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44: Destiny 2 is Basically In The Night Garden

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Well hello there 2021 fans! Episode 44 is here to blow away those January blues. Or provide more of them.

In this episode, deKay, Kendrick, Luffer and Toby have some Big Talks about the general lack of consoles on store shelves, Steve Jackson’s (no, not that one) plans for new old games, and probably the most important console release of 2020 (and actually available to buy), the Evercade. A lot about the Evercade. In fact, if you don’t want to hear about the Evercade then boy is this episode not for you. But there is other stuff, like the Analogue Mega Sg, and All These Games:

  • Yakuza Kiwami
  • Yakuza Like a Dragon
  • Among Us
  • Picross Luna 2
  • Pixel Puzzle
  • Destiny 2
  • Half Life Alyx
  • Monster Hunter Rise
  • Deadly Premonition 2
  • Animal Crossing
  • Shantae and the Seven Sirens
  • Syberia

Deviations come in the form of general Wayforward chat, whether China still has an emperor or not, and how to fix your broken sticks of RAM in an oven. No, really. Oh, and the lady who did the singings on River City Girls was very talented Megan McDuffee – deKay forgot it in the moment.

(Direct link here)

Music attribution: Intro is Rise and Shine Shantae – listen to the whole (very good!) album on Spotify.

Don’t forget, if you want to contact us with questions or comments for or about the show, you can email podcast@ugvm.org.uk or publicly shame us @ugvmpodcast on the Twittors.

James Bond 007: invisible oil rigs

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Loading up James Bond 007 on the Atari 5200, you see an exciting opening sequence, announcing you are about to play Diamonds are Forever.  This is, apparently, one of four films represented in the game.


Rather than controlling Bond, you control his car. It's unclear exactly which car it is, but best guesses are that it's the Lotus from The Spy Who Loved Me.  With an added jump function.

The game starts with you driving through the desert, with some odd craft dropping bombs in front of you.  You have to jump over the holes created, which is difficult because your car's jump isn't long enough to do so without swerving across the screen at the same time. You can fire, alternating between one bullet that goes up at a 30-degree angle and something that lands on the floor in front of you, but these don't seem to affect the green craft.


After a while you get to the sea, and you can dive under the waves or, somehow, jump above them. Here the second bullet makes sense, becoming a difficult-to-judge depth charge.  Frogmen fire bullets at you, and you have to avoid these, as well as the green craft's bombs, and try to sheet diamonds in the sky using your diagonal bullets.

As well as giving you points, shooting the diamonds makes the sky flash, which is crucial because it reveals the locations of oil platforms, which otherwise are black on a black background.  If you don't see them, you crash into them and die.  I successfully avoided five or six of these once, before getting worried I was missing something.

I was, indeed.  Reading the manual, I found out I was supposed to land on one of these oil platforms (a brief reminder that touching the platforms kills you in any other situation) to progress to the next level.  So, I worked through the first level again, and landed on the first oil platform.  Much easier.  This then took me to the second level - The Spy Who Loved Me.


Which wasn't much different to the first.  This time there were rockets that sometimes launched from the sea bed (and sometimes didn't), and boats you had to submerge under (and not land on).


Having read the manual, I knew the aim was to get to the end and rescue Anya Amasova.  To do this, it seems, you have to bomb the facility where she is hiding and pick up the escape pod.  Got that first time.

And then onto Moonraker, where the aim is apparently to shoot down three spinning satellites. These satellites move at about 57,291mph across the screen, and I didn't manage to shoot down a single one before being killed by odd green space shuttles and mines laid by submarines.  Had I paid £30 for this back in 1984, I may have persisted … but I now have better things to be doing.

James Bond 007: invisible oil rigs

Posted on Written by

Loading up James Bond 007 on the Atari 5200, you see an exciting opening sequence, announcing you are about to play Diamonds are Forever.  This is, apparently, one of four films represented in the game.


Rather than controlling Bond, you control his car. It's unclear exactly which car it is, but best guesses are that it's the Lotus from The Spy Who Loved Me.  With an added jump function.

The game starts with you driving through the desert, with some odd craft dropping bombs in front of you.  You have to jump over the holes created, which is difficult because your car's jump isn't long enough to do so without swerving across the screen at the same time. You can fire, alternating between one bullet that goes up at a 30-degree angle and something that lands on the floor in front of you, but these don't seem to affect the green craft.


After a while you get to the sea, and you can dive under the waves or, somehow, jump above them. Here the second bullet makes sense, becoming a difficult-to-judge depth charge.  Frogmen fire bullets at you, and you have to avoid these, as well as the green craft's bombs, and try to sheet diamonds in the sky using your diagonal bullets.

As well as giving you points, shooting the diamonds makes the sky flash, which is crucial because it reveals the locations of oil platforms, which otherwise are black on a black background.  If you don't see them, you crash into them and die.  I successfully avoided five or six of these once, before getting worried I was missing something.

I was, indeed.  Reading the manual, I found out I was supposed to land on one of these oil platforms (a brief reminder that touching the platforms kills you in any other situation) to progress to the next level.  So, I worked through the first level again, and landed on the first oil platform.  Much easier.  This then took me to the second level - The Spy Who Loved Me.


Which wasn't much different to the first.  This time there were rockets that sometimes launched from the sea bed (and sometimes didn't), and boats you had to submerge under (and not land on).


Having read the manual, I knew the aim was to get to the end and rescue Anya Amasova.  To do this, it seems, you have to bomb the facility where she is hiding and pick up the escape pod.  Got that first time.

And then onto Moonraker, where the aim is apparently to shoot down three spinning satellites. These satellites move at about 57,291mph across the screen, and I didn't manage to shoot down a single one before being killed by odd green space shuttles and mines laid by submarines.  Had I paid £30 for this back in 1984, I may have persisted … but I now have better things to be doing.

Desperados 3 (PS5) – Completed Review

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Desperados 3 is a tactics game released on PC, Xbox One & PlayStation 4. I have been playing on the PlayStation 5 and apart from a couple of game crashes I have not experienced any other issues. I played the demo on the PlayStation store which lets you enjoy the first campaign mission using two of the five characters in the game. Cooper is your double revolver shooting cowboy & McCoy is your long range sniper. My main concern with any strategy title on console is how does it play with a controller. You switch characters with R1 and use their abilities with L1/L2 and square. The camera has two options with a follow the character mode or manual control which I preferred instead allowing me to scan the area and plan my strategy. There is also a great quick save ability, by just tapping the touchpad and believe me you will be using it a lot!

After enjoying the demo I had to purchase the full game and enjoy its remaining 15 missions. With the full game you also get to enjoy the other three characters in Hector your trap wielding heavy, Kate who via a disguise can distract enemies and my favourite character Isabelle who can mind-connect two enemies and kill both at the same time. You can also use various items on the map from dynamite, boulders and mine carts.

There is an execution freeze time mode in which you can chose multiple characters to perform certain actions to take out a group of enemies. This is very satisfying when you manage to pull it off. 

If you are up for a tougher game you can play in hard mode which will help you unlock one of the completion badges per mission and there are various badges targets like speed run, using no disguise or no kills. You will also unlock Baron Challenges which gives you a smaller map to complete with certain characters and conditions like no alarms raised.

In summary then it is a great strategy title that plays very well with a controller and I will definitely be picking up developer Mimimi Games earlier title Shadow Tactics which is a similar strategy title set in Japan Edo period. With Desperados 3 completed, next for me is Lost Sphear a JRPG by Tokyo RPG Factory.

43: Making The Rules Up As You Go Along

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As it’s Actual Christmas, we decided to give you a special Christmas episode of the podcast. We’re so very, very sorry.

In Episode 43, deKay, Kendrick, Luffer and James not only talk about some recent gaming news like CD Projekt Red and the 32Blit handheld, but they also play An Actual Game in the form of a quiz devised by Luffer which we’re definitely not calling Luffer’s Bluffers. It’s an utter shambles, rather like that time your dad forgot to turn the oven on and the turkey didn’t get eaten until 3am on Boxing Day. As well as that aural horrorshow, we delight you with Game Chat about these things:

  • Yakuza Like A Dragon
  • Garou Mark of the Wolves
  • Horace
  • Trails of Mana
  • Puyo Puyo Tetris 2
  • Astro’s Playroom

And deKay goes into far too much detail about the PS5 controller and not-reviews the console itself. Just in case Christmas wasn’t ruined enough already. Please tell your friends about us. We’ve been good this year.

(Direct link here)

Music attribution: Happy Happy Game Show Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Don’t forget, if you want to contact us with questions or comments for or about the show, you can email podcast@ugvm.org.uk or publicly shame us @ugvmpodcast on the Twittors.