“Don’t count your ninjas before they’re hatched”
I always thought ninjas were sneaky wee fuckers that somersaulted into your room at night, shurikened your missus, stabbed you in the heart & scarpered before someone finds the bodies. It turns out that’s just a myth. They’re really a bunch of superevolved magpies that jump around on everything like one of those parkour nutters but in search of gold instead of thrills. What does a ninja even do with gold? Do they decorate their ninja nests with it to impress potential suitors? Do they melt it into enough Savillery to rival the king ned/chav? I don’t know & to be honest I don’t really care, because what I do know is that N+ gives you control of these pint-size plunderers & it’s fun.

“Too many ninjas spoil the broth”
I’ve been playing N on my PC since 2004, so when N+ was released in 2008 with improved controls & multiplayer I leapt at the opportunity & I’ve been playing it ever since. You see the beauty of the N games is that each level is a deceptively simple puzzle. You’ll look at it & say “Excellent, all I need to do is run over there, hit that switch to unlock the door, then run back to exit through it.”, then you’ll notice that some careless oaf has dropped a load of evenly spaced mines. “Fine” you’ll think, “I’ll just jump over them then”, but no… the ceiling is a bit low & some joker’s stuck mines all over it. Now you’ll have to do teenytiny jumps to avoid the mines on the floor while avoiding the mines in the ceiling & this is why I love & hate N/N+ in equal measures, the levels have been designed by some kind of genius sadist that clearly hates ninjas.

"OH NOES! I HAVE BEEN DEADED!" - Get used to this screen, you'll see it a lot.

“Old ninjas never die, they just fade away”
“Aye, great. So we’ve got to jump on top of stuff & avoid mines. Nae bother.” Well actually, no! As well as the inanimate hazards there are a cornucopia of cunts that all want you dead as well. These include but aren’t limited to; auto aiming turrets, lazers, homing missiles & wee electric dickheads that follow you around like a pervert in a nightclub. Luckily our crafty kleptos are as agile as, erm… ninjas, they can leap, bounce & slide their way through the level with ease & all while showing no fear in the face of almost certain death.

Pervert Rockets following Disco Ninja around & looking at his bum.

“Don’t put all your gold in one basket”
“Right. So all we’ve got to do is jump over stuff & avoid getting shot, electrocuted or blown up. That’s still not too bad.” Ah! “I don’t like the sound of that “Ah!”. What is it?” Well, you start the each episode of five levels with 90 seconds & that’s your lot, but if you collect some gold you get time added on for each piece. Unfortunately the gold becomes increasingly sparse & difficult to collect as you progress further into the game. “Fucksocks!”

"YAS! I R WINRAR!" ... "Fucksocks! This next level is harder still."

“Hell hath no fury like a ninja scorned”
That’s the single player out the road, with the exception of one thing… leaderboards. The leaderboards are based on how much time you’ve got left at the end of each episode & when you get frustrated in the later levels it can be quite soothing to jump back to the earlier levels & beat all your friends times. Speaking of friends, N+ has added multiplayer modes including races, co-op & survival modes. Races do what they say on the tin. Co-op is self explanatory too, you rely on each other to get through the levels. Survival can be fantastic, you both start with the same amount of time but to win you have to take risks & collect gold. The winner is the one that doesn’t die or that still has time left when the other’s runs out.

“You can’t teach an old ninja new tricks”
Since it’s been out for a while N+ has gathered three lots of DLC. The first costs 200 points & contains a load of “easier” levels. The second is also 200 points, but contains “harder” levels. The third is free & contains “hard” levels. As well as that all three packs contain new multiplayer and/or co-op levels as well as some daft new outfits for your ninja.

Finally, here’s some more words of wisdom;
“Practice makes perfect”, “Patience is a virtue” & “Look before you leap” ;)

I’m in a bind.

It’s about two years into my term as president.  My promises to improve the economy have left me little choice but to cut back on costs whever possible - the country’s in a staggering amount of debt, and the hungry people I so desperately wanted to feed had to be dispersed by the army, because we simply can’t subsidise their food any longer.  I can’t work on producing more food without slashing export crops, and without those, I can’t afford to invest in the infrastructure this country needs to turn itself around.

Right now, we’re just about producing enough to keep the debt from spiralling.  I’ve achieved this by accepting the starvation, accepting the almost absent education, accepting even some of the corruption in my own government, and sucking up to the USA just enough to keep them from sparking off a war.  But I’m reading the newspapers, and the issue none of my ministers brought before me is written all over them.

If I continue along this path, I’ll be accepting the death squads.

I’ll be accepting the intimidation, the assaults and the constant murders and disappearances of anyone who the army doesn’t like.  I know who is responsible.  Everyone knows who is responsible.  But nobody can prove it.  So these murderers, these fascist torturers are in and out of farcical trials, released and arrested constantly, with nobody ever going down.  And every day, more people disappear.  If I do nothing, innocent people are murdered.  Not starved through sheer circumstance, but deliberately and brutally murdered.

But if I throw those responsible in prison, I make a mockery of our already tender justice system, and worse - I raise a flag to the communists, and spark off a civil war.  A costly, endless civil war, with the US no doubt backing my enemies, who will destroy my infrastructure, terrorise my farmers, and murder my teachers and doctors.  To counter this, I would have to back the communists, who will plunder and murder and indoctrinate, and make a mockery of everything I promised to this nation.

This, my friends, is Hidden Agenda.

Jim Gasperini’s 1988 political simulation of a fictional latin american banana republic may be the finest political game ever made.  Its simple interface, rudimentary appearance and total absence of sound mask a marvellously complex game of second-guessing, negotiating, compromising and outright selling out.  As President of Chimerica, you are charged with taking a backwards agricultural nation still bleeding from a violent revolution after decades of dictatorial oppression, with its massive debt, disastrous economy, widespread famine and fractured, highly unstable army, and turning the whole thing into whatever you think it needs to be.  There’s a pretty clear ‘communist nutbag’ camp, and a pretty clear ‘capitalist pigdog’ camp, but if you think it’s as simple as picking a side and counting the score, I strongly urge you to play this game.  It will make you feel foolish.

The real genius of Hidden Agenda can be traced to two factors.

The first is that from the very start, you are forced to compromise.  You must choose your four ministers from a dossier of nine candidates representing three parties, each of which has their own ideals and their own agenda.  Despite your authority, you are only one man, and as such you are forced to rely on these ministers to bring important matters to your attention.

And herein lies the second issue: They will all bring up only the issues they care about, as well as their own solutions to those issues, and you can only put a measure in place if somebody proposes it first.  So, while you may surround yourself with colourful revolutionary characters, and bask in the praise of the farmers and workers, you’ll have nobody to tell you that your reforms have obliterated the economy until it’s too late, and the IMF are kicking down your door (or, more likely, the CIA are blowing up your ports, but that’s another story).

You could of course fill your cabinet with a mixture of people, but then your policies will contradict one another, and the odds of one or more of your ministers leaving in a huff (or worse) will rise dramatically.  You’ll also never have time to dedicate to all of them - as well as your four ministers, you must deal with 21 representatives of various industries, organisations and foreign governments on their own issues.  You can only address a handful of issues with each season, and anyone you’ve overlooked or angered for too long can make their presence known in a variety of ways, from peaceful protests to subtle insubordination, right through to a direct attempt on your life.  Each of these confrontations, too, eats into your time, and even if you’re careful, you can set of a chain reaction of urgent confrontations and clashes that force you to shelve your plans for entire seasons.

It is, quite simply, a fascinating little toy, and I have no shame in admitting that playing this for the first half a dozen times led me to a much deeper consideration of third world politics than a hundred geography lessons or sanctimonious documentaries.

Hidden Agenda can be played on Windows XP using DOSbox.  I have not tested it on any other OS, because I hate you.

Dear Sir,

After spending sometime in Cyrodiil, meeting its residents and performing the odd task for them, the time has come for me to move on.

I’ll be heading back to Morrowind sooner rather than later. Allow to explain the major problems that your nation faces and how you should act to fix these. To make a state a great one, it needs a productive, clever population.

These are my findings.

There doesn’t seem to be a particularly good work ethic in existence in the nation. Most of the time, the citizens just hang about. Shopkeepers take little pride in the organisation of their stock in the shops, and are seemingly happy to purchase most things from anyone if it saves them a trip to the cash and carry. Inn keepers are pleased to let people walk about the entirety of their premises, not even batting an eyelid if you go behind the bar and start rifling through the stock cupboards under their very noses. In fact, the only people that appear to do any actual work are the fighters in the Arena, but one supposes that, since they are fighting to the death for the entertainment of others but for a mediocre payday if they win. A generic loaf of bread costs 1 Gold Piece, winning your first couple of death matches will get you 50 of these. Down my local shop, it works out that I’d be paid a measly 50 loaves to fight for my life against an armoured bloodthirsty knight, which, honestly, doesn’t seem that worth it.

Many other people, whilst not lazy per se, suffer from appalling lack of judgement and complete disregard for the safety of others when it comes to making decisions. Take, for example, one of the organisations in Skingrad. The head of the Mages’ Guild there has gotten stroppy with another member and effectively told him to “Go and play outside”. “Outside” in this case is a cave to the northwest of the town, way beyond the safety of Skingrad’s walls. Hell, when the next door neighbour is someone called “Goblin Jim” it’s a pretty fair bet that the height of Leylandii aren’t going to be number one on the list of possible neighbourly disputes. Caves in Cyrodiil also tend to be packed full of angry, hungry monsters. Everyone in the land knows this. Everyone tells you this. Everyone also tells you to be careful when not in a city and stay on the paths. Despite this, the boss sends this poor bloke off on his lonesome self into certain peril. Intelligence being one of the most important attributes in being a wizard, and being in charge of all the practicing wizards in the large town, a post which one supposes takes time and dedication to reach, leaves this decision all the more baffling. Why do this? The Mages’ Guild is unnecessarily putting themselves at huge risk of a claim for failing in their duty of care toward their staff.

He probably doesn't want a cup of sugar

Another example of not thinking through the consequences of one’s actions is when a stranger appears in town,  announcing that he’s a Vampire Hunter. This must be a pretty good profession, presumably with really, really good health insurance, because people seem to take this on face value. This person then says “Oh, yeah, I’m here as he’s one of them!” and the whole town stands by and does nothing. Doesn’t ask for any evidence or even a reference, just says “Cool, yo!” and lets the stranger complete his business and charge them for it. After he takes his payment and leaves town, only then does the realisation begin to dawn that someone should have, at the very least, looked at his resume or performed some form of due diligence, like any competent or reasonable citizen would with the possibility of waking up with a bad case of “bitten neck” the next morning. Seriously, how long would it have taken?

In a land going to pot, rapidly, with massive, burning inter-dimensional portals opening up and huge demons residing in caves, talking cat and lizards are free citizens, Cyrodiil seems to be a pretty liberal place. Such as it is, it’s really normal for someone to go running down the street, jumping every third step to practice their acrobatics. It’s a miracle not everyone is doing this, but does explain why there are apparently no circuses (circii) in town. Next time you need to go to the shops, try this: take running jumps all the way there. Once you get to the shop, crouch down and creep about a bit. Finally, walk up to the counter, jump up and down twice then crouch down and attempt to buy goods that are on the shelves you have just passed. Also, try and a get a good look in the till to see how much cash is in there, don’t worry, it’s totally normal behaviour. This brings me, nicely, to my final few points.

It appears that most of the population have only themselves to blame for being ripped off, kidnapped, robbed or murdered. Sometimes all four; although not necessarily in that order. Someone says “Hey, I know you owe me a few quid, but pop over to this place, bring me this back, and we’ll call it quits OK” and then they think “Yeah, this guy sounds totally legit, despite his reputation as being a ruthless loan shark. I’ll totally do this”. Or, if you’ve a reputation as the town loony, and believe that there is a vast conspiracy against you what better way to get to the bottom of it, than to approach a complete stranger in the street, that you’ve just seen jumping, running and crouching through the shops, and ask them to do some detective work for you? That’ll totally change the world’s view of you, won’t it?

One of those times you hope it's someone who got a little too drunk at a fancy dress party the night previous

Furthermore, there exists another person in a different town that, on meeting you for the first time asks you about humping the dead and the possible penalties for it. It’s not the sort of thing that one brings up in conversation, over the counter with someone that wanders into your shop, wishing to purchase stuff “yeah, that’ll be 38 Gold Pieces, please, have a nice day, oh, by the way, you’re not an expert on the legalities of necrophilia, are you? Only I’ve got a quick question”.

Even the people in charge of regions are not immune to massive lapses of judgement when it comes to trusting others. Would any sane leader invite someone they’ve vaguely heard of to nip over to a castle, pick up a priceless artifact, conferring magical powers on the wearer and bring it back for them? No, I didn’t think so, either. Especially with little to no comeback if said person decides to do a runner with it. But yet, it still happens.

It is with this in mind that I depart, and, frankly, your problems here are your own, and you should be acting to stop them. Stop relying on strangers and outsiders to fix these problems, encourage your population to actually do some work and force both your guild leaders and provincial rulers to think of the consequences before they open their mouths and begin yet another fine mess.

I remain your humble servant,

Mali A, Imperial knight, 12th Level.

Well, well, well.

This has been described as the second coming. After the “critically acclaimed” Modern Warfare, there was only one way to go. Bigger, better, faster and then some more.

You begin the game in the same fashion as before, running a quick gauntlet through a training mission, shooting at targets that look vaguely threatening and not at the ones that don’t. A bit like Keanu Reeves at the beginning of Point Break. Except you’re in the desert and it isn’t raining. After that, you’re shot through the barrel of several characters with different aims and objectives, most of which are to survive and complete the mission.

But, and by and how, is it good fun. You’re put into seemingly desperate scenario after scenario, and rely on your good luck, good aim and the belief that the good guys always win. From desert to favella, to the icy wastes in a blizzard, oil rigs, a secret prison; it’s a roller-coaster ride of Michael Bay set pieces and the guy with the doves close-on action.

You get to use an arsenal of different guns, against a plethora of different enemies, enjoy the benefits of a bullet proof riot shield, and discover how irritating it is when there are a lot of other people who dislike you very much with their own riot shields. The missions let you gently introduce more guns each time and different tactics to achieve your objective.

One of my favourite bits was sneaking up through the sea from a submarine and rescuing hostages from a captured oil rig in what is a lovely set piece moment. It really does feel that it’s you holding the key to the story.

The frame rate holds up and the graphics are good, you’ll find yourself ducking a fair few times as the rockets whoosh overhead and you hide beneath various objects like a 6th former avoiding a particularly overprotective father. The sound is also worth a mention, the radio chatter is convincing enough and there are more bangs and booms than at a high school prom being filmed for a reality TV show. There are some really nice touches, such as when you bash your way into a room using explosive charges, the game enters a slow motion environment for a brief time,enabling you to use the element of surprise to get the first few shots off on the enemies whilst being very careful not to shoot hostages. This is terribly good fun and you get to do it quite a few times, you lucky devils, you.

The single player campaign is rather good, some have complained that it’s “short” but, frankly, they’re obviously not aware how much fun it is. On occasion, the relentless waves of enemies get a bit rubbish, but many a time using the right tool, or a well placed grenade, can make the breakthrough to the next checkpoint. Collecting enemy intelligence along the way is a task for people that enjoy things like collecting train numbers and stamps, as it’s not obvious what they are and only the true obsessive would wish to do it for reasons that will become clear. On occasion, however, there do seem to be a couple of bugs, such as a level not completing as there is one enemy left running around somewhere that you managed to miss on your way through. This is irritating, but forgivable.

So, you have a couple of drinks and fire up the “Spec Ops Missions”. This is where you and, if you fancy it (or have any), a chum, either on-line or split screen can take on some challenges. Helping each other to fulfill the objectives set against varying levels of difficulty is good fun and makes for enjoyable five minute games against the computer. The major complaint about this is that if you haven’t unlocked the higher levels, you don’t get to play them against the computer when by yourself, but we all know that unlockable content is a very, very cheap way to make a game last longer, so shame on you Infinity Ward. Aside from that, it’s really rather enjoyable, taking you over some almost but not quite facsimiles of the levels you’ve fought through on single player.

Multi-player MW2 is streets ahead of COD4. The maps are more fun, you get more badges after each game, no matter how badly you did.  These badges are awarded for little things such as “The player with the highest average altitude” or “Most time spent couched”. It’s a nice way to get a new little logo to be displayed by your name, and fun to try to get them all. It seems to be a fair bit easier to get through and level up and get more guns and things. Maps are better designed and offer a chance for someone new to a level to get used to what is where and how to use it to their advantage. Seasoned players know the way around all of it and the little side cuts that will irritate a new player but encourage him to look harder for that perfect piece of cover.

However, all of this doesn’t matter, as it’s seriously good fun. Play it even with a bunch of artificially selected people and you’ll have good fun running about, trying to learn the maps, and watching your corners. Enjoying taking a map piece by piece with a bunch of people with little to no communication. The way you can “earn” the other guns seems to be fair, and, as a new player, you can rob the dead of their weapons to enable you to use exotica before you’re ready. A couple of perks also give you a hand up. Die so many times with one perk, and you can come back with the same weapon load out and perks for one time only as the last person to nobble you. It’s these little things that do make you say “Just one more go”. Veteran players of COD4 might complain that they can’t pwn noobs like they used to, but it does make the game a lot more fun, as there isn’t really any one gun that is better than the others, as the person you last killed could come back at you with it.

Playing it with a group of people that you know and you’re all on the same team it’s brilliant. Teamwork is greater than individual skill in this game, but even so, you don’t all have to be most excellent to win, a few good players working together can swing the weight of an average team, but they’ll still need the average team to carry them. The other game modes are equally fun, such as capture the flag, domination, and a good way to build up your score. The “Hardcore” matches also reappear for those that prefer playing with with the training wheels off.

All of this is why MW2 the best game of 2009, and, more likely, 2010.

I’ve been playing games for 25 years. But despite what the fancy-dan magazines tell you, things haven’t all improved for the better. Why am I left waiting for an age while a PS3 game loads when at least my C64 had the decency to let me play Invaderload? Why do games need five fire buttons when I used to manage with just one? Modern gaming leaves me angry and confused. Thanks to the people at Up To Jump, I get to put this right.

Die You Noob Luser!

When I was a kid, multiplayer gaming meant either 2 player games of Matchday or the exciting world of split screen action such as in Spy V Spy. You’d need a friend to hand to take advantage of this, and unless you had a computer such as a C64 or 128k Spectrum that had 2 joystick ports, whoever drew the short straw would end up on the keyboard.

As gaming advanced so did multiplayer games. First we had games like F1GP which allowed you to take it in turns to race, then we had Super Bomberman and Mario Kart. Gaming became more of a social affair. Then Doom hit Netware networks up and down the country and you could gather lots of friends onto your school or college network and literally shoot their faces off.

But all these still required you to gather lots of your friends into one place. If you were Johnny no-mates, you weren’t going to get much multiplayer action. Of course, with the internet came online gaming, but really this was still for nerds. Half Life deathmatches on remote servers still required you to be a socially inept PC geek to get it all working, but at least you now had people to play against even if, like you, they rarely glimpsed daylight or used soap.

Today we have services like Xbox Live which make online gaming against complete strangers really easy. With the press of a few buttons and the payment of a subscription to Microsoft you have hundreds of thousands of people to play against. This is what we yearned for all along, because even with advances in computer AI there’s nothing quite like playing against real people. If you want to play Gears Of War at 3am in the morning with real human beings, you can. This should be the greatest thing ever, what we spent 25 years waiting for…

Except it’s not. You see, the first problem is that Microsoft decided to give everyone headsets. Why would you want to speak to total strangers? Even if you don’t opt to use a headset, you still have to suffer listening to some borderline retarded boy from Texas screaming insults while you try and enjoy your game. If I want to have insults hurled at me by 14 year old kids, I’ll go hang out at the local shopping centre.

Then, to add insult to injury,  you end up playing against real hardcore gamers. The game suddenly turns into something that feels like the recurring death bug in Jet Set Willy. At least when you are playing with your mates you can have a laugh about it and they’ll give you some tips how to improve. But instead you end up staring down the barrel of a rocket launcher while a 14 year old with the username “SirRimULot” calls you a “faggot” before blowing your brains out yet again.

When you played your friends at Sensible Soccer or played network Doom, chances were all your mates were at approximately the same level as you were. You developed your skills together and if you did manage to beat them you might pass on a few tips. Fat chance of that when your opponent is 4000 miles away in Redneckville Arizona, and is screaming abuse down the headset safe in the knowledge that little can be done.

Of course, you could just opt to play against the people in your friend list. But isn’t that a step back? Has the promise of mass online gaming been a total let down?

The truth is that nothing beats old school action with people you know, or at least trust enough not to cock things up for you. While perhaps nothing can touch a game of Half Life in your company office, as I once played, a game of Halo or Gears online with people who are at a similar skill level to you is a joy.

The answer is of course to allow gamers to choose who to play against. If I only want to play against people over the age of 18 with a decent reputation then I should bloody well be able to have that choice. It’s a premium subscription service, and just as I wouldn’t choose to walk around a rough estate at night, why would I choose to mix with some of the human detritus on Live?

So Microsoft, why not let me decide what kind of people to play against so that I can have all the benefits of your huge userbase without Billy Bob questioning my parentage before blowing my face off? Otherwise I might as well go and throw stones at tin cans in Aldi carpark to achieve the same “social gaming” experience.

If you owned a CPC the chances were that the first game you ever played was by Amsoft, Amstrad’s own in house software publisher. But why did a computer manufacturer decide to publish its own games and why did Amsoft vanish virtually overnight?

Early in the CPC’s development, Alan Sugar identified the need for there to be plenty of software for his new wonder machine. New home computers were being launched on an almost monthly basis. What the yet to be knighted captain of industry realised was that no matter how good the machine, it mattered not one jot if there wasn’t a wide library of software available.

With that in mind he decreed that Amstrad would ensure there were 50 titles available for the CPC’s launch in April 1984. Amsoft was set up with the task of attracting as many developers as possible to the platform. By Amstrad’s own admission the objective wasn’t quality, but quantity, the aim being to establish as large a software catalogue as possible in the few months prior to the CPC’s launch.

Time was very tight and with no “real” machines available, prototypes were instead sent to developers. Outwardly these looked almost identical to a standard CPC 464 but inside they were quite different. Each machine was hand wired and contained two circuit boards, the second of these holding the components that would eventually be scaled down into the Amstrad custom chips found on the retail CPC’s circuit board.

With Amstrad only producing a limited amount of prototypes, each developer would only have a short time to develop their game before the machine had to be sent elsewhere.

Please buy my computer. Sir Alan Sugar at the CPC's launch in April 1984.

Come the CPC’s launch in April ‘84 there were indeed 50 launch titles ready, all of which bore the Amsoft brand and all of which were of variable quality. Luckily the buying public didn’t know or expect any better and Amstrad’s strategy worked. Whereas machines such as the Dragon and Oric looked starved of titles several months after their launch, the CPC had a large catalogue of games ready to go.

Beyond the CPC’s launch, Amsoft continued to publish games. They presented a lower risk option for established software houses to test the waters for the CPC platform. Amsoft didn’t write games themselves but would market, publish and distribute them for you. Even 8 bit giant US Gold first dipped its toes into the CPC market via Amsoft.

Conscious of the poor quality of some earlier releases, in ‘85 Amsoft launched the “Amsoft Gold” label. The idea was these were higher quality titles that were set apart from earlier Amsoft titles. The disc only Sorcery + was one such title.

But Alan Sugar never wanted to permanently run a software publishing outfit, and the original objective of Amsoft had been successfully fulfilled. By now there were many publishers supporting the machine, and even the publishers who had started out using Amsoft to test the CPC waters had moved on to self publishing. So towards the end of 1985 Amstrad began to wind the company down - they did still publish some games as late as 1988, but these were restricted to titles that would be bundled with the CPC, and were often already available to existing CPC owners via their original publishers.

By the time Amsoft finally shut its doors it had published over 110 pieces of software, over 80% of which was published in the first 18 months of the CPC’s life.

It is true to say that Amsoft games were often mocked for being low quality, but that is somewhat missing the point. The truth is that there were some great games in there. Indeed the likes of Lords of Midnight and Manic Miner might not have appeared on the CPC if it wasn’t for Amsoft.

Incidentally, Amstrad also made a foray into the world of magazine publishing at this time. Amstrad Computer User started out as an in-house publication and for the first few years ran from offices at Amstrad’s Brentwood HQ. Even Official Playstation Magazine isn’t that blatant!

The Games

With over 110 titles covering every conceivable genre, Amsoft provides a fascinating snapshot into the 8 bit games available in this period. Below is a selection of just some of the games available, each ranked using the unique Up To Jump rating system (S,A,B,C,D,E,F.  S being “must play”, F being “dire”):

Ones To Play:

Sorcery +

It’s amazing how this game was almost totally airbrushed from CPC history by the 1990’s. Sure, better games had come along by then, but back at the tail end of ‘85 this game was collecting high scores in the computer press. Sorcery was already an impressive game, but Sorcery + is a CPC and disc only update that contains a whole new selection of screens.

Sorcery +: Finally CPC owners had something to boast about.

Essentially it’s just a standard collect-em-up where you collect objects to kill enemies and release your fellow sorcerers. But for its time the graphics and sound were stunning. So stunning in fact that Amsoft ensured the game had a demo mode so it could be left running on CPCs in shops.

There was also great touches. Achieve a sufficient high score and it would be saved to disc forever. A small thing but something never seen before on the CPC and rarely since. The game used split screen modes - later this became commonplace, but at the time, the sight of the gameplay area being low res 16 colour and the score area being 4 colour medium res appeared impossible.

Perhaps it hasn’t stood the test of time, perhaps people got bored of this kind of game when Dizzy came along. But at the time this game sold more CPCs than any other. It really does deserve to be dug out and played because it is an all time CPC classic.

S

Roland In Time/Roland In Space

From the moment the Doctor Who theme fires up on the title screen you can see where this is going. Today the BBC copyright department would be all over Amsoft but 1984 was a simpler and less litigious time.

Of course Roland is the official CPC mascot, much like Sonic is to Sega. But whereas Sonic looks pretty much the same the same game to game, Roland changes his appearance more times than the good Doctor himself.

Roland In Time: What a nice day to go for a walk along the pier.

This time around Roland is traveling through 10 time zones to collect crystals. The screens are inventive and fun and the game is quite big. It is just essentially Jet Set Willy but that doesn’t detract at all as in many ways its just as fiendish and far more polished than the Matthew Smith classic.

The follow up game, Roland In Space, is much the same except has an innovative (for the era) scrolling landscape that allows you to explore in any direction as opposed to the one screen at a time approach of Roland in Time.

The game dated quickly and might not seem worth a second glance today. But, just perhaps, these two games have more to offer than Jet Set Willy ever did.

B

Electro Freddy

A great if simple game. All you have to do is push the items in your uncles electronics warehouse onto the conveyor belt while avoiding your angry uncle who looks like Sir Clive Sinclair. Your uncle also likes to throw ZX Spectrums at you in much the same way Sir Clive chucked that ashtray through a window in the BBC 4 drama recently. Did the programmers have some first hand experience?

Electro Freddy: A bearded ginger man with a tendency to hurl ZX Spectrums in your direction. No, can't think who that could be.

A simple game but actually good fun. Would love to have it on my iPhone.

C

Harrier Attack

Conversion of the popular Spectrum and Oric  game from Durrell. Basic but fun and strangely addictive. If you like Harrier Attack also check out Operation Hormuz from a few years later. It’s effectively the same game but vastly updated.

C

Lords Of Midnight

Everything you’d expect from the Speccy classic. Admittedly it has a little less colour than the original but this is a fantastic port bought out under the Amsoft label. Luxor the Moonprince himself would find this a joy to play.

A

Roland In The Caves

This makes it in by the skin of its teeth. Roland has fallen into a cave and must escape. Luckily the planet’s weak gravity means that he can jump really high. However he is stalked by a pterodactyl that wants to eat him. The aim is to jump your way out  of the cave.

The game is frustrating, difficult, annoying and repetitive. Why do I think you should play it? Simple, the sense of reward when you do finally rescue Roland is immense. It’s actually not a bad little game, it’s just rock hard. The graphics are fairly good for the era and it’s genuinely atmospheric. Play it with the lights out and you’ll soon be worried when that pterodactyl is closing in on you.

It’s also a game that for much of the CPC’s life came bundled free with the 464 as part of Amstrads “£100 of free software” pack, so it was effectively free.

Go on, I’ll have just one more go.

C

Worth A Look:

Oh Mummy

Oh Mummy: Can you hear that tune? Is it annoying yet? Is It? Eh? Eh? Eh?

A simple arcade game where you run around avoiding the mummies and collecting treasure. By modern standards it’s terribly repetitive with an annoying tune and is dead easy to complete. But as an 8 year old I thought it was great!

D

The Game Of Dragons

The Game Of Dragons: Colourful graphics and an annoying tune. If only it wasn't quite so clunky and slow it would have had the potential to be a classic.

Collect the gems while avoiding dragons and eggs that fall from the sky. It’s very similar to Chuckie Egg but without the speed and charm. That said the ability of the baddies to fly between levels and for you to drop the eggs on them does present an added challenge.

D

Splat

The classic Speccy game we all know and love but with more colour and polish. You can even change the colour scheme to suit you and there is an onscreen display showing how much of the level is complete.

Sadly the scrolling is really jerky which is a shame as this version has many advantages over the Speccy version.

Why isn’t this rated as a must play despite getting a “B”. Well because frankly although it’s a cracking game if you don’t want a headache from the scrolling you’re better off with the Speccy version.

B

3D Stunt Rider

These days games don’t even enter development before a detailed research phase. Focus groups, market research, etc.

Back in 1984 things were a little different. Rumour has it that Alan Sugar asked his son what kind of game he’d like to play. “I’d like to play a game where I could be Eddie Kidd like on the TV” came the reply. And so 3D Stunt Rider was born.

3D Stunt Rider: One of the few computer games we can be sure that Suralun himself has played.

Yes this could possibly be the only game in history where you have to ride a motorcycle over a number of double-decker busses. The game starts off in a first person perspective before switching to a side on view for the jump itself.

For the first few goes its quite fun before you realise there is nothing more to it. Pity the poor people who forked out full price for this! Still worth a download for the 5 minutes of entertainment it will give you.

D

Doors Of Doom

Doors Of Doom: What exactly is a door of doom?

Written by Amsoft stalwarts GEM Software. The game looks good but essentially all you do is wander along (slowly) trying to find the pieces to a door (of doom presumably). Occasionally some purple baddies shoot at you, you shoot back, and eventually you die. The game does look good but there’s not much gameplay there.

D

Mr Wongs Loopy Laundry

Mr Wongs Loopy Laundry: Lets see how many offensive racial stereotypes we can fit into one game.

Mildly racist arcade game which sees Mr Wong needing to run his laundry business while items of machinery have run amok. The graphics and sound would be more at home on the BBC Micro but the game is oddly playable if you can put the casual racism to one side. Also available for the Spectrum and MSX.

C

Roland Goes Square Bashing

Unusual puzzler written by Durrell (and often omitted from their softography) where you have to find a safe path across some blocks suspended in space. The problem is that as you leave a block it disintegrates so there is no back tracking. Presumably the Roland name was tagged onto it to ensure this puzzler got the attention it deserved.

That said if you hate puzzlers it’s probably a D not a C

C

Spy Hunter

Competent early arcade conversion for the CPC but not a patch on the C64 version. You can’t help but think the developers were still getting to grips with the machine.

C

Rock Hopper

It’s a Boulderdash rip off. Still, that wasn’t a bad thing in the days before Bolderdash proper made it to the CPC. However it is very basic and you can’t pull off some of the tricks you can in the actual game of Boulderdash (digging underneath a rock will cause it to fall on you).

D

For curiosity’s sake only:

The Gems Of Stradus

Doom meets The Hobbit. It’s an adventure game but there’s graphics (very basic though) for every room and you control your movements with the cursor keys. Other actions need to be typed in, e.g. “pick up key”.

Gems Of Stradus: I tried to type "fire chaingun" but I was dead before I even pressed space.

The graphics are basic but draw fairly fast. However its no surprise if you press the escape key to find the entire thing is coded in BASIC. Still that doesn’t detract from an adventure game that at least tries to make itself accessible even if it is very limited.

E

Sultans Maze

Sultans Maze: Which way now? To the software shop to buy something decent!

Take 3D Monster Maze, remove any sense of speed and excitement and you have Sultans Maze. That said, if you have an emulator you can speed the game up to 800% and suddenly the offensively slow redraw rate becomes less of a problem. Still pretty weak though, Monster Maze it ain’t.

E

Haunted Hedges

Well below average Pacman clone only notable for it’s semi 3D viewpoint.

E

3D Invaders

You have to play this game. Not because it’s good, but because it’s awful! Take the neat concept of space invaders played in a 3D isometric view, give it terrible graphics, unresponsive controls, dreadful sound, make it slow, annoying and then charge full price for it.

3D Invaders: Fantastic idea, but so poorly implemented its actually one of the most offensively bad games ever.

Terrible dross and possibly one of the worst commercially release games of all time. The only place this game would have looked good would have been on Cassette 50.

F

Centre Court

A flickering dot judders its way across the screen. I wait…  Eventually it reaches me. I miss. I go and play something else.

F

Punchy

Poor Hunchback rip-off. Hunchback is a great game, this is a load of old rubbish. Avoid.

E

The games listed above are just a small selection from the Amsoft catalogue. While it’s true to say there are few outright classics in there, there are lots of games that are worth a look for curiosity’s sake. It has to be remembered that the CPC was still a new machine and developers hadn’t really got to grips with it. However few machines have gone to market with such a large catalogue of games available and Amsoft’s legacy perhaps wasn’t a classic collection of games, but ensuring the CPC endured so that we would get those quality games from other publishers.

If all it took to deliver a great video game was to throw in some pretty graphics, a semi-naked heroine, a couple of sword-gun hybrid weapons and a shed load of enemies to send to oblivion, X-Blades would be one of the greatest video games ever. Unfortunately for developer Gaijin Studios it takes a lot more than that, and whilst X-Blades promises a lot it ultimately fails to deliver greatness.

Oooh, the sauce!

X-Blades is a third-person arena hack ‘n’ slash. Taking control of Ayumi – the game’s semi-naked heroine – you progress through the game’s stages dealing death to all and sundry. There are three types of stage: waves where you’ll face a number of waves of bad guys, boss levels where you’ll need to dispatch a boss and his minions and, less frequently, obstacle type levels. Upon entering either of the fighting stage types, the exits are sealed with magical barriers forcing you to defeat whatever the stage throws at you to continue.  Obstacle levels require you to negotiate your way to the exit.

Death-dealing is taken care of by Ayumi’s “gunblades”, which can either be used to hack enemies to tiny bits or shoot at them from range, and by using magic. Magic skills – and there’s a huge number of them – can be purchased using souls collected from dead enemies. In order to use magic Ayumi must have sufficient “rage” (or MP), which accumulates when she’s in combat or taking damage. Borrowing another feature from RPGs, Ayumi can also improve her skills by collecting ruby, silver and gold artifacts which enhance her shooting ability, aerial attacks and sword skills.

Ah, magic.

The game has quite a large variety of enemies to do battle with, but although you’ll face them in significant number each stage usually only features one or two of the different types. A feature common to almost all the enemies in the game, including bosses, is that they are especially vulnerable to only one or two types of damage and other attacks do very little damage. Until you’ve figured out – or consulted the in-game Bestiary – what each creature is vulnerable to, battles can become a long drawn out affair. Boss fights, especially, suffer from this because the bosses take a long time to defeat even if you have hit on the right attack plan, and it’s not always apparent that your attacks are having any effect at all.

Another feature all the enemies have in common is poor AI, which leads to Ayumi getting mobbed far too frequently requiring the use of an area-of-effect spell or simply running around the arena to buy some space. The AI doesn’t break the game as such, but it can become frustrating when you’re constantly being interrupted by monsters attacking from behind and has the effect of turning the game into a button mash, rather than one where you can plan and execute your attacks.

Stupid enemies. Yesterday.

For the most part the controls are pretty good and responsive. A nice feature is the ability to bind spells to LB, RB, Y and B, which saves you from having to consult Ayumi’s spell book every time you want to cast. As the game progresses and Ayumi learns new attacks and moves, however, you start to notice weaknesses in the control scheme. Each of these new moves requires a combination of button presses and/or stick movements to perform, but they also demand an extraordinary amount of precision on the analogue stick and timing on the buttons. For example, the forward roll available from the outset is extremely tricky to pull off reliably and often it feels as if the game just doesn’t want you to use it.

Despite its flaws, X-Blades is not a terrible game and is pretty good fun, although it’s not one I can play for long stretches at a time as combating the waves of enemies does become tedious after twenty minutes or so. It’s pretty, the graphics remind me somewhat of Guild Wars, it has a good soundtrack and whilst the actors they used to voice the characters are sub-par, is well produced. There are also a lot of good ideas in the game and the magic system is particularly good.  When the combat flows you get sucked in, making it at times an exhilarating, pulse raising experience.  Sadly those moments are short lived and the game becomes a bit of a grind as you battle wave upon wave of essentially dumb enemies or bosses that just refuse to die.

Taken in short doses - when I find I have fifteen minutes to kill I’ll often pop X-Blades on - it’s a good experience. The fact that you constantly progress through the game and that the next auto-save point is no more than ten minutes away means that you can pick up and put down at your leisure, add to that the huge array of spells and abilities to unlock and there’s definitely a reason to keep playing.

Perhaps my biggest criticism of X-Blades is that it’s a schizophrenic game that doesn’t know what it wants to be. It seems to me that the developers spent far too much time and effort concentrating on what the game is not, such as the RPG elements, the nicely animated but lightweight storyline and a nod towards adventuring, and not nearly enough time on the core arcade hack ‘n’ slash mechanic. It’s a real shame, because had the developer gone the other way and tightened up the controls, improved the enemy AI and gone for a far more arcade-y presentation and feel the game would have been improved no end and this would have been a very different review – a review of an absolutely storming arcade hack-n-slash.

I like hack-n-slash games and X-Blades has all of the ingredients to be a great example of the genre, but it seems the developer under-cooked them. Had I paid £40 for it I might not be so forgiving, but I picked up X-Blades new and sealed for a very affordable £5. So if you like games of this style, are prepared to overlook its weaknesses and want something to fill those times when your significant other is faffing about in the bathroom “getting ready”, X-Blades might be worth considering.

Ported from the 1988 side-scrolling beat-em-up arcade game, Altered Beast was the pack-in game for Sega’s Megadrive console and remained so until it was usurped by a certain blue hedgehog (although I think there was a special Moonwalker pack at one point). It has the dubious honour of being the first game I ever played on my Megadrive and is one of only a handful of original cartridges I still own today.

"WISE FWOM YOUR GWAVE!" Or don't. Whichever is easiest.

Fast forward 20 odd years and Altered Beast is still going strong. A very brief search on the internet reveals that you can buy Altered Beast, today, on no less than seven different platforms including Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and even the PSP. For a game to enjoy that sort of exposure it must be pretty special, right?

All right, let’s get the plot out of the way. Zeus’ daughter, Athena, has been kidnapped by the evil God of the Underworld, Neff. Zeus, clearly not wanting to commit too much of his own effort into a rescue attempt, commands you – a dead Roman centurion? eh? – to rise from your grave, sod off down to the Under World and give this Neff character a bloody good hiding.

Taking control of your centurion you – and a mate, if you can get some other sucker to join you for some two player co-op – have a limited range of moves. You can move left or right, jump, kick, punch and crouch; you can also perform a crouching punch, a crouching kick (which kicks vertically upwards) and a jumping kick.

Each of the game’s five levels has a different theme, but plays in exactly the same way. Your goal is to get to the end of the (surprisingly short) level where you encounter the evil Neff who transforms into the level’s boss character. Along the way you’ll do battle with a selection of the game’s handful of bad guys, whom you’ll punch and kick into oblivion. Once in a while a “special” two-headed wolf – which always looked to me like a cross between a pig and a cow – will appear; dispatch one of these brutes and he’ll release a power orb. Collecting orbs enhances your centurion’s physique, increasing his ability to pummel your opponents. Collect three orbs and you’ll be treated to a short cut-scene as your centurion transforms into a magical beast with extra special monkey-ass dusting powers. Only as “the beast” can you take on Neff; fail to collect enough orbs before Neff appears and the level loops around until you do.

Arrrggghhh! A cow-pig monster!

Graphically Altered Best is colourful and, with the exception of the cow-pig-wolf thing, sprites are well defined. What screenshots belie, however, is the lack of animation in the game. Backgrounds are static, enemies have at most two-to-three poses and visually there’s not much to get excited about. It does scroll smoothly, though. The sound, too, is below par with its plinky-plonky music, bare minimum of in-game effects and crackly, garbled sampled speech which, I imagine, was down-sized from the arcade game to fit the Megadrive’s hardware capabilities and cartridge space.

Beast Mode... Engage!

Altered Beast’s biggest weakness, though, is its complete lack of challenge. The game’s enemies and bosses are too easy to dispatch, and each level quickly falls into a boring pattern of kick, punch, punch, kick, jump, orb, kick, punch, orb, punch, kick, kick, punch, transform, magic, magic, magic, boss, magic, job done. About the only time you’ll lose a life is if you put down the joypad and go and do something else or if you fall into one of the bottom-less pits that appear on some levels.

For a beat-em-up the action just isn’t very satisfying. All of the standard enemy types can be felled with a maximum of two blows, so you don’t get that sense of glee when you’re putting the boot in, they have one attack each which are easy to predict and counter, and enemies never appear in sufficient quantity to prove much of  a threat. The bosses, for the most part, remain completely static during the end of level fights and chuck things at you in predictable patterns, which you can largely ignore by just getting up close and using your beast’s magic powers. Add to that the lack of moves available to you - and even with the addition of turning into an Altered Beast -  and it’s an extremely dull experience, paling in comparison to other beat-em-ups of the era, such as Double Dragon. Or it would be dull if it lasted longer; as it is you can complete the entire game in less than ten minutes. You could always play it again to get a bit more longevity out of it, but you won’t because there’s absolutely nothing to keep you coming back.

See how easy it is? I can even put the joypad down and faff about trying to take screenshots without getting hit!

I don’t understand how Altered Beast has made it into practically every Megadrive compilation ever produced. It doesn’t look particularly good, doesn’t sound particularly good and doesn’t play particularly well. Maybe time hasn’t been too kind to Altered Beast, but I don’t remember it being that good back in the early 90’s either. There are games in the Megadrive’s back-catalogue far more worthy of your attention. Avoid.

The Xbox 360 has never been particularly hard-up for exclusive titles, with the likes of the Halo series, the Gears of War games and the Project Gotham Racing drive-em-ups attracting gamers in their droves to Microsoft’s second attempt at a games console.

Similarly, there’s never been a lack of racing games available for the system either. From the aforementioned PGR series to Burnout, Need for Speed, Test Drive Unlimited and the sublime Outrun Online Arcade, there’s been something to suit everyone’s tastes behind the wheel.

All of the driving games mentioned so far have either been outright arcade games or set themselves up to be relatively realistic, but with arcade elements. No-one’s pretending that Test Drive Unlimited’s driving physics are anywhere close to reality, but it’s still a fun game and one that’s earned a permanent spot on my games shelf.

Those of us who wanted a realistic driving simulator for their console always had to rely on Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo series on the PlayStation - that was until Forza Motorsport appeared on the Xbox.  With a bewildering array of cars and tracks, and a realistic damage model (something that is still yet to appear in the Gran Turismo series) the game delivered the simulation we were after.

Forza 2 was released in 2007.  The developers, Turn 10, have not rested on their laurels and this week launched Forza Motorsport 3 to the eagerly awaiting public.

So what’s different?

Quite a lot, all things considered. The menu system has been redesigned and now looks altogether more classy, with bright whites and a clean layout. It’s not without its faults though, but more on those later.

The choice of tracks is more varied in Forza 3, with about 100 variations in total and over 400 cars to choose from. This content is spread over two discs, but both can be installed to the Xbox 360’s hard drive for faster access - in fact, disc 2 must be installed to the hard drive (using up 1.9GB) to access the content on it. Installing disc 1 (at a cost of around 6GB) will reduce loading times quite significantly.

The in-game graphics are vastly superior to Forza 2 - tracks are more detailed, the cars themselves have received a major facelift - with all cars featuring an accurate cockpit view complete with working instruments.

The audio is also greatly improved, the engine sounds are gorgeous and seem to be unique to each car. You can now listen to music in-game if you wish, something that wasn’t possible in Forza 2 (unless you used a custom soundtrack) and may be a welcome addition to some.

Screw all that, what about the game itself?

But of course, the real improvements are in the gameplay. The driving physics in Forza 3 initially seem more arcade-like than Forza 2, but some of the cars in Forza 2 were needlessly twitchy and driving some of the RWD cars was almost certainly much harder than it should have been. Altogether, keeping your car on track is now easier but no less satisfying. The consequences of coming off the track are also affected by the new physics - it’s now entirely possible (although not easy) to flip your car over on to its roof. Doing so isn’t a race-ending moment, your car can be flipped back on to its wheels, but the damage to the car will probably stop you being able to compete effectively.

The artificial intelligence of the other drivers seems to be improved, although there are still a lot of instances where they’ll just blindly crash into you even if you have the racing line. Pleasingly, some of the lesser skilled AI drivers make mistakes while racing - some of them catastrophic. This all adds to the realism and the feeling that you’re actually racing rather than just driving on rails.

As with Forza 2, there are a range of driving assists that can be turned on or off as necessary to help ease newer drivers into the game. There is now also a rewind feature, similar to that found in Codemasters’ recent effort GRiD. Pressing the rewind button will turn back time to a specific point and allow you to carry on from that point, useful when you’re just learning the ropes or when you’re 95% through a one hour endurance race and make a stupid mistake. Purists won’t like the rewind feature, but the reminders are easily turned off and you don’t have to use it at all.

Another new feature to Forza 3 is the simulation of a manual transmission’s clutch pedal. This is something that true racing enthusiasts will appreciate, although I’m not entirely keen on it myself - perhaps because the button placement on a controller is slightly odd (X and B change down and up respectively, whilst A operates the clutch). The only racing wheel that supports a clutch pedal at the moment are Fanatec Porsche racing wheels, which are altogether far more expensive and probably too costly for all but the most serious of racers.

A criticism levelled at Forza 2 was the “boringness” of the career mode, in which you had a set number of events to complete and that was it. Turn 10 have listened and now, in Forza 3, you play in “season mode”. You enter an event based on three choices, given to you dynamically by the game. These events change depending on the car that you’re in and the other cars in your garage, so you should never be short of something to do. You can still play in the old “event list” mode if desired, though. You don’t get given free cars for completing events any more, but instead are given cars when you move up a level in the game, so the incentive to win races is still there.

Damn it Jim, I’m a racing driver, not a painter and decorator!

The paint editor from Forza 2 makes a welcome return, but this time all of the cars in the game can be repainted and have vinyl decals applied. You can now design your vinyl groups in a dedicated editor that is not tied to a specific car, and then sell your designs on the online storefront, earning in-game money to spend on cars and upgrades. You can also sell your car tuning setups.

The photo editor from Forza 2 also makes a comeback, and again you can upload photos to the Forza Motorsport website and share with the community. You can also make your own videos using the replay editor and publish those online too. The online community is a large part of the Forza 3 experience.

Which brings me on to Multiplayer. The multiplayer has changed quite a bit from the previous game, and now has a ridiculously comprehensive array of customisation options available to game hosts. The number of different game modes available is effectively limited only by the imagination and willingness of the players. Racing online seems to be stable and suffers from few issues with lag.

This all sounds too good to be true!

It is, by and large. There are a few niggles, but nothing that’s a deal breaker. The menu system, while cleaner and for the most part easier to get around, still has some limitations. You have to back out of the race menus to upgrade your car, and it seems to be impossible to have a good look around a car before you buy it - you get given a (small) picture of the car and that’s all you have to go on. You can still test drive, so not all is lost, but that takes time to load.

It would have been nice to be able to rewind to any point during a race rather than set points.

The difficulty settings sometimes prove too limiting - the difference between medium and hard seems to vary wildly depending on the event.

When it comes to racing, your car seems to start off at the back of the grid every time regardless of its performance index - some sort of qualifying system would have been a welcome addition. There’s also a horrible “intro” to each race where the game revs the engine for you and gives you about half a second to prepare yourself for launching off the line. I wouldn’t be bothered if this got patched out in a future update.

And that’s really it. With Forza 3, Turn 10 and Microsoft have created what I would consider to be the ultimate console racer. It’s got something for everyone, whether they’re new to racing games or an enthusiast. It’ll be interesting to see how Sony and Polyphony Digital respond with the eagerly anticipated (and much delayed) Gran Turismo 5.