Guns 'n' Ghosts (Commodore 64)

Guns 'n' Ghosts (Commodore 64) :-

I always like to include Homebrew games in my Gruesome Game recommendations whenever possible, as there will still be some people out there unaware that there are still games being made for their favourite old computers! And while quite a few of these new games are only available for digital download to play in emulators, there are also some homebrewers that release their games on actual cassettes, disks or carts so that you can load them up on the original hardware and experience them properly!

Psytronik & RGCD are a couple of groups that do just that, and this 2013 collaboration by both and by developers Georg Rottensteiner & Trevor Storey, can be bought either on disk or cassette, or from RGCD on C64 Cartridge! It is available to buy via digital download too though, which is the version I picked up a while back....

So what's it all about then? Well, Trev and Georg, as well as being a bit handy at programming groovy C64 games, also have a nice side-line going as Paranormal Investigators! After a series of reports of supernatural shenanigans come in from all over the country, our daring duo decide to get on the case and give these spooks a piece of their mind....

Especially Trev, who with his special psychic powers that give him a link to the spirit-plane, can send these demons back to the hell that spawned them just by thinking about it! Georg prefers to use his trusty boom-stick though, and blast the bogeymen to billions of bits!

There are a number of ways to enjoy the game, as it has several game modes....

1 Player Trev - As Georg with his shotgun, you start as a single player with two shots and best dispatch of the beasties at long range...

1 Player Trev - A single player uses Trev's freaky mind blasts to melt the monsters, and is best used at short range!

Brothers - A two player mode where you and a friend take control of a hero each, and use their powers independently to free the land of the paranormal pests!

Cooperative Play - A mode where player one is Georg, player two is Trev, and the baddies must be held in place by Trev's psychic power so that Georg can shoot them! This is the trickiest way to play, but probably the best fun!

Double Georg - Both players play as Georg and use shotguns!

Double Trev - Both players play as Trev and use psychic powers!

During the game there are also a number of power ups that help our pals defeat the hordes of zombies, spooks and failed lab experiments, such as special bullets for Georg and potions that increase Trev's psychic powers, and also the usual extra lives and invincibility power ups!

As you can see from the screenshots, the levels are lain out as a series of platforms, and the enemies appear on these various platforms and then try and make their way to you to stop you in your quest to be a paranormal party-pooper!

While it starts off quite easy and you'll have no problems defeating them, the game increasingly ramps up the difficulty, adding more enemies like the skeletons that rush at you when you're in their line of sight, or the bullet-spongy Frankenstein Monster type enemies that require several shots to destroy!

 It never gets so tricky that it stops being fun though, and if you've read my blog for a while you know that I struggle sometimes with the difficulty of some C64 games! Thankfully, I feel this is pitched just right, and I get a little further every time I play!

And so I can heartily recommend that you follow the links by clicking the Psytronik and RGCD names at the start of this post and purchase a copy for yourselves...and while you're there you should probably check out their other releases, look for other homebrew developers elsewhere online, and sample their wares and go shout about them from the rooftops too!