Captain's Blog: Retro Gaming

Showing posts with label Retro Gaming. Show all posts

Saturday, December 19, 2020

Game Covers - Diamond Mine (Commodore 16 and Plus 4)

Guide the pipe through the mine towards the diamonds avoiding walls and bugs.

If you hit a wall or a bug then twice as much pipe is lost. If you reach the diamonds or the pipe is eaten by bugs only the length is used. The pupe start length is decreased for each level.

The Cover

The Inlay

The Tape

3D View (hold and move to rotate)

Sunday, June 21, 2020

Game Covers - Rescue from Zylon (Commodore 16 and Plus 4)

An underground maze of caverns. A subterranean river flooding its banks. A team of the world's most brilliant geologists doomed to a watery grave. All that is available is your airship. Dare you take this unusual craft into unknown territories or do you chicken out and stick to joyriding in open spaces? Surely there can be no doubt?

The cover

The tape

3D View (hold and move to rotate)

Monday, June 01, 2020

Kayleigh's Retro Isolation - The End?

It's a sad day today. Kayleigh returns back to school tomorrow, albeit part-time, thus ending a long isolation which started on Tuesday 24th of March and ended on Monday 1st June 2020.

Yes, the country is still on a semi-lockdown, but I always said Kayleigh's Retro Isolation would last for as long as she is off school.

It's been fun, both for me and Kayleigh, and she enjoyed playing lots of games dating back to before she was born and when I was her age (ok, with the exception of Bionic Granny - she really didn't like that one!)

I make no apologies for clogging up your feeds with pictures of Kayleigh playing retro computer games, and although we will no longer be posting a new picture every day, Kayleigh will be back with some more retro gaming shenanigans in the near future.

She's experienced the evolution of gaming, and although we didn't get to a lot of games which I would have liked to show her, especially some on the Philips G7000, we got a good selection done. It's crazy to think we've only touched a handful of games. There's plenty more to see!

So, out of the 70 (71 if you include Day 0) games she played, the lowest scored game was..... Bionic Granny with a pitiful 2

Her favourite was..... (Drum roll).......... Return to Castle Wolfenstein with an impressive score of 9.5

Monday, May 11, 2020

Kayleigh's Retro Isolation - Day 49

Kayleigh's Retro Isolation - Day 49
Monday 11th May 2020

Disruptor on the Sony Playstation

"I like it, but some of the robots sneak up on me and make me jump! 7/10" - Kayleigh

Sunday, May 10, 2020

Kayleigh's Retro Isolation - Day 48

Kayleigh's Retro Isolation - Day 48
Sunday 10th May 2020

3D Ghost Chase on the Commodore Plus 4

"It was OK! I couldn't get off level 2, and the monster made me jump when he appeared on the screen. 5/10" - Kayleigh

Friday, May 08, 2020

Kayleigh's Retro Isolation - Day 46

Kayleigh's Retro Isolation - Day 46
Friday 8th May 2020

Stunt Car Racer on the Commodore Amiga

"Really fun! It's funny when you fall off the track. My favourite track is The Ski Jump. 7/10" - Kayleigh

Wednesday, May 06, 2020

Kayleigh's Retro Isolation - Day 44

Wednesday 6th May 2020

Virtua Racing on the Sony Playstation 2

"I really like this game. It was fun playing against my brother and Dad. 8/10" - Kayleigh

Sunday, June 23, 2019

Game Covers - Kikstart 2 (Commodore 64)

Now this was a blinder of a game, and a real bargain for £2.99. I would've been happy to pay full price for this. 24 courses of motorcross/trials fun, based on the BBC television series Kick Start, but what made this stand out from the previous Kikstart game (besides the better graphics) was the inclusion of a powerful, and very easy to use course editor. I spent countless hours designing my own fiendish tracks and saving them to tape.

An amazing game, made by the same team that would like go on to make the Lotus series on the Commodore Amiga.

Ride your bike over the 24 all action courses in this new improved version of Kikstart. Devise your own mindbendingly tortuous test with the course designer or make things really easy - the choice is yours!

JOYSTICK OR KEYBOARD
PROGRAM FROM MR CHIP SOFTWARE

Kikstart 2 - The Cover

Kikstart 2 - The Inlay

Kikstart 2 - The Tape

3D View (hold and move to rotate) New Tab (Full Screen)

Monday, April 01, 2019

Game Covers - Driller (Commodore 64)

Click to enlarge

3D View (hold and move to rotate) New Tab (Full Screen)

Saturday, February 23, 2019

Games that remind me of my childhood Number 31 : Total Eclipse (Commodore 64)

As most regular visitors to my blog knows, I have a massive soft spot for the Freescape 'solid 3D' adventure games from Incentive Software. Released for most 8-bit (and some 16-bit) computers in the late 1980s and early 1990s. the series of games included Driller, Dark Side, Total Eclipse and Castle Master (as well as Total Eclipse II Sphinx Jinx and Castle Master II The Crypt available through the Home Computer Club), not to mention the many Freescape games people made with the awesome 3D Construction Kit, including myself!

Total Eclipse got a massive 94% in Zzap 64 magazine exactly 30 years ago this month, and it's still a great game to play today, providing you don't mind the slow screen redraw. Moving away from the sci-fi setting of both Driller and Dark Side, Total Eclipse is set on the 26th October 1930, and you must (well, according to the game instructions) reach and destroy the shrine of the Sun God Re at the very top of the Pyramid (should that be Ra?) within 2 hours before the moon eclipses the sun, showering the Earth with massive meteorites and bringing an apocalyptic end to civilisation as we know it.

Virtual Reality - The nearest to actually being there. It's probably the closest I'll ever come to visiting Egypt!

Inside the pyramid. Watch out for traps!

Now, for anyone feeling a little pedantic, I've done a little bit of research, and it appears Egypt had no solar eclipse on that date. There was a solar eclipse on October 21st 1930, but totality was only visible in Niuafo'ou, Chile, and a small part of Santa Cruz Province, Argentina.

ANYWAY, I digress. Total Eclipse was/is a classic game and a fantastic example of early virtual reality at its finest.