Bionic Ninja on the ZX Spectrum 48K - Hmmmm....

Bionic Ninja was published on the ZX Spectrum by Zeppelin games in 1989.

It's a good name. What's not to like about being a ninja? And a bionic one at that! Kids would have loved that name. Is it a good game though? That's infinitely more important. Names can often be deceiving. Below is my video game play review. Have a watch!

There is a back story to the game here, but it falls into the normal of back stories so I'll summarise it.

"Aliens have attacked and taken over one of our human bases. Earth's solution to the problem is to send in a single robot ninja (that's you) to kick butt over multiple stages, be all round wonderful and generally save the day".

Sounds good.

You have three weapons which are selectable right from the start. There are no upgrades or powerups to be earned here. Weapons are, your fists, a ninja throwing star and a sword. The Ninja throwing stars are unlimited so you can throw them to your hearts content. Not sure why then you'd opt for the other weapons. Ninja Stars have the longest range. It's a no brainier. You're left thinking that maybe later the other weapons are more useful. They're not. Very weird.

The backgrounds, although detailed, are in black and white monochrome. Presumably this was to avoid colour clash problems. However, it also moves quite slowly making Bionic Ninja quite a bland experience.

There is no intro music and in-game sounds are very limited.

Enemies are fairly easy to defeat. The time given to complete the stage is very generous and there are no end-of-level bosses. The stage just ends. It's very underwhelming. No real hook to make you want to play on.

Bionic Ninja is one of those games where the coders had maybe originally planned too much for the 48K memory to handle and had to make a number of compromises. Unfortunately these compromises have ruined any chance of any addictive game play.

I would steer clear of this one.

Nick :o)

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Wriggler on the ZX Spectrum 48K

When it comes to weird and wonderful games, the ZX Spectrum has everything else beat. At time of typing, I've now reviewed 450 Speccy games and it is always a delight when I stumble upon some weirdness I never before knew existed.

And so we find Wriggler. A game published by Romantic Robot in 1985, a company better known for their hardware than software accomplishments. Have a watch of the full game play review below. It is watchable either through this blog screen or clicking through to YouTube.

The character you control is a worm... or is it snake?  Or a maggot?  I'm happier thinking it's a worm. A worm is a lot more wholesome.

Wriggler is a unique maze game. The idea is simple. You must wriggle your way from the Garden, through to the Scrub land, through to the Underground and then to the Mansion. Sounds simple eh? Well... it's a substantially large maze consisting of 250 locations. The maze is also full of energy sapping nasties. One of these nasties is a rather large spooky looking spider which is the stuff of nightmares. Ok then... this makes it trickier.

Wriggler is a really well designed game with charming graphics and beautiful animations of the main character and varied enemies. I particularly like the underground fly. A Map here would be really beneficial. Any contact with enemy insect life depletes your energy, but this can be replenished by picking up a number of items including Iced Buns and Cups of Tea. Worms love tea right?

You start the game alongside three other fellow worms who seem to have the same objective as you to get to the Mansion. This gives you hope then. Without a Map, you can opt to follow one of them. They may not all take the same route. There are several ways through the maze. If you fall too far behind, those sneaky fellows may well give you the slip.

Playing Wriggler is a very pleasurable experience. The action moves at a leisurely pace and I found it to be very relaxing... apart from when that spider showed up!

Nick :o)

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Master Blaster - ZX Spectrum 48K - A Cover Tape

Back in the day, when a ZX Spectrum magazine come with a Cover Tape sellotaped to the front, I always got a bit excited. Staring at it as a kid in the newsagent, the mag was just screaming out, Buy Me! My mind just raced. What greatness was inside? How good was the free game on it?

Well... more often than not, it was a bit rubbish. There was a lot of disappointment back then. That's why the game was often on a Cover Tape in the first place and not a commercial release. There were exceptions though. Thankfully this can be said for Master Blaster given away with Crash Magazine in 1990. Click on my video review below hosted on YouTube.

Master Blaster is a cracking little vertical shooter. Very hard at first, but practice is rewarded as you slowly learn the enemies wave patterns. Those aliens do tend to come at you kamikaze very fast. It's just a question of being in the right place at the tight time. Once you've learnt that, you could probably make you way without having to shoot hardly any of them.

Many Shoot 'um ups on the speccy of this era and before had very monochrome graphics, but not so with Master Blaster. The game is awash with colour and some of the background is even animated giving the game so amazing style. The attention to detail in all the graphics is outstanding.

You control a ship that looks very much like the USS Enterprise from Star Trek and you can tell that movie franchise has had a healthy influence over the games creation. The first end of level boss you come to will look very much a Klingon Warbird. Bosses after this tend to go their own way and all are impressively animated.

If it is so good, why was this not released as a commercial game then?

I'm not sure of the answer to that one. Maybe by 1990, the author Cybadyne, thought the game would do better through a popular magazine than sitting on a shelf somewhere waiting for people to buy. 1990 was quite late in the Spectrum's run.

As far as cover tape games go, this is one of the best ones I've come across and well worth tracking down. An awesome shooter !!!

Nick :o)

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Sai Combat on the ZX Spectrum 48K !!

We've covered a few 8 bit fighting games on the ZX Spectrum recently. The Way of the Tiger, Fighting Warrior and Kung Fu Master.

This time I looked at a karate game called Sai Combat. This game was published by Mirrosoft in 1986 and then later re-released by Silverbird Software. I'm pleased to say that out of the other fighters already mentioned, in my opinion, Sai Combat is the best.

You play the role of a novice karate fellow (I'm sure this is the right terminology) and must progress up the belts by displaying your skills against increasingly difficult opponents. You begin as a humble white belt, then must advance all the way through eight ranks to black belt. Once black is achieved, you then have to progress through the eight DAN levels.

Sixteen opponents then !!

Each stage, you're fighting using a weapon... or as I like to call it, a pointy stick. Apologies to karate experts out there. The animation is good and there are a lot of different martial arts moves to master. Taking the time to learn the various moves both defencive and offencive will bring you the most reward. Button-mashing will only take you so far as I sort of proved!

The background changes after each fight which is a nice touch and gives you a sense you are getting somewhere when you pull off a succession of wins. Really incentivising you to see what the next screen will look like and builds the longevity which is mightily important.

Two dragons either side represent how much punishment you and your opponent have taken during the fight. If your dragon goes green, you're down. If the opponents dragon goes red then he hits the floor. Typically it takes three falls to progress to the next belt.

Sai Combat is one of the better speccy fighting games out there in retro land and as such, is well worth tracking down. Good attention to detail and addictive gameplay if you're into this particular genre of gaming.

Have a click on the video review above. See how I got on !!!

Nick :o)

Super Trux / SuperTrux - on the ZX Spectrum 48!!

What would Outrun feel like if instead you were in a big unattractive truck?

Well... it would probably feel a lot like this game really. SuperTrux or Super Trux or Elite Supertrux. Why was it known under slightly different names? I haven't a clue. It sometimes happened.

'Supertrux', we will call it, is an 8 bit game on the ZX Spectrum 48K published by Elite Systems in 1988. 

I reviewed this racer (if we can call it that) on the ZX Spectrum 48K. The system is attempting a lot here with the memory available and unfortunately sound had to be sacrificed. So what we have is a racing game with no sound. That's a huge problem. A quiet racing game? Admittedly the game was also released on the 128K spectrum and this probably did have it. I only owned a humble 48K machine however, so for nostalgia reasons, that's the system I generally review games on.

SuperTrux essentially attempts to offer the gameplay of Outrun, but with trucks. Against the clock you must race across Europe, go through checkpoints and get to the end of the game before the time runs out. Then the game starts over from the beginning again.

Quite frustrating to play this. The frame rate isn't brilliant, which I can forgive, but overtaking other vehicles is awkward. It seems you have to leave quite a big gap around them otherwise you're sent skidding and losing valuable time.

I gameplay reviewed this with a POKE on for infinite time to see if the game offered anything more later down the line. Unfortunately it didn't. A mix of race stages against other trucks on the road and obstacles stages involving roadworks and oils spills.

In conclusion, SuperTrux was interesting to look at for historic purposes, but is not one I'd hurry back to. Annoying gameplay and underwhelming. Below is my full review!!

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Many thanks,

Nick :o)