Mike Castle

Christ pat, I think you let your frustration with getting the emulator running carry over to the game. If they had made the game scroll rather than flip (well, it's Amtrad, it wouldn't have happened anyway, but if they did) it would have lost some of it's charm. And controls like a tank? Perhaps your computer just didn't like the emulator, because he stops in a split second for me.

And yeah, the rom is french, and lots of people believe it was only released in France. 'tis false, it was released in the UK as I had an English copy, it's just no bugger ever bothered converting that to an emulator.

I can understand not liking it, as we're not all going to like the same stuff... but 0/10 is ridiculously harsh on it.

Incidently... Anarchy was much better on the Amstrad again (seriously, those Spectrum graphics look like someone threw up on the screen and went "y'know, that looks good"), and even then, it controlled worse than skweek, and was, in general, annoying to play. Not that I'd give Anarcy 0/10, mabe 4/10 because it was a little fun when playing two player with my Mum way back.

My main issue with almost every version of Bubble Bobble has been the absolute lack of being able to pop bubbles by jumping into them forwards, and instead you're forced to hit them with your spikes... which are on your back... and you can't run backwards... what the fuck?

The Amstrad version just had you popping them regardless, which I much preferred (seriously, they're dragons, they have claws!) So I have hated every other version of the game I've played because they all just lead to pushing bubbles around endlessly.

Although I don't think it's because Taito put more effort into the Amstrad, I actually think it's possibly because they cared less about it than other systems (it was really only the UK that truly latched onto the Amstrad, other markets had the Spectrum and Commodore, then Amiga and NES), and so what was really a flaw in the programming (at least with Bubble Bobble) became the one thing that set it apart from the rest for me.

I'm with you on SUnshine too, it wasn't that fun, but I think the base story is essentially the same. Would be rather funny if it turned out that the plot designer had recently been playing Skweek prior to making said games plot .

And two versions of it would be great... also, if pat likes this one, could this wind up being the one game we all like? Would be funny in that we had to go way back to the Amstrad for the first one .

Bizarrely I've since read several positive reviews for the Amiga game, so maybe it was just the fact I was young and unable to play it, I dunno.

I've tried all other versions. None are as good as this one (Hence why I specified Amstrad).

In fact, most of the time I've found the Amstrad ports of games to be far superior to every other version, including stuff like Rainbow Islands, Bubble Bobble and New Zealand Story.

I kind of loathe to describe the graphics as "cheerful", but that's exactly what they were. The game is colourful and fun, and remind me of LittleBigPlanet in the sense that you can't possibly play through the game without smiling. Musically the game matches up, I'd compare it to LittleBigPlanet again in this sense, if you've had a shitty day I could honestly see Skweek cheer you up.

Tell you what else it reminds me of in so much as the basics of it... Mario Sunshine. You're going round cleaning up the place, which is what you did in Sunshine

There's a thin line between challenging and unfair, and at times I'm afraid it crosses that.

I'll agree, partially with the fact you can't see what's coming, you'll hop onto screen 2, only to find that an enemy was just on his way to screen 1. Or you'll find what you thought would be a safe square was actually nothing at all. Plus the levels where you're either waiting for the enemy to clear your path for you, or they're erasing what you've done, and it can be frustratingly unfair. But I feel that's part of it's charm. You spend the levels before that doing as best you can to save up lives for the unfair bits.

I'd love to see an iPhone conversion at some point, it's that kind of game that could make the hours fly by when you're on a journey.

How awesome would an up-to-date version be? It wouldn't even need any real changes, except perhaps some additional graphic tidying to suit the modern day market. (Though knowing todays way of doing things, we'd have the screen scrolling, and have larger levels that scroll from left to right as well as up and down).

And...

(I didn't complete the game so I don't really know...)

I've never completed it, so no worries there. Me and my Mum would spend absolutely hours playing this game (this and Wonderboy... also better on the Amstrad *ahem*), and neither of us ever once completed it. It's a right bastard of a game, but strangely addictive

Glad you liked it though, one of the reasons I picked it is because it's a relatively unknown title that is just pure fun, there's no real rhyme nor reason for any of it, it's just fun and cheerful all the way through.

Ahhh, Skweek. A game which I fondly remember, and still play every so often to such an extent it will almost be guarenteed to land in my top ten games of all time.

But rather than just fondly remembering it, it needs a review.

So first up, the plot. As is typical of games of this era the plot likely game much much after the game design, because it's next to non-existant. However it basically goes that a bunch of alien beings came down to Skweeks planet and painted it blue. It's up to you to paint it back... to pink.

Onto the graphics, they're brilliant, the Amstrad was generally rather shit for graphics, but this game makes it look amazing. From the bears, to the variety of enemies, to Skweek himself. The graphics wouldn't look out of place on a Master System or NES.

Sound wise, again, top notch, they took what was next to nothing on the Amstrad and turned it into something beautiful, it's bouncy, it's lively, it's happy, and it just fits the game so well.

Controls are simple, it's just straight directions of left, right, up and down, with space to fire. So it keeps it nice and easy for everyone.

Gameplay is brilliant. Each of the enemies has it's own abilities and things to do, the fuzzy haired purple guys just walk basically, the green spikey guys also do so (but will change the square blocks to different colours. Green means your shoot bounces off, orange absorbs them), the yellow hat looking guys tend to go in diagonals, the green blobs shoot around like a fucker. (Which can catch you off guard as you switch between screens), the orange firey looking ones move slowly, but can't be killed by your weapons, and the octopus looking guys move normally but fire in diagonals at you.

The variety of enemies does, of course, keep you on your toes, though at times it can be frustrating when you're waiting for the orange guy go get the hell out of the way so you can move to the next section that he's blocking.

The levels also have a lot of interesting abilities to them from ice squares which slide you along non-stop until you hit a wall or a square you can walk on. There's disintergrating blocks, two POW blocks (blue wipes out itself and the 8 squares surrounding it, green wipes out all enemies on screen), and there's the red squares the enemies come out of when you hit them (oh yes, those bastards just keep coming back), don't be on that when it closes or you die. Plus of course the typical "walk off the edge of the world into nothingness" squares.

And what would a game be without power ups? From extra lives, to teddy bears (collect one of each colour and skip a level... collect the same one twice though and you lose it instead, so be careful), to freeze shots (freezes the enemy and you walk into them to kill them, or leave them frozen so they don't ram you), to laser shots (which are less helpful than you would think, as each block they remove is a blue square to run over).

Even individual levels can create entirely different problems. As sometimes the enemies on a specific level will have the ability to remove blocks themselves (something that is required on one level as you're stuck in a small area until the enemies do so. Which is fine, but you're guarenteed to die at least once unless you have a laser shot, as they didn't give you enough time). Sometimes they'll have the ability to create fresh blocks out of thin air (great fun when you think you have all blocks covered, only to find some bastard's created two more down the other end), and the worst of the worst... the levels with the cloud.

That bastard cloud will go around turning pink blocks back to blue, and god help you if you shoot him because he'll turn up elsewhere to paint those blocks blue too. Best advice is kill him at the last possible second and hit the block he was on to complete that level.

All in all the designers took a very basic idea for a game, and threw a ton of things in to spice it up that all lead to different feels for the levels, while keeping the actual gameplay the same throughout, and barring a couple of levels it's well balanced, and while perhaps not the greatest game in the history of gaming, it does bring a lot of fun to the table, and isn't just underated, but is shamefully unknown by the majority of gamers, and could well do with being more widely appreciated.

Overall - 9.5/10

pat, feel free to bung me a PM with your e-mail addy and I'll send the emulator and rom over (with instructions on how to run the thing, because the Amstrad liked being fucking awkward).

Same goes for anyone else.

You could perhaps suggest doing this, over there, it's not like it's going great guns here (unfortunately) and I'm sure at least me and Ron would join you over there to do it, we could just port across the current list and have it as a weekly thing for that site instead.

That way, you're helping out the site and this continues, win/win I say (plus hopefully more people doing it, meaning if people no-show a week, it's not an issue).

I've tried to muster up enthusiasm for a football game... and it's just not happening, sorry guys. Guess I just can't stand footy, lol.

And would working for free on another site mean you weren't allowed to do stuff on a forum? If so personally I'd tell them to either pay me or get fucked. Purely because they can't expect you to be "exclusive" to them, while also not paying you a penny.

Though if I have the wrong end of the stick, feel free to hit me with it.

I had Roland on the ropes and Roland in time.

 

Seriously, fuck Roland.

I had Roland On The Ropes too, that was like playing fucking Donkey Kong Country 2 in comparison to Roland In The Caves.

Bridge It was shit too, as was Sultan's Maze... in fact of all those free games I got with it, I think the fruit machine one got played the most, which shows just how shit they were.

Just escape the cave each time, but all you could do was jump left or right, no walking at all. Which meant you had to try and judge each jump perfectly or you'd land in that bird, or those weird plants which would kill you, and you only had one life. So if you got to level 3 (Unlikely, but if you did) and died, it's right back to level 1.

Utter garbage.

Enjoy... or not XD (No, I wont seriously put you all through that abomination of a game, you actually get a glimpse at the main screen after he dies the first time... just look at that god awful control set-up!)

That was one of the games packaged with the Amstrad (Not one of them was any good), and it was pretty much a crap shoot as to where you would land each time you jumped, and that fucking bird always followed you around.

The shoehorned in motion controls for DKC returns are disheartening. I was really hoping to just play it on my Classic Controller or a Gamecube pad. I still want to play it, but enforced waggle when it isn't necessary shouldn't be happening now that the Wii has been around for a bit. Use it when it enhances the game, leave it out when it doesn't. Jeez.

Developers have to sign a deal promising to use motion controls. That was maybe necessary at the start, but I don't think it is so much any more.

Then they should have used them for some bonus games only. Have some of the bonus games needing you to pick off enemies from a distance (sort of like one of the bonuses from DKC3), you could use the motion controls for that, and possibly have it as an additional game, it gets the motion controls used, and leaves the actual game for playing the actual game. I initially loved the idea of a new Donkey Kong Country game, but the second the information around it was revealed my interest became zero. They appear to have taken everything that made the original games unique and dumped them in favour of "new gameplay", fuck new gameplay, come up with something new for that, I want the old style gameplay in a new look and with some added stuff, not a complete overhaul.

After Skweek I may go for an even older Amstrad game... Roland In The Caves.

Hey, if I had to put up with that shit as a kid, you lot can put up with it now .

Our big challenge, I think, is finding a game we all enjoy. I'm contemplating nominating Sonic Triple Trouble as it's a lesser known Sonic game that's fun, but it'd be nice to find something a bit less franchised that's good fun for all of us!

Fixed

The only management game I've enjoyed (bar TEW and EWR stuff) was Premier Manager 98 on the PS1. Not being a football fan they rarely, if ever, interest me, but that one was dumbed down enough that I could enjoy it a little, though even then, only really because I'd head next door and have a laugh and piss about while playing it with the guy there.

Though don't let that put you off, I feel I'm trying to nip your ideas in the bud before they've come up XD.

It may just be a case of the system, I may nab the Amiga version later and see how that is as a comparison, but unless the actual games are exceptionally different in regards to the levels themselves, I doubt I'll find much difference in them.

As for your nominations... not tried Simon The Sorcerer at all, though have meant to do so before, Wiz N Liz I used to love, but found less love for it when I tried it a while back, Never got into the Megaman games at all, Another World is good, but too precision happy (like Flashback but not so good I felt), Not played the next two, and James Pond I loved when I was in school, but when I've tried it on an emulator since I just didn't care after 5 minutes, but that may change if I gave any of them a serious play for this.

Not sure if it's the difference in game systems Ron... but you might not like my review so much, lol, so that being said....

Chuck Rock 2: Son Of Chuck. On the Megadrive.

I'll be straight and blunt to open with... that was shit.

Right from the word go it felt like a horrible game. Graphically it looks great, musically it fits well (though did feel a little Toe Jam & Earl Panic On Funkatron in sound at times). But the gameplay... holy shit is the gameplay terrible.

First, we have a milk bottle as our health bar, that's fine, that's all good. But it runs out damned quick when you hit spikey areas that you can't get past without taking damage. Turns out there's rocks you need to whack with your club to move into position so you can get past.

Then you can apparently ride animals, which I only found out on the second attempt (like the blocks) because it's not made obvious that the A button does that, why have him stand on his damned club if pressing it does nothing at that moment? Gah!

The bosses, they turn up whenever they seem to feel like it, there's no real set layout for the game, and it just feels like it's whatever they threw in at whatever point. It begins like most games, level 1, level 2 with a boss, fair enough, so I'm expecting level 3 then a level 4 with a boss... oh don't be so stupid.

Level 3 has a boss, then there's about 3 without a boss, then you hit some stupid tentacled thing that you can't defeat without a walkthrough at which point I said "fuck this" and turned it off.

I mean really, who the hell designed this game? There's no rhyme nor reason for anything that I was doing, and who the hell thought bunging venus fly traps in that throw you in the air was a good thing? I avoided the first bunch because I thought they would be a problem, turns out I had to jump in one as I reached a dead end, and lo-and-behold, I'm catapulted into the air... who knew Venus fly traps were actually natures baby launchers?

And then there's the god awful "lead the monkey over to the ostrich that actually looks like a skeleton in bandages" stuff... that was pure guess work. I hadn't been able to stand on those monkeys before now, so why should I think I can suddenly do so now? In fact, getting the banana to him and him jumping off, I STILL couldn't stand on him, so why can I suddenly do so once he's under the ostrich?

And then we have the ostrich and... whatever the fuck that was in level 2. I sort of got the feel that these things were shoehorned in there for no real reason, especially when at the end of level 2 and you have to jump off that fat thing, it's right over spikes and you have to drop in to them to move on... thankfully the programmers fucked up there as well and those spikes aren't dangerous.

Oh... and the bird... that fucking level 3 bird, that flies down, gives you no information as to what you're meant to do (apparently you jump on it's claw... thanks game), first time I did it I stayed on the dinosaur swinging my club at the bird... bird fucks off and the screen follows it and I'm dead... what?

So next time I jump on the claw, the bird flies up for about 2 seconds, then drops down... BACK ON THE FUCKING DINOSAUR! What the hell was the point? Why was the moron who, in the meeting said "Why don't we make the player jump on a birds claw for no reason, lift them up for a couple of seconds, then drop them back down right where they already were" not fired for being an obvious idiot? From the looks of the game they were likely the one in charge of the damned project.

All in all, the graphics and music of the game are good, it's bright, it's lively, and it looks very very fun. Unfortunately it all goes down hill the second you begin the game, and never does it once pick up again, and because the gameplay is what counts most in a game... I'll give it a 2/10.

1 point for actually turning up to make the game, and another point for the graphics designer who deserved to be making a better game.

I just found that broken bonus thing, and while it's an annoying as fuck bonus level... she should have let go of the jump button a few times, she may have been able to control it better. XD

I can see the similarities, I hadn't ever thought of them before, but don't think they're quite as obvious as you make out, but I think that might be because I've never really played the games back to back either.

The lightning generators are a good mention too, along with how messy his garden and other places are. I mean take the power lines, either that's one fucking big mouse, or those power lines wouldn't stretch across my wardrobe.

But I think looking too far into how "realistic" it is, on a game based around a blob of clay is perhaps going a bit too far . I do like how you can power up twice (from ball to animal, to animal with floating ball that attacks enemies), but it does have a few flaws. I do find that said flaws aren't quite an issue.

With the playthrough, is that the lass who loves the gopher? If so I remember seeing it a while back (never watched the whole vid, so never saw the game break on her, but it does add to what I said about how that section of the game damned sure never got playtested).

The ball jumping bit, I dunno... personally it looks better on the SNES than the C64 stuff which seemed to just be random still images getting larger and smaller, and that was it. It's not really got a lot to load either in that sense. With the SNES it has to have the rest of the game in it's memory, but also on later levels have the floor spinning around to make things tougher.

See, I'm the entire opposite of that opinion pat, I can't stand Rolo. I found it to be mind numbingly dull and awkward when I played it before. And while the mouse is a bastard to control (which I also said anyways), the rest of them aren't too bad. The gopher is way too damned overpowered as a character though.

Oh, that CLAY bonus level, I'd forgotten all about that, so when I finally hit it... yeah, one of the most annoying bonus levels I've ever played. Who the fuck passed that one through the quality checks?

"Right, we have about 10 minutes of mindlessly bouncing around with next to no control unless they're lucky enough to find the exit", I mean sweet holy christ, the amount of times you wind up bouncing between two points in it and have to almost beg the game to let you actually go elsewhere is amazing. I'm assuming that it was the least playtested part of the game and it shows.

Mike didn't like the puzzle sections, but I actually didn't mind them. I can see why people would have a problem with it but I appreciate the fact the developers tried something different. OK, it's probably not what you'll have bought the game for, I can accept that, but it's far from a game breaker.

That's pretty much my issue with it, when I play the game I want to play the platforming section. I can do the puzzle stuff easy enough, I just feel jumping between platformer, then puzzle all the time draws you away from the game rather than into it. I could perhaps see having a puzzle in between different worlds, but between every level is a bit much. But yeah, solid game beyond that

Apologies for not getting the previous review up, but here's one for Claymates .

Rightyho, Claymates it is.

Nice bouncy intro music as the lead character walks across the screen with all the various characters you can become following along behind him.

Basic intro plot, big tribal guy steals the serum Clayton's father has made, and his father to boot, while turning him into a round blob of clay. How's that for fair trade?

Then it's onto the game and we have a bit of a top down affair (Which I shall return to later) before entering the first level "Clayton's Yard", now... pardon me going off track a minute here, but that was a long walk between those fences to get to the yard. Who the hell was in charge of planning on that build?

So, first level and the first character you get to be is the mouse. Which admittedly is great for charging fast and kickstarting the game with that underground section, but is less great when it comes to the more careful positioning if you want to jump on platforms as he is a bit control sensitive.

Thankfully you get to drop him off soon enough for the cat who is much more movement friendly. However a little later if you wind up taking the balloon to the top of the screen you can become the duck, do not do this, the duck is shit. (The green ball is the duck) his ability is to fly, for about three flaps and then he plummets like he's a lemming, and his jumping is poor too.

You do get to be one of the better characters in the game near the end of the level (which, if you go back you can use to dig underground to get to a free life, always nice), and that's the Gopher, his jumping is about average, however he moves at the right pace and while most characters when you fire are very weak (mouse sort of barks, cat claws, duck pecks, fish sort of barks again), the gopher throws nuts which bounce along for a little way, allowing you to take out enemies much much easier.

Now I've discussed the characters, onto the main thing, the gameplay.

It's easy to pick up, ridiculously easy in fact, you have jump and fire. You want to run? Hold down fire, you want to drop through thin platforms (or even dig with the gopher)? Hold down and press jump, it's simple.

The variety of characters you can become keeps the game interesting too, although it does tend to mean that one second you're quite happily barrelling through the level as a mouse, and can wind up suddenly waddling along as a duck without meaning to.

Plus, defeating enemies to get by can be a chore without either the extra ball floating around your head or the gopher, thanks to the ridiculously short range of the attacks. This is made worse if the enemy takes two hits to defeat as you can be killed quite easily if you're stuck as the clay ball), or is one of those damned snails thanks to the shell flying off in your direction.

But as a whole they don't really make the game unfun, just a bit frustrating at times, and that's not necessarily a bad thing as without those the game would likely be a walk in the park.

The graphics are solid for a SNES game, I honestly can't fault them at all, the music as well is lively and upbeat, which goes perfectly with the game.

At the end of each level, if you've collected enough gems you can get a bonus stage, which begins as a nice simple bounce on the coloured squares game, which picks up speed the further it gets on. If you're lucky the final 4 squares will be right beside each other. If you're extremely unlucky they'll be in all four corners and you're now guessing which one the next lit up one will be (as with it speeding up you don't have time to check before you're dropping again). But complete it well and you get yourself a nice free life.

After that it's onto the next... hang on, back to the overview screen and we have a puzzle.

Now I have to be honest, this is, in my eyes, what lets the game down. I like a puzzle at the best of times, but this is bad for two reasons:

1 - If you don't like completing puzzles (especially ones like this) you can wind up disliking the game before it's truly begun, and later in the game you may just give up in frustration because of the puzzles, and not because of the toughness of the main game.

2 - It pulls you back away from the main portion of the game. Can you imagine if you were playing, say, Super Mario World, and before every level you had to play a puzzle game just to get to the next level? It sucks the thrill of the game away.

Of course, in this day and age anyone who's stuck on it can hop online and just get the information to get by it from GameFAQs.

As a whole the game is solid, and is great fun to play, and the only things that lose it points are the puzzles and the poor attack mechanism for all but one of the character.

So my verdict is a nice respectable 7/10

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a serum and a father to rescue.

Wankers have taken it down, so here it is again for anyone who's interested.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXuzrIN_x2M

 

It's been taken down again. Anybody got another link? Really interested in seeing this.

Here you go.

anyone know where a copy of this is on youtube? (it was the video of the guy climbing the transmssion tower)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_n3Dln4Y74

Skweek was on the Amiga too, and looking at the longplay on youtube of it... was worse than the Amstrad version, and considerably different enough that while the layout is the same, one enemy looks totally different and moves totally different as well. The sounds are god awful on there (and in some cases added needlessly).

I would strongly suggest going solely for the Amstrad version once we get to it because that is the best version I've seen of it (similar to Bubble Bobble actually, if you want a truly great version of it, play the Amstrad version, none of the other versions hold a candle to it). The only thing I can see if does better is the screen scrolls (the Amstrad has multiple screens that it flips through). But yeah... I wont say too much for fear of reviewing it early XD.

Good to have you back, Mike! I always enjoy your reviews. It'd be nice to have Triple A back too, he's also a good read. Go for it with the Amstrad game, it's fun to have a variety - that's why I like the idea of this thread, I've not played the majority of games suggested so far, I've not played Claymates either so I'm looking forward to giving that a go. From the videos I've looked at on Youtube it certainly looks different.

 

What Amstrad game are you thinking about, anyway?

Claymates is awesome, but it's a strange one, and can be very samey at times too. But I wont say too much about it because it's worth leaving that for the actual review.

Amstrad game wise... well Skweek of course! It's my favourite Amstrad game period. I may be biased as I spent absolutely hours playing it with my Mum when I was younger, but it really is great. However it would need to be the Amstrad version purely because the various versions differed so much (one of them even had a horizontal scrolling set-up rather than vertical), but if anyone needs it I can easily send the Emulator and rom of the game out to make running it easy enough.