Crap Game Corner's dribbly aunt: Masters of the Universe: The Movie (1987, Gremlin - ZX Spectrum)

Masters of the Universe is a somewhat cult movie nowadays (at least i think it is). Back then, it was a box office bomb, even though I thought it was a rather good movie. It starred Dolph Lundgren as He-Man, Frank Langella as Skelator and James Tolken as Detective Lubic (complete with his trademark bald head!), and was a 100 minute romp with lots of action and a bit of humour thrown in for good measure. Gremlin picked up the rights to produce one game, whereas US Gold did the another which was based on the cartoon. But that was crap. Whereas Gremlin's one was an action game. And that was also crap. Sigh, here we go again.

The game starts with you controlling a little squat version of He-Man. You have to go around and bash Skelator's troops, whilst finding the chords that are required to make Gwildor's invention, The Cosmic Key, work once more, so you can get back to the planet Eternia, and give Skelator a slap around his boney head. Sigh. It's a shame that the game is actually quite rubbish because the story is quite good. Not once did I get to use He-Man's sword, but a weedy little pop gun instead. The enemies respawn all the time (there's sometimes about 6 enemies onscreen at any one time), and sap your energy like there's no tomorrow, especially when you kill them, as they send 4 bullets going in all directions. The compass at the top of the screen points to where you can find the chords are, and there are roughly 8 to find in total. Only I didn't even get to find one, as I was too busy fighting loads of troops to even get near to one. But when you do find one, it's through sheer blind luck, as the compass is actually quite near pointless. It says, for example, to go up. When you do, you come to a dead end, and have to back track. Through loads of bad guys, before you can even find the right way to go. Yet again.

The graphics aren't too bad, and are clutter free, plus the title screen isn't too bad. There's hardly any colour clash, mainly because the main area is monochrome which changes when you reach the edge of the screen and enter a new one. The only problem is that when you reach the graveyard section, you'll end up getting stuck behind a gravestone most of the time, and get shot like there's no tomorrow by the baddies. At least the status bar is pretty straight forward. Your health is represented by the Sword of Eternia. Skelator's is his staff, with the compass at the top. The timer, that represents how much time is left before sunrise on Eternia, is at the bottom, with your lives status by the side. Simple.

It's not a bad game. But on the other hand, it's not a good one. It's just crap.  I don't know what Gremlin were playing at. After classics like the Monty Mole series, MASK I, II and III, Way of the Tiger and it's sequel, Avenger, it's a shame to see this released by a respected software house like Gremlin. And it's put a tarnish against a damn good movie. Even the PS2 version of the game based on the rebooted cartoon from the '00s is better than this. Play that instead, and wonder what could have been, instead of what is. A bloody big let down!

80's Movie Fest: Die Hard (1987, 20th Century Fox)

It's Christmas Eve. Detective John McClaine (Bruce Willis) is flying in from New York to Los Angeles where his wife Holly Generro (Bonnie Bedelia) is working for the Nakatomi Corporation. Whilst cleaning himself up in a bathroom on the 30th floor, a group of terrorists seize control and capture all the guests, except for McClaine, and hold them hostage. Now, it's up to our vest wearing hero, an unexpected guest in the form of a passing cop (Reginald Veljohnson) and all of McClaine's cunning and training, to save the hostages and take down the terrorists, before they can make off with the money from the building.

Die Hard is a staple of 80's action movies. Along side the likes of Predator, Commando and Rambo III, it has a body count, but it has one thing going for it: it's smart. Very smart. Taken from Roderick Thope's 1979 book, Nothing Lasts Forever, Die Hard was originally envisioned as a sequel to Commando. But, Arnie passed (because of how poor Conan The Destroyer did with the critics), so it was rewritten, and became the movie we know and love today. And, I'm glad he did. The script is sharp, the set pieces are fantastic, and the fight between Alexander Goudinov and Bruce Willis is bone crunching excitement. Even the building that doubles as the Nakatomi Plaza is the actual Fox building, so I suppose that saved on location scouting!

Competantly directed by John McTiernan, it became the hallmark 80's action movie, becoming 20th's biggest hit of 1987, and recently being named as 'the best action movie of all time'. Bruce Willis fits into the role of the cop facing insermountable odds perfectly, and coming from doing comedy, delivers his one-liners with gusto, especially his trademark catchphase "Yippie-ky-ay, Motherf**ker". I can't imagine anyone else being able to pull off the role the way he can. The same can be said for Alan Rickman, who plays Hans Gruber, the German criminal mastermind. He seemed to be born to play that role, and again, cant imagine anyone else playing the role.

Overall, the film is nigh on perfect. The best action/christmas movie ever made. It even spawned 3 sequels, of which 2 are excellent, and one is good (but not great). Plus, there is a 5th one in the works, with Willis returning to the role of McClaine, thats supposed to be being released sometime early next year. Can't wait for that one!

Crap Game Corner's demented Cousin: Back To The Future (Electric Dreams, Spectrum - 1985)

Everybody knows the story of Back To The Future: teenager uses time machine, and accidentally scuppers his parents' first meeting, jeapordising his very exsistance. Cue much malarkying about, trying to put the time line back together again, and making sure he exists. It was a very good film. So was the second, and the third. But, the game that was made on the first's plotline......wasn't. Shall we head back to 1985? Or get hopelessly lost on the way?(my money's on the last option!)

Stating off, you have to pick up various objects and use them in the relevant areas. You have distractions, though, in the form of Biff, who knocks you to the ground, and Lorraine, who follows you about everywhere, trying to snog you all the time (ewww!). Encounters with the aforementioned people will not only make your progress a lot slower, but also deplete the photograph of Marty at the bottom of the screen faster than usual.If the photo is totally depleted, Marty ceases to be, and the game is over. The game scrolls either left or right, and you can enter buildings to find the objects you need, but you can only pick up one object at a time, meaning lots of wandering about.

I think thats the game covered. I'm not too sure, though, as the controls suck, the gameplay sucks, the graphics...don't suck (just about), the title screen is actually quite decent but the premise is sound. It's just not executed good enough. To think that the same software house would later bring us ALIENS and the home ports of R-TYPE (Big Trouble in Little China was also crap, but we'll come back to that at a later date. If I can ever fathom how to play the bloody thing!), we get this. It's a travesty to the good BttF name, and makes a mockery of the Spielberg/Zemeckis series of classic movies. Luckily, the two follow up games were better, and more playable. Go play them instead.

Speccy Capers: Olli & LIssa - The Ghost of Shilmore Castle (ISI/Firebird, 1986)

Sir Humphrey isn't too happy. His beloved castle, Shilmore Castle in the highlands of bonnie Scotland, has been bought an American multi-millionaire, Eugene Portcullis the third (Jnr), who wants to take it back with him to the good ol' US of A. Of course, old Sir Humphrey isn't to chuffed at that, what with being a ghost an all and with the castle being his home, he gets his friends Olli and Lissa to help concoct a potion that will render old Humph invisible and scare old Eugene witless, making him leave the castle alone, so Humphrey can do his ghosting business in peace.

There are 8 screens in total, all increasing in difficulty. There are also many nasties who are out to make Olli's life quite hard, as they've taken a fancy to life in the sun, eating hamburgers and surfing. On each of the levels, there is an ingredient needed to make the potion, with Sir Humphrey waiting patiently by the bubbling cooking pot. You have to avoid the nasties, while making your way to the item needed, pick it up and make your way back, whereupon Lissa will give you a smacker as a reward.

I discovered this game quite by accident. It came as a four pack with I, Ball, Thrust and Back To The Future. And I'm glad I did. It's rock hard, but it's also a hidden gem. Plus, it also suffers from Looks-Nothing-Like-The-Cover syndrome. The character you control looks bugger all like the character on the front cover, but rather a blob, with arms, legs and big eyes, all the ingredients a cartoon adventure needs. The title screen has a rather jaunty tune that plays with little intermissions when the lightning strikes, which creates a neat little effect where the screen flashes. All the characters are cute and cartoony, just like Olli, and the game over sequence gives a few chuckles, where Humphrey gives Olli a few slaps around the head with a broom if he fails in his quest. On the whole, graphically, it's all sickingly cute, but looks great. The game does play very fast, and you're up against a very tight time limit on every level, which gets a bit frantic, but it's still fun.

All in all, it's a great little game that was worth every penny of the £1.99 asking price back in the day, and it's worth a play even today. It provides a challenge, looks great and sounds just as good. Recommended.

The Tuesday Musing: Are Todays Games Too Easy?

Back in the days of Ye Olde Spectrume, Commodore 64 and the Amstrad 464....e, you got lots of bang for your buck. Yes, the graphics might not have been up to scratch of today's graphical mastepieces, but the gameplay engrossed you, and it even challenged you. Taking away one of your precious 3 lives willy nilly meant learning from your mistakes, as another 2 slips meant back to the first level, even if you got all the way to the end of the game, as it's no continues for you, my lad!

But, thats the thing. Even though some games had one (very) huge area to explore, the gameplay was challenging enough to keep you playing until the small hours. Take Super Robin Hood on the humble micros. Yes, there was the huge castle to explore which meant just the one level, but death lurked around every corner, waiting to zap away some of your precious energy, and every screen was a challenge, and the castle WAS huge. Lots of enemies, keys to find, lifts to navigate and moving floors that you HAD to walk with all added up to to a very engrossing, and tough, game. Today's gamer has Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3. Yes, the game has either single player or multiplayer, but the single player gives no challenge. Yes, you CAN die multiple times, but you can still keep going with what seems to be infinite lives, the very thing we wanted back in the 80's. It just means that you will eventually get to the end, but there's no hard work involved. It seems to be that what we eventually get, isn't really what we want. I mean, yes, I do play games from today, and I enjoy them, but I feel the challenge that once hit me tenfold has gone.

Another example is Julian Gallop's CHAOS. A turn based RPG, you cast your spells and guided your hero, while watching your back at every turn as one slip could mean certain doom for your wizardy bloke, and means starting all over again. Here's the thing: there's no save option. Once you die, thats it. In a modern game, like Neverwinter Nights, once you die, you have the option of continuing, meaning that you can just plow through it in no time (if you're a very avid gamer). Whereas games like CHAOS, once you die, you could try playing it a different way, making the game seem more interesting. You can argue that 'you can just start another game in RPG GAME X, and play as a different character', but thats not the point. The point is, is that instead of offering players just 2, or even 3 continues with which to complete the game, they're just saying 'don't worry about continues, they don't exist. You'll just respawn!'

And that's the thing. You can just keep respawning until you get to the end, crushing the challenge that was put before you like a paper cup. The challenge back then was can I make it past the first level, with my last life intact. One last thing is difficulty levels. This I do find a great help for people just starting out playing a particular game, if got right. Call of Duty, again, is a prime example of this. Modern Warfare was good, but on Veteran, it wasn't tough enough. World at War was also good, but TOO tough on Veteran. Getting the difficulty level right something many developers can't do. But when they can (FIFA), it makes the game good. But thats one thing the retro games don't have, but you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way?

But what do you think? Have your say in the comment boxes below.