Programmed by Magnetic Scrolls and then published first by Rainbird, this graphic(Depending on which system you played it on)/text adventure had you trying to escape the fairy land of Kervonia. It was hailed for its graphics by Dragon magazine, reviewers Hartley and Pattie Lesser stated that the game’s “painted” scenes will leave you in awe. The music was also cited as being one of the kind for its time, the Commodore Amiga system garnered these claims as it was the only computer at the time that had the hardware support to handle the digitized music.
Magnetic Scrolls went on to produce a sequel to the Pawn entitled The Guild of Thieves. They also programmed Jinxter, Corruption, Fish!, Myth, Wonderland, and the Legacy.
On Tuesday, April 12th, it will have been 50 years since famed Yuri Gagarin became the first man into space. It also marks the global launch of the feature length film, First Orbit, by its director Chris Riley with the aid of composer, Philip Sheppard, and the collaboration of the Expedition 26/27 crew, the European Space Agency, and the International Space Station to present what Yuri witnessed on his historic flight 50 years earlier. I for one cannot wait to watch this on the 12th, this will be amazing!
The Attic Room is proud to announce the global premier of ‘First
Orbit’, a feature length film event that weaves historic audio
recordings of the first Cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, with new footage of
his orbital route. To coincide with the 50th anniversary of man’s
first journey into space, the film will premiere globally for free on
YouTube at sunrise on 12 April and will be accessible from anywhere in
the world.
In collaboration with the European Space Agency and the astronauts
onboard the International Space Station, filmmaker Chris Riley has
captured the magnificence of Gagarin’s original orbit. Filmed by
astronaut Paolo Nespoli, ’First Orbit’ delivers breath-taking digital,
full high-definition views of the Earth from above. The footage
matches the orbital path of the International Space Station as closely
as possible to that of Gagarin’s original route, allowing viewers to
see incredible vistas of the Earth through the Space Station’s new
giant cupola window.
Director, Chris Riley says “We have woven historic Vostok I mission
recordings of Gagarin (subtitled in English) with new shots captured
by Paolo Nespoli, and edited them to an original score by composer
Philip Sheppard, creating a spellbinding film which I’m thrilled to be
able to share with people around the world for free on this historic
anniversary.”
In addition to the First Orbit film premiere release on
youtube.com/firstorbit and firstorbit.org, the Yuri’s Night network is
organising hundreds of parties across the world to watch the film on
12 April to celebrate the incredible achievement of Yuri Gagarin
becoming the first man ever to travel into space.”
Heiankyo Alien was a video game created by the University of Tokyo’s Theoretical Science Group way back 1979. Originally developed as a personal computer game, it quickly grew in popularity and and was first published by Denki Onky? Corporation as an arcade game in 1980. In the game you play a keeper of the peace during an alien invasion in bygone Japan. You have a shovel and must dig holes for the aliens to fall into and then you cover them up. Sounds simple? It is, and very addicting.
Since its original release, the game has been ported to several other gaming systems, including the only version I have played, the one for the Gameboy.
There are very valid reasons why I no longer take my breaks in the nurse’s rest area any more. Firstly it gets too much when you’re the only male nurse on break and your surrounded by incessant droning and bitching. And secondly because some random guy wouldn’t stop harping on about how he loved Paperboy in the arcades as a child. All because he saw me reading a copy of Retro Gamer Magazine with an article about it. So he would wait in hopes that I would return so he could ram more information about it into my uninterested ears.
Shame because I liked that room….
In any case it reminded me that I had a C64 port sat in my collection. A game that I have never played since I got it in a bundle from eBay. Which would have probably been for the best.
Paperboy was a successful arcade game from Atari. I remember many friends at school saying how good it was and what their highest score was. So it was inevitable that someone would want to bring out a home conversion of it in order to rake in the pennies. That someone would turn out to be Elite. A company that had a well established track record of poor arcade conversions.
So I loaded it and, absolutely not to my surprise, we have yet another title to add to the list. Although they did a slightly better job with this one than some of their other conversions. So I am not even going to skirt around the issue with this title and say it’s a little bland and mediocre. Playable, maybe slightly enjoyable, but still mediocre.
The graphics are bland, repetitive and use a very basic colour pallet. The sprites look terrible with some really simplistic animation. The backdrops are drawn in such a way that they throw off the perspective at times. The collision detection is poor to say the least and many times I found myself falling off my bike from something a distance away. Or thinking I have cleanly missed an obstacle only to find the detection area is off and I actually clipped it. Also there doesn’t seem to be enough playing area meaning on more than one occasion I was wiped out by a car or obstacle that basically appears from nowhere.
Audibly it’s nothing to write about. While there is some alright music, though not the same used in the arcade original, in this game the spot effects kind of spoiled it for me. Not the best the mighty SID has ever had to produce.
Controls seem responsive though.
I never really saw the appeal of Paperboy in the arcades. To me it seemed a very basic game with some nice graphics and sound. Which is why I probably felt so cold and uninterested with this conversion. As I mentioned earlier it is playable and enjoyable. But this soon wears off after the first day and you realize that it is just a bland, poorly done and mediocre game.
The only ray of light from this game is that they have cheekily put a sprite in of the Sinclair C5. Which tries to side swipe you and take you out. It kind of just amuses me that a Sinclair product is in a game for the Commodore system.
*Authors note: The video has lots of the sprites and background in black. I am unsure as to why this is as my original copy seems to work fine. I think it might have to do with the emulation used.*
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