Konami 88

It's Konami, in 1988... No really, it is.

Following from the success of Track and Field and Hyper Olympics, Konami came back in 1988 with the originally named, Konami '88. 88 minutes of pure Konami goodness... No it's just Track and Field with a graphical overhaul and was released in 1988. Having said that however, it's quite the overhaul and makes for an entertaining game.

So many toys!

For those in the know, you can skip this paragraph. For those that don't, Konami '88 hails from the world of "Wiggle Joystick" controls. You wiggle the joystick (or tap buttons) to build up speed and then hit an action button to determine a function whether it's the angle of jump in Long Jump, or the angle of throw in Javelin, or passing on the baton in the relay. As such, there's a multitude of various events including 100m Dash, Long Jump, 400m Relay, Skeet Shooting, Archery, 110m Hurdles, Javelin, and a replay of the 400m Relay as a final event of the round.

I prefer the original Track N Field

Each round in Konami '88 has a qualifying quota, in that you must get at least that time/distance/score in order to progress to the next event. Getting further/faster/higher gives you more points in case you're in competition with other players or playing for the big score. As such, the game gets harder if you beat every round by starting over and raising the bar (sometimes literally) and having the player require a higher amount of points, faster time, long distance etc.

Celebrate, with your multi-ethinic rainbow of groupies!

Timing is key in Konami '88, whether it's hitting the takeoff and getting the angle for the jumps, or the throws, or the hand over in the relay, or even the loosening off a bow from the string, timing is essential to getting a good score but even consistent timing will not guarantee things. There's more than a few niggling issues with the game.

Similar events to earlier games, just boosted up the graphics a bit

In particular, the run up and take off for the high jump isn't clear because of the game's insistence on using sprite transformation in a pseudo-3D manner, which results in over complicating issues. Archery is a bitch if only because your very first shot will be a range finder as you'll have no idea when to time the shot based upon the almost utter random cross wind and while the game also forces that 45 degrees is optimum for most events, around 25 degrees is your best shot in Archery for Konami '88. The worst is that the controls for the Skeet Shooting do not match up with any other control in the game and the buttons will force you to quickly forget and form new muscle memories just for this one event.

Regardless, it's wiggle joystick and hit buttons.

The game is certainly a huge improvement over Track 'n' Field and Hyper Sports though, the game is a lot more friendly to users, it has clearer objectives and uses of controls (except in Skeet Shooting...) and while it showcases a higher bit level of graphics, makes use of the potential with clear, colourful and clever use of sprites. What it falls short on, is that the game doesn't really convey distance and speed all that well with the rate of change in sizes during the additional scenes. It's a minor point really but the game does stand well as a competitive game assuming both players have a rudimentary grasp of control and timing.

It's like Darts, you're not really an athlete.

Sounds within Konami '88 are quite crisp, while the synthesised voices are a little easier to understand compared to the original and are a markedly nice nod back to the original/source of the series. The music however is few and far between and little of value to really comment upon, it serves its purpose and moves onto the next event with little to no issue or memorable composition while actual events are silent save for the effects and to be honest, it needs to be in order to prevent players reacting to the rhythm of the music rather than the pace of the game.

....oops

With all said and done on Konami '88, I find that it's a worthy game for a play around but there's something missing in its delivery that the original has, whether the pace or the overall presentation is up for debate but on its own it is an OK game but nothing truly wonderful that sets it aside within its own series.

Zoo Keeper - Arcade

You're a keeper, in a zoo. Speaks for itself really.

The further back in history I with regards to video games, the more obscure, random and quite frankly, uniquely interesting I seem to find the games to be. 1982, a fantastic year even if I do say so myself, brought about such games as Q*Bert, Lasso, Dig-Dug and of course, Zoo Keeper.

It has a nice demo to let you know the scoring system.

The story, if one wants to call it that, is you playing the role of the eponymous Zoo Keeper and are tasked with keeping a large assortment of various animals caged up within pens and if any of those were to escape, to capture them and return them to the pen before they escape again. At the same time, you'll be running around the edge building the walls up to try and keep the creatures penned in so when the timer runs out, you get points for each animal within the boundaries of the pen. Whether those boundaries are still there or not don't matter.

Different animals will cause different levels of damage

Extra levels appear that deviate from the norm with platforming sections that require the player to jump from one to another, while avoiding a mischievous monkey that lobs coconuts at you in order to save a damsel-in-distress before a few more cage levels, then another platform section and finally the last level, which pits you against a stampede of animals all hell-bent on killing you and you get to hop over them to get another life.

Building up your layers will help keep the animals secured.

Zoo Keeper manages to find that happy medium of being a platform puzzler. The area in which most of your play takes place, will have you running around the outer walls of a pen, jumping over and around animals while hoping for the net to put into the game space so that you can capture the animals. While running, the walls underneath your keeper are built up, layer by layer, in order to try and stop the animals from escaping. Knowing where and when to run next forms the puzzle while the leaping (and gravity defying wall running) forms the platforming aspects. This is amplified by the bonus levels where in it's all about platforming and timing.

Whoo!! Points!!

The sounds for Zoo Keeper are a little grating at times but hardly the fault of the game and designers given the hardware available and every animal has distinct noises by which to identify. The music plays fairly well and almost recognisably well when the more well-known pieces are played. Walls being laid have a distinctly solid and synthetic sound to them and dying has a suitably foreboding presence added to it with the audio ambience.

A little big of variation between levels to save the "princess"

Graphically, it's rather simple. Black background but nice bright images and sprites for our heroic Zoo Keeper, though the animals take a little bit of artistic licensing to be able to recognise them, but otherwise the game plays smoothly and for the most part, everything looks like it's intended image target.

You can also die trying and meet a game over...

As a game, it's fast, fluid, a little quirky and brought down by slightly awkward controls when it comes to running around the pen and changing from running on the bottom to the sides as the overarching control guidance may change mid-jump, depending upon where and when the player jumps to avoid the animals. As such, a few lives can be expected to be lost to misinterpreting the controls and not being entirely sure as to why it happened.

Star Wars - Arcade (1980s)

Vector delights ahoy!

Vector graphics. Not often I get to look back far enough and see a game that utilised this kind of display. Battle Zone, Gravitar, Asteroids and Lunar Lander spring to mind as games that used Vector graphics while others used Raster Display to showcase their games. It had its time and place but now seems demoted to quick and simple images such as clipart. But I'm digressing as usual.

Riding upon the huge success that is the Star Wars franchise, Atari made a game that served little significance than to be able to sit down in a mock-up of a cock pit with a flight stick and allow players to BE Luke Skywalker as he assaults the Death Star from the eponymous film.

Large cockpit and flight controls make it a fun experience

Star Wars takes 3 key approaches to the battle between the player and the Death Star. The first being an outer-space dogfight session against various Tie-Fighters, though while not giving the player full control of the direction of the X-Wing, the ship that they pilot, they do get to control the approach and direction of the firepower of the craft in order to try to take down as many ships as they can before they're whisked away to battle the Death Star in one of two possible ways (Depending on if it's your first level or higher).

Now you too can take part in the trench run!

The second key session is a run along the surface of the Death Star and facing off against multiple turrets and towers that will pump out fireballs (not lasers, you can shoot these at least) in an effort to force your shields down and get you killed. There's some level of control to your direction in that in aiming to the left and right will guide your X-Wing in those directions. Which comes in handy when you're trying to avoid sparkly spiky balls of "We're coming for you, still coming for you, yes we're bending our direction to locate you" homing capacity.

Just imagine it's Jar Jar Binks and you'll bullseye it every time.

The final stint in the Star Wars game is the famous Trench Run along the circumference of the Death Star itself. Personified in this case by an impressively built looking trench that is peppered with turrets and shielding while you're barrelling down the alleyway, in later levels you'll have to navigate around and over obstacles such as pillars and blockades while shooting turrets and fireballs before the final showdown between yourself and the exhaust port, one direct hit will kill the Death Star (as killed as a constructed space station qualifies for) and allow you to escape for a fat point boost and then to play it all over but with a significant difficulty spike.... And some vector explosions.

Later rounds add more and more challenges

For such a game, Star Wars has managed to be able to reproduce digitised speech of key phrases from the film ranging from Alec Guinness with "Use the Force, Luke" to Mark Hamill's "I've lost R2!" (usually before biting the big one) and up to and including James Earl Jones with "The Force is Strong with this one", it adds to the experience though little else really comes from the films, but at least they made a significant effort with the speech to lend it that little extra touch of authenticity and give a little extra in allowing players to relive that moment in the film.

Next, same again but harder!

Overall, it'll ramp up the difficulty quickly if it wants to and you may find that while level 1 is a cakewalk, level 2 will be the wakeup call that your reflexes need and by level 4 you'll be frantically shooting down literal streams of fireballs from all walks of opponents to the point that you'll swear that the fireballs are launching fireballs at you. It's bright and animates well given the machine and vectors and manages to create enough of an atmosphere to leave players thinking they're in the film (for 1983, bear that in mind here).