Part nostalgia-bomb, part note-taking and part FAQ, what started in GameTrailers as a video game blog is now on Blogger. This blog is a look back at video games, both popular and obscure, from the video game industry's infancy all the way to the previous console generation.
For this level, you'll be dealing with the spiders on the ground level, a thunder cloud that chases after you and fires lighting bolts from the top of the screen, and a bunch of scaffolds in between. Keep moving to avoid being shocked, and stay at ground level at all times to get the key here, and once you free the mouse, immediately head to the right and don't stop. That way, the thunder cloud never returns.
The River of Paint
In this stage, you'll be able to move around in eight directions with the D-Pad on a tiny raft with a tiny paddle. Aside from the spiked balls that will fly toward you, you'll also need to avoid the laser shots from the guns above and contend with fans that push you back and make moving forward a little more difficult. Thankfully, as long as you're paying attention, getting to the exit won't be too difficult.
Mount Sylvester
At the start of the stage, head all the way to the right and avoid the falling rocks as you go. You'll find a rope, grab it, then hold Up and press Button 1 to throw the rope upwards so you can climb up the mountain. Watch for falling rocks and enemies as you make your way up, as you won't be able to avoid anything as you climb. The key will be at the top, although you may and will have to do some jumping to get to it. The exit will be all the way to the right at the top of the mountain.
Boss
Sylvester will be inflating and sending tiny red balloons at you. You'll need to jump off the moving platform, then jump off the balloons and hit Sylvester in the face with hats. If you run out of hats, the game will give you one to throw at Sylvester. In case you throw it to the left on accident, you can always count on the hats' boomerang-like properties to turn the other direction and hit Sylvester if the hat is at face level. If your timing is good enough, you may be able to hit Sylvester with two hats per pass. Once Sylvester glows funny colors, it's on to the final level of the game.
In this area, you'll be just inches away from lava at the bottom of the screen. If you touch that lava, it's instant death. You'll also have to contend with platforming, big red hermit crabs that will snap at you, moving platforms in the lava that may switch directions a little earlier than you expect...and the lava droplets. These things are the worst...sort of. If you're playing this on Master System, you can see them just fine. They won't be much of a problem on the console version of the game. On Game Gear, where the game is a little more zoomed in and the camera forces Speedy into the center of the screen, it's a different story. Sometimes the lava droplets will show up outside of your field of vision, and you can leap into them and take damage. As a result, the level is harder on Game Gear, and it got harder to the point that I had to switch from Game Gear to Master System and start the whole Let's Play over from scratch. It also doesn't help that the lava droplets don't make a sound until after they land.
At least you'll be able to find the key to rescue the mouse early in the level. So there's that to look forward to after the way-too-long paragraph that I just typed.
A Weekend in Hawaii (Part 2)
In Part 2 of A Weekend of Hawaii, you have more narrow platforms and a lot more opportunities to land in lava. Again, this part is much easier on Master System than on Game Gear, as the Game Gear's screen real estate and how it handles the level makes it look like you're taking leaps of faith every time. Other than that, Part 2 is more of the same from Part 1 except with harder platforming.
The key is near the end of the stage.
The Lake of Piranhas
You'll be in the water here. You can swim in eight directions with the D-Pad, but you're better off sticking to the surface and waiting for the trees in the background to show up a second time as you swim at the top of the water to the right. You'll find the key below where the trees begin again. Once you get the key, keep going all the way to the right. When you reach the end, go down and avoid all the fish, urchins and octopi to get to the exit.
Boss
To beat Sylvester, you'll need to catch the anchors that Sylvester throws with the clam that Speedy is holding. Get the clam below the falling anchors, press Button 1 so that you bounce the anchor back, and hit Sylvester with the anchor. Also, tap Left and Right so you don't slip around everywhere. You can bounce anchors more than once if you're waiting for Sylvester to come to you, so hitting him is a snap as long as your timing is right. Once you hit Sylvester enough times, it's on to the third level.
I've been sitting on this one for a good, long while, but now that I've gotten the extra video for it done that I wanted to get done, it's finally here!
Looks like Sylvester has kidnapped Speedy's girlfriend (I guess). It's time to take down Sylvester and get her back.
The Desert
The Sand Dunes
In the upper-left corner, you'll see your health as well as the number of hats you have. Hats are used as weapons, and the hearts act as health. You'll lose half a heart when you get hit, and collecting hearts will refill your health. Cakes and cheese will refill half a heart, while a heart will refill one whole heart.
Left and Right let you move left and right, Down ducks, Button 1 throws hats (assuming you have any) and Button 2 jumps.
The spiders will run at you, and the scorpions will strikes at you with their tails. Throw your hats or jump on them from above to take them out.
Along the way, there are holes. Go down them by pressing Down while on top of one. This lets you enter underground chambers where you can beat enemies up as well as get some pick-ups, including hearts for health. The trampolines can get you to higher places, but some of them can get you back above ground.
By going into the underground tunnels, you'll eventually find a key. This will take you to a mouse that has been taken hostage. Hold Right immediately to get to the other end of the room, avoid the bats and free the mouse. By freeing the mouse, you'll reveal the exit, and you'll be able to head to the next stage.
Once you've freed the mouse, get back above ground and head all the way to the right to find the exit.
The Rocky Mountains
You'll have plenty of hazards to deal with here: falling rocks, giant flowers that turn into monsters that you can't destroy when you get too close, and tentacles that come out of the holes to grab at you. Be careful where you're going as you're jumping over gaps in bridges and making your way to the right so you don't take damage. The key will be in front of a bigger hole in the cliffs; grab it and rescue the mouse so you can get to the exit at the end.
The Dry Lands
Be ready to move as soon as you enter this stage, as there will be a buzzard flying around at the top of the stage swooping down at you every chance that it gets. There are holes in the ground, and you'll need to look through every single one of them for the key so you can rescue the mouse and unlock the exit at the far right side of the stage. Make sure you jump on the snakes guarding the holes to defeat them so you can go underground and look for the key. As you're underground, watch out for the enemies that will both figuratively and literally drop in on you.
The first two holes have healing items if you need them, while the fourth hole has the key. The third hole has the exit, which only pops up if you rescue the mouth.
Boss
The boss is Sylvester being carried around by a vulture. (In the Game Gear version, he's wearing a jetpack, and the top of his head looks weird as a result.) Wait for him to drop a stick of dynamite, then pick it up with Down on the D-Pad and throw it upwards with button 2. The sticks of dynamite blow up after a couple of seconds, but it will take a lot of trial and error to throw it upwards at the right time so it blows up directly on Sylvester.
If you take too long to grab a stick of dynamite, wait for Sylvester to drop another one before going back on the attack.
Once you manage to hit Sylvester enough times, Sylvester flies away, and it's on to the second level.
Catacastles is a type-in game for the BBC Micro written by Thomas Evans with the code made freely available in Volume 3, Issue 1 of The Micro User from March 1985. The game is two-player only, and can be played with just one button.
Believe it or not, there is a story to this game, but unless you actually read the issue of The Micro User from which this came from, you'd have no idea.
Many years ago there lived a sorcerer in the land of Wong. On his many voyages and adventures he captured one item which he valued more than all else - a ruby with strong magical powers.
Also in the land of Wong lived a mighty baron. One day at a feast, long after the sorcerer had finished his last adventure, the baron saw the ring and wanted it at once.
At midnight, he sent one of his minions into the sorcerer's chamber to steal the ring. The minion, the baron and his followers then sped back to the baron's castle.
The next day the sorcerer realized what had happened and was furious. He called on the eagle king to act as judge and a vicious battle of magic ensured between the sorcerer and the baron who now had the ring.
Both were quickly drained of their magic until they died, devoid of all power, and the ring disintegrated.
But the battle went on using catapults - you and another player succeeded the baron and the sorcerer.
Both players play as barons who are shooting at each others' castles with catapults. CAPS LOCK is used for the left player, while COPY is used for the right player. (On my keyboard with BeebEm, it was CAPS LOCK for the left player and End acting as the COPY key for the right player. Your emulator's default key settings may vary.) Both players press and hold their respective buttons to launch shots from their respective catapults. The longer a player holds the button, the higher the angle that the shot is fired. If a player hits a bird, the bird will carry their shot until they press their respective button again to drop the shot straight down.
Both players will go at it destroying each others' castles with their catapults, and whoever completely destroys their opponent's castle first wins. You can hit the other person's catapult to temporarily disable it for a few seconds, and if the person behind the catapult gets hit, they will turning away from their catapult and be stunned, leaving them unable to do anything for a few seconds.
Despite being a pretty simple game, there is some trial and error in seeing how the shots work and how high and how far the shots go, which makes for some hilarious hijinks as both players attempt to tear at each other. I do like the idea of the bird flying back and forth with the potential to be used like a bomber plane against the opponent, but it takes some time to set up, which can be a bit of a risk. It's still fun, though.
With that, there's not much else to say about the game. The graphics are simple, but easily identifiable. The sound is basic, but serviceable and works like it is supposed to. The gameplay is boiled down to one button and how long you hold it (or for weak shots, how quickly you press it), and when typed in properly, there were not any errors to speak of in the code. Your mileage may vary with this game, but it's still a nice game that's easy to pick up and play. Thankfully, the game in its complete state is easy to find, so you might as well check this one out; it's definitely worth giving a try even if for just a few minutes.
This may be the simplest game I've played since...well, it's hard to tell. I've played a few games on the Beeb that are easy to play. But at least with this type-in game, you and a friend can tear into each other with reckless abandon.
Catacastles is a type-in game for the BBC Micro written by Thomas Evans with the code made freely available in Volume 3, Issue 1 of The Micro User from March 1985. The game is two-player only, and can be played with just one button.
Believe it or not, there is a story to this game, but unless you actually read the issue of The Micro User from which this came from, you'd have no idea.
Many years ago there lived a sorcerer in the land of Wong. On his many voyages and adventures he captured one item which he valued more than all else - a ruby with strong magical powers.
Also in the land of Wong lived a mighty baron. One day at a feast, long after the sorcerer had finished his last adventure, the baron saw the ring and wanted it at once.
At midnight, he sent one of his minions into the sorcerer's chamber to steal the ring. The minion, the baron and his followers then sped back to the baron's castle.
The next day the sorcerer realized what had happened and was furious. He called on the eagle king to act as judge and a vicious battle of magic ensured between the sorcerer and the baron who now had the ring.
Both were quickly drained of their magic until they died, devoid of all power, and the ring disintegrated.
But the battle went on using catapults - you and another player succeeded the baron and the sorcerer.
Both players play as barons who are shooting at each others' castles with catapults. CAPS LOCK is used for the left player, while COPY is used for the right player. (On my keyboard with BeebEm, it was CAPS LOCK for the left player and End acting as the COPY key for the right player. Your emulator's default key settings may vary.) Both players press and hold their respective buttons to launch shots from their respective catapults. The longer a player holds the button, the higher the angle that the shot is fired. If a player hits a bird, the bird will carry their shot until they press their respective button again to drop the shot straight down.
Both players will go at it destroying each others' castles with their catapults, and whoever completely destroys their opponent's castle first wins. You can hit the other person's catapult to temporarily disable it for a few seconds, and if the person behind the catapult gets hit, they will turning away from their catapult and be stunned, leaving them unable to do anything for a few seconds.
Despite being a pretty simple game, there is some trial and error in seeing how the shots work and how high and how far the shots go, which makes for some hilarious hijinks as both players attempt to tear at each other. I do like the idea of the bird flying back and forth with the potential to be used like a bomber plane against the opponent, but it takes some time to set up, which can be a bit of a risk. It's still fun, though.
With that, there's not much else to say about the game. The graphics are simple, but easily identifiable. The sound is basic, but serviceable and works like it is supposed to. The gameplay is boiled down to one button and how long you hold it (or for weak shots, how quickly you press it), and when typed in properly, there were not any errors to speak of in the code. Your mileage may vary with this game, but it's still a nice game that's easy to pick up and play. Thankfully, the game in its complete state is easy to find, so you might as well check this one out; it's definitely worth giving a try even if for just a few minutes.
Alien for Atari 2600 is a Pac-Man clone based on the 1979 sci-fi movie of the same name. Playing the game is pretty simple: reset the game to start, then move the joystick to move your character while avoiding the three aliens (which barely look like Xenomorphs) that move around the maze and collect all the dots by walking over them to complete the level. Of course, given that this game is based on one of the most influential American sci-fi films of all time, what you're really doing when collecting the dots is - get ready for it - destroying alien eggs. Gotta figure those facehuggers into the story when they don't show up in the game at all. There's also the occasional pick-up just north of center of the maze that is worth a couple thousand points. You'll obviously want to grab these things without risking losing a life if you want to go for a high score.
Aside from being able to move around much like you do in Pac-Man, you can also fire a flamethrower at the aliens with the fire buttons. If you're about to run head-on into an alien coming at you, a well-time fire button press will deter that alien and get it away from you for a second. It only really works when you and the alien are facing each other, which never really happened for me that often, as I've come to find out after playing this. You can only fire the flamethrower to the left and to the right. The flamethrower also has limited ammo, and once you run out, you won't be able to use it again until you clear the screen and head on to the next one.
You also have a few other tools along the way. There are three pulsars, which look like red asterisks and only show up one at a time at the very top center, which work just like the Power Pills from the game that [i]Alien[/i] is based on: you grab one, the aliens turn blue, and if you touch any of them before they flash and change back to their normal colors, you get bonus points, and if you touch all three before that can happen, your score will get seemingly exponentially bigger. They only really work on the first two levels at best, as invincibility time goes down sharply the longer you go. By the time you reach the fourth screen on the first game variation, the Power Pills will stop working completely, and you won't even be able to use them to get those last few alien eggs that are being fiercely guarded.
You also have the tunnels on the sides of the maze. You can use them to wrap around the screen, but so can the aliens! Also, in another example of what the enemies can do here that they can't do in Pac-Man, the enemies here can also double back without warning! You could be right behind an alien only for the alien to suddenly turn around and get you. It's best to give them a wide berth if you can help it.
When you complete a level, you'll enter a bonus area. Up and Down on the joystick will allow you to move up and down, which are the only two directions you can move in on these bonus stages. If you run into an alien, or if you take too long, the bonus level ends. If you can get to the object at the top of the screen, you'll get a couple thousand bonus points.
The left difficulty switch changes the direction in which the aliens travel. B/Novice has the aliens move in fixed patterns, which you can probably figure out if you sit there and watch them, while A/Expert has them move in random patterns.
The right difficulty switch changes the effects of the pulsars. On B/Novice, they work much like the Power Pills in Pac-Man. On A/Expert, they don't work at all, effectively making the right difficulty switch the on/off switch for the pulsars.
There are also four levels of play that can be selected with the Game Select Switch. Level 1 is the normal game, where you start with three lives and get a bonus life after clearing the second screen. Unfortunately, it will be the only bonus live you'll get, and this and Level 4 will give you only one bonus life to grab and no more, no matter what. You'll also get the prizes in the normal chart order from the manual: the rocket, the Saturn, the starship, and then the surprises. The fact that bonus lives are tied to progress and not score is interesting to me, since that's not something that I usually expect an Atari 2600 game to do.
Level 2 is the advanced game. It is the same as Level 1, but you start with two lives and you don't get any bonus lives at all. Level 3 is the expert game, which has the three lives from Level 1 and the lack of bonus lives from Level 2. Also, all the prizes are Saturns and are worth 1000 each.
Level 4 is the practice game. You'll start with six lives, and you'll earn a bonus life after clearing the first screen. Just like in Level 3, all of the prizes are Saturns.
Despite being loosely based on the movie of the same name, this is a pretty interesting clone of Pac-Man. The flamethrower adds a little bit of variety to the game if you can use it correctly, and the bonus stage between levels briefly breaks up the monotony. The graphics are pretty easy to see against the dark background, and I like that the eggs you're collecting/destroying cycle through the spectrum of colors that the Atari 2600 can display. There are plenty of Pac-Man clones on the Atari 2600, and this is one of the good ones.
Alien for Atari 2600 is a Pac-Man clone based on the 1979 sci-fi movie of the same name. Playing the game is pretty simple: reset the game to start, then move the joystick to move your character while avoiding the three aliens (which barely look like Xenomorphs) that move around the maze and collect all the dots by walking over them to complete the level. Of course, given that this game is based on one of the most influential American sci-fi films of all time, what you're really doing when collecting the dots is - get ready for it - destroying alien eggs. Gotta figure those facehuggers into the story when they don't show up in the game at all. There's also the occasional pick-up just north of center of the maze that is worth a couple thousand points. You'll obviously want to grab these things without risking losing a life if you want to go for a high score.
Aside from being able to move around much like you do in Pac-Man, you can also fire a flamethrower at the aliens with the fire buttons. If you're about to run head-on into an alien coming at you, a well-time fire button press will deter that alien and get it away from you for a second. It only really works when you and the alien are facing each other, which never really happened for me that often, as I've come to find out after playing this. You can only fire the flamethrower to the left and to the right. The flamethrower also has limited ammo, and once you run out, you won't be able to use it again until you clear the screen and head on to the next one.
You also have a few other tools along the way. There are three pulsars, which look like red asterisks and only show up one at a time at the very top center, which work just like the Power Pills from the game that [i]Alien[/i] is based on: you grab one, the aliens turn blue, and if you touch any of them before they flash and change back to their normal colors, you get bonus points, and if you touch all three before that can happen, your score will get seemingly exponentially bigger. They only really work on the first two levels at best, as invincibility time goes down sharply the longer you go. By the time you reach the fourth screen on the first game variation, the Power Pills will stop working completely, and you won't even be able to use them to get those last few alien eggs that are being fiercely guarded.
You also have the tunnels on the sides of the maze. You can use them to wrap around the screen, but so can the aliens! Also, in another example of what the enemies can do here that they can't do in Pac-Man, the enemies here can also double back without warning! You could be right behind an alien only for the alien to suddenly turn around and get you. It's best to give them a wide berth if you can help it.
When you complete a level, you'll enter a bonus area. Up and Down on the joystick will allow you to move up and down, which are the only two directions you can move in on these bonus stages. If you run into an alien, or if you take too long, the bonus level ends. If you can get to the object at the top of the screen, you'll get a couple thousand bonus points.
The left difficulty switch changes the direction in which the aliens travel. B/Novice has the aliens move in fixed patterns, which you can probably figure out if you sit there and watch them, while A/Expert has them move in random patterns.
The right difficulty switch changes the effects of the pulsars. On B/Novice, they work much like the Power Pills in Pac-Man. On A/Expert, they don't work at all, effectively making the right difficulty switch the on/off switch for the pulsars.
There are also four levels of play that can be selected with the Game Select Switch. Level 1 is the normal game, where you start with three lives and get a bonus life after clearing the second screen. Unfortunately, it will be the only bonus live you'll get, and this and Level 4 will give you only one bonus life to grab and no more, no matter what. You'll also get the prizes in the normal chart order from the manual: the rocket, the Saturn, the starship, and then the surprises. The fact that bonus lives are tied to progress and not score is interesting to me, since that's not something that I usually expect an Atari 2600 game to do.
Level 2 is the advanced game. It is the same as Level 1, but you start with two lives and you don't get any bonus lives at all. Level 3 is the expert game, which has the three lives from Level 1 and the lack of bonus lives from Level 2. Also, all the prizes are Saturns and are worth 1000 each.
Level 4 is the practice game. You'll start with six lives, and you'll earn a bonus life after clearing the first screen. Just like in Level 3, all of the prizes are Saturns.
Despite being loosely based on the movie of the same name, this is a pretty interesting clone of Pac-Man. The flamethrower adds a little bit of variety to the game if you can use it correctly, and the bonus stage between levels briefly breaks up the monotony. The graphics are pretty easy to see against the dark background, and I like that the eggs you're collecting/destroying cycle through the spectrum of colors that the Atari 2600 can display. There are plenty of Pac-Man clones on the Atari 2600, and this is one of the good ones.
