Captain's Blog: 1987

Showing posts with label 1987. Show all posts

Saturday, January 08, 2022

Now That's What I Call Stuart's Favourite Music 23 - Genesis (The Brazilian)

The 23rd song in my list of favourite songs is this little-known instrumental from UK rock band Genesis. "The Brazilian", featured as the last track on their four-times platinum UK hit album Invisible Touch from 1986.

Name a Genesis song from the mid-1980s and most people will probably say Invisible Touch or Land of Confusion, but ask them if they've heard of The Brazillian and they will just look at you with a confused look. Yes, Genesis also did some amazing experimental instrumental work too.

As great as their more familiar songs are, I've always had a soft spot for this track, but then I think it's because I've always preferred instrumentals to songs with vocals in. This is just great, especially Mike Rutherford's guitar finale. A perfect excuse to turn the volume up to maximum, and let those goosebumps appear.

The track was featured in an episode of Magnum, P.I, used extensively by the BBC during their TV coverage of the 1987 World Athletics Championships, and in 1987 it had a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Instrumental Performance, but lost out to Harold Faltermeyer and Steve Stevens with the "Top Gun" anthem. Sorry Top Gun fans, but I prefer this!

Big thanks to my sister Stephanie for introducing me to this song all those years ago. Enjoy.

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Game Covers - Molecule Man (Commodore 16 and Plus 4)

Lost in a maze with 256 locations fight against time and lethal radiation to survive and teleport to safety.

Molecule Man - The infernal survival game.

JOYSTICK OR KEYBOARD.
BY ROBIN THOMPSON
Conversion by Icon Design

3D View (hold and move to rotate)

Game Covers - Megabolts (Commodore 16 and Plus 4)

Sixty four screens, MILLIONS of Megabolts (well nearly!) and timebombs, blocks and baddies everywhere! Can you clear the lot?

Blast your way through the action in this exciting arcade shoot-em-up.

JOYSTICK OR KEYBOARD

FROM MR CHIP SOFTWARE

3D View (hold and move to rotate)

Saturday, December 19, 2020

Game Covers - Gwnn (Commodore 16 and Plus 4)

Hurtle across the galaxy on a desperate mission to rescue valuable scientists from fiendishly constructed alien bases.

There's lots of problems, tasks and obstacles to overcome in this all-action space shoot-em-up.

JOYSTICK ONLY
PROGRAM BY PATRICK STRASSEN

The Cover

The Inlay

The Tape

3D View (hold and move to rotate)

Game Covers - Gun Law (Commodore 16 and Plus 4)

Four months of bloody alien attacks have taken their toll - you are left to fight alone against ruthless and bloodthirsty killers.

JOYSTICK AN KEYBOARD.
CONVERSION BY RICHARD CLARK.

The Cover

The Inlay

The Tape

3D View (hold and move to rotate)

Sunday, June 30, 2019

Game Covers - Amaurote (Commodore 64)

All alone in a city infested with killer insects - not a particularly enviable position to be in, but you have been selected to sort out the 2500 hi-res screens of the capital city of Paradise.

So get on with it...

JOYSTICK OR KEYBOARD
DESIGN BY JOHN PICKFORD OF BINARY DESIGN

Amaurote - The Cover

Amaurote - The Inlay

Amaurote - The Tape

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Game Covers - Kromazone (Commodore 64)

Pilot a MantaRay class space fighter, through the testing challenges of the "Kromazone". Only the best pilots can master this fearsome test. Will you be the "Kromazone Hot Shot"?

Featuring: Fast moving action
Stunning three dimensional graphics
Excellent interactive animation

One or two player
Joystick only.

Kromazone - The Cover

Kromazone - The Inlay

Kromazone - The Tape

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Game Covers - Zub (Commodore 64)

Take agent Zub through the perils of ten nasty worlds to retrieve the eyeball of Zub for his King, Zub. If Zub fails Zub one will lose the war to Zub ten and his Commander, Zub will probably Zub him.

Confused? You won't be once you've played this amazing all action game. It's got more alien types than you'll probably ever see. 100 frames for animation, parallax like you wouldn't believe, and most of all - playability.

Zub - The Cover

Zub - The Inlay

Zub - The Tape

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Saturday, June 22, 2019

Game Covers - Agent X II The Mad Prof's Back (Commodore 64)

The second encounter between super sleuth Agent X and his old adversary the Mad Professor. There's no peace. Even though you foiled the Mad Prof's attempts to kidnap the President, you failed to defeat him totally, and he is back with a vengeance. No more small fry for him, this time it's total world domination, and beyond! Only you can foil the Mad Professor!

A thrilling fight against his minions followed by a climactic confrontation for the future fate of freedom. Long awaited sequel to the classic Agent X

A fun three stage game, featuring an amazing soundtrack, especially on level 1 by Tim Follin

Main Cover

Inlay (Featuring handwritten codes for the levels!)

The Tape!

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Tuesday, April 02, 2019

Game Covers - Street Beat (Commodore 64)

Click to enlarge

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Sunday, February 28, 2016

Retro Game Boys Episode 8 - Streetbeat (Commodore 64)

Stuart introduces Kieran to one of his favourite childhood computer games on the Commodore 64. A little known game called Streetbeat (which itself is a re-release of a game called Ghettoblaster).

May the funk be with you!

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Games that remind me of my childhood Number 23 : Buggy Boy (Commodore 64)

It's been too long since my last "Game that reminds me of my childhood". So, let me begin by saying my next game is......

BUGGY BOY!

The Commodore 64 had some stand-out driving games, but one of my fondest racing gaming memories is from Elite System’s conversion of the arcade hit Buggy Boy by Taito. The game was a near perfect replica of the original arcade (minus the big fancy buggy graphics), and featured 5 courses containing all sorts of obstacles. The aim of the game was to complete each course before the timer reached zero. You could gain extra time by passing under “Time” gates, and increase your score by collecting different coloured flags, and going under various score gates. If you collect the coloured flags in a particular order (as shown at the top of the screen), you could also gain additional bonus points.

Buggy Boys 5 tracks

Along each route were numerous obstacles – some could help you in your goal to reach the end of the track, or ultimately cause you to crash, losing valuable time.

Logs - These made you jump and were quite useful for jumping over obstacles. However, they could also cause you to crash if you timed the jump badly.

Stones – Running over these caused your buggy to drive on only two wheels. You had to be careful when hitting these because if your buggy ran over a log, it would crash!

Brick walls and Boulders, fences and trees - These were obstacles to miss at all times.

The game also featured water (avoid at all times), banked roads, narrow crossings over water, and tunnels.

I feel sorry for the current generation of youngsters – Show them a game like this, and they’ll just turn away and go back to their Playstations and Xboxes…. I could spend hours playing this. Graphics were simple but very good and colourful for the time the game came out (1987). Sound was minimal as was the music, but overall the game was and still is fun to play.

The cover art

The tape