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Prehistorik (1991)

few days ago, reading the review for Chuck Rock WOPR of his Blog, I came back to mind by way of setting Preihistorik prehistoric (but by !) awarded by the French Titus Interactive in 1991 for Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC and of course PC / MS-DOS. Although the title
Titus has not enjoyed the same clamor reserved to the adventures of "Rock Carletto," I think this is a good game that deserves to be revived, if only for the healthy fun that can give. That said, let's get started ...

The game begins with the protagonist, a nice cave, surrounded by deep sleep punctuated by dreams of natural food. Woke up and the troglodyte, you realize you have a hunger that will push him crazy, armed with only his club, to address the four levels that make up the game, looking for any bendidio. They start our adventures that will take us through to the world of caves, ice, forest and lava for the sole purpose of appeasing the visceral need for food of the protagonist. Along the way, caves to explore, to find ready-made dishes, and pet beat and turn in as many goodies. The purpose of perigrinare, while achieving the end of the level, to fill the satiety index, which stands high up in the status bar along with the number of lives remaining, the energy bar and time remaining to reach the exit. At the end of each world, we will be invited to address the classic boss (tirannosaruro rex, triceratops and pterodactyl) which gatekeeper to the next.
Along the way we collect some bonus as the stone ax, which shoots down an enemy with one blow, the talisman that gives an extra life , the clock that gives a little 'more time to get to end of the level, the spring which increases the height of the jump and the bomb annihilates all animals on-screen. These bonus , potrenno be picked up exploring the caves scattered throughout the levels or perquotendo with your weapon, the shaman who appears from time to time (always in the same positions). To enrich the gameplay within each level we have to face some screen aboard unlikely means of locomotion such as balloons in the first level or the prehistoric gliding in the second. At this stage we can not offend, but we should confine ourselves to avoid the enemies that try to block the road.

image of the first level and its boss, the fearsome T-Rex from ingrown toenails

Graphically the game is very good, thanks to the good use of colors in the VGA and the nice and well animated sprites. Only note, the transition between one screen and the next, no fluid flow through the progressive ( scrolling) but to "click" whenever the protagnista reaches the edge of the screen. The sound is not too bad given the four different tracks that accompany us in so many levels, mythical, in the ring we deal with the different boss, accompanying evidendemente inspired by the soundtrack of the movie Rocky Balboa . Actually, given the length of the levels, a single pattern repeated in the complex is soon bored but basically you can not have everything: o)
The sound effects though good, tend a bit 'to "get lost" between the notes accompanying the songs, the quality is not that depressing, but your hearing system from the now legendary Sound Blaster, you'd expect something more! The
gameplay is the classic kind of platform with large levels to explore and enemies to mazzulare in joy even though some are so cute, see the penguins of the second level, which sometimes almost sorry to take on the bigwigs clubbed. Personally, I appreciated the need for pixel-perfect jumps due coicidenza between the obstacles we must overcome and the height / apiezza of jumps that we will be able to do (thank goodness there's the legendary mainspring !!!).

For the rest there is not much to add except the criticism only four levels available, which, though long and fraught with difficulties, are completed with relative ease, it seems as if the programmers have included some difficulties such as' limited time available, the jumps and the lack of millimeter-range of our weapons (basically it always clashes with cold) just to increase a bit 'longevity of the title.

Aboard hang-gliding in the second level and the BEGINNING of the lava world that will lead to the end of our adventure

short, Prehistorik is certainly not a masterpiece, but in any case is one of those titles, which once started is hard to give end to end. The gameplay is not the best of verietà but is nonetheless appreciated and will certainly give us insights cute and funny ... we are dealing with a good game, albeit not to the splendor of Chuck Rock, offers interesting and does it with taste. In the following video

your brave editor completes the first level ...

... then fill the big toe clubbed the evil T-Rex guarding the exit!!

Poseidon Openkore How

Sopwith (1984)

Chi for a while 'follow this blog have noticed the attention that it treats the very first generation of games on PC gaming, when the colors were four and an essentially non-existent. I do this "effort" and for the pleasure it gives me take up these titles, which have accompanied me in my youth, and because it seems to me correct in some way preserve the memory that is gradually being blurred. After having discussed
Alley Cat , Tetris , Rogue and Hart Hat Mak , just to name a few, now I want to tell the "parable" of Sopwith title dogfights dated 1984. At first sight the use of the word parable may seem exaggerated, but if we consider that even today this game, despite never being released commercially, has fansite, fans and many remake ... Well something special but it should have! Let's see what it is ...

The Sopwith Camel protagonist of this game

David L. Clark young programmer BMB Compuscience , is responsible for implementing an application that can demonstrate the potential of their networking architecture called Imaginet . David decides to develop Sopwith distributed multiplayer game bundle with the network equipment. The game allows two players to compete in aerobatic dogfights aboard a World War I biplane. Each plane is armed with bombs and machine guns which shoot down the enemy and destroy installations ground opponents. The game ends with a romantic flight into the sunset, when the enemy's infrastructure was completely destroyed. The player's biplane '1 'is identified by the color cyan, that of the player '2' is magenta (with four color dosposizione you could not ask for more!) Same goes for the ground equipment. In addition to the one against one (playable only on network Imaginet ) are the mode ' single player' and 'Against single player computer ': the first will allow you to become familiar with the control system without the hassle of enemy fire, while the second will allow you to play head-controlled the trust CPU. The player controlled by the processor does not shine for some tactical and intelligence but more often using the technique of suicide bombers , it proves difficult opponent more than once to check. Before proceeding to the description of the control system, which were clearly articulated deserves a chapter at a party, I invite you to view the images below, which, in addition to showing a sequence of duel ended with the defeat of the biplane cyan (I did the rhyme, that good !!!), let me show you some very important elements of the play. The largest portion of the screen is obviously used to see the battlefield in the low we find, the map of the arena (you always play in an environment surrounded by two insurmountable cliffs) with colored dots representing the various goals, the score (which may even go negative because it moves or attacks decreased the incorrect score ) and a nice histogram showing the level of "health" of your biplane and the remaining amount of fuel, bullets and bombs. Due to limited resources comes into play a strong strategic component that will force you to prudent management to avoid having to return to base for refueling and repairs, leaving your facility at the mercy of enemy fire.

Struck!!

The control system of the biplane is to use different keys: ',' (comma) to increase the angle of flight '.' (Period) to reverse the flight position and '/' (slash ) to decrease the inclination of the plane. In addition there are 'Z' to decrease speed, 'X' to increase, 'H' to engage the autopilot and return to base, 'B' to drop a bomb and then the space bar to fire the machine gun. In short, a sprawling system of control that will take some 'practice to be dominated but which, once entered your strings, allowing you to run and spectacular acrobatics.

The game is all here, and though his gameplay may seem somewhat limited, I assure you that has that particular feeling that forces you "morally" to do one more match and then another and then a ' other yet unable to quit. In short, the feeling some nice games once you are literally glued to the screen without understanding why.

Two images of the first in-game Sopwith

The following year, on the success of the game that had spread beyond the network Imaginet now defunct, Clark decides to release a new version, entitled simply Sopwith II, which are added two nice new features: the cows that graze the ground, causing a loss of 200 points for "killing", and a flock of birds precipitate flight when hit in our plane. Are a few graphical improvements such as explosions more elaborate, and the holes left in the ground from the explosion.

Two images of in-game Sopwith II (note the cute cow)

In 2000, with the release GNU GPL licensed code Sopwith , comes " Sopwith - The Author's edition "where the author once again enriches the gameplay introducing (in battle mode only) the end-seeking missiles and counter-tactics ( flare ) for detecting. It also relaxes the conduct of 'plane as a "slam" with the upper edge of the screen: Now you can recover control, while in earlier versions this case involved the crash to the ground mercilessly. On the other hand if you run into ascended without sufficient speed, the plane will stall resulting in a slave to the soil. magazine is obviously the graphics, which while remaining in compliance with CGA traditions, this new and nice animations. With this release, the game reaches the climax.

The presentation screen and a picture of the special game of Sopwith

All versions of the game works perfectly with the DosBox provided a bit of fiddling 'with the parameter cycles to adjust the speed (between 300 and 400 should be fine). If you are not going crazy too, you can download the Windows version directly from the site author. In both cases, I advise you to set the U.S. keyboard layout (in DosBox, type the command ' keyb us') in order to find the slash next point (thus limiting excessive contortions).

Damn, kidnapped by a description of gameplay, I forgot to tell you about the sound, given the strictly internal speaker (at the beginning of the '80s is that there were no alternatives): Fortunately, there is no "music "but only background sound effects that underscore the engine noise, explosions and the melancholy whistle of the falling of our biplane.

Well, I hope my story will stimulate your desire to try this "classical" of softech PC in the early '80s. The graphics will not be a much, the sound is practically non-existent but the gameplay is really the stars. Unfortunately at present it is not possible to play in multiplayer mode now obsolete because of the protocols, we hope that some willing producing a layer of emulation, perhaps for the fantastic DosBox. Let the battle begin ...

Big Knot On Dog's Tail

Habemus Banner

Dear readers ... today, thanks to the valuable work of his friend Francis "Gekido" Ugga, the reference site for lovers of retrogaming on PC (ok ... I'm a bit 'by mounting the head!) is enthroned in a beautiful banner that not only include the title of the blog , tries to tell his "short" the evolution of the noble art gaming platform MS-DOS. The first traces banner in less than a thousand pixels path Larry Laffer (loser playboy born of the fertile imagination of Al Lowe and published by Sierra On-Line ) from its first appearance Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards (1987) until his last adventure Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail! (1996) ... I purposely left out the latest episodes delivered, with little success, only to exploit the popularity of the character.
Personally I can not help but thank Gekido for the delicious thought, who gives to my blog color and a touch of professionalism that never hurts ... in short, Francis, editor of Re.BIT, will also be a despot, but it is undeniable that the mouse knows his own making (it shows the beautiful graphics of our magazine that I invite you once again to read ).

Many thanks, Tex