Zapped to the Past podcast (C64)

[Unofficial Who]

I've been dragging my feet a bit this week partly because the games I've played before aren't my thing and some of the games I was looking forward to aren't my thing.

 

If I had played The Halls of the Things on release in 1984 without having played other games like it I would have loved it.

 

 

I've tried this back in the 90's on Spectrum emulators and I just can't get on with it. Too many keys. Too fast. And for me I'd already played hours of Gateway to Apshai (otherwise known as Rogue for filthy casuals.)

 

 

I really tried but I couldn't escape the feeling I'd played this before and better, completely unfair as I hadn't played it in the original context. So another game that isn't bad, I've just come to it too late. I'll have to cede the floor again for others to sing it's praises.

[Unofficial Who]

I will mention quickly though Championship Sprint, a game owned by my flatmate.

 

Think the C64 version of Super Sprint. But worse.

 

 

I mean it has a construction kit which means you can waste time blaming yourself for the game being rubbish. It's not you. It's the game. At this stage you'd be forgiven for thinking this sort of game just can't be done on the C64. Future releases would prove otherwise.

[squirtle]

4 hours ago, Unofficial Who said:

I will mention quickly though Championship Sprint, a game owned by my flatmate.

 

Think the C64 version of Super Sprint. But worse.

 

 

I mean it has a construction kit which means you can waste time blaming yourself for the game being rubbish. It's not you. It's the game. At this stage you'd be forgiven for thinking this sort of game just can't be done on the C64. Future releases would prove otherwise.

Why would you? Grand Prix Simulator was great fun.

[Unofficial Who]

7 minutes ago, squirtle said:

Why would you? Grand Prix Simulator was great fun.

 

I never really played it back in the day and while it's better than this to me Grand Prix Simulator feels like angry shoeboxes. But I've overlooked BMX Simulator (the original with the spoke noises) that I do rate.

[Unofficial Who]

Drag racing was a pretty popular sport where I grew up. I didn't really see the appeal but then I was a kid who didn't understand the skill behind that revving, trying to balance everything in a manual machine to get the most acceleration over a short distance without blowing up the engine.

 

So Shirley Muldowney's Top Fuel Challenge didn't interest me back in the day and it doesn't interest me enough to play it now given it's awful reputation by 1988 standards.

 

 

@squirtle played this awful game so that we didn't need to so I'm going to say the only interesting thing about this game is the namesake and you can read all about her impressive achievements here at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Muldowney 

 

Instead of talking about this game I'm going to talk about a couple of others from my childhood. Back when I was very young a group of us were taken to the Blue Mountains to ride on a near vertical railway. And at the top where you'd get on and off there was a small arcade with ancient arcade machines by Atari and Kee Games.

 

One of them was Drag Race.

 

 

I tried this once but didn't understand the gear shift / rev mechanic at all.

 

Years later I did play David Crane's homage to this on the 2600.

 

 

It's still not for me but at the time the large car sprites were pretty impressive. I'm going to suggest anyone wanting to play a drag racing game play this one instead.

 

[squirtle]

That was so awful. So, so awful. From the maker of Talledega comes something worse.

[Unofficial Who]

And to finish off with Prowler. It reminded me a lot of Super Huey to the point where back in the day I thought looking at the review shots it was a Paul Norman game!

 

I didn't get on with Super Huey and the only difference here was I found it easier to take off.

 

 

And so finishes a rather dull week with maybe one highlight for me. Here's hoping the next week is better...

[merman]

I’d concur with @squirtleon The Corporation* - interesting but tricky to get into.

Pac-Land - it is well made on C64 but I hate them springboards...

 

 

 

*Footnote: Yes, it is The Corporation, artwork was changed at the last minute. And ironically it helps distinguish it from Core Design’s early FPS Corporation...

[Unofficial Who]

On 10/12/2022 at 06:54, merman said:

Pac-Land - it is well made on C64 but I hate them springboards...

 

Those springboards were the second example for me of good games ruined because of controls that physically caused me pain. I love that a lot of modern games with button taps (usually to disguise loading or streaming the new level data in) now allow alternatives.

[Unofficial Who]

Episode 90 is up and thank goodness these two play the games so we don't have to. https://zappedtothepast.com/

 

Games covered

 

-Stealth Mission

-Blood Valley

-Impact

-Troll

-Power at Sea

-Rimrunner

-TerraMex

-Herobotix

 

Two sims, some real stinkers and...well hopefully a surprise? It's pretty grim this week.

[Unofficial Who]

I generally don't get on with flight simulators on the C64 after a certain point but I did try this one just to see how a filled 3D flight sim would fare frame rate wise.

 

I didn't even get off the runway in Stealth Mission.

 

I suspect that without the manual this game is impenetrable and while Sublogic is one of the reasons why flight simulators exist (Microsoft Flight Simulator started life as Flight Simulator 1 in January 1980), this game appears to be a somewhat forgotten title.

 

 

I can't say much more about this, I suspect this seemed rather dry next to Microprose's release and given it was only released on the C64, a platform not suited to 3D graphics like this without cheats (some of which we'll cover in a later episode) I'm not sure digging this up is worth it.

 

If you want to go down a bit of a rabbit hole there's an interesting article about the early days of Sublogic here http://josef.havlik.sweb.cz/Bruce_Artwick.htm

 

[Unofficial Who]

I had thought I'd played Blood Valley, a game based on the Dual Master gamebooks (which I've never heard of before) but I hadn't. I do remember the impressive character select screen which made the game look great in magazine. This should come as no surprise, Gremlin coded the Gauntlet games for the C64 and those select screens always looked the business.

 

 

Well for 1988 anyway.

 

The game itself looks like a complete mess.

 

 

My first level had me harassed by a cloaked fiend, no sooner did I dispatch one when another came right in to take his place. This is awful and feels unfinished. This was released in the same issue as Usagi Yojimbo and if that wasn't enough to convince you the review for this in the magazine was directly opposite an advert for the better game.

 

I always wondered how this game played but steered clear thanks to the review in Zzap, something I'm grateful of now. This shouldn't have been released in such a bare bones state, it's the sort of purchase that would put you off gaming as a hobby.

[Unofficial Who]

Another game I'd forgotten had existed, the ironically named Impact!

 

What is there to say? Not much. It's an expensive Arkanoid clone on a machine that is now flooded with excellent Arkanoid clones. This is incredibly bare bones.

 

Avoid, you've already played at least four versions of this by now that are more interesting.

 

 

Job done.

 

Except...there is the interesting question as to why this got made in the first place? I have a theory.

 

Impact! is not an original game, it's a downport from the Amiga and Atari ST versions that came out one year previously to critical acclaim.

 

 

It's more colourful than the 8 bit ports and while the sampled sound effects sound crunchy to modern ears back in the late 80's this was amazing stuff. More importantly while again it paled in comparison to the conversion of Arkanoid on the Amiga the Amiga version of Arkanoid was a US import, an eye watering price of $49US. In 1987.

 

So on a format where the only competition cost several times more than your version it did really well. I think the mistake Audiogenic made was thinking that success would transfer to formats that had many versions (and cheaper.)

 

There's something interesting about the C64 conversion as well. This is the first recorded commercial work by Steve "Snake." Who is if I'm correct the creator of one of the early Megadrive emulators KEGA!

 

All things more interesting than this modest conversion. But we all have to start somewhere.

 

I mean Impact isn't bad....it's just unremarkable in a flooded market.

[squirtle]

It also uses down to fire the ball up... Which only really works in a pinball game.

[squirtle]

Stealth Mission is a game so stealthy that it has been completely forgotten about. It's nigh on impossible to find anything on it today. Probably because the two words it uses for its name are linked to bigger games on the machine: Project Stealth Fighter and Impossible Mission. 

[squirtle]

Blood Valley is so bad. That character screen looks like you're picking someone to role play as at the local folk festival.

[Unofficial Who]

It's not a great start to the week that's for sure. How did you get through this episode?

[squirtle]

5 hours ago, Unofficial Who said:

It's not a great start to the week that's for sure. How did you get through this episode?

Blood, sweat, gravy and egg.

[merman]

Impact reviewed badly, but it’s not that bad. Yes, there are better games on the C64 in that genre but it is fun to pick up and play for a few minutes - or even design a few screens.

[Unofficial Who]

11 hours ago, merman said:

Impact reviewed badly, but it’s not that bad. Yes, there are better games on the C64 in that genre but it is fun to pick up and play for a few minutes - or even design a few screens.

Yeah, it’s not bad, just a good conversion of an average game.

 

It feels a bit unfair for me to criticise a Breakout game in a year where I’ve played many Breakout clones.

 

But even back in the day I was swimming in Breakout clones. It reminds me of the Black Lamp conversion where a game that was successful on 16 bit platforms in part due to a lack of competition just didn’t stand out enough in the now crowded 8 bit market.

 

I would have played this a lot if I’d been given this in 1988 before having access to Arkanoid. But it wouldn’t have gotten much of a look in after.

[Unofficial Who]

Having loved Sensible Software's release on the Outlaw label SEUCK I almost bought Troll review unseen.

 

Thank goodness the department store had this on a demo machine. Because...well...it's best to see for yourself.

 

 

Even now years later I can't parse what is going on here. It reminds me a lot of the flood of Q*Bert clones a few years earlier like Pogo Joe and Flip and Flop.

 

This feels like a game that should have either been binned early on or had a lot more time spent on it. There's a lot happening here but my quick brush with it in 1988 saved me a few quid.

[squirtle]

Denton Designs were always full of quirky ideas and concepts. Just seems that going back to them now, not a lot of them actually worked very well. Still, hats off for trying something different.

[carleton]

I'm way behind on everything at the minute including podcasts but I can never resist replying when I've worked on or with the people responsible for games mentioned. Halls of the Things was converted to the C64 by my old boss Graham Stafford and is probably too fiddly for today's markets. It has some clever stuff in there though, like a persistent world and randomly generated levels. The reason I wanted to post though was that Design Design were really a Spectrum developer and didn't want to do C64 stuff but Graham converted it anyway. This led to the cheeky nod in the credits saying that he'd betrayed them:


 

[squirtle]

28 minutes ago, carleton said:

I'm way behind on everything at the minute including podcasts but I can never resist replying when I've worked on or with the people responsible for games mentioned. Halls of the Things was converted to the C64 by my old boss Graham Stafford and is probably too fiddly for today's markets. It has some clever stuff in there though, like a persistent world and randomly generated levels. The reason I wanted to post though was that Design Design were really a Spectrum developer and didn't want to do C64 stuff but Graham converted it anyway. This led to the cheeky nod in the credits saying that he'd betrayed them:


 

Yeah, you can tell it's doing some clever things under the hood, for sure. It is a bit fiddly, though. Also, is it a RogueLike? Does it fit the criteria?

[Unofficial Who]

On 13/12/2022 at 20:36, squirtle said:

Blood Valley is so bad. That character screen looks like you're picking someone to role play as at the local folk festival.

 

This is the best burn in this thread.

[Unofficial Who]

Skipping ahead for now as I'm not in the mood for a military sim and I want to give Power at Sea a fair go.

 

I didn't get Rimrunner thanks to lacklustre reviews and my worry that such a large sprite would lead to clumsiness. But I got my chance to play it in early 1991 thanks to it's inclusion on a Zzap Megatape late 1990-early 1991. This was a bargain, for less than the price of a budget game I got a magazine, Thunderforce by Hewson, an amazing version of Zork that fit into 64k and a demo of SWIV.

 

And this!

 

 

It's an amazingly weird idea. A giant insectoid (although only with four limbs) riding a dinosaur doing perimeter duty and keeping generators maintained. And first impressions are brilliant. Richard Joseph doing some of his best work with the alien standing there gun at ready. You hit fire, there's a countdown and then the alien cocks the gun as a cartridge flies out of it.

 

 

And the game itself is one of the most impressive looking C64 games ever released with several layers of parallax scrolling and lots flying about.

 

 

This is great.

 

At first.

 

The animation of the alien and it's mount is fantastic. You really get a sense of it bounding along stretching it's legs. While the firing of the gun soon gets tiring the hum of the generators when they're nearby and the buzz of recharging them with a quick zap is satisfying.

 

Thing is once you get into the rhythm of the shooting in three directions it's the opposite of most C64 games. It's too easy. The only way you're going to lose is maddingly you're in the wrong place at the wrong time when the timer runs out. Running and recharging each of the generators is like juggling plates and it always seems like one is on the ground in the last 30 seconds. If you're under it things are sweet. But if you're a bit away you have no chance.

 

I played this for about half an hour tonight, six levels and what defeated me in the end was boredom and fatigue which is why I put it down back in 1991. I can't complain about the price I paid for it. There's some great animation and sound and excellent music. But the podcast was bang on, this felt like a demo rather than a game and it pales in comparison to Star Paws. It's easy to see in retrospect why the planned Amstrad and Atari ST versions were never released.

 

Worth playing once for three levels. Do that and you've seen all there is to see and hear. There just isn't much here.

 

In terms of the lost versions a developer diary for the Amstrad version was released in Amstrad Computer User July 1988.

 

And a very early demo of the Atari ST is available.

 

 

 

 

[carleton]

23 hours ago, squirtle said:

Yeah, you can tell it's doing some clever things under the hood, for sure. It is a bit fiddly, though. Also, is it a RogueLike? Does it fit the criteria?

 

I'd say it's definitely Rogue-like, I think Graham told me Rogue was an influence. Whether it fits in with today's definition of that I'd say no.

 

[squirtle]

8 minutes ago, carleton said:

 

I'd say it's definitely Rogue-like, I think Graham told me Rogue was an influence. Whether it fits in with today's definition of that I'd say no.

 

Fair enough. 

 

By the way, aren't we getting close to your games now? Soon be time to get you on for a chat.

[carleton]

13 minutes ago, squirtle said:

Fair enough. 

 

By the way, aren't we getting close to your games now? Soon be time to get you on for a chat.

My second game was reviewed first, Spitting Image in issue 47. The very next issue had Wanderer. The average score for those two games was 27.5%

[squirtle]

5 minutes ago, carleton said:

My second game was reviewed first, Spitting Image in issue 47. The very next issue had Wanderer. The average score for those two games was 27.5%

Ouch! I'm sure we'll be fair in our analysis...