of the
C64 and retro-computing. Thanks for the interview Nigel, it's been a
pleasure.



*************************************
GAMES THAT SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN
FRAK! by Aardvark Software
By Nigel Parker
*************************************

Converted to the Commodore 64

In a sort of on/off type feature; I thought I would include a section
entitles "Games that shouldn't have been" I am sure you can now picture
such a game in your mind!

Some games were released that really should have been! Either they were
rushed and buggy conversions; or just unplayable quick releases that you
load and wonder why you were taken over by the marketing blurb and
promises! Put them in a cupboard and forget them.

Frak is such a game, it was Original programmed by Orlando (aka Nick
Pelling) for the BBC Micro and published by his own 'Aardvark' software
label in 1984... I can remember playing the game as if it were yesterday!
I went to my friend's house (who owned a BBC micro of course) and we walked
to town, we bought the usual records that a teenager would and with some
extra money he purchased FRAK almost on a whim basically from the graphics
on the back of the game box.

Taking the game to my friends house and loading up, we played the game to death, well at least until it was time for me to go home! Then what should happen, the game was ported to the Commodore 64; happy days? Well unfortunately "not"! It lost the charm during the conversion process, and
a whole lot more!

The main problem with the Frak conversion for me was, just how the
game-play became ruined. If you look at the BBC version everything looks
in scale, however on the C64 version; the Sprites were so big you couldn't
see half the screen! And so constantly had to do what is commonly termed
"the leap of death" not knowing if you jump would land on safe ground or
not.

The original BBC version was a competent enough game, graphics looked
great, super animations, the storyline was a little space You were a
Caveman called Trogg and owned a yoyo for a weapon the game was a slow scrolling platformer moving from right to left as you moved over the
platforms that had vine like ladders so you could walk up or down. You
killed the monsters by hitting them with your yoyo and collected special potions and gems alone the way, there were also static statutes, balloons
and knives that would float up the screen and kill.

The whole object of the game was to find three keys located on each level.
If you hit one of the monsters on your pixel perfect jumps, the Trogg would open a speech bubble with the "say" the word FRAK! The game-play although relatively simple was involving enough for the time. If you managed to complete all three levels, you were returned to the first level with the
screen display upside down, then rotated 90 degrees and repeated again.
Then the video was displayed in black and white and rotated, and also the display was flashed on and off in three second intervals.

AND THE COMMODORE 64 VERSION?

The game was ported to the Commodore 64 in 1985 by 'The B Team' (Jason
Perkins, Anthony Clarke and Mark Rodgers). The C64 version has six levels. Each level is much larger than the visible screen, and the game did have
catchy background music (different for each level you need to enable the
music on the main title screen, as it's off by default). The game starts
out well enough with a splash screen and a menu, with various options, the screen has some lovely floating balloons (although, it must be a very calm
day as they float straight up no drifting at all!)

It must have been the BBC Micro man's dream to see the rather laughable Commodore 64 version, what the heck were they thinking about on the
conversion!

COPY PROTECTION

If you tried to copy the game on the BBC it would play a rendition of
Trumpet Hornpipe, (the Captain Pugwash theme tune,) instead of the game loading. Of course Captain Pugwash was a program featuring a pirate called Captain Pugwash. I never attempted to copy the Commodore 64 version (no
one really wanted a copy) so can't comment.

By Nigel Parker



*************************************
REVIEW: A.R.C.O.S.
For the C16/Plus4 and C64
*************************************

THE PLOT:

Aliens are invading the Earth

A group of courageous spacemen have been sent to reject the attack, but the last chance for mankind is in your hands. You, a brave pilot, have been recruited to control A.R.C.O.S., the ultra-secret ultimate weapon. Your mission, easy to understand but hard to achieve: Kill the aliens and save
the spacemen. With the power of A.R.C.O.S. lead us to the victory!!!

Along with the ZIP file for the C64 are the instructions and the source
code for the game, this game has been written in BASIC

Loading the tap file gives some further information about the loading music
and the screen gradually builds up line by line (I like this!) The loading music is quite calm and tuneful enough

Then the menu appears

The only option is to use a joystick in port 2

And pressing space seemed to be the only way I could start the game,
despite my best efforts on continually pushing the joystick button a number
of times,

The game starts, and it's almost like Arkanoid or breakout but sideways, although nothing new in its design, we are greeted by some large and
colourful graphics, there is sadly no sound at all in the game, not even a boing for the ball bouncing off our ship or other aliens. The games BASIC origins show through and although it`s not fast, its written in basic so it will never dash over the finishing line with a gold medal. The game seems
to have been coded competently and as far as the limitations of BASIC go,
it plays very well.

The Commodore 64 and Plus for versions seem very similar, However the plus
4 version has no fancy loading screens, and music, it just goes straight
into the game, however the plus 4 version plays really slowly compared to
the Commodore 64 version and the Ship is in mono

PLUS/4 VERSION

On the plus 4 website it lists a ZX spectrum and an Amstrad version of the game, I don't have access to these machines and as this is a Commodore
magazine can't really see a reason to look into these versions

The Commodore 64 D64 version has in game music, but no loading screen, bizarrely it's the loading music from the Tape version, and sadly I don't
think this fits the in game at all! I would have preferred this at the
menu; then just in game effects. I am also sure its suffering from a bug, after playing for a while I suddenly received an OUCH but the ball was
hitting one of the aliens at the time, this happened a couple of times,
however I couldn't continually recreated the problem, the game suffers from
its physics, if you align up your ship straight you can just sit there
while the ball bounces over and over in a straight line and kills a line of aliens, then continue this with the next row, some random-ness should be
put into the game so the ball doesn't just continually bounce straight .

SCORES

Graphics: 3.5/10
bright and colourful but static
Sounds: 4/10
nice title music on the tap and in
game on the d64 otherwise silence
Gameplay: 3/10
it's just a little frustrating to
play because of the speed
Overall: 3/10
it probably as good as a BASIC game
gets

AMSTRAD VERSION

www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=9937

ZX SPECTRUM VERSION

www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0027952

PLUS/4 VERSION

plus4world.powweb.com/software/A_R_C_O_S_C16

C64 VERSION

csdb.dk/release/?id=126752
csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/125451/ARCOS_C64.zip csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/125455/arcos.prg csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/125680/Arcos_V2.d64



*************************************
REVIEW: FLAPPY BIRD
*************************************

If you still can't get enough of the game, on your cell phone or tablet, or
are feeling a little Sad that the Flappy Bird game was removed from the app market. W

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