Sega Superstars Volume One (1992) - Free Book With CVG Magazine

Heya! Here's another old freebie I found whilst hunting through boxes at the flat. This one is a book of previews of Sega games, that came free with an issue of CVG (Computer and Video Games) magazine sometime in 1992....

Not much else to say about it really. It's just a cool wee book of screens and stuff that I thought deserved scanning in! Enjoy!

(Remember to click the pics to go big!)

Back To The Future Games Special - Part 1

In case you hadn't noticed, this was the day that Marty & Doc arrived from 1985 in Back To The Future 2, so  I thought I'd have a quick look at the various different games that have been released over the years based on the movie series! And Great Scott, there's a lot of them! I've not got time to look at them all today, but seeing as it will still be the 21st in America, I'll squeeze the rest in another post an put it up in a little while....For the moment though, here's part 1....

Back To The Future (ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad CPC) :

First up we have this game released in 1985, which has Marty walking around trying to find items that he can use to bring his parents together, and stop his mother falling in love with him, erasing him from history! You can tell how well you're doing by the picture of Marty in the bottom left of the screen, which will fade out if things are going wrong. At the bottom right is a picture of your family, that will reveal more of itself as you get things right!

The various characters wander around, and you'll have to figure out what items to use on each to bring them together or keep them apart, and you can hop on a skateboard to zip about a bit faster. There's a nice little version of Johnny B Goode to bop along too as well..

It's fun for a little while, but ultimately isn't very exciting...at least it was pretty close to the plot of the film, so it gets bonus points for that. I only played the Speccy and C64 versions, but it's also available for Amstrad...

Back To The Future (MSX) :

This one is a cute little side-scroller, that has you jumping up at windows to find George and Lorraine whilst avoiding baddies, and then leading them along the screen to a dance, where they can fall in love.

Unlike the movie, you'll need to take them to more than one dance though, and more and more enemies will appear to try and stop you! As far as being close to the plot, well...it isn't really. Getting them to the dance is all you have to do. It's pretty simple stuff, but quite fun all the same, although it can get pretty difficult pretty quickly with all the enemies flying around the screen. 

Better than the last game then, but not as good a use of the licence. It's definitely better than this next one, though....

Back To The Future (NES): 

Oh dear. Where to begin with this mess!? Let's go straight to the first major thing you'll notice that's wrong with this game.....that bloody maddening 'music'.. Its repetitiveness and tone will have you believing that if we're all actually doomed to an afterlife in Hell because of our sins, this is the tune we'll all be forced to listen to for eternity! Still, at least we won't be in the corners of the underworld reserved for the people who made this game...

Okay, so maybe I'm being a little over-harsh on the game...but not really that much. Playing like a horrible version of Paperboy without the papers, this sees Marty trying to make his way up the screen avoiding men carrying sheets of glass, Hula-Hooping girls, killer bees...you know, all those memorable villains from the film! (cough!)

He has to collect clocks to stop himself from fading away to nothingness as well, and can pick up bowling balls to shoot at the enemies. There's also a few bonus stages where the game changes and you do things like avoid kisses from your mother, or throw glasses at Biff, but I couldn't stomach the game long enough to reach those...

It's a truly terrible title, and should be avoided, unless you need some sort of aural torture device, and then it becomes super-effective and brilliant.

Back To The Future 2 (ZX Spectrum, PC, C64, Amiga, Atari ST, Master System, Amstrad CPC):

And so we come to the sequel, and for this game that was released on loads of systems, we're on Marty's hoverboard...side-scrolling away & bashing baddies, avoiding cars and collecting power-ups.

The Speccy version is pretty rubbish, although you do get a nice intro and tune if you load it on the 128k computers...but the graphics are a bit crappy and gameplay is a bit slow and chuggy. 

Slightly better is the C64 version, which I actually played for quite a while. Again you get a nice tune with a snazzy intro, but the gameplay is a bit zippier and the better graphics help too...

Oh, and I forgot to mention you occasionally go diagonally up the screen in all the versions too, which is..y'know...a bit different at least.

Some versions are fun for a while, but again none of them really stand out much and aren't really the best use of the licence that could have happened, only really focusing on one aspect of the movie. Will there be any game in the next lot that actually does a good job and manages to use the licence as it should? Well, I guess you'll just need to come back in the very near future to find out! 

(Yes, I just said that..sorry...)

100 Gruesome Games for Halloween (45-31)

Right, not long left now..so here's a blast of 15 games with minimal info about them, so I can get down to a slightly more manageable 30 games to do in 3 days!

Having said that, putting these 15 games on the blog has taken me pretty much all day anyway, so I'll still have my work cut out...but yeah, let's get on with it!

Oh and before we do, just a quick note that these games aren't in any particular order of preference! It's just a list of 100 games, not a top 100! It's just that this has been causing some confusion with my placement of games in the list....well, fret not! I'm well aware Dead Space is better than Demon's World !!! Hehe...



45 - Bogey Manor (Arcade) :

Groovy little arcade game that you won't have a clue how to play at first, which is frustrating, but once you work out you can stop the ghosts with your Bee-Gee-esque disco moves, thus allowing you to smack them with your stick, it becomes a lot more fun! Anyhoo, run around smashing the mystical orbs and defeating the baddies and bring Bogey Manor crashing to the ground! Some nice platformy fun...




44 - Zombie Nation (NES):

Odd little game that features a comet called Darc Seed (no relation to Dark Seed - see earlier post!) crash landing on Earth and deciding to turn the USA into a nation of undead creatures!

You appear to take control of some sort of giant samurai's severed head, and destroy buildings and planes and things, all full of zombified Americans! You do this by shooting laser beams from your eyes and spraying projectile vomit at them...yes, vomit... and you can then rescue the people who fall from them and de-zombify them somehow! And then you have to fight a Medusa-haired Statue of Liberty, which has somehow been brought to life by that nasty space-rock!

Plays sort of like a cross between a shoot-em-up and that old building smashing classic Rampage! Totally bizarre, but worth playing just to see how weird it really is...




43 - Dark Tower (Arcade) :

This one blatantly steals graphic from other games (Ghosts 'n' Goblins, Black Tiger), nicks the music from Double Dragon and puts them together into something that plays very much like Bubble Bobble, only instead of capturing the baddies in your spit balloons, you smack them over the head with a club! Nothing special, but alright for a go or two...



42 - Ghost House (Master System) :

Another funky little platform game, this sees you trying to destroy vampires, bats, mummies and other nasties so you can lay your hands on the family treasure! You'll have to dodge or kill everything that moves...touching lights will stop monsters in their tracks, and you can pick up a sword so kicking monster butt is made easier! Some great spooky shenanigans...go play it!



41 - Ghost Sweeper Mikami (SNES) :

Groovy little side-scrolling whack-em-up based on a Japanese anime! You take control of the "Ghost Sweeper" Reiko Mikami...basically she's a ghost hunter..and traverse the levels trying to rid them of all the spooks which have been displaced by overcrowding and overdevelopment of Japan! As usual, there are power-ups scattered about to help and it's all fairly decent and enjoyable stuff....



40 - Frankenstein's Monster (Atari 2600) :

This one has you trying to collect bricks from the bottom of the screen so you can take them back up to the top and brick up Frankenstein's latest attempt at a Monster before he's brought to life by the lightning storm! You'll have to jump over or avoid the beasts and ghosts out to stop you, and also be extra careful not to fall into the acid pool...

It's a great little game, with the best bit happening when you lose...The Monster awakens and stomps menacingly forwards, footsteps getting louder, and getting nearer and nearer till he finally fills the screen! Terrifying stuff!



39 - Monster Bash (Arcade) :

1982 Sega arcade game where you have to light candles to activate a magic sword, which you then use to defeat the villians of the piece....Dracula, Frankenstein and the Chameleon! Be careful though, as they have minions such as spiders and werewolves who'll try to get in your way too...

Simple, addictive gameplay and some spooky sounds make for another classic horror game experience...


38 - The Wicker Woman (ZX Spectrum) :

Kevin McGrorty has been toiling away for the last two years to bring you this text adventure on the ZX Spectrum! It's a pseudo-sequel to the 1973 film, The Wicker Man, and manages to capture the same sort of feel as that horror classic! You play the part of the fiance of Sergeant Howie, who has travelled to Summerisle to try and find out why the policeman has disappeared...

Cue lots of puzzle solving and odd experiences as you traipse around searching for answers, talking to the weird and wonderful folk that populate the island and making choices which will determine exactly how this tale will end!

Another new Spectrum release, you can download this game for use on an emulator from it's World Of Spectrum page...and when you do, be sure to type in the command "CREDITS"...you might recognise the name of one of the playtesters! :-)




37 - Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday (SNES) :

You enter the dreams of cartoon legend Porky Pig in this game, as he has scary nightmares of different locations..which include but aren't limited to a haunted forest, a spooky western ghost town and an abandoned mine...and you must help him through these nightmares until he can wake himself back up again!

This of course allows for all sorts of spooky platform japes, and you'll be kept busy dodging bats, leprechauns and other weird creatures. The environments are far from safe too, and you'll need to look out for swinging balls-on-chains, spike-filled pits and other obstacles...

Get your trotters onto this one sharpish, anyway....it's piggin' great!




36 - Nightmare In The Dark (Arcade) :

More Bubble Bobble/Snow Bros type stuff with this game, although it's a bit better presented than Dark Tower! Very similar gameplay-wise though, as you shoot fire at the baddies until they become a ball of flame which you can then send bumping around the levels to hit other baddies!

It all looks suitably spooksome, and if you like any of the other games mentioned in the paragraph above, you should find this pretty enjoyable too!




35 - Spooked (ZX Spectrum) :

We're ghost hunting yet again this flip-screen adventure, but also indulging in a bit of spellcasting for which we need to collect up all the little bugs zipping about the screens. Ghosties have tricked you into coming to an address so they can bump you off y'see...so you'll have to indulge in a bit of magic to keep them from sending you to an early grave!

These spells are "letter spells" apparently, and when you've dropped enough ingredients into the cauldrons lying about, you'll face the Spooky Old Man in a game of hangman, which you'll need to win to put a stop to all this haunting nonsense....

A decent enough arcade adventure, it's only occasionly annoying when you get bounced constantly around the screen by the little skull or ghost enemies without being able to stop them...stick with it though, and you should have fun going through the (apparently) 384 screens!


34 - Halloween (Atari 2600) :

This is a surprisingly fun little conversion of the movie Halloween, and as Laurie Strode you must rescue the children from the mad Michael Myers, who is stalking you through the building with knife in hand, and take them back to the entrance and freedom..

Whenever Michael appears, the Halloween theme kicks in...and if he manages to capture you, he lops of your head! This, and the killing of the kids if he catches them, actually caused a mini-outrage on the game's release due to the graphic violence and spurts of blood, so most shop keepers didn't display the game on shelves and kept it under the counter...thus meaning it didn't sell very many copies...

It's a shame, as it really is quite addictive...and although it's all very simple and the graphics are pretty laughable these days, it's still worth putting on...even if it's only to hear that theme tune played Atari-style!




33 - Mutation Nation (Arcade) :

It's time for another wholly-unoriginal-but-still-perfectly-decent scrolly beat-em-up! This one has you battling against some evil mutants that have been created by some nasty scientist chappy....you'll know what to expect if you've played any side-scrolling beat-em-up ever!




32 - Frank N. Stein Rebooted (ZX Spectrum) :

27 years ago, Colin Stewart released Frank N. Stein for the Speccy..and it was a great little game! Colin however, had wanted to add more features but just never got round to it....

Years later he discovered there was still interest in Speccy games, and so he got back to working in his his lab and created this little beauty! The same brilliant game as before, but with some funky new features..

The evenly numbered levels now play more like Donkey Kong, and you have to jump barrels thrown by the monster as you try to reach the top of the screen and destroy him...

As usual with this new Spectrum stuff, if you head over to the World Of Spectrum site, you can find the game in the Archive...or you can go pay Colin Stewart a visit at his own site, and download it from there!




31 - Demon's World (Arcade) :

This one's a freaky-deaky, side-scrolling shooter that sees you come up against various monsters and ghosties, and even features what looks like Jason from the Friday The 13th films...

Your character seems to be loosely based on the Ghostbusters, and you can get various different weapons to shoot the baddies with, including 3-Way-firing guns, Bombs, Laser guns, etc....

Again, it's fairly funky and filled with enough beasties to make your Halloween gaming sufficiently scaresome, so go give it a go!

100 Gruesome games for Halloween (50-46)

4 days to go, and 50 games left to talk about! It is possible? Of course..if I can call up some sort of supernatural force to give me a hand...

But my little Gruesome Game groupies, it won't get done unless we crack on with the next lot! Let's see what we can whip up here....




50 - Master of Darkness (SMS) :

19th Century London was a creepy place, of that we can be sure...and we've already visited it at least twice so far is in this list, one of which had us hunting a certain chap called Jack...well, if this Master System release is to be believed, it turns out Mr. Holmes might have been wrong in going after just one fellow !

According to this game, the murders have in fact been committed under the orders of a certain creature of the night, known by many as the Master of Darkness! Yes, old fang-face Dracula has popped up again...and as the dashingly heroic Dr. Ferdinand Social, you must go on a platform-hopping quest to destroy the fiend !

This is basically the Master System's answer to a Castlevania title, and it does a splendid job at emulating all the stuff that series is famous for...nice presentation, deadly platform action, hidden items, a variety of freakish enemies to defeat, and of course Dracula....all are present and very nearly correct!

Special weapons can be found by breaking open the masks which litter the levels, but you can only carry two at a time..so if you prefer a gun over bombs for example, be sure not to go near the bomb icons as the weapons are automatically replaced with whatever you pick up..

Levels are varied (So far I've been to the Thames, a Wax Museum and some sort of mansion or castle) and although the music can sometimes get annoying, and it can get a little tricky in parts, it's a nice little alternative to a proper Castlevania title and well worth a play!




49 - Go To Hell (ZX Spectrum) :

Apparently, the plot for this has you trying to guide a guy you once told to go to hell back out of the flaming furnaces of said nether region, as he obviously took you a bit too literally and did indeed go on a jaunt to the domain of demons.

It actually has a pretty cool interpretation of Satan's pad too, with a lot of crazy stuff all happening on screen at once as you try to guide the little chap through some hazardous maze. You'll see people getting their heads squished with spikes or sawn through the middle, and touching anything at all seems to drain your life essence away very quickly!

Far from perfect, and featuring graphics which could have come from the pits of hell themselves, this still somehow manages to be quite atmospheric and, dare I say it, fun...It's bloomin' difficult, but playing this will be much better than watching yet-another-repeat of the BBC's A History Of Horror with Mark Gatiss on Halloween night......




48 - Ghoul School (NES) :

Spike O' Hara, or as the player..you, is having to fight his way through school to try and rescue the cheerleader love interest, Samantha, from all the ghastly ghouls who have appeared after you brought a skull you found lying around in a graveyard to show to your teacher. Naturally, it was a particularly nasty skull with baddie-summoning powers, and so now the schools infested!

I think I must be missing something with this game. Reading reviews online for it before playing, they all quite liked it and mentioned picking up different weapons and seeing lots of different enemies...but after wandering around a bit, I found myself entering lockers which seemed to do nothing of any use whatsoever, fight endless one-eyed monsters, have a couple of run in's with green dudes who lob their head at you and get bothered by some bats....

But that was it...screen after screen of very similar graphics and gameplay, and nothing much there to hold my interest at all.. Maybe I just haven't given it enough time? Maybe my version is broken? I don't know, but what I played I found to be very boring and a bit bland...I found the un-released Zombie High to be much better for spooky school shenanigans!

Meh! See if it sends shivers down your spine, I suppose.....




47 - Voodoo Vince (Xbox) :




Vince the Voodoo Doll has been awoken from life as a pin-cushion by way of some carelessly dropped Voodoo dust. His mistress, Madam Charmaine, wasn't so careless as to drop the dust though...nope, it was her kidnappers, two thugs sent by the evil Kosmo the Inscrutable who she happened to catch in the act of stealing the aforementioned powder!

Kosmo wants the dust for his own devious desires, and has long sought the source of Madame Charmaine's powers. Thankfully, Kosmo's clumsy henchmen carelessly littered the place with the dust, and the now sentient Vince uses his psychic link with Madam C to get advice and directions from her, to send him in the right direction for a rescue attempt!

Picking up various voodoo icons gives Vince the ability to perform some horrific injuries upon himself, which then transfer to any enemies in the vicinity! Sometimes you'll need to find specific items to get past puzzles or enemies... a Jazz musician skeleton won't let you into the museum until you play him a tune, for instance...and for that you'll need to work out how to get a saxaphone!

Various other collectables are hidden away on the levels to get you exploring, and there's plenty of stuff to keep you entertained whilst you make your way to free your mistress. It all makes for a funky, funny and freakish adventure which will have you pinned to your seat for the duration! So you should definitely do do Voodoo even if you definitely don't do do Voodoo normally...or something....




46 - Castlevania - Lord Of Shadows (360) :




Castlevania is a long-standing horror series which debuted way back on the NES and had lots of hit sequels on various different systems over the years, with Symphony of the Night on the Playstation considered the series high-point...

Things were a bit different when the series tried to move from being great 2D platformers to modern 3D arcade adventures though. The N64 and PS2 had some decent attempts at making a good update, but somehow something was missing and Konami couldn't successfully produce a 3D sequel that was truly worthy.

Having played through this latest release on the 360 though, I'm happy to say that finally, in getting Hideo Kojima to throw his weight behind it, Konami have achieved that seemingly impossible task!

For a good look at what to expect and a thorough examination of the plot, you can watch the video below, but for those in a hurry or those too lazy to bother, here's a brief rundown...

Gabriel has lost his wife to an evil sweeping the land, an evil brought upon by the so-called Lords Of Shadow. The same evil is stopping the dead from crossing over, their souls trapped in a kind of limbo....Gabriel has heard talk of a mask which can bring people back from the dead, and it just so happens these Lords Of Shadow all have a piece of it..so off he goes on a quest to defeat the Lords, join up the mask, resurrect his girlie and generally save the day!



Along the way he receives help from Zobek, another knight from the same order as Gabriel, and the old god Pan, who helps Gabriel come to terms with what he must do to achieve success. And there are some terrible things which must be done...

The game basically steals sections from all the best games of the last few years, but successfully manages to piece them back together to make for something all it's own...there are platform sections that will have you thinking back to Prince Of Persia, Titan battles that owe a lot to Shadow Of The Colossus, hack-em-up sections very similar to God Of War...you get the idea!

Presentation is superb too, with a great voice cast including Patrick Stewart as Zobek, who narrates the tale...and Robert Carlyle as Gabriel. The graphics are simply amazing, with some of the most realistic settings I've seen in years...whoever designed this game obviusly visited real forests for instance, as the ones in this game feel truly organic...and it has a very mystical, fantasy vibe throughout which really captured me..

I love the way they've re-imagined a lot of enemies from previous Castlevanias too, and if you're paying attention you should find plenty to keep you happy if you're a fan...but there appears to be one particular enemy missing...a certain Master Of Darkness shall we say...well, hopefully without giving too much away, if you stick with the game to the very end, you shouldn't be disappointed!

Although quite a few people I know have said that it's a great game but far too difficult too early on, if you play through the game on Easy it's possible to beat it...but it will still require a lot of effort! Thankfully, you get to keep all your powers to play through it again on the more difficult settings and I can definitely say that if you complete it, you'll want to play through again!

It's the first game I've played in a long time that feels truly epic, and it really does feel like you've taken an extraordinary journey with Gabriel when it's all done...just speaking about the game here, I'm tempted to stop doing the blog and give it another play! As you can probably tell, Konami have made me very happy with this and it's a stunning return to form....so go do yourself a favour and sell wahtever you need to to pick this up! Just remember to start on Easy!