Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future was released for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, and C64 in 1986 by Virgin Games. The C64 is very different to the Spectrum and Amstrad versions in that he doesn’t even have a gun in that version, and just punches the guards instead! This is a video of the ZX Spectrum version, which is what I played back in the late 1980s having bought the game on budget release (I think).
The plot is something along the lines of Dan’s arch nemesis, The Mekon, is flying a hollowed out asteroid the size of a small planet towards the Earth, and it’s up to Dan to get inside the asteroid and blow it up. To do this, Dan has to find 5 pieces of a bomb, with which he will eventually blow the asteroid to smithereens. These 5 pieces of bomb are hidden around the map in 5 different sectors. Once you have found one piece, and planted it, “elsewhere a door slides open” which means that a previously locked sector is now available for Dan to explore.
You have ammo and energy, and if you run out of energy (being shot, being touched by some guards, or falling too far), you lose 10 minutes of the allotted 2 hours of game time, and are sent to the least secure prison in the universe (just run out of the door with your ammo refilled). The game ends when you either run out of time, or you successfully blow up the asteroid and save the Earth (guess how my play through ends!).
A great game, of which I have very fond memories of playing back in the 1980s. One of my favourite ever Spectrum games for sure.
The game was followed by two sequels, Dan Dare II: Mekon’s Revenge and Dan Dare III: The Escape.
Zhuo Gui Da Shi: Ghost Hunter is an unlicensed clone of Pang (Buster Bros) for the Sega Mega Drive. It was released in 1994 by Jumbo and Senchi Technology (both based in Taiwan). The game is very similar to Pang, in that you have to shoot bubbles with an array of weapons (single harpoon, double harpoon, sticking harpoon, etc), which then split into two, progressively getting smaller. If you touch a balloon – you die.
This is a fun game, a decent clone of Pang. I’m not sure why Capcom didn’t release an official version of Pang on the Mega Drive, I wish they had as it is one of my favourite games.
This video is 100% original recording by myself, taken directly from the original hardware the game was programmed for.
As a gamer from the 80/90s I have obviously played a far amount of Yoshi’s Island before – what I can’t remember however, is ever playing the mini games that exist on the game. Whether this is because I simply because I cannot remember playing them, or if I was unaware of them and have never played them I don’t actually know!
There are seven different Mini Games to play:
Throw (4): this is a QTE game where you have to press 4 different buttons or directions in a short amount of time to avoid the balloon blowing up on you
Throw (6): the same as above but with 6 buttons
Popping: you have to ground pound on balloons. First one to find the balloon hiding the star or whatever it is – wins.
Seed Spit: eat a watermelon and spit the seeds at your opponent. You can eat a red watermelon which give you fiery breath!
Coins: collect more coins than your opponent as they are fired out of a cannon
Throw (4): same as above but against 2P
Seed Spit: same as above but against 2P
To access the mini games, you need to do the following on the level select screen (the map):
Virtua Athlete 2k or Virtua Athlete 2000 in North America is a Dreamcast game created by Hitmaker, published by Sega, and released in 2000.
There are seven events in total:
100m Sprint
Long Jump
Shot Put
High Jump
100m Hurdles
Javelin
1500m
All events consist of button mashing for speed and/or pressing a button to determine the angle for jumping or throwing. It’s all pretty standard stuff, and good fun, especially if you are playing with up to 3 other people (4 in total).
I played the tournament here on standard difficulty, and it was my second ever go (I practiced before the stream). I won fairly comfortably, so it’s not a difficult game, although I do think that there are harder difficulty levels. The real fun comes in playing with friends, so if you had people round and you played this, it would really come into it’s own.
The game received lukewarm reviews when it was released, and was criticised for the usual things that these types of games do – replayability, being simplistic, etc.
ChuChu Rocket! on the Sega Dreamcast was developed by Sonic Team, and published by Sega in 1999.
I think this type of game is probably more fun in multiplayer, whether online using the Dreamcast’s modem, or local play with your mates. Single player was ok, but I didn’t find it anything special – probably because I was so crap at it!
Who Wants to Beat Up a Millionaire? is a parody of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and was developed by Hypnotix and released in 2000 for PC and Dreamcast.
The gameplay consists of answering a series of multiple choice questions, similar to the TV show, and then you get a chance to beat up the millionaire that you selected at the start of the game. There are many parody millionaires to choose from such as a Bill Gates character, Anna Nicole Smith, and the one I chose, a pre US President Donald Trump (Ronald Hump in this game).
The game doesn’t have much replayability, I had 2 goes in practice, and 2 goes on this stream, and I managed to beat Ronald Hump so pretty much ‘completing’ the game. I guess that I could go on to try and beat the other 5 millionaires, but I certainly don’t feel compelled to! Not sure there is much here to justify a full price tag.
Phineas Frogg is a 1985 Mirrorsoft game for the ZX Spectrum. I have fond memories of playing this as a kid as it is one of my earliest gaming memories. I remember the jumping noise that Phineas makes driving my dad up the wall – I know see why!
It’s a puzzle adventure game, and you have to make decisions in a certain order, and also solve puzzles and mini games. I can’t remember if I solved the whole game back in the 1980s or not – I do remember getting to the bit where you escape in a car, but I may have done that without rescuing the Mole, and therefore not really completing the game.
I’d love to hear if anyone else had this game, so if you did, please comment in the section below! There are literally no videos of it that I could find on YouTube, but surely someone else has played this!
Aliens: Neoplasma on the ZX Spectrum was a 2019 entry into the ZX Dev Remakes competition by Team Sanchez, and it’s a really fun game. The graphics, sound, playability, and atmosphere are all top notch, and makes for an all round great game.
I played it for almost an hour, and despite getting stuck on the same bit for about half of that time, I still had a blast. If only my M key worked better – that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!
This is Computer Scrabble on the ZX Spectrum, which was published in 1983 and was often bundled in with the 48k ZX Spectrum as part of a “6 pack” of games. You can have up to 4 players in one game, and all or none of them can be controlled by the Spectrum which has a skill level of 1-4.
Here I take on the mighty “SPECCY” and gave it a skill level of 2. Needless to say, I fail miserably, almost put down the rudest word in the English language, resort to cheating, but ultimately come out victorious. Hooray for Lemmy!
This is a brilliant fan made Castlevania game on the 128k Spectrum. Castlevania: Spectral Interlude was created by Russian based Rewind Team, and it is absolutely fantastic. Amazing graphics and sound, and great playability, although the game is rock hard (at least it was for me!).
It started off as a remake of Castlevania II, but then turned into a full game of it’s own. Please, if you own a Spectrum, or even use an emulator, download this and give it a go – you won’t be disappointed!
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Posted on October 21, 2019
Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future – ZX Spectrum – Let’s Play
Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future was released for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, and C64 in 1986 by Virgin Games. The C64 is very different to the Spectrum and Amstrad versions in that he doesn’t even have a gun in that version, and just punches the guards instead! This is a video of the ZX Spectrum version, which is what I played back in the late 1980s having bought the game on budget release (I think).
The plot is something along the lines of Dan’s arch nemesis, The Mekon, is flying a hollowed out asteroid the size of a small planet towards the Earth, and it’s up to Dan to get inside the asteroid and blow it up. To do this, Dan has to find 5 pieces of a bomb, with which he will eventually blow the asteroid to smithereens. These 5 pieces of bomb are hidden around the map in 5 different sectors. Once you have found one piece, and planted it, “elsewhere a door slides open” which means that a previously locked sector is now available for Dan to explore.
You have ammo and energy, and if you run out of energy (being shot, being touched by some guards, or falling too far), you lose 10 minutes of the allotted 2 hours of game time, and are sent to the least secure prison in the universe (just run out of the door with your ammo refilled). The game ends when you either run out of time, or you successfully blow up the asteroid and save the Earth (guess how my play through ends!).
A great game, of which I have very fond memories of playing back in the 1980s. One of my favourite ever Spectrum games for sure.
The game was followed by two sequels, Dan Dare II: Mekon’s Revenge and Dan Dare III: The Escape.
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Posted on October 18, 2019
Zhuo Gui Da Shi: Ghost Hunter – Mega Drive
Zhuo Gui Da Shi: Ghost Hunter is an unlicensed clone of Pang (Buster Bros) for the Sega Mega Drive. It was released in 1994 by Jumbo and Senchi Technology (both based in Taiwan). The game is very similar to Pang, in that you have to shoot bubbles with an array of weapons (single harpoon, double harpoon, sticking harpoon, etc), which then split into two, progressively getting smaller. If you touch a balloon – you die.
This is a fun game, a decent clone of Pang. I’m not sure why Capcom didn’t release an official version of Pang on the Mega Drive, I wish they had as it is one of my favourite games.
This video is 100% original recording by myself, taken directly from the original hardware the game was programmed for.
Equipment:
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Posted on October 18, 2019
Yoshi’s Island – SNES – Mini Games
As a gamer from the 80/90s I have obviously played a far amount of Yoshi’s Island before – what I can’t remember however, is ever playing the mini games that exist on the game. Whether this is because I simply because I cannot remember playing them, or if I was unaware of them and have never played them I don’t actually know!
There are seven different Mini Games to play:
To access the mini games, you need to do the following on the level select screen (the map):
Equipment used:
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Posted on October 18, 2019
Virtua Athlete 2k (2000) – Dreamcast – Let’s Play
Virtua Athlete 2k or Virtua Athlete 2000 in North America is a Dreamcast game created by Hitmaker, published by Sega, and released in 2000.
There are seven events in total:
All events consist of button mashing for speed and/or pressing a button to determine the angle for jumping or throwing. It’s all pretty standard stuff, and good fun, especially if you are playing with up to 3 other people (4 in total).
I played the tournament here on standard difficulty, and it was my second ever go (I practiced before the stream). I won fairly comfortably, so it’s not a difficult game, although I do think that there are harder difficulty levels. The real fun comes in playing with friends, so if you had people round and you played this, it would really come into it’s own.
The game received lukewarm reviews when it was released, and was criticised for the usual things that these types of games do – replayability, being simplistic, etc.
Equipment used:
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Posted on October 18, 2019
ChuChu Rocket! – Dreamcast – Let’s Play and Review
ChuChu Rocket! on the Sega Dreamcast was developed by Sonic Team, and published by Sega in 1999.
I think this type of game is probably more fun in multiplayer, whether online using the Dreamcast’s modem, or local play with your mates. Single player was ok, but I didn’t find it anything special – probably because I was so crap at it!
Equipment used:
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Posted on October 16, 2019
Who Wants to Beat Up a Millionaire? – Sega Dreamcast – Let’s Play
Who Wants to Beat Up a Millionaire? is a parody of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and was developed by Hypnotix and released in 2000 for PC and Dreamcast.
The gameplay consists of answering a series of multiple choice questions, similar to the TV show, and then you get a chance to beat up the millionaire that you selected at the start of the game. There are many parody millionaires to choose from such as a Bill Gates character, Anna Nicole Smith, and the one I chose, a pre US President Donald Trump (Ronald Hump in this game).
The game doesn’t have much replayability, I had 2 goes in practice, and 2 goes on this stream, and I managed to beat Ronald Hump so pretty much ‘completing’ the game. I guess that I could go on to try and beat the other 5 millionaires, but I certainly don’t feel compelled to! Not sure there is much here to justify a full price tag.
Equipment used:
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Posted on October 16, 2019
Phineas Frogg – ZX Spectrum – Let’s Play and Review
Phineas Frogg is a 1985 Mirrorsoft game for the ZX Spectrum. I have fond memories of playing this as a kid as it is one of my earliest gaming memories. I remember the jumping noise that Phineas makes driving my dad up the wall – I know see why!
It’s a puzzle adventure game, and you have to make decisions in a certain order, and also solve puzzles and mini games. I can’t remember if I solved the whole game back in the 1980s or not – I do remember getting to the bit where you escape in a car, but I may have done that without rescuing the Mole, and therefore not really completing the game.
I’d love to hear if anyone else had this game, so if you did, please comment in the section below! There are literally no videos of it that I could find on YouTube, but surely someone else has played this!
Equipment:
Leave a Comment
Posted on October 16, 2019
Aliens: Neoplasma – ZX Spectrum – Let’s Play and Review
Aliens: Neoplasma on the ZX Spectrum was a 2019 entry into the ZX Dev Remakes competition by Team Sanchez, and it’s a really fun game. The graphics, sound, playability, and atmosphere are all top notch, and makes for an all round great game.
I played it for almost an hour, and despite getting stuck on the same bit for about half of that time, I still had a blast. If only my M key worked better – that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!
Check out the game here:
https://zxonline.net/game/alien-game/
Equipment:
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Posted on October 16, 2019
Computer Scrabble – ZX Spectrum – Let’s Play
This is Computer Scrabble on the ZX Spectrum, which was published in 1983 and was often bundled in with the 48k ZX Spectrum as part of a “6 pack” of games. You can have up to 4 players in one game, and all or none of them can be controlled by the Spectrum which has a skill level of 1-4.
Here I take on the mighty “SPECCY” and gave it a skill level of 2. Needless to say, I fail miserably, almost put down the rudest word in the English language, resort to cheating, but ultimately come out victorious. Hooray for Lemmy!
Equipment:
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Posted on October 16, 2019
Castlevania: Spectral Interlude – ZX Spectrum – Let’s Play
This is a brilliant fan made Castlevania game on the 128k Spectrum. Castlevania: Spectral Interlude was created by Russian based Rewind Team, and it is absolutely fantastic. Amazing graphics and sound, and great playability, although the game is rock hard (at least it was for me!).
It started off as a remake of Castlevania II, but then turned into a full game of it’s own. Please, if you own a Spectrum, or even use an emulator, download this and give it a go – you won’t be disappointed!
Check the game out here: http://spectralinterlude.com/
Equipment: