full words and option just to belt out the chorus. While singing dee-duuh repeatedly in time with the music. Ray Parker Jr must be spinning in his grave... Or will be some day.

"He Slimed Me!" Sounds great, gives you a chuckle, you'll be ripping your hair out after the 5th time

The game itself is firmly based around the film (ignoring the library scene) where in the game takes place having bought and set up the company, you then get to decide upon which car you want to buy, which upgrades to install upon it and then set yourself off to playing the actual game. You've your traps to catch ghosts, a vacuum to suck up the ghosts on the street, marshmallow sensor to detect a Marshmallow Man attack, bait to stop him attacking building (which you WILL need and get a bonus few thousand on successful preventions), glasses to make the ghosts easier to see (instead of behind the backgrounds) and if you've the cash, a portable containment field to reset traps (you'll only need 1 and never need replace it).

Part of the driving experience, racing down the road and sucking up ghosts.

You start with 3 men and will have to drive to HQ if 2 of them get taken out (read: Slimed, with voice synth for it too) and have to visit the HQ if you fill all your traps (or not if you have the VERY expensive portable containment unit). Gameplay is broken down into 3 parts. Firstly, you have the map, which shows your logo, part of New York City including Zuul, the key master, the gatekeeper and 4 wandering ghosts. During the game these ghosts will make a straight line for Zuul and if they get there, they'll boost the PKE reading, which is your in-game timer. The higher it goes, the faster they move. They can be stopped by you running you logo into them but the further you go, the longer your next car drive will be as you're planning your next car trip.

Replenished. Notice the lack of Winston in the game. Racist developers.

This however, does not get the cash in. The money (to repay the bank loan at the start of 10,000) comes from visiting buildings and removing Slimers. A bit like in the film where you'll have to wait for a call, try to get there in time before it fucks off and/or slimes one of your people. Each Slimer will net you a few hundred dollars and then you're back to hunting more Slimers, stopping ghosts and baiting Marshmallow Men.

Me vs a big fat man. It's bed time all over again.

The game quickly devolves into getting to a red flashing house, dropping the trap, running a man to the left, running one to the right, launching the streams (don't cross them) and trapping the ghost (hopefully) in a long series of mini-games that don't really deviate aside from the backgrounds shown at each building. The map section becomes repetitive until the Marshmallow Man shows up and usually will catch you off guard unless you're fast enough to hit the bait button and net your few bonus thousand dollars, or it causes a building to break apart and you get stiffed with the fine for it.

Mwahahahahahaaa... Now you don't have to play this game. Incidentally, "spoilers"

Once the game picks up speed with the ghosts moving faster, more calls being registered and quickly enough, it becomes much more intense and worth playing, just a shame it has to start so slowly and leave you waiting quite a while for something to actually happen. The lack of difference between Slimers makes you feel like you're not really removing an issue but the spectral form of catch and release, in essence cheating people out of their hard earned cash as you become the slackers of the ghost catching community.

So... fucking... boring... Crossing the streams kills both men, let's do that!

IF (and it's not always going to happen) you raise enough cash by the endgame, you've seen the various Marshmallow Man attacks and been summoned to Zuul after the key master and gatekeeper have met (and they serve no real purpose on the map aside from just BEING THERE to show a sort of urgency that leaves you guessing "no really, what's the fucking point?"), you get to attempt to get into Zuul past the badly dancing Marshmallow Man. You've 3 lives and you need 2 to get into the building by running through his legs. Once 2 are in, you've done it. You kill Zuul, destroy the gateway and wreck up a building in the process while the game gives you more cash to play over with better equipment and cars. (Since you can't buy car #4 at the start)

It's nice at least to see a huge sprite like this adorned with all the items you ACTUALLY bought.

But would you want to? Not likely. You might save the state or write down the code and MAYBE give the purple car a go to see it race through the streets quickly, which then leaves you waiting even longer periods of time between ghost calls, a curse as much as it is a blessing. Beat it once and you'll likely never look back again.

Monopoly C64

The board shown, the players ready, the boredom can begin!

 

It's that family gathering time, when you've got several people around, you've got full stomachs and there nothing on TV that nobody really wants to watch. Then someone, with usually the best intentions, thinks of playing the most dreaded of social activities, the board game. So now you're stuck reading the rules for the first half an hour, those too drunk to play properly will be messing about and trying to shove the playing dice up their nose and everyone else keeps looking at their watches and trying to make an excuse to go home.

And one prick always takes it far too seriously and always somehow has a dictionary on hand to spell all those 2 letter words while another person plays ONLY by their deviant rules. So to celebrate this bullshittery, I'm reviewing Monopoly on C64. You may hate me later, or now, I don't really care either way.

At least the names are accurate for the players.

There's a distinct advantage to having a board game on a computer. You never lose the Old Kent Road down the back of the couch, or find the missing hotel with your bare feet sometime later that week causing you to curse the day that someone decided that injection plastic moulding was a good idea.

You've your usual 6 player maximum in this game, you can also start the short game where several properties are divvied up and given to players while you could also go in for the long haul. Dice rolling takes place first of all to decide who goes first, then the game begins properly with the order ordained by chance itself and it's then a race to buy up stuff and make other people give you their hard(maybe) won money when they accidentally roll a random outcome that lands on your stuff.

Auctions usually are high octane, cash vs thrill, places of excitement. Nobody thought to include that in this game.

Each player starts with £1500 and can move around the board after rolling two die, upon landing on a property they can purchase it if there's enough funds in their account (if they want to) or they can witness it going up for auction with the other players (and themselves included) where the bidding can become really stupid or low level.

If money becomes a problem, they can mortgage their properties and gain cash back from that but they lose the chance to gain rent from their possessions until they pay 110% of the price again. If a player cannot pay off a debt, they go bankrupt and are out of the game.

While moving around the board, players can land on Chance and Community Chest where various events will take place that can either help or hinder the player, or do nothing at all such as the "Pay for repairs on houses" if they own no houses at that point.

Nobody likes Dave enough to give him a nickname.

That's the general gist of the game, the C64 version managed to replicate this rather well. The board is clearly visible at all times, characters and colours of all things can be changed to suit the players however they deem necessary. So if they don't want a black car, they can change it to anything at all, even the colour of the board to just REALLY confuse things. The screen also shows where they are on a zoomed in view of the game while also showing the next 3 spaces so they can see the lay of the land in a closer point. Credit and Assets are easily viewable at all times but pressing the corresponding key to view them, as is for showing who owns what. Collection of rent is optional, as long as someone presses R to collect rent otherwise it's ignored though the AI NEVER forgets to.

It's when the game gets into things like trading and such that the pace of it all slows to a crawl. The menu is slow already on the C64 and moving around and checking things can be time consuming for the human players while AI can make the same offer EVERY SINGLE TURN until they get what they want to have. Usually they'll never settle if someone's going to gain a full set unless you pay roughly double the value so there's little way to trade things or play favourites.

Whoo, people have bought things. Hooray. Why am I putting myself through this?

Likewise the game grinds to a halt when it comes down to avoid bankruptcy and the players are usually too fed up to carry on playing

The game does have snippets of sound, dice rolling makes a noise not too dissimilar to a dice rolling. Train stations sound a little like a steam engine making some noise, being sent to jail (directly to jail, do not pass go) gives you a wonderfully wailing siren noise but no due process for being told of the crime committed and so on. Which doesn't help the game at all, being that it's rather slow in the first place, when it gets bogged down with extra things and issues that aren't helping the flow or pace of the game, it's easy to get fed up with the system and decide that once one person hits the idea of bankruptcy, that it's time to switch off and play something else.

Bitchtit bought a station, I can barely contain myself.

Something fun. Because this is clearly not it. The real shame is that I cannot pick the board up and smack someone over the head with it, and the C64 keyboard combo runs the risk of me actually breaking the machine. So that's not an option.

Board games on computers are usually not a good idea unless it's developed JUST for the computer in the first place or is a play-by-post game. 

The button to switch the whole thing, will never be far from your mind.

Law of the West

1985 game about 1885 life

Have you ever wanted to be a Sheriff in the old West? Ever wanted to walk around like you're John Wayne and be Duke to all that you survey? Did you ever consider that maybe it's a risky business and you're more likely to get shot than make it to the end of the day without looking either like a dead man or a coward? Do I know what I'm talking about any more? That last one I might be able to answer, as I've no real clue, but I have played Law of The West on the C64 and this half-week review is on that.

I suppose I have the lack of processing power and the imagination of armies of bedroom-programmers to thank for the huge variety of games we used to get back in the days of the C64 and ZX81 et al. So many different games based on different circumstances and back in an age where making something similar wasn't really the way to go but making something unique was the forerunner to innovation and inspiration.... Gone off on one again haven't I.

Is he telling the truth? Sod it, just shoot the bastard anyway.

 

LoTW is effectively a "Day in the Life Of" game where you play as Sheriff NoHead (or left hand side as far as we can see) where you'll have to contend with doing the rounds in the town. A town that has its own doctor, deputy, saloon, bank, railway and other usual stock-locations one would expect to find in any half-decent "Living in the West" film/story. I always get reminded of Blazing Saddles at this point. You'll have to chat with various people, select your options from the trees of conversations and attempt to ascertain what might be happening around the town and how best to deal with each situation. This leads to a somewhat more complicated situation than one might initially realise.

That doctor, the one you told to go fuck himself and drink like a fish, well if you get shot he won't be able to patch you back up. Or balls up the scenario so badly that it kills you anyway. Or if you piss him off about how shitty his job is or how bad he is, he won't help you as you've been a right prick to him. (What was that about "do no harm"...).

 

Bottom option! You yellow-bellied coward.

Likewise various people are inherently good and bad in the game, though your choice of options can sway them from being good to being a dick, or being bad to leaving you alone or giving up entirely their weapons. Some will reveal things like a certain location is going to be held up by robbers and you'll be heading that way shortly after to stop them in a quick-draw shoot out. Other people will just get pissed off and try to shoot you, though you could just shoot everyone as soon as they arrive, including the little kid. There's no blood (unless YOU get shot) and if you kill the person as they arrive, you'll skip onto the next event.

After 12 events have happened, you'll be rated and assessed on how well you did in the day and given a score. Ratings on how much of a lawman you are, how romantic you were with the ladies, how many bad people you killed, good people you killed and so on. For each encounter there are 3 choices to be made from 4 options. Sometimes it's easy to see where things are going, other times it’s not. One particular encounter seems to be confrontational but can turn out to be that the fast-drawing mexican in front of you is NOT there to challenge you but is actually a hero of the people if you play the cards right. Pre-conceived notions are NOT going to help you here (and the use of the minor key in the music when some of the characters come in is not helpful in trying to gauge good/bad)

 

...In a body bag, cattle rustlin' jezebel.

The controls are a little sluggish for drawing the gun and shooting, the animations a little stiff though the detail on the characters and the sheriff are impressive for the C64. The melodies seem to be inspired very strongly by your usual cowboy films and shows and everything about it could be a slice-of-life game were it not so short. Only getting one day is a little brief but you can always replay it and see what options will get you where. Maybe you can piss the sassy lady off and have to shoot her? Or see if you can talk your deputy down from being a dick? Or perhaps shoot that prick kid in the face for not telling you the secret he has.

But be careful, the game does try to catch you out at times. Sometimes the bank gets robbed ANYWAY if you just happen to be there at the right time when the scenes change. Sometimes someone will walk away and at the last moment draw their weapon and try to shoot you and in other places, someone who comes across as a good person can be a real monster depending on the statements you make and the choices you take.

  

Option #5 Shove it up your arse and pull the trigger, bitch.

As a result, there's a lot of replay value and there has to be for a game that can be over in relatively quick time, if you take the time and planning to explore all of the possibilities. Otherwise it's a nice functional game that could have been made better by having the time expanded out and the game take place over the course of a week, maybe seeing how that hoe-down went with the teacher, or if you can go the whole week without murdering your deputy for being a smart-arse shitbag bastard. Otherwise it's a shot and brief excursion through what could have been a very promising and very complex game.