Killed Until Dead (Accolade/US Gold, 1986)

Developed by Artech Digital Productions, Inc. for the Commodore 64: Deadly Design by Michael Bate and Rick Banks; Killer Code by MaryLou O'Rourke; Sinister Sound by Paul Butler; Gothic Graphics by Scott Fiander and Grant Campbell

Converted for the Apple ][ by Distinctive Software Inc., and released in 1987 through Accolade: Killed Code by Allan Johanson; Gothic Graphics by John Boechler

Converted for ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC by Canvas, and released through U.S. Gold in 1987: Killer Code and Sinister Sound by James Cornelius Bowman; Gothic Graphics by Dawn Drake, Simon Butler and Steve Cain

Released in the USA by Accolade and in Europe by US Gold.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

Our horror themed month's first entry with no straight connection to any movie comes from Accolade. My good friend Bob from Sweden introduced me to this game almost 10 years ago, so this entry is again inspired from his influence on my retro gaming knowledge - thanks, buddy. Of course, one could argue that this particular game has little to do with horror, and more to do with mystery and sleuthing, and one would be perfectly correct there. But doesn't the idea of death itself have something to do with Hallowe'en?

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Unique Games: Horror!

Due to this month's Halloween theme, I decided to include a special episode of Unique Games. This time, there will be only one game per machine in most cases, and again, most of these are not much more than exclusive titles, but some of them happen to be truly unique as well. Also, I decided to break my oh-so-strict rules a bit regarding one particular game, because I couldn't mention the game in any other context. So, take a look at the next ten horror titles, and why not leave a comment after the lot - tell me if I missed any really unique ones or exclusives.

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The Evil Dead (Palace Software, 1984)

Designed by Colin Tanner, Christopher Pratt, Pillip Smith and Chris Neary.

Written for the Acorn BBC Micro by Colin Tanner.
Converted for the ZX Spectrum by Michael Fox.
Converted for the Commodore 64 by Richard Leinfellner with music and sounds by Keith Miller.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

A few years back, when I discovered that someone had actually made a computer game based on my all-time favourite horror movies, Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead, I was both insanely excited and very dubious. There was no way the game could actually be any good, but at the same time, I was burning to see how anyone could have made it into a game at all. Needless to say, when I finally tried it out (on the Spectrum), I was left unsatisfied in as many ways as you can imagine. So, why am I going to put myself through a more thorough playtesting on all three machines it was ever released? Well, because occasionally, I need to do something completely different and unexpected, for one. Also, because it's one of the rare titles that actually might have some chance of winning on the Acorn BBC Micro, the game's original platform.

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Friday the 13th (Domark, 1985)

Written by Brian White for the Commodore 64.

Converted for the Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum in 1986; credits unknown.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

Horror is one of my favourite genres in everything, particularly games, if made well enough. Proof of people being able to write successful horror games came  surprisingly early on - sometimes in the form of text adventures such as Dracula (1986) and Jack the Ripper (1987) from CRL, and Temple of Terror (1987) from US Gold; and less often in the form of action/arcade games such as Forbidden Forest (1983) and its sequel from Cosmi, Chiller (1986) from Exidy and Ant Attack (1984) and its sequel from Quicksilva. However, when it came to translating a horror movie into a video/computer game form, the results were more often less desirable. Since it's October now, I thought I might do a few horror-based game comparisons, and make it more fun by focusing first on some bad horror games.

Call it a guilty pleasure or whatever, but Domark's Friday the 13th has always been on my top 10 list of favourite games to waste time on when you can't think of any properly good game. I will come to the reasons a bit later. I always thought the game was reviewed with a rather unfairly critical eye by a lot of the gaming press at the time, although some did think it at least above average (Your Commodore and C&VG gave it a 7/10 in 1986). Now, though, CPC Softs has an amazing 17.50 out of 20.00 rating (if that's what it is); Lemon64 has a surprisingly fair score of 6.6 from a total of 102 votes; and 48 World of Spectrum voters have given it a lowly 4.75. All I can say is, it sure divides people. But is it because of the game content or the version at hand?
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Return of the son of more heaps of UPDATES strikes back with a vengeance!

Phew! If that title doesn't get your attention, nothing will. Anyway, this has been way overdue, but I have been waiting for a couple of new conversions to be finished and released before finishing off this entry. One of them is still waiting for a release, but more on that later on. Anyhow, this Updates entry will hopefully be the last fully fledged one, because I intend to update every entry one at a time for their respective entries, when the need arises. Currently, some entries need to be completely re-edited, but at least BRUCE LEE, BUMP 'N JUMP, THE SENTINEL, DUCK TALES and the SABOTEUR Twofer entries, as well as the DEATHCHASE bit from Unique Games #1 have now been fixed, and more will be worked on with time.

For this entry, however, I will probably need to warn you that I have dug up quite a lot of info previously unknown to myself about quite a lot of games, so if you're interested in this sort of stuff, grab a cup of coffee and click on "Read more" to read further. It is quite irritating that sources like Wikipedia and MobyGames don't always hold all the basic release information about all the games, and missed information can sometimes be found months after finishing the original entries. This time, the updatees are in order of appearance: WHERE TIME STOOD STILL, ARCADIA, ROAD FIGHTER, THE GREAT GIANA SISTERS, SPACE TAXI and COMMANDO. These updates will also be implemented into all the original comparison entries, when I have the time to update them.

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James Bond 007 (Parker Brothers, 1983)

Developed and published by Parker Brothers in 1983 for Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit computers, ColecoVision and Commodore 64.

Developed for the Atari 2600 by On Time Software:
Lead design and programming by Joseph Gaucher
Music by Dan Kurchevsky
Graphics by Kathy Von
Produced by Louis Marbel for Parker Brothers

Developed for the Sega SG-1000 by Parker Brothers, and published by Tsukuda Original in 1984.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

I always liked the idea of playing as the world's most popular secret agent, James Bond. The fact that none of the computer/video games were never properly good until GoldenEye came out, never hindered my quest to virtually restore the world peace. Although Domark made the bulk of the 1980's James Bond games, it all started with this eponymous title by Parker Brothers in 1983, which is a bit strange, since Parker Brothers is an American brand, and James Bond is decidedly not. I don't know whether I'll be making this James Bond thing into a series or not, because the Domark games are not very playable.

Currently, James Bond 007 by Parker Brothers has been rated 5.1 with 25 votes at Lemon64; the Atari 8-bit version has a 7.9/10 with 61 votes at Atarimania, while the A5200 version only has one vote with a 9.0, and the A2600 version has no rating at all. The rest of the scores come from MobyGames, since I couldn't find scores elsewhere, beginning with the missing A2600 score, which is a 3.5 out of 5 from 3 votes. The ColecoVision version has 2 votes, which add up to 3.1, and the SG-1000 version is still awaiting a vote. I have no idea what one is supposed to make out of all that, so I think it is best to move on.

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TWOFER #7: Xeno + Wibstars (A'n'F Software, 1986)

XENO

Developed by Binary Design Ltd for ZX Spectrum:
Coding by Matthew Rhodes
Graphics by Ste Pickford
Sounds by Pete Harrison

Converted for the Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64 by Nick Vincent with graphics by Ste Pickford.
C64 title screen by Jeremy Nelson.

WIBSTARS

Developed by Icon Design Ltd for ZX Spectrum:
Coding by Ste Cork
Graphics by Mark O'Neill
Sounds by Tony Williams

Also released for Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64; no further credits available.

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GAME STATUS, PLURAL

For the first two-for-one entry for this year, we have another one of my early years favourites called Xeno, and a randomly chosen game of which I had no previous knowledge of from the same publisher. Xeno is a strange tilted-view turn-based hockey game of sorts - kind of like Lucasfilm Games' Ballblazer, but from a different angle. The other chosen game, Wibstars, seems to be an arcade/actiony sort of a title with many different level types. So, there couldn't be two games more different from each other in a two-for-one retro game comparison. Both games were released for our regular threesome, which should make for a nice comparison twofer.
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