Dark Seed - Amiga CD32 (1993)

Set somewhere in small town America, author Mike Dawson has purchased a crumbling Gothic mansion desperately in need of renovation. Upon moving in, he begins to suffer terrible nightmares, plagued by visions of alien worlds and monstrous beings. It turns out that the house is some kind of nexus for a race of nightmarish inter-dimensional alien beings, which want to cross over from the "Dark World" and wreak havoc on the unwitting denizens of Earth. To make matters worse, an alien embryo is implanted in Dawson's brain and players, assuming control of the unwitting author, have only 3 days to figure out how to cross over into the alien's universe and stop them for good, as well as save his own skin.

Anyone with a passing interest in point-and-click adventure games will most likely have heard of Dark Seed. The game caused quite a stir in the gaming press at the time, owing to a collaboration between the developers and renowned artist H.R. Giger, whose exquisitely macabre artwork was featured prominently throughout the game. The combination of Giger's artistic talents and classic Lovecraftian horror should have been the perfect combination for an adventure game.

If I'm being honest, playing Dark Seed in 2022 proved to be a let-down. The lacklustre puzzles, lack of character building and inconsistent pacing means the game can't really hold a candle to equivalent LucasArts adventures of the same period, even with Giger's involvement. The inclusion of puzzles in which Mike can kill himself inadvertently leave a sour taste in one's mouth, especially when there is very little to suggest that there's any imminent danger.

Other criticisms include the fact this is yet another CD32 game which contains little the way in terms of improvements over its disk-based counterpart. Although the inclusion of the digitised speech samples and the lack of disk swapping are massively welcome, the fact the developers stuck with the grainy, low resolution OCS graphics mean the artwork lacks the fidelity of its PC counterpart.

Considering Giger's artwork was what made the game so unique, every effort should have been made to ensure the artwork was showcased to its fullest. As it stands, the AGA-equipped CD32 barely gets to stretch its legs here, which is a shame.

Developer: Cyberdreams
Publisher: Cyberdreams
Year of Release: 1993

RoboCop 3 - Commodore 64 (1992)

The original RoboCop remains one of the greatest movies of the 80s, but its risible sequels less so.

RoboCop 3 is a dull, insipid production devoid of any of the bite, satire, or any real impact. The production values look and feel more like a network TV show, which, unsurprisingly, came next, along with a slew of action toys and other stuff to be peddled at kids.

This means that RoboCop 3 the game has some rather rocky foundations, and the resultant C64 game certainly shows it. A near-impossible shooting gallery level is followed by a bunch of boring sideways scrolling platform sections where Robo plods along, shooting bad guys as they appear; It's all terribly dull.

The opening title music by Jeroen Tel is up to his usual level of sonic excellence, but the graphics by Hugh Riley (The Last Ninja) feel oddly out of place. I'm a great admirer of Riley's work, but the tiny sprites just don't suit the whole RoboCop universe.

Given the number of platforms which received a RoboCop 3 game, this is little more than another brick in the commercial marketing wall: it's dull, insipid, and a little too "by-the-numbers" to be particularly enjoyable.

Blog Update (03/2018)

Just a quick update notice to say I'm currently producing new reviews and content for the folks over at www.vintageisthenewold.com, so this blog is currently on stasis. I will filter content down at some point!

For now, please check out my articles here

Game Review: Zorro (Commodore 64)

Released in 1985 by Datasoft, Zorro is an arcade platform game based on Johnston McCulley's masked vigilante, released in 1985 for the ZX Spectrum, C64 and Amstrad range of 8-bit computers. It's another game that I remember playing as a child, but was never able to actually finish for one reason or another.

All is not well in the pueblo of Los Angeles, where the dastardly Colonel Garcia has kidnapped a fair Senorita, spiriting her away to his fort on the other side of town. Not one to sit idly by when a damsel is in distress, Zorro, expert swordsman and champion of the people, leaps into action, setting out on a rescue mission that will see him solving puzzles, crossing swords with the colonel's guard and plundering subterranean catacombs.

Game Review: Donkey Kong (Nintendo Game Boy)

When it was released in 1981, the original Donkey Kong arcade machine was a game of several firsts. Not only was it the first game to start two of Nintendo's most famous characters, it helped define the genre that we now know as the "platformer". From the original coin-op release, to the plethora of home versions, gamers everywhere were hooked by the addictive gameplay, fancy graphics and iconic sound - the sound of jumping over a barrel will be forever etched into our brains.

Despite the success of the game and development of a couple of sequels, it would be Mario (or Jumpman as he was known at the time) that would  go on to enjoy world-wide critical and commercial success in a series of games that made Nintendo the dominant gaming force for the rest of the decade; aside from an outing on the NES, it would seem that poor old Donkey Kong would be relegated to relative obscurity.

Game Review: Joe Blade 2 (Commodore 64)

Developed by Kevin Parker and published by Players Software in 1988

Released originally for the Spectrum, C64 and Amstrad CPC 8-bit computers, the original Joe Blade was a typical flick-screen adventure game where mustachioed military-man, Joe Blade,  had to locate a number of prisoners and achieve other objectives, prior to finding the exit; it was a fairly typical explore 'em up of it's day, albeit one that didn't really exhibit any real standout qualities. Whatever the case, the developer must have felt that there was some mileage in the character, for the game spawned a couple of sequels, the first of which I'll be reviewing today.

Game Review: Double Dragon (Nintendo Entertainment System)

Developed by Technos and published by Tradewest in 1988

Regular readers of my reviews will know that Double Dragon is one of my favourite arcade games of all time, and that the C64 version that I owned as a child was a bitter disappointment. With so many of the ports for home computers of the day, for the want of a better word, sucking, I wondered whether the conversion for the Nintendo Entertainment System would fair any better - I'd played the Master System and was relatively impressed, so would the official Nintendo seal of quality mean anything in this instance?

I'm by no means an expert on games for the NES, but one thing I have noticed is that, with games based on arcade titles, the developers generally opted to craft an experience that built on the core mechanics of the arcade title, but that delivered a decent gaming experience whilst working within the constraints of the console's hardware. I'd seen footage of the NES conversion online, but never actually played it - curious to see how it stacked up, I decided to take up the challenge.