ugvm

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Zuma: still struggling

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I can’t remember when I first played Zuma, but suffice to say it was in the early days of the Xbox 360. In the years since then, I have completed five of the twelve levels.

I don’t know why I find it so hard. Playing it yesterday I think I understood some of the mechanics better than I had before – the ways in which higher points can give you a quicker completion with balls stopping spawning earlier, and how to best use explosions and other power-ups. I also remembered to swap the balls I was firing sometimes, trying to set up combos. And yet I still failed at level 6-4, losing all three lives.

Kieron is unfeasibly good.

Maybe one day I’ll get to level 7. I have Zuma’s Revenge sitting mockingly on my Xbox, ready to be played when the first game is completed.

Dadish 3D (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Not part of the Dadish Collection but I felt, having completed all those, I just had to give it a go.

It’s exactly what you think it is – it’s the same game again, but in 3D. Same characters, same plot, even similar level themes, but being 3D it feels different.

I have to say, that the platforming doesn’t work as well here. As is often the case with 3D platformers, judging distance is hard and in Dadish 3D usually means die-and-retry, so it’s more frustrating than I’d like.

It’s still OK, but not as enjoyable as the 2D games.

87: Harvest Dune

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Did you miss us? Because we sure missed you -insert-heart-emoji-! But you can dry your -insert-eyes-emoji- because we’re back with Episode 87 and oh what a lovely time we had -insert-microphone-emoji- recording it for you.

You’d think after a break we’d have more game -insert-newspaper-emoji- to tell you but actually all we’ve got is An Actual Show Report From ComicCon (And the ghost of EGX), and the new Analogue 3D console. Fear not though -insert-ghost-emoji- because we did play a lot of viddyyo games and -insert-male-child-emoji- did we talk about them. These games, in fact:

  • Metal Gear Solid V: Le Pain Fantômes
  • Mario Plus Rabbids Kingdom Battle
  • The Armstart of Link: Echoes of Wisdom
  • Invincible Presents: Atom Eve
  • Castlevania Dominus Collection
  • Merge Boss
  • Rare Replay
  • Forza Horizon 2 (and 3, and 4, and 5)
  • NBA 2K21
  • Pump It Up

Plus all the usual deviations, questions and -insert-excrement-emoji- you all enjoy about our little show so much. And, for some reason, a full explanation of what the Fulton surface-to-air extraction system is because -insert-shrug-emoji-.

(Direct link here)

Intro music credits: Bloody Tears jazz cover by Eric Ladish

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 https://mas.to/@ugvmpodcast on the Mastodons.

Dadish 3 (Switch): COMPLETED!

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And.. again. Once more it’s the same only different, with a few tweaks (underwater physics) and new bosses, but otherwise – Dadish is finding his stupid kids again across tricky platforming worlds. And it’s just as good as it was before.

Chase HQ: completed!

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Everyone remembers the synthesised speech of “Let’s go, Mr Driver!”, but in fact there are other sayings in different levels; the one that I noticed as I played through today was “Giddy up, boy!”. I wonder how many people have heard the full set.

Chase HQ on the CPC is one of the best 8-bit computer arcade conversions of all time. Comparing it to the arcade machine there are obvious differences – smaller sprites, digital controls, less accurate handling and lower framerate – but given the constraints of the hardware the game plays amazingly well. I remember when we first bought the game, on disk, from the basement of Hamleys in London – I’d read the review in Amstrad Action and knew it was meant to be good, but when we got home and I played it for the first time it was better than I could imagine. So colourful, so fast, and speech as well. Amazing.

There’s not so much amazement nowadays, since we can, if we want, play the actual arcade game emulated on a computer, and driving games like Need for Speed Most Wanted have provide a more coherent ramming-the-baddies experience. Nostalgia is still a powerful thing, though.

Getting the game to run wasn’t easy. I had a CPC core in RetroArch, and Caprice32 as a standalone emulator. The latter crashed immediately on startup. The former worked fine, until I loaded the game in – and found that it was a pre-hacked disk file which offered me the option of infinite time and infinite turbos. I didn’t want these, so pressed “N” … and found that the keyboard didn’t work. To be exact, some of the keys didn’t work – they’re mapped to RetroArch shortcuts – and some did. I could get into the game by choosing “O” (for ‘oui’) and the “W” key seemed to be mapped to RETURN. Once in game I could use a joypad, or the cursor keys (with X changing gears and A operating the turbo). The joypad was OK apart from the fact that the accelerator was mapped to UP on the d-pad, which got a bit painful after a while.

I committed to only using three turbos per stage, and roughly timed 60 seconds to get to the criminal and then another 60 seconds to take them out. I think I just about managed it, but it’s hard to be sure.

Who puts massive columns at the side of the road anyway?

The game is still great, if a little samey after you’ve completed the first few levels. There are five in total, and the only thing that seems to change is traffic density and the length of the stage – meaning the last level is pretty tricky to complete. Well, complete in the right time limit anyway. I’ll try to find an unhacked ROM and try that one out next time.