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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.
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.
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.
This has sat on my Xbox for ages, after I saw Matt playing it once on a stream, and I have finally got around to playing it. It takes cues from FTL, I think, but is structured around shorter missions and a roguelike framework where you can build up your crew and plane capabilities but at any point can lose them and restart. You control the seven members of your plane crew: setting navigation points; tagging enemies for the gunners to shoot at; getting the engineer to run around fixing parts of the plane which have malfunctioned or been shot to pieces; deploying bombs or taking recon photos.
It’s a constant juggle to make sure that the guns have ammo, there’s someone available to fire forwards while the bombardier is crawling into his space and opening the doors, and seven hundred other things are ongoing. The first few missions are relatively easy – drop some supplies to a downed Spitfire pilot with a few enemies buzzing around, or bomb some installations near the coast, all of which can be done at low level – but I’ve now progressed to the point where the installations I am trying to attack are surrounded by flak artillery, so I have to fly at a higher level, meaning my crew need thermal wear and oxygen supplies … oh, and I have to peer through clouds to see the bombing targets. In addition, missions are interrupted by other emergencies – needing to shoot down a V2 rocket, a battle with a German ace – meaning that it’s increasingly difficult to get home safe.
It’s the difficulty and excitement that has kept my interest up. Completing missions and getting home safely is difficult, and there have been multiple time when my plane has limped home on two engines, with my engineer frantically putting out fires and my radio operator administering first aid to a gunner who is lying on the floor bleeding. I am slightly cheating at the game in that every time it looks as if I’m going to crash and burn, I’m quitting the game and restarting missions, rather than just accepting defeat and starting afresh with a new crew – but I’ve made peace with that, in that it means I’m actually enjoying it rather than being afraid to actually take off. The financial constraints feel artificial anyway – I’m pretty sure that in WWII the bomber crews weren’t charged to upgrade their engines based on them earning money in previous missions.
This has sat on my Xbox for ages, after I saw Matt playing it once on a stream, and I have finally got around to playing it. It takes cues from FTL, I think, but is structured around shorter missions and a roguelike framework where you can build up your crew and plane capabilities but at any point can lose them and restart. You control the seven members of your plane crew: setting navigation points; tagging enemies for the gunners to shoot at; getting the engineer to run around fixing parts of the plane which have malfunctioned or been shot to pieces; deploying bombs or taking recon photos.
It’s a constant juggle to make sure that the guns have ammo, there’s someone available to fire forwards while the bombardier is crawling into his space and opening the doors, and seven hundred other things are ongoing. The first few missions are relatively easy – drop some supplies to a downed Spitfire pilot with a few enemies buzzing around, or bomb some installations near the coast, all of which can be done at low level – but I’ve now progressed to the point where the installations I am trying to attack are surrounded by flak artillery, so I have to fly at a higher level, meaning my crew need thermal wear and oxygen supplies … oh, and I have to peer through clouds to see the bombing targets. In addition, missions are interrupted by other emergencies – needing to shoot down a V2 rocket, a battle with a German ace – meaning that it’s increasingly difficult to get home safe.
It’s the difficulty and excitement that has kept my interest up. Completing missions and getting home safely is difficult, and there have been multiple time when my plane has limped home on two engines, with my engineer frantically putting out fires and my radio operator administering first aid to a gunner who is lying on the floor bleeding. I am slightly cheating at the game in that every time it looks as if I’m going to crash and burn, I’m quitting the game and restarting missions, rather than just accepting defeat and starting afresh with a new crew – but I’ve made peace with that, in that it means I’m actually enjoying it rather than being afraid to actually take off. The financial constraints feel artificial anyway – I’m pretty sure that in WWII the bomber crews weren’t charged to upgrade their engines based on them earning money in previous missions.
Almost everything I said about the first game applies here. It’s pretty much just new levels for the same game, with some added space physics for one of the worlds.
It’s clearly the same engine and same graphics, but if it ain’t broke, right?
