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Alien Breed Special Edition ’92 (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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I seem to remember this getting really good reviews upon original release, but I’m struggling to see how. I did look up some of them, and came across this incredible bit of art editor drunkenness from Amiga User International, which attempts to show the screen that comes up when you access a computer terminal, but fails, rather than any of the actual game itself. Incredible work. And also look out for some great whitespace issues:

Anyway, that review also tells you about the game so I don’t need to, but I will tell you why it is wrong. Firstly, calling it “based on Gauntlet” is really doing Gauntlet a disservice. Sure, you have a top-down maze and keys to open doors, but that’s it. Gauntlet has variety. Loads of baddies and baddie generators. Bonus levels, great speech, four players, potions… so much more than Alien Breed which has boring levels, mazes that do nothing but frustrate, way more doors than keys meaning it’s very, very easy to get stuck if you open the wrong door (and so have to restart the level), and several levels with countdown timers where you have to solve the maze super-quick. One of them gives you just two seconds to get out, with the distance to cover also taking two seconds. Not fun.

There are also only really three different baddies, ammo is in very short supply, you have to collect money for better weapons which aren’t really worth it, and it’s possible to accidently trigger fire doors so you can’t progress as once closed, they’re closed for good.

The aliens (which have been lifted directly from Aliens) aren’t really even a threat – it’s everything else that is. Bad game. To your room.

Project-X Special Edition (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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Bloody hell that was hard. Save states at the start of each level and still the last couple of levels were near impossible.

Although I loved this back on my Amiga, what I hadn’t realised back then was how poor the collision detection was, which, coupled with the jerky movement, caused so many deaths as I slammed accidentally into walls as I tried to scrape by. Perhaps this was because the first two levels are pretty easy but I never got any further than that until now.

A big advantage (aside from the save states) of the Evercade version are the additional buttons which replace having to either waggle the joystick or slap the spacebar (I used to do it with my foot) in order to activate the Gradius-like power-up system. The number of times I’d die while trying to GUNS, POWER UP previously, now eased with just a simple button press instead.

Despite it not living up to my memory, and feeling much less polished than it appeared to be at the time, it was still fun. But so, so hard.

Nebulus (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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It’s not often I play the C64 version of a game I liked on the Spectrum (and in this case, the Game Boy too) and think, you know, this is actually better. But it is. The animation of your main frog/gonk guy especially is really nice, and the vertical scrolling is less jerky. it’s great.

And hard. Very hard. Previously, I don’t think I’d ever even passed level 2, so I’d not experienced how much of a mind-stewing maze the later levels are. It looks like a platformer, but actually, it’s a maze game in 3D with things to shoot to trigger lifts and stuff. It’s then you realise that the time limit is the thing most likely to kill you too.

The screenshot, by the way, is from the Evercade site because, again, there’s no screenshot function on the Evercade. Tch.

Wardner (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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Although it wasn’t often I came across Wardner in the arcades, it was a game I played whenever I got the chance. I don’t know why though, because it’s so hard my ten pee would last mere seconds. Now, with the advent of Press Select to Insert Coin, I can just slot unlimited magic money into the machine! The future!

Playing it now, I realise that it’s actually quite a lot like Alex Kidd. No janken, of course, and you can shoot, but similar. It’s also not really all that good. It’s clearly designed to extract all your money with the difficulty and the jumping precision needed for many of the gaps. The final level is also really hard as it’s effectively a maze, and the already paltry time limit really doesn’t help. Plus there are trap floors to send you round in a circle. Again. And rocks you can’t see that fall on your head if you go up the wrong ladders.

Then, the final boss himself is an absolute swearword. He chucks flames at you, which you can dodge but you’ve got to be both very quick and pixel perfect to pull it off. Not fun at all and certainly a trillion pounds worth of coins needed.

Cybernoid (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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This week, the next two Evercade cartridges arrived. Cybernoid is on the new C64 cart, and I was a big fan of the original (albeit on the Spectrum) so it’s the first thing I started up. Thankfully, the Commodore version is very similar to the Spectrum one, although with more muted colours and a different ship design.

It’s still a pretty good game, although it’s very easy to die due to the random nature of some of the spawns. For example, baddies spawn at the edge of the screen – the same edge you need to exit by – and so frequently they’ll appear in the same spot you occupy, killing you. The random bullet frequency from some turrets can mean timing nipping between them is based on luck rather than judgment too.

Another spanner in the works is special attacks. You’re given a number of things like mines, bouncy bombs and so on, some of which are required to hit destructible blocks above or below you as your cannon only shoots horizontally. But you only have a limited number of uses of each, meaning you can end up in a room with no way to progress, no way to return, and no enemies to shoot (as killing them sometimes drops refills). Very frustrating, and means that you end up never using any special attacks except for in the situations where you can’t otherwise progress.

And it is very hard.

Other than all those things though, I very much enjoyed playing it again after all this time. It’s one of those games that just loops infinitely, so after about 4 loops through the game I’m claiming “done”.