Thursday 26 October 2023

Shadow Hunter (Amstrad CPC)

 



Shadow Hunter (Amstrad CPC) : 


Ghostly pests have invaded the Sandy Candy sweet factory, and so young Jack Slimer, Ghost Hunter extraordinare, has been hired to get rid of the ghastly ghouls! 32 levels over 4 floors must be cleared of the paranormal pests before Jack can call it a day and put his feet up back home with a nice cup-a-soup!






And so you as Jack, must jump around the platforms blasting the ghosts with your totally-not-Egon-Spengler-designed Proton blaster, and once they've all been collected, activate the totally-nothing-at-all-to-do-with-Ghostbusters type trap and proceed to the next area.

Levers must be pulled in some sections to allow access to other platforms, and occasional spinning blades or lava pools will also need to be avoided. There's also a timer ticking down that means you won't want to spend too long thinking about things....






Another fun game with nice graphics and some jolly tunes then, and another one that I recommend you give a go if you're looking for something to play this spooky season! Mananuk have done a great job with this, and you can find it here where you'll also find links to an actual physical copy for your Amstrad collection too!

Wednesday 25 October 2023

Ghostly Manor (MSX2)

 



Ghostly Manor (MSX 2+) :


Trifle, this game's purple-haired princess protagonist, has only gone and got herself lost in a spooky old haunted mansion! Luckily, all of the spooks in this particular place are all friendly and don't want to actually hurt her, but they can't stop themselves straying into her path as they are confined to their wanderings, and so this scares poor Trifle and makes her lose her bravery. One too many scares and she won't be able to proceed....





She is able to produce blocks with magical power though, and these will help her reach the keys she needs to open the many doors barring her way. she can also crack any blocks she's below with her head too, which also helps. But these fragile blocks can also be broken by the spooks, so she'll have to keep an eye on what they're up to as well!






The cute graphics and jolly music helps this Solomon's Key / Spherical style puzzle-platformer from 9958 Crew feel a bit more upbeat than most spooky games, and once you get into the swing of it you'll be breezing through a lot of the levels, which almost lulls you into a false sense of security until you come up against a slightly trickier one again! It's an enjoyable little game though and is recommended if you're looking for some puzzley fun!

You can find it by clicking here........



Tuesday 24 October 2023

Cursed Demons Of Wallachia / Los demonios de Valaquia (ZX Spectrum)

 



Cursed Demons Of Wallachia (Los demonios de Valaquia) (ZX Spectrum) :


I'm always happy when I get to run around as Van Helsing and in this offering from Furillo Productions inspired by Hammer's Dracula films, that's exactly what we get to do! Old Abraham is determined to rid Drac's castle of all the horrible succubi and demons that roam the halls, and then escape before fang-face himself returns to discover his fiendish friends' fates!






To defeat the vampires, Van Helsing must first find wooden stakes that are littered around the place, and then take them to the coffins that hide the sleeping succubi. Cloves of garlic must also be found to help ward off the enemies, of which there are many, and these demons must also be killed by stomping on their heads as you progress over the platforms. Sometimes when you return to a spot that previously held a stake or a clove of garlic, a crucifix will appear, and this will restore one of your 15 lives.

Once you've collected 18 cloves, killed 18 vampires and defeated the 87 (yes, 87!) demons, you must find the bridge at the other side of the castle and make your escape!






The colourful graphics are great, and while there's a tune on the intro screen, there's only sound effects in the game and these are pretty basic.....although the scream noise that comes from the vampires when you dispose of them is pretty cool! There is one other tune that plays when you finally die though, and that is also accompanied by a visit from your arch nemesis!






It's a whole lot of fun, and if you find it all a bit too easy there's a harder version available in the downloads where you only get five lives! It's also available in English, Spanish and Portugese! Definitely worth checking this out though, and you can find it over at itchi.io by clicking here.....

Monday 23 October 2023

Hermano ( Nintendo Gameboy)

 



Hermano (Gameboy) :


Poor Mano is missing his sadly deceased sibling, Nano, and so decides to visit his grave during the Day of the Dead. During this festival, it is said that the gates of the underworld open, allowing friends and relatives to reconnect with their departed loved ones.

Unfortunately, when the aforementioned gates open, they also unleash hundreds of lost souls, demons and monsters into the world, and one such particular nasty decides to snatch Mano just as Nano is about to re-emerge from his soily sleep, and carry him off to hell! Now you, as Nano, will have to search 6 levels of platform madness for keys to open the doors that will lead you back to your brother!





Created by Pat Morita Team for the Gameboy Competition 2023, this is a groovy little platformer that they hope to release as a more fleshed out physical release soon! Nano uses his head to bash the enemies in a style that brought back memories of Decap Attack, although Nano keeps a better grip of his bonce than Chuck did in his game...








The game can be tricky at first as you get to grips with it, but always seems fair, and there are plenty of health pickups to keep you going against the creepily-cute enemies. The bombs they randomly drop will help you clear some of the other obstacles in your way too, so hopefully it won't be too long before Nano gets to finally reconnect with his Hermano!

I've been having fun with this, and it's well worth checking out if you either have a flash cart for use on an actual Gameboy, or if you just want to use an emulator. Either way it can be found by clicking here....

I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with their modified 'finished' version soon too, so remember to keep an eye out for that if you want a proper boxed copy!

Sunday 22 October 2023

Halloweenie (C64)

 




Halloweenie (C64) :


In this short, but very, very tricky 'runner' style game by The Reaper UK , you control a girl who has lost all her friends to various enemies, including a very familiar-looking hockey masked slasher, and so she has to try and run as the screen scrolls from right to left and escape to safety!





Various baddies and traps will attempt to stop our heroine's escape, and just one hit from any of them will spell the end of her pony-tailed pixels! So you must scurry around the screen, avoiding knives, cannonballs, bats, axes, spikes....anything the masked menace who is also chasing you can find to try and hault your progress!






Created with help from the Shoot-em-up Construction Kit by Sensible Sotware, and a few others credited on the game's itch.io page, the game has a simple set-up, but a fun one, and although you'll be tearing your hair out every time you die, you'll still find yourself going back for 'one more go' at escape.
 The graphics are cute and suitably spooky, and there's some nice music courtesy of  Andrew 'Merman' Fisher to bop along to as well!

Grab a  C64 emulator, and you can find this game by clicking here which will take you to it's itch.io page, and then you can find out if you have what it takes to successfully escape the killer's clutches before Halloween!

Saturday 21 October 2023

Hell Cab (PC)

 







Hell Cab  (PC DOS) :


So what do you do when you're stuck between flights in New York, and a random cabbie offers to give you a ride to 'show you the sights?' Any sensible person would think twice before accepting, but it appears that the person we control in this game isn't very sensible....especially as moments later we have to sign away our soul to pay for said sight-seeing tour!




This 1993 game from Digital Fusion and Time Warner, is an early CD Rom title...and as such, it's a little confused with what to do with all that extra memory. It initially comes across as a cross between a game and an interactive tour, as you wander around the Empire State Building reading informational notices and watching FMV adverts.





As previously mentioned, things get a bit weird when you get back in the cab. You might have noticed the driver having red eyes pretty soon after entering the taxi, and sure enough he turns out to be a demon, and when you are missing the one dollar to pay for your trip, he offers to give you a great deal by signing away your soul. The rest of your journey sees you travelling through time in order to redeem yourself, prove you're not an asshole and get your soul back in time for getting on the next flight to wherever it is you're going.





You do this through multiple-choice questions when chatting to the residents of these past times, and just in case you forgot it was a wonderful new CD-Rom, you can also learn some interesting historical facts about the different time periods...




Unfortunately, I only got as far as Ancient Rome, due to a horrific Run The Gauntlet type puzzle that is far too bloody difficult to pass, although I do know if you can manage to beat it you can look forward to trips to the First World War and the Jurassic Era....




I did have fun with Hell Cab for the time I played it, and it is recommended as an early CD Rom oddity and for watching some early Quicktime vids, but ultimately it's a bit too tricky in places to fully recommend.
 I might of course be doing something completely wrong, and there might be a far easier way to go about things, but I've a lot more games to get through in the backlog, and this falls a wee bit short in maintaining my interest enough to pursue it much longer...


Friday 20 October 2023

Xbox Creator's Collection Mini Special (Xbox One)

 









I was devastated when Xbox Live Indie Games ended, and all those games of varying levels of greatness were lost to the mists of time. Where would I go to get my fix of cheaply made indie games that potentially hold the key to the next big gaming revolution, or even better, are so crap as to be amazing works of art and somehow defy all logic and manage to be fun!

And then I got an Xbox One and stumbled upon the Creators Collection section of the store, which is similarly hidden away from plain sight as the indie game section on 360 was. But will it prove to be the same type of experience, or does it hold false hope...let's have a quick look at some of their tiny selection of horror games and see!






Grinded Meat (Xbox One) :


First up, we have a game that I thought I would never see the like of again after Xbox Live Indie Games bit the dust! It's another one of those live-action, Quick Time Event games...and even better, it's directed by the very same Claudio Battiato who directed Bloody Death and Hell's House, previously covered on this very blog!



As you can see from the video above, it's very much a case of business as usual, with you essentially watching a movie and pressing button-prompts every now and again to avoid death, as a slasher attempts to thwart our Sheriff hero from solving a missing person case. 




This one feels a lot shorter than even the previous games though, but for 79p/99c I suppose we shouldn't expect much more. Worth a go, if only to give Claudio some money so he can save up to make a proper movie one day!

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The Unknown City - Horror Begins Now...Part 1 (Xbox One) :


It's probably better telling you to watch the video below to see how terrible this game is rather than try to describe it in text. The text-to-speech dialogue, the sloooowww intro, the animation, the text-to-speech (oh wait, I already mentioned that...oh well, it's worth mentioning twice)....



And yet I almost found myself liking it because of how bad it was! I was going to recommend it just so you could experience for yourselves the hilarity of the rubbishness of it all! And then it got me trapped in a menu that I couldnt get out of, just as I finished recording the footage. I had to quit to the dashboard to leave the game. Dunno why this happened....maybe it was due to bad weather....




This game would normally cost you £9 (or $9), but its currently on sale for £1...don't even spend that on it. If you've watched the video here you've experienced about all the entertainment available from this game. A shame really, as it's rubbishness was almost endearing.....

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Foolish Mortals (Xbox One) :



Okay, I've saved the best for last! This one costs absolutely nothing! It's totally free, and out of the trio of games here it has by far the best gameplay! You take on the role of  the great old one, Cthulhu, as he decides to unleash his fury on the foolish mortals of earth by smooshing them into the ground with his fists!



You control our cosmic chum's arms independently with the left being controlled with the left joystick and vice versa, and likewise the two triggers smash the left or right fists into the puny humans trying to attack the elder god!





And attack they do with guns, helicopters and tanks, which makes the game feel a bit like a Lovecraftian version of old classic Rampage, only with less buildings and movement. Its all a huge load of fun for about five minutes, but it is a game that you feel you could come back to and play quite a bit when you're bored and just want to kill some time. And as mentioned before, it's totally free! Go download it now before the deep ones crawl ashore and try to mate with you......


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Hmmm, so one game that's alright but woefully short, one that's utter crap and one that's actually quite groovy and playable and shiny looking! It would seem that the spirit of XBLIG lives on! I'll need to keep an eye on this Creators Collection section and see what wonders appear in future...