Sim City (SNES)

Because real ones are a pain in the arse.

It's possibly an odd choice of game, though games akin to have taken off with huge support and a large following. The idea that you get to control an environment of your choosing, shape it, mold it and breathe life into it before slapping a shopping centre in the middle and screwing up the landscape with an industrial site, is just one of the many things you can do in Sim City on the Super Nintendo.

In a short while you can go from serenity to chaos.

The idea is the same as one would find on the PC and other versions. You're given a blank slate of land, a budget depending upon the difficulty and told to go and start a town. First you'll need power, but which type to you? Pollution heavy coal that doesn't power as many buildings, or more powerful nuclear power that runs the risk of meltdown and making your town uninhabitable for many, many years? Do you build up the industrial centres with houses too to make them cheap and affordable, but also encourage crime? Or do you build them way away from everything and have only the super rich afford it? Which means very few will come in.

"Paved paradise, put up a parking lot..."

There's many choices like this in Sim City and that's before we even scratch the surface to see the maps and reports one can find. Crime, tax, people's voice, fire control, roads and transportation; you can control all the taxes and where they're spent but not enough money will either leave roads and rail crumbling or the police and fire unable to do their jobs. You could raise taxes, but few will stay around for that, or lower them for more people but gaining less from them. It's a tightrope of economic balance and you'll have to do it.

Might as well, it's going to be full of shit anyway.

You're not alone, there's the Doc that assists by telling you the blatantly obvious and also updating you on things like when your town becomes a city, when you get prizes and bonuses, how to combat demand and most importantly, when something is ruining your city like a disaster, such as floods, fires, plane crashes or Bowser in a chariot... Yeah, we kind of departed from reality a little there.

Thanks Doc... Now sod off until I need a prostate exam.

There's no real end to the game, you can build and develop, save, come back, build and develop and go from Town to City to Capital to Metropolis and beyond in ranking. You'll invest in stadiums to keep people happy, airports and seaports for commerce and industry to develop and run further risks of plane and boat crashes. There's always a consequence for each action in this game and part of the fun is finding out what the impact will be to the small and minute changes that you make.

Crime map, aka, how badly your Police are doing.

The problem comes from not knowing straight away what will cause what and the impact is not always immediate within the game. You'll put down extra residences but people might not move in. Either because they're too expensive, or not far enough away from industrial areas, or not close enough to commercial ones. Unless you're careful too, you can waste the proximity bonuses of using Stadiums and such, while it's not abundantly clear how to remove a monster unless you've got a big population AND cash. Lots of little trick and traps to fall foul of.

The public are idiots, should be 100% NO at this point.

But if you want challenge, there's 1000 maps to generate and use as a land-start for your Town and City, each having you use the landscape slightly differently while also there's the challenge modes. Where you get given a city, and it's attacked in some fashion or another. Leading you to save the city while you can, some are a lot easier than others such as the floods (I just carried on anyway) the fires (bulldozed burning buildings and slapped in Fire Departments) while some are a lot harder like the nuclear meltdown one. Thankfully you are told what's in demand regarding Residential, Commercial and Industry, but not specifically what needs to go where to make the most of the opportunities.

Ooh! Pick the Boston Nuclear Meltdown!!!

It also has that quaint Nintendo charm of being lively, upbeat, chirpy and bouncy with the graphics and the music (which you can turn off, the music, not the graphics, that'd be fucking stupid). Everything extra from the PC version has Nintendo's touch upon it, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but there could have been better ways to present some of the information and as such this one isn't really intended for the younger audiences out there. But if you've the time and patience, you could learn to enjoy and even love this game.

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.

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.

C64 Desert Fox

While military simulations have not really been my interest, I thought it'd be prudent to dig up another "classic" from the C64 era. I don't tend to enjoy strategy games for the most part as I consider Chess to be one of the most perfect forms of the strategy system, one on one mental combat with specific rules and situations. Unlike more modern strategy games where it's a random number generator that determines how a single solitary individual can take on and defeat a whole army thanks to high rolls of the dice. Yep, your entire army can be Arnold Schwarzenegger’d out of existence thanks to several 6's rolling up.

Thankfully Desert Fox strictly speaking, isn't a strategy simulation. It has elements of it but most of the combat and victory is down to the player being able to play fairly well (and on Grandmaster, VERY well).

The game is a simulation of the World War 2 tank conflict in the African campaign between the Desert Rats and the Desert Fox. Or more basically, The Allies and the Axis led by Rommel. Interestingly enough, it doesn't involve Hitler in game about WW2 fighting and combat, which is certainly not the route Wolfenstein took.

Brief (and pointless) history lesson aside that could be easily disregarded thanks to any form of actual research, you're tasked with guiding the Allies into capturing key depots and either fighting or avoiding Rommel himself in his tank. Who basically serves as a boss fight and a fairly tough one, too.

The game itself is split into 2 modes, a practice and a campaign. The practice lets you run through short versions of the arcade section ranging from shooting down Stukka planes, combating Tiger tanks, traversing minefields, avoiding canyon ambushes and escorting a convoy against a series of bombers engaged in aerial combat. Most of the game is played through the eyes of the tank itself, giving it a generally first person view for such an old game and added a little extra "you're THERE" factor.

As you take on the events, you'll sustain damage from the Stukkas should you fail to shoot them down, take hits from Tiger tanks running back and forth on the horizon while they approach steadily, take mines to the treads and get hit by ambush attacks. The convoy interestingly is more about trying to get as many trucks through the bombardment by shooting down the red planes and not the green planes in a mode akin to Hyper Sports skeet shooting, two guns with left and right to fire either of them and the targets aim themselves, more a test of reflexes than anything else.

The campaign brings all this together. 5 steadily increasing challenges ranging from 3 locations to a whopping 6 locations that your tank will need to travel to in order to liberate the depots before their timers run out and the Axis win. Lose a single depot and it's game over. You can however send in one aerial support to boost that depot's timer. However... To get to the depot you'll have to travel towards it and once near enough, defeat specific events to progress. Your tank moves a set distance per "movement phase" and the radar can tell you the events leading up to the hopefully useful "Depot" in digitised speech no less. Liberating a depot quickly enough will boost your health and repair your tank while taking your sweet time will leave you with less health recovered. The other key issue in the game is Rommel who will steadily home in on you across the map symbolised by a red swastika sign. His advantage is that he'll keep moving while you're engaged in an event and come sometimes result in you winning an event to find he's there, ominous (and fucking hell it is ominous) music sounds and you're fighting the big man one on one.

He fights exactly like the Tiger tank scenario but takes 8 hits to down rather than 5, and moves like greased lightning with its arse on fire. Though you can still win the campaign without fighting him, but it's much more rewarding to take him on and go toe to toe with the toughest challenge in the game.

There's a lot of challenge within the game and even doing the shortest campaign can be either a breeze or a slaughter fest depending upon how fortunate you with Rommel. Avoiding is advised but who wants to do that when the big mean boss is there and you know you can defeat it? No wonder downfall happens a lot.

Most surprising, beyond the digitised speech, is just how nightmarish the game is when you either fight Rommel, lose the game or lose the convoy round, the music/ambience accompaniment is the virtual stuff of nightmare and the first few times you'll hear it, comes across as rather shocking to the ear. Later it just becomes sheer creepy or the stuff of nightmares.

Graphically the game is simple but effective, a lot of focus has gone into the first person tank moments and there's a lot of simplicity that allows for fairly smooth and fluid gameplay, though the Tiger Tanks switching so quickly back and forth is impossible but there's got to be some challenge in there somewhere, the particularly accurate will be shooting down the shells as they advance in a manner rather similar to Encounter's saucers shooting at the player.

The campaign mode and the game in general fall into the same situation as most arcade games, there's little random element in the game when it comes to the campaigns and the arcade sections. If you've found a way to beat the main game, you've likely found the same method will work every time unless you royally bollocks up some of the events leading to the depots. This is a shame because the game has a lot more potential if it could offer varying challenges (except in one game where Rommel turned up twice... oddly).

It's a recommended game however, though an instruction many for the campaign is SORELY needed as it's a very different set of functions to the events. Once you've gotten past this stumbling block, you've got yourself a very accessible and intriguing little entertainment for a while.