Back again for my regular Sunday roundup of quick-fire reviews and impressions of everything under the spotlight at Retro Arcadia this week, old and new and a bit of both. Want to hear about our new bedroom carpet first though? No, I thought not, although I will say it’s always a right faff either side! As, it turns out, are transfers involving sports scholarships between US colleges, albeit slightly more exciting, even if I can’t really get into that yet either! I can get into what I’ve been playing though so let’s just do that instead.

Here’s a quick treat to begin with… When I was going through the April 1985 issue of Computer & Video Games magazine for the corresponding month’s 40th anniversary Retro Rewind feature (here) last year, I came across a ZX Spectrum type-in listing for a game called Creepy Crawley (or Creepy Crawly, depending on where you look). It sounded like an interesting take on Snake meets Pac-Man from the description, and I suggested it might be a nice idea to type it in to give the recently launched at the time The Spectrum’s authentic rubber keyboard a workout, so before we get to the magazine’s 41st anniversary, here we are! Most importantly, it worked, which was always an achievement with these things. Turns out to be more Snake than Pac-Man though, with you guiding your multi-legged “Creepy Crawley” (there’s your official in-game spelling!) around the herb garden, avoiding the lethal stone walls surrounding it, as well as the death-dealing skull mysteriously lying around, and, of course, your own trailing body. Everything else is fair game though, and needs to get eaten for points to move on to the next level, and the quicker you do it, the more bonus points you’ll get, and that’s about It! It moves fine, looks fine and even sounds fine for a BASIC game on the Spectrum, and I was genuinely impressed at how well it plays too, despite there not really being very much to it. Well worth the effort!  

I’m going to stick with the Spectrum (and The Spectrum) because I’m currently messing around with an upcoming top ten arcade conversions feature, and while I can’t confirm or deny it will make the cut yet, I’ve had such a good time going back to Enduro Racer on there this week! With its ride-on bike controls between your legs and rip-roaring spectacle right in your face, the original game from Sega in 1986 was a total showstopper in the arcades, and when this port came in time for my birthday the following year, it wasn’t just something borderline miraculous, but probably the definitive home version too, and that includes the later 16-bit variants. In fact, once the eye-popping, high-speed 3D bells and whistles are removed from the arcade version, it might even the definitive version of the game overall! Not really a hill I’m prepared to die on though, even if the Spectrum’s dirt biking does feel way tighter and less floaty! It has plenty of spectacle of its own too, moving at pace with a convincing amount of 3D going on, and plenty of detail in the environments and trackside obstacles, the animations and dusty flourishes, and not least those wonderful foot-down turns and borderline suicidal jumps, which are almost worth screwing up for your big rider sprite coming adrift of the big bike sprite and hanging on to the handlebars for dear life! All of this is monochrome on colourfully atmospheric backgrounds, and it works brilliantly, to the point that in my mind at least, this is how it’s supposed to look, and on the 128K version at least, it sounds pretty good as well! Brutal game though, demanding you go hell for leather to beat the clock while also punishing every mistake, however good they look. As said, I still need to think about where this sits among the best Spectrum conversions, but for now at least, it’s definitely one of them! 

I was very late to the party with Delphine Software’s cinematic platform-puzzling classic, Another World, albeit not for the want of trying, and trying, and trying, over the course of decades, pretty much from its original launch on Atari ST and Amiga back in 1991! It turned out that was always the point though, and once it clicked a few years ago, I loved it, and I’ve been back over and over, and on all kinds of systems, which is how I’ve eventually got to its far less well-travelled (and therefore far less well-known) sequel, Heart of the Alien, released exclusively on the, er, very exclusive Sega-CD in 1994. We pick up the action directly from the end of Another World, but flip the perspective to Buddy, your alien friend from the original, which I think also contributes to this being more or less forgotten – I know it’s by design, but no personality is never particularly attractive! The rotoscoped animation is though, and so are the stark, minimal and richly stylised environments, as well as the trial‑and‑error design… The gameplay itself sticks closely to Another World’s formula, combining deliberately-paced and very methodical movement with environmental puzzles that usually demand multiple failures (meaning constant sudden deaths) before they reveal themselves. It can be clunky too, and there are some wild difficulty spikes, and it can all feel a bit forced, but the silent narrative and general atmosphere more or less carry it, complemented by a moody synth soundtrack, and the expanded alien world is gorgeous. However hard it tries though, it’s just not Another World. And once again, maybe that’s the point. 

Apart from that lot, I finished Batman: Arkham City and all sorts of side-shenanigans for the umpteenth time this week as well, but I covered it (here) last Sunday, so won’t again, except to say that flying about the place once you’re powered-up a bit will never get old! And no doubt there’ll be more of that on the way shortly when I inevitably get to Arkham Knight next, although that’s going to have to wait a week or two because I’ve somehow been waylaid by Silent Hill f again, which I’ve just started so will save for another time as well. And that’s me about done! I already mentioned one of my old Retro Rewind features but I’m also going to mention a new one before I go though, because in case you missed it last Wednesday, we headed all the way back exactly 40 years for the very latest in video gaming with Retro Rewind: February 1986 in Computer & Video Games, straight from the pages of the original magazine! Hope you enjoy that, and I hope you have a good week ahead too!

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