Game Review – Street Hassle (1989)

Here’s another Melbourne House re-release that features brawling action, though it’s a totally different type of game to those reviewed a few weeks ago.

Game Review – Jonah Barrington’s Squash (1989)

Another sports game that is probably much more enjoyable with a second human player!

‘Fists of Fury’ Game Review – Fighting Warrior (1990)

Ancient Egypt is an unusual setting for a fighting game, but sadly it’s not enough to stop this from being a rather boring title.

Game Review – Rad Ramp Racer (1990)

Woah, it’s like, a totally bodacious Skateboard and BMX racing game, dude...

Game Review – Micro Mouse (1990)

Another polished production from MC Lothlorien, who definitely seem to have a thing for maze games!

Collection Update – Two Ton Up!

Well I’ve had these two games for over a month now and the video has been on YouTube for ages but I forgot to post here for my legion of 3 or 4 adoring blog followers! ;-)

Two relatively easy finds from Ebay this time in Leviathan (Mastertronic Plus, £2.99) and Kentilla (Mastertronic, £2.75) which take my overall total to an even 200 games.

Total games: 200

Average cost: £1.18

Game Review – Psycho Hopper (1990)

My first-ever experience of a ‘hop and gun’ game!

Collection Update – Two More Titles

Just a quick update here for my latest Ebay purchases.

So two more of the rare titles obtained - Die! Alien Slime from Mastertronic Plus cost £3.20, and Starforce Fighter in second-wave Mastertronic packaging was £2.49.

That’s pretty much it. The search continues for the remaining 13 games!

Total games: 198

Average cost: £1.16

‘Olympic Sports’ Game Review – Advanced Basketball Simulator (1989)

As the country is gripped by Olympic fever, what better time to do some reviews of games based on Olympic events? Kicking things off we have this Basketball game from Sculptured Software...

Collection Update – Edging Closer!

My latest acquisitions from Ebay add another five games to the collection...

One bundle consisted of three relatively hard to find games that worked out at £2.00 each – Alcazar (Mastertronic), Octoplex (M.A.D.) and Psycho Hopper (Mastertronic Plus). A good haul for the price!

The other two games in this update were individual purchases. Actually one of them isn’t a game at all - Make Music with Mistertronic was a relatively early release and has unique white grid-style packaging. Finally for this update is the last of the Mastertronic Plus games in the yellow packaging, Super Stock Car.

I now have just 15 titles left to collect, which are as follows:

Ballblazer (Ricochet)

Barry Mcguigan's Boxing (Mastertronic Plus)

Die! Alien Slime (Mastertronic Plus)

The Eidolon (Ricochet)

Five-a-side Soccer (M.A.D.)

Frenesis (Mastertronic)

How to be a Complete Bastard (Ricochet)

Kentilla (Mastertronic)

Leviathan (Mastertronic Plus)

Pigs in Space (Mastertronic)

Shogun (Mastertronic)

Ski Writer (Mastertronic)

Starforce Fighter (Mastertronic)

Trailblazer (Ricochet)

UCM: Ultimate Combat Mission (M.A.D.)

If you can assist with any of these please let me know!

Total games: 196

Average cost: £1.15

Game Review – Tetris (1989)

What can you say about the classic Russian puzzle game that hasn’t already been said? Based on my review, not a lot!

Collection Update – Filling the Gaps

Yet more games have arrived for the collection, gradually building towards the 200 mark...

It’s now a case of waiting patiently for the rarer titles whilst still filling the odd gaps with the missing common titles. All the games in this update came from Ebay, with the cost ranging from £1.90 to £2.95 per game. Inevitably now I’m having to be more choosy with what I bid on, the average cost per game is increasing a little.

First up we have three ‘grid style’ Mastertronic offerings - Mind Control and Sub Hunt are both relatively hard to come by, while Spectipede is a lot more common.

Next there are four games in later Mastertronic packaging, three of which are not too hard to find. They are Bosconian '87, The Curse of Sherwood and Molecule Man. The last one is less frequently seen – The Quest for the Golden Eggcup.

Finally we have a variety of titles, some of which I would class as uncommon based on my experience thus far - Impossible Mission (Ricochet), Rad Ramp Racer (Mastertronic Plus), plus Vectorball and Lazer Wheel (both M.A.D.)

So that’s another 11 games crossed off the list, which leaves just a handful of common ones before the inevitable long search for the really rare stuff.

Total games: 191

Average cost: £1.10

Game Review – Raster Runner (1989)

There’s some superb music on offer in this highly-polished take on the classic Tron ‘light cycle’ genre.

Collection Update – Ricochet rarities and more...

Another 8 games added to the collection this week, most of which came from Ebay. Check out the video for all the details...

The highlights of this week’s arrivals were the three Ricochet games, all of which are fairly hard to come by – Toy Bizarre, Jet Set Willy and Starquake. I’m very pleased to have picked all of these up for under £2 each.

The remainder are all commonly occurring titles but it’s still good to be adding a few of these to the collection. In classic Mastertronic grid-style packaging we have The Human Race and Space Hunter, plus Back to Reality in the second-wave Mastertronic packaging.

Rounding off this update comes two Mastertronic Plus games – 3D Pinball and the re-release of Activision’s Hacker II.

As always I’m keeping the average purchase price under £2 a game and I now only have around 50 games to acquire...

Total games: 163

Average cost: £1.02

‘Screen Stars’ Game Review – Transformers (1989)

Rounding off my mini-series is another Activision re-release – lead the Autobots against the Decepticons and stop their nefarious plans to create giant hippopotamuses… I kid you not!

Collection Update – So much for slowing down!

Despite my best intentions to ease off on the purchases, the collecting bug has bitten hard and I continue to find deals too good to pass up...

First up this time is another trade with Retro Gamer forum member simes. I sent him half a dozen unwanted games from some of my earlier C64 bundles, and in return I got no less than 14 Mastertronic titles, including a few of the harder to find ones. The net cost to me worked out at a very generous 30p per game!

The bulk of the bundle was games in standard Mastertronic packaging, including The Captive, Munch Mania, Prowler, Rollaround, Starlifter, Super Nudge 2000, Super Trolley and Vegas Jackpot.

Also in the lot were four M.A.D. titles - Angle Ball, Superstar Ping-Pong, The Wizards Pet and Zub – and rounding things off came FA Cup Football (Ricochet) and Yes, Prime Minister (Mastertronic Plus).

I also picked up some more games from Ebay, mostly from the same seller thus saving money on postage costs. Again this was a mixed bag, covering most of the different brands. In Mastertronic packaging came Beat It, Street Beat and Treasure Island, and there was also Fighting Warrior (Mastertronic Plus).

Finishing things off for this update were Ball Crazy and On Cue (M.A.D.) and Las Vegas Video Poker (Entertainment USA). None of these games cost more than £2 so my average price paid has actually dropped below a pound again!

Even more games are on their way, so this won’t be the last of the collection updates this month!

Total games: 155

Average cost: £0.98

Game Review – Rescue on Fractalus (1989)

Next up for review is the re-release of Lucasfilm’s classic space rescue simulation.

Collection Update – More Ebay buys and a big bunch of rarities!

Yet more additions to the collection, starting with a small selection of Ebay purchases and ending with a great bundle...

As the collection grows, the chances of getting large bundles of games to fill in the holes is diminishing, so instead I’m looking at reasonably priced one-offs. Where possible I’ll try to get them from the same seller to save on the postage costs.

So from Ebay this week I’ve received three packages. The first had two games that cost just 50p each plus postage – Rapid Fire (Mastertronic) and Continental Circus (Mastertronic Plus). The other two featured one game each from the Ricochet range, the re-releases of Aliens (£2.00) and the first Dan Dare game (£1.74)

My other purchase this week was quite substantial. I discovered the online store Retro Gaming World had a vast number of games from my hit list for £1.99 each, including quite a few of the hard to find titles. It turns out that the store is based just down the road in Stafford, and although the stock isn’t on display there, I agreed to pick the games I wanted up from there to save myself the cost of postage. So a few days later and with the help from my better half (who works in Stafford) I received a bag of ten games, several of which I haven’t seen on Ebay yet!

In Mastertronic packaging came Phantom of the Asteroid and Rogue, while from the M.A.D. range I got Grand Prix Tennis and Jeff Minter’s Revenge II.

There were also two games from the Mastertronic Plus range, Fist II and Micro Mouse, and another three from Ricochet – Blackwyche, Judge Dredd and Skate Rock Simulator.

Last but by no means least came a real rarity – a promotional cassette featuring a rolling demo of Darling Brothers game screenshots on one side, and an exclusive game on the other side from Mr Chip Software, called Aqua. I’m not sure if this was originally a covermount or was given away at computer shows, but it’s a really interesting addition to the collection featuring a game that was never released at retail!

So that’s another 14 games added to the collection and some of the uncommon titles crossed off the list. Clearly I have plenty to be getting on with now so I expect to slow down on the buying for the next couple of weeks unless I see something too good to miss.

Total games: 134

Average cost: £1.01

Game Review – Protector (1989)

Split-screen helicopter combat is the order of the day in my next game review.

Collection Update - Various Bits and Bobs

Over the past week I’ve received a number of small bundles through the post, including some of the harder-to-find Mastertronic titles.

First up was a copy of the M.A.D. re-release of the classic Manic Miner. This was an Ebay purchase costing £1.99 including postage. Also on the same day came a donation from Retro Gamer forum member Bub&Bob. There were three games in the package, all from the Mastertronic range – two new additions in the form of Motorbike Madness and Wing Commander, plus another copy of Kikstart that had a better quality inlay than the one I already owned. These cost me absolutely nothing!

A few days later came three packages. Two were Ebay purchases, containing two games in each. First were titles that I’ve thus far only seen on Ebay once (and these were them!) – Street Hassle from Mastertronic Plus and Brian Jacks Superstar Challenge from Ricochet. They cost £1.99 each with free postage. The second pair were more common but the Ebay seller had a 20% off sale so I picked them up while they were a bit cheaper than usual – Rebel (Ricochet, £1.59) and Pulse Warrior (Mastertronic, £1.43)

The third package contained five games courtesy of tachi from Retro Gamer forum. These cost £7.00 for the lot and included several uncommon titles. From the Mastertronic brand came Kobayashi Naru and Venom, the Ricochet range was represented by Dragonskulle and Little Computer People, and finally there was Bump Set Spike! from Entertainment USA.

And finally, yesterday came another couple of games via Ebay – Silkworm (Mastertronic Plus) and Scout (Mastertronic) which cost £3.28 for the pair.

So the collection grows once again and the average cost has increased a little, but with under 100 games remaining I’m well on course to keep below that £1.99 per game target.

Total games: 120

Average cost: £0.91