Game: Paperboy
Console: Commodore 16 (Played on Plus/4)
Developer: Elite Systems
Release Date: 1986
Paperboy was originally an arcade game, developed by Atari, ported to no less than 19 home consoles and computers. With so many versions, there's a lot of graphical and gameplay differences between them but the aim of the game is to take the role of a paperboy, delivering to a number of houses on a street for 7 days, and attempting to avoid obstacles on his route and gain a bonus by breaking the windows of non-subscribers houses.
The Commodore 16 version plays a little shoddily, with no real indication of whether you're supposed to deliver to the houses highlighted in black, or the ones in white, from the map at the beginning of each level, and the sprites for the newspapers contained in a white square. The throwing mechanic for the newspapers sees them fly in an rather unexpected pattern from the paperboy's hand, and if I'm honest its hard to distinguish between having delivered a paper to a house, and not.
Graphically the game is basic, and looks comparably worse than the original Atari version. The backdrop and paperboy himself are incredibly blocky and it's sometimes hard to see approaching obstacles due to their colour (white on grey isn't the best combo). There's no music at all behind the game and the sound effects are a simple collision noise for the paper hitting doors/windows and the paperboy hitting obstacles. Although soundtracks aren't incredibly prevalent in Commodore games it'd be nice to see one in such a graphically simple title.
Rating: 9/100
Grade: F
Game: Spore
Console: Commodore 16/Plus/4
Developer: Mastertronic
Release Date: 1987
Spore is a maze type game released for both Commodore 64 and ZX spectrum, alongside the Commodore 16/Plus/4 version. The aim of the game is to collect a pesticide which will kill the attacking spores, which were a product of a failed experiment. The pesticide is stored in barrels around the levels and all of them must be collected to move onto the next level. The levels are infested, however with spores and generators making the players task more difficult.
The game plays very quickly, with the opening of new areas bringing a deluge of spores upon the player, and strategy being a large part of survival as encountering too many spores will accelerate the rate at which the players energy ticks down, leading to their loss. As such, it makes for a nice combination of maze and shooting gameplay.
Graphically the game is simple, with different squares to represent spores, generators and barrels, all of which are very colourful. Again, there's no musical backing to the game, just the sound effects from spores attacking and being hit with fire, in addition to the sounds for collecting barrels and powerups.
Overall this is actually a fairly rewarding game to play, working out strategy for it is pretty fun, and in gameplay terms its easy to pick up and has a fair amount of replay value when compared to other games. There's also a level editor included with the game, the only real downside being the repetitiveness of gameplay after a while.
Rating: 34/100
Grade: E
Game: Exorcist
Console: Commodore 16/Plus/4
Developer: Mr. Micro
Release Date: 1984
Exorcist is (as, on reflection the title may suggest) a Pac-man variant, where the players goal is to illuminate the walls underneath a ruined monastery, thus exorcising all the ghosts. The main characters name is Sparkie, who seems to be a representation of an electrical charge. Sparkie can collect lightning powerups which have to be used almost instantly to stun a ghost.
The gameplay area is fairly large, consisting of lots of maze sections. Once the player clears the section they are in, a gateway will open to the next section, and as they go further into the maze, the map in the corner of the screen will update with Sparkie's current progress. The game plays nicely with smooth movement and decent AI for the ghosts around the mazes.
The music used as a soundtrack is only a short clip and can quickly get tiresome, but I think it's better than having no music at all. There's not a whole lot of sound effects in the game, but those that are don't sound out of place at all. Graphically, it's very simple and although the ghosts do clip through eachother at times and there are some issues with flicker, it's generally pretty smooth.
With a little less repetition this game could have been a pretty solid title, the mazes end up seeming a little too infinitely big for being so similar. The gameplay mechanics work well, and its not such a close copy of Pac-man that you notice too much and the differences work in Exorcist's favour. This is one of my favourites for Commodore.
Rating: 47/100
Grade: D
Game: Harbour Attack
Console: Commodore 16/Plus/4
Developer: Mr. Micro
Release Date: 1984
Harbour Attack features 3 levels of sea based missions. The first sees the player navigating through the seas, trying to avoid moving buoys, by moving between safe spaces. Not only does the players submarine move incredibly slowly, but some of the buoys move pretty quickly, giving a very short time for the player to dodge between hiding spots. If the player is able to make it to the right hand edge of the screen, they move onto the second stage.
This stage involves a sort of combat, shooting at a boat in the water above, which has a fighter jet escort. Again the submarine controlled by the player moves at a snail's pace, which is not ideal when it's under siege from the enemy boat. If you are able to defeat the boat, you have to face about another 6 before moving to the third and final stage.
The final stage involves shooting upwards at a larger boat through a guard of smaller boats, with the hopes of sinking it. Once this has been done the game returns to the first level. All of the ideas for the levels are very simplistic and hardly any of them are executed well. the movement of the submarine is slow and this makes it very difficult to do anything.
Graphically the game is unbelievably basic, the submarine looks pretty poor, as do most of the enemies, adding to the frustration. Soundwise, the first level is the worst with constant explosion sound effects which serve no purpose. Overall, hardly any of this game is playable, let alone enjoyable.
Rating: 5/100
Grade: F
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