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BRITISH BOB
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REVIEWED BY: JASON KELK
» FORMAT: MSX » DEVELOPER: RELEVO VIDEOGAMES » DOWNLOAD: HTTP://MSXDEV.MSXBLUE.COM/ » PRICE: FREE
What-ho, old bean - it’s nearly teatime in jolly old England and all the ruddy biscuits have been stolen! So British Bob jams his bowler hat on at a jaunty angle, grabs his trusty umbrella and, charged with reclaiming them by the Queen herself, heads out into a rainy, platform-filled London town. Yes, the faux British-ness is a terrible stereotype, but it’s so easy to forgive when the game in question is just so bally spiffing. The graphics and sound in British Bob may be along the lines of other MSX platformers, but the feel is also similar to the precision jumping of seminal British games like Manic Miner or Monty On The Run, though it won’t force the player to restart a stage whenever you lose a life. Meanwhile, Bob’s brolly even serves as a parachute when in the air, making it possible to drift gently onto otherwise difficult to reach platforms. All in all, a jolly good show. %
89
» [Spectrum] A Russian conversion of Abe.
>> Those Spectrums
» [MSX] Where’s a beefeater when you need one?
RICK DANGEROUS REVIEWED BY: JASON KELK » FORMAT: AMSTRAD CPC PLUS » DEVELOPER: FANO, BDCIRON AND MACDEATH » DOWNLOAD: TINYURL.COM/Y9W5QWO » PRICE: FREE
» [Amstrad CPC] This is going to end badly...
PRINGLES
Professional adventurer Richard ‘Rick’ Dangerous turned twenty during 2009 (he looks older) and, as something of a celebration, a newly-produced CPC Plus-enhanced version of his game was released. This extended mix features improved graphics that utilise the CPC Plus palette, conversions of music from the Atari ST, the ‘whaaa!’ sample that plays when someone in the game dies, those cute animated cut-scenes and, because there was more memory to play with, the developers have thrown in the extra screens previously missing on the CPC - all at no extra charge! Of course, it’s still good old Rick Dangerous under the hood, retaining all the ‘joys’ of unexpected spear traps up the Khyber Pass, leaps of faith that tend to end in spike pits and all the trialand-error (with heavy emphasis on the latter) entertainment of the original. Still, it’s a fitting birthday present to the series and, for any fans (or masochists), it’ll be a neat addition to their game collection. %
85
REVIEWED BY: JASON KELK
» FORMAT: SEGA MEGADRIVE » DEVELOPER: FUTURE DRIVER » DOWNLOAD: TINYURL.COM/Y98Y7KJ » PRICE: FREE
Mr Pringles is hungry and only a certain brand of potatobased snack will do – so the player must guide his bouncing, moustachioed head around the levels, munching away at hovering, wafer-thin potato snacks. Chomping a crisp launches him further into the air and, if skilfully controlled, it’ll give access to more morsels (with a combo bonus if they’re scarfed down quickly enough). This is probably the slickest Mega Drive homebrew we’ve ever seen; it could almost pass as a commercial release visually, everything moves smoothly, and the control system, although not immediately intuitive because of the bouncing motion, doesn’t take too long to acclimatise to. It’s a shame the sound is merely a couple of sampled effects because an upbeat piece of music would have gone down like a sour cream and onion treat. With only three stages, the challenge lies in mastering the combo scoring, which should take some time. %
81
The Christmas period was extremely busy for the Spectrum, so it’s all but taken over the news! First off, there was the announcement of Your Game, a Russian Spectrum game competition that happens every two or three years on average. Nipik 2 (scored 82% back in load 58) and Abe’s Mission: Escape (based on Abe’s Odyssey no less) were previous entrants and more information (translated by Google) is here: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=ru &sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fabzac. retropc.ru%2Fti.
» [Spectrum] Must… resist… innuendo!
>> They Get
The second Spec-story of note is the flood of releases over the festive period – which came too late to mention for the event itself – including three platformers. Two are from those ever-present Mojon Twins (www.mojontwins.com) and are called Uwol, Quest For Money and Sgt. Helmet Zero. The third is by WOS regular DM Boozefreak and is called Miles Mad Mission (download from http://www.sendspace. com/file/9ufyb8). Apparently, he’s been working on it for eighteen months!
>> Everywhere!
» [Mega Drive] Is anyone else hungry...?
And the Spectrum inrush continued with a spot of top-down driving called Battery’s Not Precluded from the almost ubiquitous Jonathan Cauldwell (as always, website at http://members.fortunecity.com/jonathan6/ egghead/), who also offered up a little unexpected surprise for Jet Set Willy fans; he dismantled the original game and, with a little magic and paring down, crammed the majority of it into 16K! That one is available from ZXDemo.org over at http://www. zxdemo.org/extra/jsw16k.zip.
RETRO GAMER | 99
098-101 RG74 Homebrew.indd 99
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