C64 Review - Rescue Squad (C) 1983 Muse Software

Chuck:  Today we have Rescue Squad from the fabled software house of Muse.  Actually I should say it's "from" John Kutcher and published by Muse.  John was a junior in high school when he programmed this and found Muse in a phonebook by happenstance when looking for a publisher.  John had never even heard of Muse.  Muse was knee-deep in the Apple II at the time and turned out to be looking for a C64 programmer.  If John's name rings a bell that's because he's much more well known as the esteemed programmer of Space Taxi, one of the all-time C64 classics.

John:  One of the all-time C64 classics is not how Rescue Squad is remembered.

Chuck:  If it's remembered at all.  It's a bit of a footnote in the Muse and C64 history books.

John:  It has a few fans.  This is 1983 so the bar was lower when it came to gameplay, especially at home.  That's why I remember having a good time with this one when we were kids.  The concept, the graphics and the great music would mask its' faults to a gamer in 1983.  Upon re-evaluation in 2014, though...

Chuck:  Still, for a Junior in high school at what is practically the birth of the C64 and home computing in general, it's a good effort.  There are three screens which are practically three different games.

There is fantastic music by Silas Warner.  Now there's a name that should ring a few bells!  If it doesnt then, dear reader, you have some research to do.  He's a pioneer in computer audio and quite a character.  Oh and he's unfortunately deceased.  We'll definitely be talking about him more when we get to Castle Wolfenstein.

Let's start with the game's first screen in which you control an ambulance racing toward a burning building. It's a top-down perspective that reminds me a little of the grid in Crossfire, but it reminds me even more of the city in David Crane's Ghostbusters.

So, you have to navigate this grid from the bottom left to the top right, avoiding psychotic motorists that come at you from every direction.  Seriously, why the hell wont anyone yield to the ambulance?

John:  Why the hell arent you driving a fire truck to a fire?

Chuck:  Some cars are faster than you, some are slower but they all have no sense of self-preservation.  They crash into each other as much as they crash into you.  It's an absolutely brutal obstacle course.  And, I'm sorry to say, it's completely unfair.  As in, the game itself does not play fair with you.

John:  I agree with you on this one.  When you drive at the bottom, top or sides you will get hit by an off-screen car without knowing it's coming or having any chance to avoid it.  You cant avoid the outer sides completely because you start and end there.  So, especially on later levels, this first screen is complete luck, no skill.  You might as well have the computer run a RNG to decide if you're going to make it through.  It is only an illusion of a video game, it is not the real thing.

Chuck:  Even in the middle of the grid you'll get slammed into by random lightning-fast cars that are practically unavoidable.  They drive right in the center of the road and you cannot shift from lane to lane.  You can only make 90' turns.  It's a very awkard control scheme, or at least it is with regard to what the game wants from you.

John:  Let me give an example.  You can make a split-second decision, a correct play decision, to round a corner into a clear lane to avoid an oncoming car, only to get hit in the rear by an unavoidably fast car that wasnt there when you made that decision just a second ago.  That is getting beaten by luck, not lack of skill.

It's do able, over all.  I mean, you'll get through it, it's not insurmountably hard or anything like that.  It's just rediculously unfair and you actually lose a life when you crash.  It wouldnt be so bad if this was a bonus round like the second screen, where you dont lose a life and are just going for points.  The fire you are attempting to reach has a 1000 point value that decreases with time.  So why not have a crash slow you down instead of kill you and have the points be the incentive to get through the level?

Chuck:  In the second level you are faced with a burning building.  Survivors are leaping to their doom, unless you can catch them first.  Before they jump, though, they make sure to accidentally (?) drop a potted plant on your head.  Every window has a plant and when a jumper appears the plant falls down, fast.  When the jumper goes, the plant is replaced.  So, you have to avoid the plants but catch the jumpers which potentially are right behind the plants.

John:  If the jumper appears at the bottom window of the row you happen to be standing in, you're guaranteed to be hit.

Chuck:  Right.  This is a bonus round, though, you can take three hits without dying.  On the third hit a fire truck comes along and extends a ladder which you proceed to climb up and into the building.

John:  This is the easiest stage and the one where you'll rack up the most points.  You cant catch people from the side, you have to be standing under them when they get to the right spot.  It works the same with the pots, and since you arent punished for missing jumpers, staying in motion works well here.

Chuck:  The third level has you navigating a top-down maze, picking up survivors and delivering them back to the window you came in from.  Two or more fireballs, depending on the difficulty, randomly roam around. Touch the fire and lose a life.  If you manage to get all the people back to the window you are treated to some very royal-sounding fanfare and cycling colors,  then it's back to the ambulance driving stage for another go with increased difficulty.  Again you're doing the job of a firefighter, and now you even look like a firefighter, but apparently you're still the ambulance driver, I think?

That's the "firefighter" at the bottom, by the blue window.

John:  This screen's a little tedious.  There are a lot of people to rescue and you can only rescue one at a time.  The fireballs provide an interesting challenge.  They dont seem random to me, just a little lackadaisical on the easier levels.  This part should be the game's coup de grace but it falls a little flat.  Compared to the near-manic action of the previous levels this one's nearly inert.  The scoring on this level feels off as well.  You get few points for picking up a survivor and even less for dropping them off.  It takes a lot of effort to play this level, even on the easier difficulties the fireballs can be difficult to avoid because it's such a long path to get to the last few survivors and back,  and this effort is not reflected in the points you earn.

There are asbestos coats laying around that give you protection from the flames but they last a very short time and never seem to have an effective use.

Chuck:  A better idea would have been to pick up fire extinguishers and fight the fires, temporarily putting them out and then new ones would take their place.

John:  Let's talk about the graphics and sound, shall we?

Chuck:  The graphics are pretty good.  On the first level I like the look of the Ghostbusters-style city grid.  It's simple but at least it's colorful.  I like the variation in the vehicle types.  The second screen is the standout.

John:  Yeah, by far.  This kind of reminds me of Ghostbusters also, when you're laying your trap in front of a building.

Chuck:  The building looks good.  The glowing windows look great.  The falling people look a little like falling bananas though.  The animation isnt anything special, but the ambulance that drives past, taking away the jumpers you catch, looks cute.  The little fire truck is cool too.

John:  And its' extending ladder is a nice touch.

Chuck:  The third level reminds me of Wasteland.  It's a little too basic and the animation here looks the worst.  Two-frame animation for the fireballs looks good, for the player character not so much.

Overall the graphics look pretty good and there's a good amount of color.  One thing that's noticeable though is that nothing is smooth. All sprite movement is jerky and aside from the exploding people and pots (yes, the people explode when they hit the ground) the sprite animation is usually two-frame.

John:  The sound effects throughout the game are pretty meh.  As is typical for games of this era the explosions and crashes just sound like dirty cymbal hits.  The music, on the other hand, is fantastic and perfectly fits the manic mood of the game.  It's the best on the first level where when you die every new life is greeted by a different song.  The songs are very short, though, and when they're done, they're done.  This is very noticeable on the long second and third levels which feel too quiet.  The great soundtrack is a bit of a tease when you get down to it.  What a shame!

It seems like there's a laundry-list of complaints we have for this game, so before we wheel Rescue Squad out on a gurney, let's consider that the game was made by a kid in high school on a computer that had been out less than a year, and then got pubished by freaking Muse before he even graduates.   In that light the game looks fantastic.

Chuck:  Yes.  It's a very cool historical footnote.  Is it fun to play?  Only in fits and starts.  Too much in the first stage depends on luck and the third stage is a little too dull.  It's not a surprise this one exists as a fond memory for some, but it's definitely not as good as you remember.  It's worth a play to hear Silas' score on a real C64 though.  No emulator or java sid player does it justice.

Congratulations, Rescuers!

C64 Review: Crossfire (C) 1983 Sierra On-Line

John:  The Grid.  A digital frontier.

Chuck:  Wrong grid.  This is Crossfire by Sierra On-Line.  Sierra On-Line.  Quite a bit outside of Sierra's wheelhouse, this one.

John:  What did they look like?  Chips?  Motorcycles??

Chuck:  Sigh.  Programmed by Jay Sullivan, this is an early computer (as opposed to console or arcade) game that was developed when Sierra was still known as On-Line Systems.  I'll state this up-front, I understand this was designed in 1981.  This game was already a couple of years old when it showed up on the C64.

John:  Tell me more, o wise one.

Chuck:  Apparently Chuck Benton had something to do with this one as well.  He's much, much more well-known as the creator of Softporn Adventure.

John:  Well that's educational.

Chuck:  The game's grid style has roots in the arcade.  One of the pioneers of the video game industry, Exidy, was in love with top-down driving games since birth.  Most of these games feature two cars or spaceships and are usually directionless with no roads or paths.  You push things around or run over people.  Then someone got the bright idea to force the vehicles onto a grid, limiting your movement and opening up a new dimension of gameplay.  This idea brought us Targ, a fast-paced arcade title where you drive a car along a grid and shoot at enemies in the direction the car is facing. The enemies crawl all over the grid and come at you from all sides.

John:  And thus, Crossfire was born!

Chuck:  There's a slight twist though.  The enemies do not fire.  Exidy released Spectar right after Targ and it did feature enemies that fire, although not nearly to the degree and consequence that Crossfire does.  Another thing Spectar does is get rid of the dull blocky-looking grid and replace it with one that's animated and can change "shape" during the course of the game.  Also, you collect dots a-la Pac Man.  The fact that Exidy followed up on and refined this idea so quickly tells me that they recognized issues with the concept, which I'll get to later.  Either that or they felt like they had to jump on the Pac Man bandwagon really quick.

John:  Crossfire brought this experience to home gamers (that were lucky enough to own computers) and did a good job, for 1981.  The ability for enemies to shoot and how they do it makes it a frantic twitch reflex experience.  

Chuck:  Crossfire was ported to several systems and I believe it started as a monochrome DOS/Apple II game as the graphics and text on the earliest versions look a lot like other Sierra games of the time like Mystery House.

John:  I really like the concept of Crossfire.  There's nowhere you're safe, there are no breaks.  You are surrounded right from the start, with enemies on the left, right and top of the screen.  They are hiding directly behind the blocks on the grid where you cannot shoot them.  Soon they peek out and begin moving and firing.  Attempting to evade fire from one enemy will put you in the line of fire of another.  Constant motion is the order of the day.  You almost have to train yourself not to focus on your avatar, to see the entire screen at once.  Enemies will sometimes pause as they are moving from their starting positions allowing you a free shot, but only if you're paying attention and not occupied with too many other enemies.  This is a difficult game right from the very beginning.  You can and will get caught in the crossfire.

Chuck:  ...

John:  ....yes?

Chuck:  Go on.

John:  For an extra dimension you have limited ammunition that you must replenish by running over an item.  There are bonus items to collect for points but this one is critical for your survival.  I like that little extra thing to worry about.

Chuck:  ...

John:  Near the end of the level the enemies swarm and it's a fierce battle to the finish before you do it all over again the next round.  OK go ahead Chuck before you pop.

Chuck:  It's difficult right from the start because they didnt understand the concept of a gradual difficulty ramp.  Some arcade games I can understand why they smack you across the face right from the start.  That trial by fire, quarter eating quality can actually work in a game's favor.  An arcade game, in an actual arcade.  Home games should ramp up in difficulty.  It's just aggravating.  It's not fun.

John:  It has an easy mode.

Chuck:  It's just a slow mode that makes the game a total bore.   If there is a progression in difficulty I cant tell.  Every level seems to be the same.  And the ammunition mechanic, you never know how much you have.  There's no ammo counter!  What were they thinking?

John:  I'll give you that one, that's something I'd definitely like to have.

Chuck:   It doesnt matter anyway, have you ever run out of ammo?

John:  Uh...

Chuck:  Not likely.  You fire so slowly you'll never run out.  Or you'll game over first.  There seem to be two variations of this game.  One version features small bullets that look like dots and can be fired repeatedly, like the Atari 8-bit and VIC20 versions.  The other version, like the C64 version, has wider, rectangular shots that have to expire before they are fired again.  I hate that.

John:  It's just part of the strategy you have to bring to the game.  Maybe they decided to re-balance the game on the C64 version to make it have less worrying about ammo and more about forcing you to think about where and when you are firing.

Chuck:  Worrying about your ammo count would accomplish the same thing, wouldnt it?.  But you are correct, I think, when you say it's a balancing decision.  It's a valid design choice, I just dont like it.  It makes the game less fun for me.  They're just trying to make the game more difficult.  For instance, you cannot fire while sitting still, you have to begin moving in a direction to fire in that direction and if you stop moving you cant fire at all.   You should be able to hold the fire button and move the stick to fire in different directions while sitting still.  You cant do this because, I think, pure difficulty is what the designers were going for.

Just making a game difficult doesnt get a pat on the back from me, Al.  Double Dragon for the 2600 is hard too, let's give that a medal.

John:  Whoah ho there.  OK, Crossfire is hard but it is balanced, tuned and perfectly playable.

Chuck:  I'm not going to whine about the game being unfair.  But is it really enjoyable?  It's like the video game equivalent of doing pull ups.

John:  What does that even mean?

Chuck:  Think about it.

John:  How about instead we talk about the graphics and sound.

Chuck:  Hello PETSCII title screen!  How else would be know this was 1983?

The graphics arent completely horrible.  The grid itself looks cool but having everything else the same color takes something away from it.  Even the VIC20 version is more colorful.  It has a style that kind of works for it but it gets old looking at almost nothing but BLUE and RED after a while.  Even Atari 2600 games would change colors of the enemies and the level to indicate progression.  Here every level looks and plays exactly the same.

And as for the box layout of the grid itself; like I mentioned earlier, Exidy realized with Targ that this wasnt an interesting "look" for a game and changed things up considerably in the sequel, with eye-catching incidental animations and environmental changes that change how you move across across the grid.  Some of this extra vavoom would be extremely welcome here.    I get minimalist design but, I dont know...  There's flat and there's Flat with a capital F.  Crossfire is Flat.

I do like the placement and layout of the current and high scores.  I realize they are the way they are because of necessity, but they look good.  Nice font.

The enemies are lifeless and so is the player character.  They really could use some animation or at the very least some color cycling.  Some flashing, some blinking, anything.  The different types of enemies dont seem to behave in significantly different ways.  It's good that they dont all look the same but there's no personality.  And they can shoot multiple times, how unfair is that!

John:  Hey, you said you werent going to whine.  The graphics are the way they are because this was designed in 1981.  They did kind of blow the opportunity to spruce it up a little but then it wouldnt really be the same game.  I think the Peter Gunn-esque soundtrack is the big standout in the sound design.

Chuck:  Oh come on they could've animated the enemies.  As for the music, the programmers were definitely in love with it.  It starts on the title screen and keeps right on keepin on, repeating forever.

John:  True, but it doesnt get old as quickly as you'd think.  And it uses all three of the SID's voices!

Chuck:  It is pretty snappy.

John:  I hate to add to the criticisms here but I do have to comment on the sound effects.  They are the definition of "meh".

I do like how your "ship", or whatever it is, explodes, visually.  Nice big explosion animation.

Chuck:  Now let's wrap this turkey up.

Crossfire was made by talented programmers, no doubt, but it has the wrong sensibility, perhaps due to text adventure authors making an arcade game.  Something that stands out to me is that you cant start the game by pressing the fire button, even though you game-over every few minutes.  It's the kind of afterthought that someone who isnt used to playing challenging arcade games would miss if they were making a game like this.

This is an odd title in general coming from Sierra.  I dont think they were that serious about this kind of game, these simple arcade experiences.  I remember Jawbreaker being pretty good though.  We'll have to revisit that.

John:  It's obvious we're split down the middle on this one.  I do see some of what you're pointing out in the game but I genuinely enjoy it.

Chuck:  Well our audience can find out for themselves.  All you need to do is play it for a couple of minutes and you'll know whether you like it or not.  If you must play it, for God's sake dont play it on an emulator.  The music sounds terrible.

John:  We can agree on that.  Hell, dont play anything on a C64 emulator unless you have absolutely no other choice.  (For the record: We dont, and never will, review a game played on an emulator.)

As for Sierra, little projects like this financed their PC Jr. efforts and gave birth to King's Quest.  This new graphic adventure engine was a powerhouse and they were unwilling to sacrifice their graphical ambitions by porting down to the C64 and Atari.  Nobody was buying those beefy 128k games at first because nobody could afford the hardware.  They had to make it up somewhere.  In fact, I believe several C64 titles contributed to the graphic adventure assembly line Sierra would become a few years down the road.  And then... And then they abandoned us...  Why... they used us.  To hell with Sierra!

Chuck:  That's the spirit!

John:  So the verdict is Me: yay, Chuck: nay which means no Krusty stamp for Crossfire.

Chuck:  I just realized we made it through the whole review without referring to that awful marble shooting board game.  Kudos to us!  http://youtu.be/W9hW5gVaNJo

C64 Review: Pooyan (C) 1983 DataSoft

(thanks, Atarimania)

Chuck: Today we have Pooyan, published by DataSoft and programmed by Scott Spanburg.

Pooyan is part of DataSoft's early foray into arcade ports which they would quickly abandon in favor of movie licenses.  DataSoft is responsible for a few games that are considered classics and Scott Spanburg is frankly a giant in the world of the C64, who moved on to Microprose studios and is responsible for such greats as Airborne Ranger.

Scott Spanburg did as good a job as he could with the Atari 800 version, I'm sure.  DataSoft gave us an identical port of that. It wasnt designed with the 64's strengths in mind and it suffers for it.

John: Let's be fair. This is another one from 1983 and most every game didnt have the 64's strengths in mind.

Chuck:  It's a decent home version of Pooyan but not a good C64 version of Pooyan.

John: Not every classic arcade game could be re-done in 1988 to fit modern programming sensibilities, so this is what we have.

And let me remind you that this was the first game we ever played on the C64.  Our grade-school friend Bobby's family was one of the, if not the, first people to have a C64 in the entire Ohio valley.  At first they didnt have any games for it.

Chuck: Yep, and we spent all our time on it typing words in different colors and pretending we were Matthew Broderick (this was right after Wargames came out).  And then they picked up their first game, Pooyan.

John: Admit it, you were impressed.

Chuck: I was, for sure.  Up to that point the pinnacle of home gaming was the ColecoVision, which we also got to play a lot of thanks to Bobby, and I could immediately tell this was superior.  Of course, we would have been equally impressed by the Atari 800 version if we'd seen that.

John: Oh I knew you were going to say that.

Chuck: I'm not getting over the fact that this is a port.

John: Obviously!  Anyway, Pooyan for the C64 also introduced us to DataSoft.  And boy this game really has that DataSoft look to it.  Chunky DataSoft fonts, chunky sprites.  I really like the look of this one, but it's not going to be universally loved.

It's just a fact that the C64 wasnt quite off the ground at this point in its' life cycle.  Resources were conserved.  I for one am glad we simply have a good version of Pooyan to play on the 64.

Chuck: And I would be even happier if we had a version of Pooyan that wasnt slow and looked like an Atari 800 game.  But, I will concede, this is 1983 and this was sufficient for a home release.

OK, on to the autopsy.

The arcade version of Pooyan is a clever Konami title from 1982 with a unique gameplay style.  In the most basic sense it is a vertical shooter based on the Three Little Pigs.  It features great, but not atypical, graphics for 1982 with eye-catching pastel colors that I dont remember seeing much of in other games at the time.

You play as a mother pig defending her piglets from a LOT of marauding wolves.  As is typical of games of this time you are vastly outnumbered and it is only a matter of time until you are overrun and you and your family are consumed.  Very bleak stuff.

John: It's best not to get emotionally attached to the pigs.

Chuck: But while you live you can give it to the wolves with your bow and arrow.  What you have set up is a pulley system on top of a tree(?) or hill (?) with which your piglets will raise and lower you in an open cage that permits you to move up and down the length of the screen, delivering your arrows to the wolves from right to left.  Think of Hooper's shark cage in Jaws and you get the idea.  And like Hooper's shark cage, you are a sitting duck in this thing.  You can be bitten, hit with acorns and crushed by a falling boulder.

The wolves descend from the top of a tree carried by helium filled balloons which you can pop with your arrows, sending the wolves hurtling down to what is surely a painfully slow death or permanent disability. You cannot shoot the wolves with the arrows as they have shields which they use to protect themselves and that they sometimes raise up to defend their balloon.  You also have another weapon which is a slab of meat (hopefully not pork) that sometimes appears at the top of your rope.  You fire this in an arc which can hit multiple wolves at once although what is supposed to be happening is that the wolves are so desperate to get to the meat they let go of their balloons and fall.

If the wolves make it to the bottom they will climb your hill using conveniently (for them) placed ladders that give them a vantage point at which to snap at you.  This restricts your up and down movement and when enough wolves have taken up residence on these ladders you will most likely find it too difficult to shoot the wolves while you avoid being bitten.

To add to the difficulty the wolves will lob acorns at you which will send you falling out of your cage.  You can shoot them or cause them to bounce harmlessly off of the cage itself but it's best to avoid them altogether until you've mastered the game more.

Pooyan mixes it up a little bit on its' second stage where, instead of the wolves walking up to you and climbing your hill, use their balloons to float upward to the top of their tree where they will accumulate if not shot down.  They will line themselves up and eventually will be strong enough to push a boulder over the side and onto your cage.  This is accompanied by a neat little "drum roll" to build tension when there are almost enough wolves to push the boulder over the side.

There are also bonus stages where your life is not at risk and you can simply accumulate points, although it is made difficult by, in one stage, taking away your bow and arrow and forcing you to only use meat, which while it can hit multiple wolves at once is less than ideal as a main weapon.

Pooyan has other surprises in store, such as balloons that  pop only to reveal another balloon within, glass balloons which are more difficult to pop and several incidental animations that add a cartoon quality to the game.  It does a good job of building and sustaining tension and surrounding you with danger while still being playable.  It is a fast and frantic shooter with a unique perspective that is memorable to all who have played and enjoyed it and has not been replicated since.

John: On to the C64 version.  What makes a good arcade port?  As we know from many years playing Atari 2600 games, it's not as important to have arcade-perfect graphics as it is to capture the feel of the game.  DataSoft's port of Pooyan definitely looks, feels and sounds as if you are playing Pooyan.  It includes everything mentioned above with very little missing that is worth note.  Well there's one thing I miss, your piglets dont seem to be able to be stolen, giving you bonus points for remaining piglets at the end of a round.

DataSoft included several nice touches that add to the charm of the game.  The piglets that raise and lower your cage are animated.  The wolves have nice animations, wagging their tails as they float and doing a nice tumble in the air when they fall with a nice death splat.

The graphics are good for home computers at the time.  They are certainly not as detailed as the arcade game, which has wolves with actual eyes that bug out when they realize they're going to fall to their doom. The mama pig looks OK but is very static and a little lifeless.

Chuck: The baby pigs look like goat skulls.   This is one of those thankfully rare cases where the Apple II version looks better.  But of course no one could be bothered to draw original graphics for the C64 version.  The Wolves look pretty good to me, though.  The game is very RED and GREEN and WHITE.  The pastels of the arcade version are gone for good.  The C64 has other colors, you know.

John: The sounds are pretty good.  I like the thunk of the arrows, the pop of the balloons, the loopy music. The sound the wolves make when they snap at you from the ladders.  I even like the weird trampoline sound when the wolves hit the ground.

Chuck: I really dont have a problem with the presentation.  Its' biggest problem is that it's an exact copy of a game created on an inferior platform.  It's slow compared to the arcade version and has you firing arrows at a slower pace so that there are never too many objects on the screen, both due to the limitations of the system that birthed it.  Because the game cant allow too many objects on the screen it forced the programmer to make the wolves float in predictable patterns that repeat themselves over and over.  There are few to no surprises.  After playing a few levels I find myself on autopilot and pretty much keep playing until I dont feel like continuing.  Although the difficulty is moderate, there doesnt seem to be any progression in difficulty from stage to stage.

This is the polar opposite of the arcade version, which has far more oomph.  The quicker pace and randomization really do matter.  The C64 version version makes all your actions feel very deliberate.  So, even though it really isnt missing any physical elements from the arcade game that detract from the experience, the experience itself is slow, stiff and too much like a grind.

John: Maybe I like it more than you because I'm not as good at it as you are. I have no problem giving this game my recommendation but this isnt Siskel & Ebert, folks, we both have to turn our keys in order to launch the nukes.  This doesnt get a recommendation unless we both agree.  Is Pooyan a prize pig or does it roll around in its' own filth?

Chuck:  It looks passable until you play it for a while and realize that it doesnt have that spark.  This pig doesnt pass the sniff test.

C64 Review - Trashman (C) 1983 Creative Software

Chuck:  Today we have a game from Creative Software, which in 1983 was in Silicon Valley.  Definitely an exciting time to be an unknown technology company.  They published a few good early games like Crisis Mountain, Save New York and Warp.   The game was programmed by Marc-Thomas Clifton, who doesnt seem to have had a long and storied programming career with the C-64.

Trashman is a Pac Man clone with a trash collection theme, in case you havent figured that out.  This review was inspired by Twitter's own @ausretrogamer.  By an amazing coincidence, we had been playing this game for about 20 minutes when he posted the game's beautiful box art.

John:  That sealed the deal.

Chuck:  And good thing, because this is surprisingly good.

John:  It has a surprising amount of charm.  And low expectations definitely helped.

Chuck:  As mentioned previously, if you are going to rip off a super-classic arcade game you'll be judged by that standard.  Here's what I like to see in a clone:

1.  Make it as fun as the game you're ripping off.

2.  Put your own spin on it (change the theme, etc).

3.  Have new ideas that branch off of the concept.

#1 is obviously the most critical.  #2 and #3 are nice but let's face it, in 1983 we would take what we could get.

Pac Man clones are a dime a dozen, but good Pac Man clones are rare.  Remember, actual ports of the real Pac Man game are often horrifically bad!

John:  It's got some of those great early-C64 features like public domain music and all text in the default C-64 font.

Chuck:  Those are more things that I can live with rather than "features", but they do have lot of charm.

John:  The whole game is charming, for some reason.

Chuck:    Referring to #2, Trashman does a decent job of making its' own theme.  Your avatar is a Garbage Truck that is continuously making what I believe to be a compacting-trash animation as you drive around.  It's very "cute".

The enemies are Flies that emerge from the City Dump at the center of the screen.  They are pretty well animated, with flapping wings and flashing eyes, although they bear no resemblance to actual flies at all.

The dots are, of course, Trash.  The power pellets are Trash Cans and, I'm assuming, there's so much trash everywhere that the flies are being attracted to it, and also are big enough to crush your trash compactor.

John:  And somehow picking up a trash can gives you the ability to trash-compact the flies?

Chuck:  I'm assuming you run over them.  It's very, very gross.  When you kill the Flies they, I swear to God, turn into maggots and go running back to the dump.

John:  It's best not to think about the implications of this nightmarish universe Marc-Thomas has created.

A game like this is going to live and die by the controls, the fluidity in the motion of the sprites, the "dance" that the monsters do with the player and the psychological reward gained by sweeping a level clean of dots.

Trashman pretty much gets it all right.  The Truck moves properly for the most part but you dont get a little slow-down when you're "eating pellets", so compacting the trash has no feedback beyond the squishy sound of the trash compactor (which does grow on you).  The Truck and the Flies are always moving at the same speed as eachother, except when you pick up a Trash Can, then the enemies slow down.  This makes the game feel a little more like Slot Racers than Pac Man, which isnt necessarily bad, it's just not what you might be expecting.

Since the Flies all move at the same speed, which is the same speed as the player, it's good that they have an intelligence that makes up for it.  The red and purple flies will target and attempt to surround you.  The yellow one will take its' time then eventually home in on you and the blue one is the Clyde of the bunch, hanging out in the center the longest and later not giving continuous chase.  There has been real thought put into the Fly behavior and it shows.

I'm not completely sold on the level progression, though. The Truck gets faster as the levels progress.  But, as the Truck gets faster the Flies all stay the same speed as the Truck, so if you're an impatient player like me and like the game nice and fast you'll actually find the game getting easier as you progress.

But not that easy.  The game has solid difficulty thanks to the Fly routines.  The overall effect is a nice, fun Pac Man clone that you can replay without getting bored.  I would say that Trashman pretty much nails #1.

Chuck:  The maze design is good.  It has the right amount of alleys, turns and death traps.  The bonus "fruit" is a little disappointing, though.  It's Trashman, so you'd think the bonus items would be cans, bottles, you know, garbage.  Instead it's... ?

John:  Placeholder graphics they didnt have time to replace?

Chuck:  There are six power pellets (Trashcans) instead of four, and the amount feels right for this game.  It never feels like there's too many or not enough.

The scoring is done properly, i.e. after you've played the game multiple times and compared your scores they make sense based on how you played.  I know this sounds obvious but trust me, we will be reviewing games that will screw this up royally.  This is a well-tuned game.

And I understand why the Trash you pick up is represented as dots but.. I dont know, shouldnt they at least be brown or something?

John:  The sound design... OK, it's not that good, but it is charming.  There's no background layer of sound, like Pac Man, so sometimes the game seems a little too quiet.  There's nothing special, but there's nothing annoying either.

It has a decent title tune that I dont recognize.  It plays "Buffalo Gals" when you clear a level, as the Truck makes it's way to the Dump, and a bar of "Maple Leaf Rag" when you earn an extra Truck.  If only I had a dime for every C64 game that used Maple Leaf Rag.

This era of games is virtually defined by having a single author, one that didnt always, or hardly ever, have musical chops.  Public Domain music doesnt need to be licensed, it's instantly recognizable and the sheet music is available everywhere.  It was very easy to use tunes like this to add a little spice to your game, and it was done to death.  It makes games from this era feel even older than they really are, like they're artifacts from the late 1800's.

Chuck:  So, Trashman gets #1 and #2 but falls short on #3, as it brings virtually nothing new to the table.  Putting my 1983 glasses on and looking around at what else is available, though...

John:  Trashman is better than the Atari version of Pac Man.  And I dont mean the 2600 version, I mean Atarisoft's C-64 port, which is worse than the Atari 5200 version.  At least Trashman has multi-colored sprites.

Chuck:  Let's not review Atarisoft's Pac Man quite yet.  But, yes, Trashman holds its' own, especially here in 1983.  So, does Trashman get taken to the dump along with the muffin stumps?

John:  Nope, Trashman gets a:

C64 Review - Over the Rainbow (C) 1983 Renegade Software

Chuck:  Today we have "Over the Rainbow" from Renegade Software, programmed by James O'Keane.  From the wonderful year of 1983.

John:  Eight years old, we were.  Do you remember this one?

Chuck:  Very vaguely.  And so does everyone else, apparently.   Couldnt find much on the web, except for one thing we'll get to in a second.  It's in the CSDB, and although it's not the crack that we have it's definitely the same game.  http://csdb.dk/release/?id=89292.  Should we be archiving this??  Ours says "BROKEN BY THE BANDIT"

John:  Focus, Chuck.

Chuck: This is another Q-Bert clone.  Wait readers, dont run away!  This is a good one.  In fact this was on the flipside of the same disk we have Q-Bopper on.  And it truly is the flip side of Q-Bopper.  It rights nearly every wrong.

(You'll have to excuse us if we get a little flowery when discussing this one.  After Q-Bopper it was such a breath of fresh air...)

John:  To put one issue right to bed:  The game uses the proper Q-Bert controls (see the Q-Bopper review).  So high-five for that.

Chuck:  Go Team Venture!

John: The controls work, the game is colorful and has some cool characters and ideas that branch off of Q-Bert, but dont ape it.  There's good variation and progression in the levels.  After a game over you immediately want to try it again.  It's actually addictive.  It's like playing a real video game!

Chuck:  Yes, thank you Renegade Software!

John:  Thank you James O'Keane!

Chuck:  Did you know, old James is still making video games?

John:  You're kidding.

Chuck:  Nope, I found him working for Raven software as late as 2002.  His bio even mentions Over the Rainbow!  And he seems to be most famous for... Soldier of Fortune 2??

John:  Nooooooo!  A first person shooter?  From Over the Rainbow to Rainbow Six?  Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Chuck:  Come back from the dark side, Jim.  We're waiting for you with Atari 2600 joysticks in hand.

John:  We want a sequel to Over the Rainbow.  We want music and sound effects this time!

Chuck:  OK dont jump too far ahead.

John:  Well before I get into the not-so-good, let's stick to the good.  I like what he did with the Q-Bert color-changing concept.  Over the Rainbow is named so because it uses the C-64's color palette to great effect.

Just like Q-Bert you jump from square to square, changing its' color.  However, the object is not to change all the squares to a single color.  The top square, or group of squares in later levels, turn red.  As you jump down the level you change the descending squares to orange, yellow, green, blue, darker blue and violet.  And there's your Rainbow.

Your enemies are colored balls (gumdrops) that rain down from the top and fall off the bottom, edging toward you if you are close.  It has the requisite color-reversal enemy (The Rabbit) and enemy you stomp for points (Raindrop).  Eventually a green ball appears, and it contains a Coily-like Witch character that will chase you.  You have to get to an escape disc (grey cloud) to escape.  When you do, the cloud moves above the Witch.  It rains on her and melts her.  Fantastic!

Chuck:  Bravo, Jim!

John:  Like I said, it's like a real video game.  I think, obviously, he was going for a Wizard of Oz theme, but there's the clouds, the Raindrop, Rabbit, Frog and Bat characters, and whatever you're supposed to be playing as as well.  So there's weather, nature and clown(?) elements mixed in also.  He didnt really nail a theme too well here but it sort-of fits together anyway.

Chuck:  The level design is very good.  The layouts are symmetrical, for one thing.  They're eye-catching and actually make sense from a gameplay standpoint.  There are usually holes in the board that you have to jump around but the enemies can be led to fall in (except the Witch, she's flying).  Some levels are small, not giving you a lot of room to avoid danger and will have your pulse racing as you rush to finish coloring in all the squares before you're killed.  Just like a real video game!

The Frog enemy is well thought out.  He sometimes jumps and lands so hard that he breaks through a block, leaving a hole in an unexpected place on the board, accompanied by a good screen-shaking effect.  It's touches like this that make this game special.  There are ideas here that would have worked really well in an actual sequel or spinoff to Q-Bert, even.

John:  I agree.  I like how eventually you have to touch the squares multiple times, like Q-Bert, except here you're a little more confused because there are so many colors on the screen.  By the fourth level or so you will find that you've turned the top two rows of squares red, and you'll have to hit the second row again to turn them orange.  You have to remember you're working on a rainbow here, and think about which row isnt the right color yet.  I like that little extra dimension, a little extra something for your brain to chew on.

Chuck:  I dont know about that.  I think it gets a little too confusing.    I'll give it a pass, though, because it sure as hell is better than Q-Bopper.

John:  Yeah I mean the game isnt perfect or anything, it shows its' age a bit.  It's a little stiff.   Alex, the Player Character, is a little drab.  I think he's supposed to be a harlequin but he's a little grey and uninteresting and he doesnt have precisely the right weight to him.  It gets a little repetitive after a while (that's normal for these types of games, they were meant for short bursts of play anyway) and the levels repeat themselves quickly.  But my main beef is with the sound design.  There's no music and the SFX are practically non-existent.   Really, this is a quiet game, with very little fanfare or audio cues.  When Alex dies it's a little... less than dramatic.  There's not even any noise when you jump!  I'll give it a pass though, because it sure as hell is better than Q-Bopper.

Chuck:  Seriously though, the good very much outweighs the bad.  So congratulations Jim, you have conquered Q-Bopper and proven your worth as a C-64 Gamesmaker Extraordinaire!

John:  OK let's not get carried away here, I mean it's not like he came up with a whole new concept or-

Chuck:  You shut your filthy mouth!  The sweet gameplay and great ideas of Over the Rainbow have cleansed our souls of Q-Bopper forever, and we have Mr. O'Keane to thank.  He should get the first seal of approval.

John:  You're right.  We love you, Jim.  Please come back to gaming platforms that matter, thank you.  Over the Rainbow gets our first:

(thank you KrnBgn.deviantart.com for the image)

Woo hoo!

C64 Review - Q-Bopper (C) 1983 Accelerated Software

John: Ooh another "classic" from 1983. Q-Bopper by Accelerated Software, Inc, who would later go on to release Dungeons of Ba, which is way, way, way, way better than Q-Bopper.

Chuck:  This one's painful.  But you know, I really love this era of C64 games, so I think we're going to stick with reviewing games from this era for awhile.

John:  It has an air of innocence about it.

Chuck:  And an air of discovery.  Lots of no-name software developers selling software in plastic bags.  A few future big names just beginning to get their sea-legs.  Console developers who were fearful of the future were only just beginning to turn towards the home computer market.  So, we've got a lot of, I guess you would say, independent developers making computer games in 1983.

John:  This one fills quite a few early C64 cheapie checkboxes:

Public Domain music - Check.

No-name developer - Check.

Terrible graphics and sound - Check.

Ripoff of a famous arcade title - Check.

Probably came in a plastic bag with a one-sheet "manual" - Check.

Uses the default C64 font for all text and scores - Check.

Title screen and/or game elements done using PETSCII - Check.

I love this era too.  So please know dear reader that when we say harsh things about a game from this era, we do it with love.  If you love the C64 then there's an undeniable charm to games from this era.  Even the crappy ones.  And speaking of crap...

Chuck:  Q-Bopper bursts out of the gate blaring Dixie at you while the title fills the screen.  Then it switches to some ear-splitting, out of tune piano roll kind of thing that wouldnt sound good coming out of an Odyssey 2.  Right away you know what you're in for.

John:  Why Dixie??

Chuck:  Let me state this up front.  If you're going to blatantly rip off a brilliant game like Q-Bert, right down to the name of the game, then by God you will be judged by that standard.  If you're going to go down this road then you could at least do it properly, or take it in a unique direction like Pogo Joe.  Speaking of, that is also from 1983 although you would never believe it if you only played crap like this.

John:  "As close to the Arcade feeling as you'll ever get".  Just let that sink in.

Chuck:  Let's just get right down to the big problem.  The Angry Video Game Nerd always says you cant explain bad controls, you must experience them yourself.  Well, I'm going to give it a shot.  Look at this:

This is from the Q-Bert 2600 version manual.  This is how Q-Bert was meant to be played at home.  Now, I'm not saying we held our joysticks like this; we just held them normally with the fire-button at top-left.  But the controls just feel right and work extremely well, especially when you need to change direction quickly.

Q-Bopper immediately shits the bed by making you move the joystick diagonally to jump in the four directions.  There is a reason why no home version of Q-Bert controls this way.  It's because IT.  DOESNT.  WORK.

John:  You'd think that it would.  You would think that it actually makes more sense, since you are moving diagonally on the screen.  But it doesnt.  On our dear departed mother's soul I swear that it doesnt.

Chuck:  She'd completely understand.

If you try to change direction, especially the opposite direction, he may just sit there and do nothing.  Why?  Am I not pushing the stick exactly diagonal?  Is the game just ignoring me?  Also, Q-Bopper moves at lighting speed.  So not only can you not direct him but he just whizzes across the board and usually right off the side before you know it.  He has a tendency to move two blocks when you only wanted to move one.  He does not move deliberately, like Q-Bert does.  He does not have any feel of substance or weight, he just kind of floats around.

So, right away you have a game that's a total pain in the ass to play.  There's just no coming back from that.  Everything else could be amazing and this would kill it   We could just wrap this up right now.

John:  Oh no. Full autopsy.  The level design is atrocious.  Instead of just copying the Q-Bert pyramid they haphazardly splayed blocks all over the screen.  It looks and feels random.  I'm pretty sure no thought went into it other than "uh oh we better not make this look too much like Q-Bert, but it needs to look enough like it so suckers will know what they're buying".  If you're going to just make a random shape at least make the shape change on subsequent levels.

The flying discs that Q-Bert uses to escape the bad guys are completely stationary in this game.  When you hop onto one it just sits there and doesnt move.  So you're supposed to hop on and wait for the bad guys to move to another part of the level then you jump back off.  Zzzzz...

Chuck:  Well, making the discs fly you to another part of the level would have taken, you know, effort.

John:  Look, if you are missing features that the Atari 2600 version of Q-Bert has then you have failed.  Failed.  The enemies just kind of randomly bounce around the screen so I suppose they wouldnt be able to follow you when you escape, anyway.  

Chuck:  That's the best part of Q-Bert!  Coily is so single-minded in his pursuit of Q-Bert that he just leaps off of the pyramid to oblivion.  Q-Bopper has none of this.  The enemies have no personality.  They're just colored balls.  And a square that changes the color of the blocks (the substitute for Slick/Sam).

Q-Bopper himself is just another ball with poorly defined feet and.. I think he's wearing sunglasses?  An eye-patch?  Seriously, what's wrong with his face?

And there seems to be another character named Chancer?

John:  Oh, when you push your button you warp to an escape disc and you lose one "chancer".

Chuck:  So it's an "oh shit" button.  Chancer, though?

John:  Because you're taking a chance by doing something that immediately removes you from all danger?

The sound effects are terrible.  There's a bad laser sound whenever you start the game.  Very unceremonious.  You clear a level then a new one immediately starts, no fanfare.  The laser sound does not count as fanfare.  This is not how video games work, people.  You are to be rewarded with pleasing sounds, flashing colors, something.  How about a brief pause in the action, at least?

Chuck:  When Q-Bopper dies it plays this weird bird warble (or "malfunctioning computer" noise?) and he disintegrates.  When you fall off the "pyramid" it does the same thing.  But when the game is over it plays a falling bomb sound with a crash.  Why did they not use that when you fall off the board?   This is iconic Q-Bert stuff and they are dropping the ball at every opportunity.  Did they even play Q-Bert before making this?  Maybe we're wrong.  Maybe this is a wholly original idea and Gottllieb ripped it off.

John:  Except Q-Bert came out in 1982. And if Jeff Lee saw this he would have dropped the concept immediately.

Chuck:  It really makes you appreciate how great Q-Bert is, let's give it credit for that.

I hope we're not being too unfair.  If this were 1983, and dad picked this up from the computer store for a few bucks, we may have squeezed a little fun out of this one?

John:  Nope.  Trainwreck.  If you cant at least be as good as the Atari 2600 version then you should not bother.  If this were typed in from a magazine then it might be acceptable.  And we did play this one back in the day, we're playing our original (copied) disk as we speak (yes it still works).  We copied and played everything.   I'm sure we played this once and forgot about it.

Chuck:  Can we forget it again please?

Update:  It appears one of our playtesters loves Q-Bopper and cant get enough.  We believe in spirited debate here at WOB75, so here you go: