Panther (Mastertronic, 1986)

Designed and written by Peter Adams for the Commodore 64, and published by Mastertronic in 1986.

Converted for the Atari 8-bit computers by Chuck Peavey for Sculptured Software, and published by Mastertronic in 1987.

Music and sound effects for the Commodore 64 and Atari 400/800 versions by David Whittaker.

Converted for Sinclair ZX Spectrum by Tom Lanigan and Ed Knight for MC Lothlorien Ltd., and published by Mastertronic in 1989.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

Even with my severe off-blog workload, I simply couldn't let May pass without at least one Mastertronic comparison, and so I picked one of the few ones left somewhat at random - a game that I had never given any notice before now. The single point of inspiration for choosing Panther was its positive comparison to a more classic diagonally scrolling isometric shooter, Blue Max, which was one of the first comparisons I ever made for FRGCB. The comparison is inevitable at any case, since the original C64 version of Panther was written by the very same person, who converted Blue Max from the Atari computers to the C64, Peter Adams.

Kid Niki: Radical Ninja (Irem/Data East, 1986)

Developed by Irem Corp. and released to the arcades by Irem in Japan as "Kaiketsu Yanchamaru", and by Data East in North America in 1986.

Nintendo NES/Famicom version developed and published by Irem Corp. in 1987.

Apple II and Commodore 64 versions ported by Quicksilver Software, Inc., and published by Data East in 1988.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

Kid Niki is not a game I have ever heard anyone really talk about, likely because it was never actually released in Europe, even for the NES. The only time I ever even tried the game out was the Commodore 64 version, which also goes by an alternative name, "Kid Niki to the Rescue", even though the cover art has the same title as all the other versions. That one time I tried Kid Niki out on the C64 was an experience I'm likely to never forget due to the game's cringyness. Now, I thought I might try the other versions out, because it's such an unusual collection of versions of a game of this type, and I'm hoping for at least the Apple version being equally cringeworthy to the C64 port. Let's see.

FRGR #14: Mr. Seek - Kaivosseikkailu (Teknopiste, 1985)

Written by Jari Paulin for the Spectravideo SVI-318/328 and MSX computers, and published by Teknopiste in 1985.

The cover picture here is a composite of two images, as an attempt to recreate a clean image of the original packaging as closely as possible.

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INTRODUCTION

Perhaps a bit unexpectedly, we have a review of a Finnish game to separate the April of Abominations' two comparisons. The area of Finnish game developing history that has always baffled me the most is for the Spectravideo and MSX computers. Basically, the two systems walked hand in hand, and were somewhat compatible, but had to have their own versions released, if the creator wanted to expand their audience a bit. This incompatibility issue didn't really occur to me, until I bought a bunch of SVI tapes for my MSX collection, and found out they weren't compatible - two of the games also being Finnish, the other of which I have already written about a few years ago - Space Satellite. The other game is Mr. Seek - Kaivosseikkailu (A mining adventure), which has taken me a few years to get to play on my MSX, which then helped me to get the game working on MSX emulators. By no means, Mr. Seek could be considered anything close to the best Finland has to offer for the MSX and SVI computers, but it is perhaps one of the more well-known ones, seeing as there are dumps and documentation of it available online. Anyway, let's see what this little oddity has to offer.

James Bond 007: A View To A Kill (Domark, 1985)

Designed by David Bishop and Chris Palmer for Tigress Marketing Ltd.

Commodore 64:
Programming by Grant Harrison
Graphics by Grant Harrison, Nichola Blades and Robert Ritson
Music arranged by Antony Crowther
Speech synthesis by B. Jones

Sinclair ZX Spectrum:
Programming by Tony Knight, Daryl Bowers, Gary Burfield-Wallis, Grant Harrison, Garry Knight and Argentino Trombin (with thanks to Sadie)
Graphics by Nichola Blades and Robert Ritson
Music arranged by Antony Crowther
Speech synthesis by David Aubrey Jones

Amstrad CPC version by the Software Technicians.

Tangerine Oric-1/Atmos version by Severn Software.

MSX version's credits are unknown.

All versions published by Domark in 1985.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

Many years ago, I did a comparison of James Bond 007 by Parker Brothers, where I was pondering on whether I would ever bother to write about any of the Bond games by Domark, because they're most of them more or less unplayable. Well, because of an equally unlikely event happening, that I'm taking part in two James Bond theme song concerts here in my home town (the concerts are tomorrow and the day after), I decided to prepare a comparison of the first Domark Bond game to go with the other thing hand in hand. Let's just hope this proves at least as a learning experience - I'm not expecting any enjoyment out of it. Thus, a new month theme starts here at FRGCB: April of Abominations.

Trailblazer (Gremlin Graphics, 1986)

Developed by Mr. Chip Software. Designed and written by Shaun Southern with additional graphics by Andrew Morris. Originally published for the Commodore 16/+4 by Gremlin Graphics in 1986.

Commodore 64 version also written by Shaun Southern with title screen by Andrew Morris; published in 1986.

Atari 400/800 version ported from Commodore 64 by Amin Hoque, and published by Gremlin Graphics in 1986.

Amstrad CPC, Sinclair ZX Spectrum and MSX versions: Programming by Chris Kerry, Peter Harrap and Shaun Hollingworth. Additional Amstrad programming by Greg Holmes. Additional MSX programming by Colin Dooley and Greg Holmes. Graphics by Terry Lloyd and Peter Harrap. Spectrum and MSX loading screen by Steve Kerry. Amstrad music by Ben Daglish. Published by Gremlin Graphics in 1986.

Atari ST version: Programming by Shaun Hollingworth, Greg Holmes, Peter Harrap and Colin Dooley.
Graphics by Steve Kerry. Published in Europe by Gremlin Graphics and in North America by Mindscape in 1987.

Some unofficial versions are included in their own section after the main comparison.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

Because February was such a hectic month with three entries, I wanted to lower the pace and focus on just one big entry for a properly classic game this month. Actually, work on the comparison of Trailblazer started late last year already, but was postponed due to finding out about two relatively new unofficial conversions, one for a machine I had never even heard about before - Tesla PMD 85. Well, now is the time, and here's to hoping this classic ball-rolling game gets the comparison it deserves.

YouTube update: My Nostalgia Trip Games returns!

Yes, you read that correctly, it's time for the fifth round of My Nostalgia Trip Games, and this season brings you a new theme tune, a new title sequence and the ultimately necessary inclusion of emulated gameplay footage, and some other minor adjustments.

The 61st episode is the first one to do so, as we travel into the world of arcade games, which are not only impractical/impossible to collect without a storage hall (and funds), but also impossible to record high quality gameplay footage from their screens. Of course, the main focus will still be on unemulated material, but since I really have no room for more retro gear in the house, this is the way to go. For what it is, I hope you still enjoy these trips down my memory lane.

By the way, if you know of some low-cost lighting equipment for using a green screen, feel free to throw in a comment. =)

SPECIAL: Telecomsoft Exclusives

The main excuse, of course, for bringing about a Firebird-themed month for this February was to continue the line started by the Mastertronic Exclusives special last May. Just as a quick reminder, the idea is to list games that were released by the publisher of choice, exclusively for certain platforms, whether or not they were actually unique in anyway, without listing any of the games already featured in the Unique Games series. As such, this list will not be a definitive one, but rather a look at the best of what Telecomsoft's labels Firebird and Silverbird had to offer exclusively for each represented platform. To my knowledge, the third label, Rainbird, never released any exclusive games, although they did do some odd publishing.

Telecomsoft's game publishing history was, while prolific and extremely memorable for us 80's gamers, unfortunately short, since they only existed from 1984 to 1989, before getting bought by MicroProse, who still continued to publish games under Telecomsoft's three labels until 1990. The majority of Telecomsoft's games were released for the two major home computers, Commodore 64 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum, but they did have a good number of games on other platforms as well, even exclusive ones. However, the two major 16-bit computers, the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga, shared all their games that did not get made for the 8-bits.