Budget Day - Kane (Commodore 64)

Boys love playing at being cowboys.  I'm no exception.  The (fairly) recent Red Dead Redemption allowed me to live out those Wild West fantasies in full, riding a horse around glorious barren landscapes in glorious sunsets, playing poker with the boys and taking down the bad guys.  Great stuff.

Of course, there have been cowboy games for almost as long as there have been games.  Possibly the earliest example was the arcade game Boot Hill, where you faced off against an opponent in a one-to-one shootout.  I loved playing against my dad on that game... we would later replicate it at home with Atari's Outlaw.

Anyone fancy a stir fry tonight?

Another of my favourite early Wild West games was Mastertronic's budget effort, Kane.  Written by John Darnell, who would later be responsible for classics such as Star Paws and Escape from Singe's Castle, it was owned (in one form or another) by probably everyone I knew.  We all thought it was a classic, although that might just have been because it was one of the first games we owned!

It was easy to be impressed by Kane, though.  For a start, the main sprite was basically Agent 4125 from Impossible Mission, in a cowboy hat.  And as the good agent was one of the best characters in computer games at the time, that was no bad thing.  The first level saw you shooting ducks with a bow and arrow, and they let out a rather pained sampled squawk when hit.  For a budget game, this first level alone made you sit up and take notice.

Other levels had just as much to impress.  The second and fourth levels feaured a very nicely animated horse... hey, it didn't take much to catch your eye in those days!  That said, those horse-jumping levels were a bit repetitive, and if you fell off in the wrong place you'd be stuck and your game would be over.

Peek-a-boo, I see you!  BLAM!

The third level saw Marshall McGraw, for he was the character you played, holed up in the town of Kane, with bad guys aplenty hiding out and hoping to take you down.  They'd appear in doorways, windows, up on rooftops or from behind barns.  If you weren't Quick Draw McGraw, they'd shoot you dead (or at least, dead enough to remove one of your lives).

Kane certainly had more than enough about it to keep us teens entertained for a good while.  Although it wouldn't have been great value at full price, it was a great little budget game, and it kept us occupied for many an evening whilst waiting for something else to roll into town.

Budget Day - Star Farce (ZX Spectrum)

Here's another game I played for an earlier edition of Budget Day.  I picked this one because I love the arcade game Star Force. Still, I was a bit wary... would this be a total pisstake?  I'm not necessarily a fan of parody games, unless they're done really well. I suppose there was only one way to find out.

It turns out that Star Farce is a really good vertically-scrolling shooter. The reason for the name lies in the amusing plot... aliens have been trying to make contact with Earth for years, but every time they do, paranoid Earthlings send out waves of attack craft to wipe out these "aggressors". The Universe is collectively sick of this, and to put a stop to it (and to save those that are left), they've sent in a fighter pilot to destroy Earth's resources and attack craft, and all its inhabitants while they're at it. You are that fighter pilot.

Pew, pew, boooom!

I was amazed by Star Farce. For just £1.99, this would have been amazing value. The graphics are really great, being detailed and colourful. Pretty much everything you see is destructible... it felt fantastic to shoot a power generator and see it set off a chain reaction that destroyed everything connected to it.  There are loads of other tricks and surprises, too, one of which sees you going under the planet's surface to tackle a mothership.

It is, however, very, very difficult.  You won't be completing this game any time soon, that's a guarantee.  In fact, you have to start learning the enemy attack patterns to progress, otherwise you'll be creamed in seconds, every time.  I can imagine that might be a problem for some, but it didn't bother me in the slightest here.

Off to see 'Er Indoors...

You also get loads of options before you even start playing the game. Star Farce is one of the most full-featured and entertaining shmups I've seen on either Spectrum or C64, which makes the price (and the tiny 58% review in CRASH) all the more surprising. The only quibble I really had was with the firing rate of the ship, but even that can be eased through a Star Force-style pick-up. Oh, and I suppose the amount of colour can be slightly detrimental at times as it can get har to pick out what's happening on occasions.  That notwithstanding, Star Farce is probably as close to an arcade game as you could get on the Spectrum I had a really great time with it, and quite fancy another go now...

Budget Day - Arnie (Commodore 64)

If it's the early Nineties and you're making a game about an all-action hardman, you could do a lot worse than calling it Arnie.  Just that one name conjurs up images of a gun-toting muscleman, cutting a swathe through entire squadrons of armed bad guys.  It did then and it still does now, twenty years down the line.

It's appropriate enough, because the Arnie of this game is, indeed, a one-man army.  Dropped into a warzone by chopper, it's up to you to guide this man of steel around the map, shooting down everything in his path, until the inevitable confrontation with the mad dictator at the source of all the troubles.

There's not much that's as satisfying as exploding enemy hardware.

It's a tried-and-tested scenario, but the game is a bit more interesting and enjoyable than its cliched storyline.  That's partly because of the graphical viewpoint... Arnie is in glorious isometric 3D, which is fairly unusual for a game of this type.  It does mean that your viewing area is restricted at time (when you reach the edge of the map), but this doesn't really cause any problems.

Unusually, the game is not split into levels.  You're deposited into the jungle, and from there you just make your way across the landscape until you (hopefully) reach the end.  I often wondered why more action/shooting games weren't like this.  Life isn't split into levels, nor are action films.  Why shouldn't a shooting game be one seamless journey?  It works really well, with not a single break in the action.

That enemy truck looks dangerous. Luckily, my rocket is about to take it out.

Arnie was programmed by Chris Butler, and you get a little bit of a feeling that he was out to prove just how good a shooter he could program, having been hamstrung by Elite when programming (the still very enjoyable) Commando conversion.  This is a bit slower-paced than Commando, but still has plenty going on.  With extra weapons to pick up and new enemies and obstacles introduced along the way, it's never boring.

Arnie was released later in the Commodore 64's lifetime, and as a result it had a more expensive budget price of £3.99.  It was still well worth that bit extra though... I never regretted the purchase, and even today it's a worthwhile blast and a fair old challenge.

Budget Day - Pippo (ZX Spectrum)

I played Pippo for my other blog, A Gamer Forever Voyaging, a couple of years ago.  I was using my tried-and-trusted formula of trawling World of Spectrum and picking out highly rated games.  Pippo averages a score of 8.28 from the public vote... high praise indeed!  I felt sure I was in for a minor classic.
 

My face fell a bit, though, when I read that it was a puzzle game. Not exactly the way I want to spend any time off, playing puzzle games. Still, I was committed, so I loaded it up anyway.

What a dilemma! All that lovely money bouncing around, but you can't pick it up!

It turns out that Pippo is essentially a 2-D Q*Bert clone. That doesn't help much though... I hate Q*Bert as well! In Pippo, you play an odd, fat character, who must hop about the game board, changing the colour of the tiles. There's no reason given for this, that's just what you do.

Naturally, the boards have inhabitants, and they're dead set on stopping you in your tracks. I say that... they're not that dead set; they just potter about on their little paths, seemingly oblivious as to your presence unless you happen to blunder right into them. And they're all a bit odd... numbers, dollar signs and the like are the order of the day.

 

Ooohhhh, Pippo... whyyyyyy?

If you do happen to find them too offensive to actually share space with, an energy pill appears at times which, if collected, turns the enemies into springs (of course) which you can remove just by bouncing over them. Hurray for odd items that give you supreme power!

That makes Pippo a bit easier and less frustrating than Q*Bert, but on the other hand, it's not terribly exciting, either. It does have some nice touches... the music was better than I'd expected, and there's a sampled (if slightly garbled) scream if you happen to fall off the game world. Pippo is quite good fun and a nice enough diversion. I can at least consider myself a little more enlightened after playing this one.

Budget Day - Slimey's Mine (Commodore 64)

"YOU ARE HERE!"

Right now, you're on They Were Our Gods.  Back then, you were in Slimey's Mine, and you'd just picked up a map.  You knew that, because the game shouted it at you.  It shouted a lot of things at you, did Slimey's Mine.

If you've never played Slimey's Mine, you probably should.  I guarantee that you'll crack a smile, at the very least.  It's a completely bonkers game, the sort of concept that was realised regularly in the Eighties and went sadly missing for a long time, but is (thankfully) coming back with a vengeance in this day and age.

There he goes!

Slimey is a frog-like creature, who has somehow managed to get himself trapped in an asteroid belt far, far from home.  All he wants to do is make it back home.  Home is where Slimey's heart is.  Unfortunately, the only way off the asteroid belt comes in the form of a giant balloon... which is on the other side of a yawning chasm.  Slimey's only hope is to venture into the mines in the asteroids and collect frogs, which he can spit into the hole to fill it up, thereby creating a bridge to the balloon, freedom, and home!

If you're wondering what kind of game could possibly be spawned from a storyline like that, then let me tell you: it's a shoot 'em up.  Of course it is.  Each asteroid contains a number of caverns which Slimey must negotiate to get to the frogs.  As you'd expect, it's not as easy as that...

I'm forever blasting bubbles...

The asteroids feature a number of indigenous life forms, and guess what?  They're not friendly.  Some will actively attack Slimey, while others will wander about minding their own business.  Contact with all creatures is harmful to Slimey, though... he'll dry out, and eventually expire!  Fortunately, Slimey can collect water jars, which although not giving him any direct benefit, will turn bubbles to water that Slimey can collect.

There are other benefits to be found, too.  Apples will clear a screen of dirt, leaving you free to wander its entire area.  Banana bombs can be used to attack a number of enemies at once... useful.  A map will appear every so often, which will give you a reminder of the asteroid's internal layout.  And then there are the diamonds...

Eeek!  Get away!  Get away!

Now, don't get me wrong.  Slimey's not a greedy Gertie, Bertie.  But Slimey's only way off a screen is to collect enough diamonds to make a red diamond appear.  Once he collects the red diamond, all the critters disappear, leaving Slimey free to leave the screen.  Well, if he can avoid the death-dealing lasers, that is...

I'm sure that if you haven't played Slimey's Mine, you're probably shaking your head right now.  And you have a good right to be... it sounds ludicrous.  And it is ludicrous... but in that fantastic, imaginative way that fills you with a certain kind of joy.  It's loud and obnoxious, with hilarious sampled screams, gulps and utterances constantly brightening proceedings.   And although it eventually gets repetitive, it's great fun.  This was a terrific purchase back in the day.

Budget Day - Lap of the Gods (ZX Spectrum)

If there's one highly-rated budget game that I just didn't get on with, it's One Man and His Droid.  For some reason I couldn't get into it... I couldn't figure it out at all.  My highest score was something pathetic like 5, I think.  So you can imagine my disappointment when I loaded up Lap of the Gods and it turned out to be some kind of pseudo-sequel.

It was something of a relief, therefore, to find out that Lap of the Gods is a much simpler game to play.

The story, it has to be said, is pretty crazy.  You are trapped in a comet's time vortex, and only the Eight Gods of Zzarn can return you to the future... but you must deliver them the Eight Crystals of Zzarn.  Trapped in a comet's time vortex... is that even possible?

You're the green thing, about to be harassed by the blue Egyptian things.

Naturally, it's easier said than done.  You must transport three effigies to a special chamber.  If you can do this, then the Gods will bestow special powers upon you.  Only with these powers can you gain access to further chambers and therefore more crystals.

If that was all there is to it, you'd still be on Easy Street.  Unfortunately, the chambers are patrolled by Devil Incarnations... if they touch you three times, they'll take one of your prcious effigies.  This displeases the Gods, to the extent that they will remove one of your magic powers.  The rotters!

Success! The three effigies are in place. Amazing powers will now be yours!

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Lap of the Gods.  Although it's technically a fetch-and-carry game, and a frustrating one for the first few plays, it gets better and more enjoyable the more you play.  And once you get to grips with it and it starts to open up, it gets its claws into you.

Lap of the Gods would have been a great way to spend two quid back in the day, and it's a pretty good example of its genre.  This was a good pick for today's feature.

Budget Day 2013

Good morning all, and welcome to Budget Day 2013!

For those of you that didn't follow my old blog, A Gamer Forever Voyaging, this is something I've done for the last couple of years now.  The intention is to take our minds away from the misery and drudgery of having more taxes imposed upon us and more of our hard-earned money taken from us in the Government's Budget, by going back to the days where a little of our money went a long way.

Often, when buying a budget game, you were taking a bit of a punt. It's quite possible you were buying it on a whim, without having read a review. Maybe you liked the screenshots on the back. Maybe it had a nice cover. Or maybe Rob Hubbard did the music. Whatever it was, there was a reasonable chance that your £1.99 purchase would give you about half an hour's entertainment before being consigned to the back of the bottom drawer. That made it all the more satisfying when it turned out you'd bought a little gem.

My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen... the House is in session. It's Budget Day!

Today, as I have done in the past couple of years, I'll be playing a mix of the great and the good (and the terrible) budget games that graced our Spectrums and Commodores.  Oh yes, I'll probably throw in a couple of stinkers just to remind ourself that not everything in the garden was rosy.  How I suffer for my art!

This particular Budget Day will be a little different, as I'll be reposting a few of the posts from previous years, probably with new screenshots and possibly with a little rewording in some cases.  It's a cheap and easy way to bolster the day's content, but what the heck.

So, sit back and relax as we take a trip back to the days of the budget game, and we'll see if our happy memories are justified or if we just couldn't admit to ourselves that we'd wasted our pocket money...

Day 279 - Ohhhh, what's the point?

Phew!  Those ringtones took a lot of time and effort.  They were well worth it though... they've been very popular, and what's more, if you'll forgive me for blowing my own trumpet, they sound great.

Now, you might have seen the title of this post and thought, "Uh-oh!".  Well, don't worry, it 's not as negative as it sounds.  I just thought it was a good time to take stock and let you know how I'm doing.

Lately, I've felt a little bit like I'm swimming against the From Bedrooms to Billions tsunami, which is sweeping along every name I'm looking at in its giant retro wave.  I'm resigned to the fact that I'm unlikely to get contributions from some of those names.

However, the more I see of it, the more I'm convinced of the worth of my book.  From Bedrooms is a brilliant project, and I can't wait to see it.  I've backed it, and I expect to thoroughly enjoy it.  But they're covering a much larger time period than I am, and and there's no way they can include the sort of things I want to include in a documentary film.  They simply don't have the time, unless it runs for about four hours.  Even with a deleted scenes disc, it wouldn't be able to focus on all the things I'm focusing on.

From Bedrooms to Billions.  Go an back it, if you haven't already.

They're showing the world how the industry grew in the UK.  I'm celebrating the individuals involved, and their wonderful (and at times, not-so-wonderful!) work.  While there's bound to be some overlap, I'm confident that my book is going to stand as a unique testament to the remarkable talent we had (and still have... many are still actively programming today).  And it'll include a lot more of the unsung heroes of the era, who might not have the big names but are no less well-remembered by our community.

I've got some tremendous material so far, and some terrific support from within the industry, for which I am very grateful.  So with that said, I'm going to finish up and send my latest email to one of our Gods.  Then I'll think about who I'd like to contact next...

(C) 64 ways to make your Android/MP3 phone better!

I think, although I'm not sure, that I can create links to the Commodore 64 ringtone files I made in Dropbox so that you can download them.  Won't that be great if it works?  So I'm going to try and do just that.  If it works, you can pick and choose from any you like the sound of, rather than waiting for me to e-mail you the whole batch.  Everybody wins!

Here's the "track listing":

Commodore 64 ringtones - Android/MP3 versions

The Complete Commodore 64 Ringtone Collection

Action Biker
Beyond Forbidden Forest 1
Beyond Forbidden Forest 2
Beyond Forbidden Forest 3
Beyond Forbidden Forest 4
Beyond Forbidden Forest 5
Beyond Forbidden Forest 6
Beyond Forbidden Forest 7
Beyond Forbidden Forest 8
Beyond Forbidden Forest 9
Bionic Commando
Citadel
Crazy Comets
Cybernoid
Delta
Dragon's Lair Part II
Driller
Dropzone
Finders Keepers
Firelord
Ghosts 'n Goblins
Green Beret
Hades Nebula 1
Hades Nebula 2
Hawkeye
Hunter's Moon
International Karate
Last Ninja 1
Last Ninja 1B
Lazy Jones 21
Monty on the Run 1
Monty on the Run 2
Monty on the Run 3
Mutants 1
Mutants 2
Nemesis the Warlock
Ninja
Novaload
Ocean Loader 1
Ocean Loader Early
Panther
Paradroid 1
Paradroid 2
Parallax 1
Parallax 2
Penetrator 1
Penetrator 2
Platoon
Rock 'n Wrestle
Sanxion 1
Sanxion 2
Spellbound 1
Spellbound 2
Thing on a Spring
UridiumFX
Uridium
Warhawk
Way of the Exploding Fist 1
Way of the Exploding Fist 2
Wizardry 1
Wizardry 2
Wizball
Zoids
Zybex

These are not complete tunes; rather, they're snippets that I reckon make for good ringtones.  I've edited them so that they loop around pretty neatly, and I think there are some really good ringtones here.  Oh, and they're not all tunes...

If you like these, please comment and let me know.  And by all means share this post wherever you think there would be an interest.  They took ages to make so they might as well be spread far and wide!  Don't go pinching them for another website though (at least not without asking)... that wouldn't be nice!

(C) 64 ways to make your iPhone better!

I think, although I'm not sure, that I can create links to the Commodore 64 ringtone files I made in Dropbox so that you can download them.  Won't that be great if it works?  So I'm going to try and do just that.  If it works, you can pick and choose from any you like the sound of, rather than waiting for me to e-mail you the whole batch.  Everybody wins!

Here's the "track listing":

Commodore 64 ringtones - iPhone versions

The Complete Commodore 64 Ringtone Collection

Action Biker
Beyond Forbidden Forest 1
Beyond Forbidden Forest 2
Beyond Forbidden Forest 3
Beyond Forbidden Forest 4
Beyond Forbidden Forest 5
Beyond Forbidden Forest 6
Beyond Forbidden Forest 7
Beyond Forbidden Forest 8
Beyond Forbidden Forest 9
Bionic Commando
Citadel
Crazy Comets
Cybernoid
Delta
Dragon's Lair Part II
Driller
Dropzone
Finders Keepers
Firelord
Ghosts 'n Goblins
Green Beret
Hades Nebula 1
Hades Nebula 2
Hawkeye
Hunter's Moon
International Karate
Last Ninja 1A
Last Ninja 1B
Lazy Jones 21
Monty on the Run 1
Monty on the Run 2
Monty on the Run 3
Mutants 1
Mutants 2
Nemesis the Warlock
Ninja
Novaload
Ocean Loader 1
Ocean Loader Early
Panther
Paradroid 1
Paradroid 2
Parallax 1
Parallax 2
Penetrator 1
Penetrator 2
Platoon
Rock 'n Wrestle
Sanxion 1
Sanxion 2
Spellbound 1
Spellbound 2
Thing on a Spring
Uridium FX
Uridium
Warhawk
Way of the Exploding Fist 1
Way of the Exploding Fist 2
Wizardry 1
Wizardry 2
Wizball
Zoids
Zybex

Now, iPhones are a bit fiddly, and have their own special format for ringtones.  They can't use MP3s for such purposes.  Luckily for you, I'm awesome, and I have converted these to work on your iPhone.  Just add them to your iTunes and drag them to your phone, and they will automatically populate the Ringtones section.  Simple!

These are not complete tunes; rather, they're snippets that I reckon make for good ringtones.  I've edited them so that they loop around pretty neatly, and I think there are some really good ringtones here.  Oh, and they're not all tunes...

If you like these, please comment and let me know.  And by all means share this post wherever you think there would be an interest.  They took ages to make so they might as well be spread far and wide!  Don't go pinching them for another website though (at least not without asking)... that wouldn't be nice!

64 ways to make your phone better!

Hey there!  It's my dad's birthday today... 65 today!  Congrats, fella!  And what better way to celebrate than for me to give YOU stuff!  I'm great like that.

In this case, I may be seen to be biased towards one side of my potential readership (sorry, Spec-chums!).  I have created, for your pleasure and enjoyment, sixty-four Commodore 64 ringtones!  Yes, some of the finest Commodore compositions have been hacked into bite-sized chunks by me, for the sole purpose of brightening up your life when you get a text or phone call.

SMILE! as the Crazy Comets bassline signals an incoming call.  GRIN! as your slacker mate phones to the sound of that famous tune from Lazy Jones.  SMIRK! when your girlfriend phones and the soundtrack to Penetrator plays...  LAUGH! at the sheer silliness of having Uridium's "Land Now!" siren blasts to announce a phone call, or even the sound of a Novaload's screech.  Yes, I've thrown a couple of left-field efforts in there, too...

Yes, I recorded the sound from this very screen.

I do enjoy making stuff like this for a bit of fun, and I hope you appreciate and enjoy them too.  You'd better, because it takes me ages!  But if you don't, there's no harm done.

Now for the tricky bit.  I haven't got any webspace at the moment, so you can only obtain these either by e-mail or through Dropbox.  Either way, just send me an e-mail to paul.e.morrison at gmail.com (you know what to do there) and let me know how you'd like to receive them, and I'll arrange it right away.

You can get these for either iPhone or Android (or any operating system that uses MP3s).  So I reckon that most people are covered here.  If you fancy spicing up your life, then get in touch!

Zzzzzzz.... wait, what?

Hi gang!

Things continue here at TWOG Towers, if not at as fast a pace as before.  I've got a new job which involves a year and a half of learning and exams... which is great, but it will certainly eat into my time or capacity for rational thought!

I'm adding little bits all the time, though, which isn't very interesting for anyone wanting to read a blog, but there you go.  I do have a few sections which I consider to be "completed", although I will naturally go back over them and edit them, and of course there's the presentational aspect to consider.  But the text and screenshots are there, so I can move on to other subjects.  No, I'm not going to tell you which pieces are finished!

The anatomy of a ringtone.

I'm writing a piece about Sensible Software's underappreciated classic Parallax at the moment... look out for that very soon.  I'm also working on a batch of Commodore 64 ringtones, which is also very time-consuming!  Great fun, though, and I think you're going to love them (if you were a C64 fan).

Anyway, there we have a brief update to let you know how I'm doing.  The project is alive and well, so keep checking in!  And do remember to follow me on Twitter and Facebook if you use those media... I post lots of little snippets there that aren't worthy of full blog posts.  If you only read the blog, would you prefer that I add stuff like that here?  I would consider it to be too "noisy", but this is about what you want...