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THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CLASSIC GAMES
TM
THE LEGEND OF THE MYSTICAL NINJA
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO KONAMI’S WONDERFULLY WEIRD PLATFORMER
AMSTRAD | COMMODORE | SEGA | NINTENDO | ATARI | SINCLAIR | NEO GEO | SONY | COIN-OP | MOBILE
ULTIMATE GUIDE
THE LEGEND RETURNS
PC ENGINE MINI
DRAGON SPIRIT DOES NAMCO’S SHOOTER STILL PACK HEAT?
HANDS-ON TEST
FOOTBALLER OF THE YEAR
CHRIS SHRIGLEY ON CREATING GREMLIN’S INNOVATIVE FOOTIE HIT
EVOLUTION OF THE GREAT ESCAPE JOHN HEAP GUIDES US THROUGH HIS IMPRESSIVE ISOMETRIC ADVENTURE GAMES
THE HISTORY OF COMMANDOS GETTING DOWN AND DIRTY WITH THE LONG-RUNNING PC STRATEGY SERIES
LOAD 204
D N E G E L THE ETURNS R
IN THE KNOW
RELEASE DATE 19 March 2020 PRICE £99.99 RETAILER Available exclusively through www.amazon.co.uk ACCESSORIES Extra controller £21.99 Multitap £24.99
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FOR MANY YEARS, THE PC ENGINE HAS BEEN THE BEST CONSOLE NEVER TO GET AN OFFICIAL UK RELEASE, BUT KONAMI IS FINALLY BRINGING IT HERE, COMPLETE WITH DOZENS OF GAMES. WE’VE TRIED IT - AND HERE’S WHY WE THINK YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED ABOUT IT WORDS BY NICK THORPE
he PC Engine Mini is by far the most fascinating of the recent wave of plug-and-play retro systems. Now, we’d imagine that some of you are probably thinking, “Blimey, that’s a bold opening statement,” after having read that, but it’s true for one simple reason – Konami has chosen to sell the PC Engine Mini in Europe. Although the console was popular with UK importers thanks to coverage in Mean Machines and achieved popularity in France via the Guillemot subsidiary Sodipeng, it never actually had a proper official release in the territory, and won’t benefit from the nostalgia that has driven sales of the SNES, Mega Drive and C64 minis. But we don’t think that’s a disadvantage – in fact, we think it’s an opportunity. You see, the PC Engine has always been a relatively difficult system to get into. Its import-only nature means that it rarely turns up in the wild for impulse purchasing, and the various combinations of different models and add-ons can be intimidating to an inexperienced collector. There has never been a PC Engine compilation on modern consoles, and even the pretty decent Virtual Console line-ups missed things like the SuperGrafx and Arcade CD-ROM games. Though many gamers will have been aware of the PC Engine thanks to import coverage in magazines like C&VG, these factors have ensured that the console has remained accessible only to the more adventurous retro gamer. So, yes, the PC Engine Mini represents an opportunity. For the first time there is a convenient and affordable way to get an introduction to this console, arguably the greatest never to be released in this region, complete with a curated selection of games. Plenty of our readers should be interested in this. If you remember those screenshots in the magazines of the late Eighties but never got a chance to try the games, you should be interested. If you already know and like the PC Engine but don’t fancy paying through the nose for a copy of Sapphire, you should be interested. If you don’t know anything about the PC Engine but love games from the era when 2D was king and want to find new favourites, you should be interested. To find out more about the console, we visited Konami to try out the European version of the machine, the PC Engine CoreGrafx Mini. We also spoke to Richard Jones, senior brand manager at Konami, who explained why the company decided to create the machine. “We first considered bringing the PC Engine back in 2018. The west
had limited access to the console before this, but we knew that many of our fans were passionate about seeing it make a comeback. Our fans are our top priority, and we wanted to give them something they had been asking for as well as give a new generation the opportunity to experience the console and its classic games for the first time.” But how does Konami see the appeal for players who might not hold any nostalgia for the system? “PC Engine Mini has a huge collection of brilliant games to revisit, plus weird and wonderful games that many will have never played before (looking at you, Appare! Gateball ). It’s a unique time capsule of a point in console history that Europe largely missed and a great introduction to a little console that broke ground in many ways,” says Richard, explaining the appeal. “For me personally, the chance to play Castlevania (Akumajou Dracula X: Chi No Rondo) on a PC Engine controller brings an unbeatable level of authenticity to the experience that I would encourage everyone to try. Plus, Bonk climbs walls with his teeth – amazing.” We were curious as to how Konami has handled the hardware side of things, given that the company isn’t traditionally thought of as a hardware business. “Konami has a long history of innovating in hardware development, however, as you say, this was new ground for Konami Digital Entertainment,” says Richard, reminding us of the company’s history in both peripheral development and the arcade business. “For PC Engine Mini, we partnered with the wellknown hardware manufacturer, Hori to utilise their expertise in the field. They handled all development and production of the hardware elements with close involvement from our teams in Japan.” Japanese players will get the original style white PC Engine and North American audiences get a miniaturised TurboGrafx-16, but Europe didn’t have an obvious hardware model to use. Because this represents the first proper European release of a PC Engine product, with the aborted PAL TurboGrafx launch being officially unacknowledged, there’s no historical model to draw from. As a result, we get a system modelled after the CoreGrafx model. “By utilising the PC Engine CoreGrafx design for Europe, we thought it would be a great opportunity to highlight some of the various hardware iterations in its history. Our hope is to provide this community with something unique, something that we were not able to provide in 1987,” Richard explains.
RETRO GAMER | 19
THE MAKING OF
From its peculiar origin to a brand-new videogame subgenre, we delve into the history behind this trailblazing simulator that combines both action and strategy to create a unique footballing videogame experience. Game on!
Words by Graeme Mason
IN THE KNOW » PUBLISHER: GREMLIN GRAPHICS » DEVELOPER: IN-HOUSE » RELEASED: 1986 » PLATFORM: C64, VARIOUS » GENRE: SPORTS SIM
32 | RETRO GAMER
y the mid-Eighties, 8-bit football videogames were still dominated by a triad of three titles: Match Day on the ZX Spectrum, International Soccer on the Commodore 64, and management smash hit Football Manager on practically every format going. Many challenged, but few competed, before 1986 saw a glut of football games appearing as publishers sought to take advantage of the World Cup, set in Mexico. “The football strategy game to answer every boyhood dream,” is the claim on the back of Footballer Of The Year ’s inlay, and its unique selling point is the way that the player takes control of a singular character, the footballing world at your feet as a 17-year-old fourthdivision striker. “The first I heard about the game was when Kevin Norburn handed me a folder full of paper, and a package with bits of card and stuff in it,” begins Chris Shrigley, one of Gremlin’s cadre of in-house coders. Along with his friends, Andy Green and Robert Toone, Chris had impressed Gremlin
with the bouncing ball game, Bounder. “Then we did Future Knight, which was our Ghosts ’N Goblins knock-off, and although original, it lacked inspiration and was a bit rubbish,” he notes modestly. Both of those games were a team effort in terms of coding, but for his next project, Chris was flying solo. “I was assigned Footballer Of The Year, and up until that point I had always worked with Andy [Green]. We were a bit of a double act, and because we always did one game at a time, it worked out that way. But as there were multiple projects to be done now we were at Gremlin, it was inevitable that we’d be split up.”
» Chris Shrigley, the man behind the C64, Atari and C16 versions of Footballer Of The Year.
“I was excited to be working on something on my own that was apparently quite important” Chris
Shrigley
THE MAKING OF: FOOTBALLER OF THE YEAR
ICONOGRAPHY So what do all those
pretty symbols mean?
Incident Cards
» [C64] He shoots…and misses! Better luck next time, eh?
Play Game
» [BBC Micro] Have you got what it takes to rise through the rankings?
The package that Chris was handed by his colleague was an unusual one for a software house such as Gremlin Graphics to receive. “We were used to getting demos and full games sent in to look at,” says Chris, “and I still remember Jack The Nipper showing up one day, and us all falling in love with it. So yeah, it was odd, but it was really an elaborate game design document, which gave us a good base to build on.” Gremlin Graphics’ boss Ian Stewart picks up the story. “Two brothers from Reading had contacted us, and we invited them to Sheffield to see what they had,” he tells us. “They basically wanted a computer game made based on the board game that they had created.” With the brothers also attempting to sell the original paper version (more on that later), an interim videogame interpretation was given the go-ahead, with Gremlin eyeing up that World Cup as a useful marketing tool. In Footballer Of The Year, the player begins as a fresh-faced teenaged trainee, ready for action at a fourth-division club of your choosing. Although the option to begin in other leagues is presented at the start, beginning at a higher level so young makes the game extremely difficult, with the necessary equipment prohibitively expensive. With the overall aim of achieving the eponymous accolade, each match is an important step in the career of this upand-coming star. To help you, there are a series of cards that can be purchased before each match. Incident cards generate a specific event which can either be beneficial or detrimental, and operate randomly; transfer cards summon a scout who will engineer a move to another club if suitably impressed; and the most
» [ZX Spectrum] Watching the simulated teleprinter can be a tense affair…
This question mark denotes the random nature of the game’s incident cards – will you get a cash goal bonus or suffer the indignity of an early bath?
When all the stats have been analysed and the desired cards purchased, it’s over to this icon to get you moving on to the next match.
Player Status
» [ZX Spectrum] The ‘Player Status’ screen is a handy way of checking your progress.
important, goal cards, which give the player between one and three attempts on goal, with the game switching from its text management simulation to an arcade-style shooting section. “It was a bit of a dogpile, the design,” recalls Chris. “Terry Lloyd, Rob Toone, Simon Hulbert and myself were all involved, and even Ian [Stewart] and Kev [Norburn] had some input. I was busying myself prepping for the project and panicking about doing my first solo game, but the design came together quickly – the original [board] game was really detailed, so the final design for the Commodore 64 game was almost exactly the same.” Up until Footballer Of The Year, Chris’ and Andy [Green]’s workloads had been divided up within each project. “I never got to work on a whole game,” explains Chris, “instead working on different pieces like the scroller, interrupts, sprite routines and parts of the game logic. It was a comfortable setup, but a bit of a luxury. So I was excited to be working on something on my own that was apparently quite important, and also scared shitless, because I’d never written an entire game by myself before.” Development for Footballer Of The Year began on Chris’ favoured platform, the Commodore 64. “The design was pretty much as per the original board game, with some additions like the interactive shootout stuff. There were other considerations around graphics and memory, but that was typical.” These arcadestyle sections saw the player presented with a goal mouth, defenders, goalkeeper and the ball. Select a side to shoot, hope the goalie misses, and it’s score one for the new super striker. Occasionally a penalty shootout will occur, with
Clicking this icon reveals important information about the star player, including earnings and player rating. It’ll also tell you which division you’re competing in and player status points accrued.
Quit
Fed up with the raw deal you keep getting from incident cards? Miffed that while you’re banging in the goals, your team’s leaky defence is letting in even more? Then click here to start again.
Save or Load
With its extensive seasons and the prime directive a successful career, saving and loading is essential in Footballer Of The Year. Click the neat-looking tape recorder to do so.
State of Affairs
Click on this globe icon and you get a neat summary of league position, goals scored, win record and your team’s morale. A painful read if things get tough.
Transfer Cards
Transfer cards can be purchased in between matches at a cost that relates to the division played in, from £2,000 up to a whopping £10,000 in the Super League.
RETRO GAMER | 33
THE EVOLUTION OF
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THE EVOLUTION OF: THE GREAT ESCAPE
Influenced by old war movies and intrigued by isometric adventures, John Heap created The Great Escape, and then took the format further with Where Time Stood Still and Wreckers. John explains how his critically acclaimed series evolved Words by Rory Milne ollowing the bankruptcy of Imagine Software in the summer of 1984, a number of the firm’s developers formed Denton Designs, and went on to produce the likes of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Shadowfire. The latter was the first game that designer/coder John Heap worked on for the developer after joining it, but by the release of its sequel in early 1986 most of Denton’s founders had left, giving its remaining members free rein, as John reflects. “It was a kind of a change, really, because the design for The Great Escape was done just after Denton Designs split, where the original directors went their own way,” John says of his first project in charge. “Me and four others decided to continue, and basically we had a blank slate, so we just came up with designs that we could flog.” The initial ideas that John put together for his design described an escape scenario rendered in two dimensions, but his plans changed following feedback from an interested publisher. “I sat down and sketched the essence of a game where you were escaping from something; that was where The Great Escape came from,” John
F
» [ZX Spectrum] Hiding objects in The Great Escape’s secret tunnels evolved from taking weapons from enemies in Shadowfire.
» [Amstrad CPC] The Great Escape’s searchlight is a nod to old black-and-white POW camp movies.
“Because Great Escape was rule-based there were several ways out, although I might not have thought of all of them” John Heap » John Heap is currently a senior software engineer at the University Of Liverpool’s Computational Biology Facility.
» [PC] Like its war film inspirations, The Great Escape involves a daily routine enforced by its antagonists.
remembers. “Originally it was a 2D scroller, and then some guy at Mirrorsoft – because we were touting it around – said it would be quite good in 3D, and I thought it could.” But although John’s previous game had involved forced perspectives, his first exposure to isometric adventures was far more influential on his current design. “I’d toyed with kind of 3D viewing windows in Enigma Force,” John notes, “and I had been looking satisfactorily at them when Knight Lore came out. I just thought: ‘Oh fucking hell.’ You know? Because I was so far behind, but now I knew it was possible. I remember getting Ant Attack out and measuring the angles on the telly with a ruler, because I didn’t know what they were.” Having got to grips with isometric projection, John rethought his latest project in 3D, but he kept its POW camp setting, and its placeholder title too, until a publisher was secured. “It was called ‘Stalag 13’ for a long time, or something like that,” John reveals. “It was like old blackand-white war movies rather than The Great Escape. It wasn’t a film licence, it wasn’t anything to do with the film, it was just that Ocean thought it would be a good name. The film didn’t really guide the game’s narrative, apart from just the general theme of escape films.” In fact, John’s design sharply contrasted the Sixties action movie, and instead of a larger-
The Great Escape artwork © Bob Wakelin You can buy prints of The Great Escape and Bob’s other work by visiting etsy.com/uk/shop/bobwakelinartwork RETRO GAMER | 39
ULTIMATE
If there’s one thing that centuries of fantastical fiction has taught us, it’s that massive fire-breathing reptiles are incredibly cool. Join Retro Gamer as we look at an arcade game from 1987 that lets you take the reins of one of these powerful beasts Words by Graeme Mason
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GUIDE:
ULTIMATE GUIDE: DRAGON SPIRIT
» [Arcade] In this dastardly dark cavern, there’s little visibility, even with a power-up.
FLYING BAT
» [Arcade] Even in death, some enemies, such as these swooping birds, pose a threat with their deadly feathers.
SITTING BAT » [Arcade] Ground dinosaurs, like all enemies, fire constantly at the dragon.
fter the success of Namco’s horizontally scrolling shoot-’em-up Xevious, a range of spaceship-themed games predictably flooded the arcade market. Eventually, Namco itself was inspired enough to create something that combined the gameplay ethic of its previous hit with the fantasy genre that was fashionable following the phenomenal popularity of Atari’s dungeon-delver Gauntlet. The result, even by arcade standards, is a videogame of incredible, almost perverse difficulty, despite its ostensibly powerful protagonist. As with Xevious, Dragon Spirit takes place over two planes of action as the draconic hero faces off against enemies both on the ground and in the air. Across the sky, the flying lizard shoots lethal fire, while a similar attack drops to the land below, with a much more limited range. Set in the Palaeozoic era, most of the enemies are dinosaurs of some description, mixed in with fantastical creatures such as flaming phoenixes, mutated peacock-like birds and huge carnivorous plants. These are either land or air-based with some despicable creatures (such as giant bats) acting as a combination of both, lying in wait
for an innocent dragon to approach before launching themselves into the air, fangs bared. Dragon Spirit is the story of Amul, a prince who can summon lightning with his magical sword, transforming him into a giant blue dragon – a useful ability given the wicked demon Zawell has kidnapped his girlfriend and taken her to its hidden lair. Transformed into the eponymous fire-breathing creature, Amul must cross nine stages laden not only with the deadly local flora and fauna, but also the minions of Zawell itself, which is keen to hold on to its female captive. Fast and powerful, Amul moves gracefully across each level, but there’s so much opposition that it’ll take more than reflexes to win his love back. Fortunately, two, or even three, heads are better than one, and by picking up the blue dragon head orbs (released when Amul destroys a blue egg), our hero can grow a maximum of three fire-spitting bonces. While this has the unfortunate side-effect of increasing the dragon’s size, and thus the chances of you getting hit, the ability to wield crimson destruction as a multiheaded Amul is hard to ignore. With the dragon able to absorb just two hits before losing a life, this beastie needs all the help he can get.
» [Arcade] Mission accomplished and the princess is back in your arms.
SEA BEAST
AQUASAURUS RETRO GAMER | 47
INTERESTING GAMES YOU'VE NEVER PLAYED
M U R T C E P ZXyoS u’re raiding If um back the the Spectrth anks to catalogueion of the Next, introduct return to the don’t justThere are loads classics. known games of lesser n gems that and hiddey of discovery are worth ll artyn Carro Words by M
ZOMBI
■ DEVELOPER: UBISOFT ■ YEAR: 1990
» [ZX Spectrum] There’s a weapons shop on the second floor. Grab some guns and arm your characters, although Sylvie can’t use a gun for some reason.
» [ZX Spectrum] Just like in the film, you need to block the doors using trucks. But first you need to find the key for each truck.
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■ Being based on George Romero’s 1978 zombie opus Dawn Of The Dead (which was released as Zombi in several European countries), this game would be a perfect candidate for a Licence To Thrill feature… except it wasn’t an official adaptation of the film. For its debut release, fledgling French studio Ubisoft borrowed the survivorsholed-up-in-a-shopping-mall scenario and used it as the grounds for a gripping adventure game. What’s brazen about Zombi is how faithfully it follows the film, beginning with the four survivors landing their helicopter on the roof of an abandoned mall. The characters’ names have been changed, but what they have to do to survive – clear zombies from inside the shopping centre while scavenging for supplies, park trucks outside the doors to
prevent more zombies entering, fight off the looters (or ‘punks’) who break into the mall, and finally escape in the refuelled chopper – is almost identical to the film. Zombi features an icon-driven interface that’s not unlike the Shadowfire games. There are around 90 rooms in the mall, spread across six floors, and you navigate them by clicking the on-screen directional arrows. When you encounter a zombie, you defeat it by clicking the pointer on its head several times (the equivalent of bashing its brains in). Your first port of call should be the weapon shop where you can grab some guns which makes easy work of the undead. In other locations you’ll find essential supplies like food and first aid kits, as well as keys, fuses, a fuel can and other items you need to advance through the
game. If one of the characters loses too much health and dies, you can switch to another, but beware that only Alexandre can fly the chopper, so you’ll want to keep ‘Flyboy’ away from brain-bashing duties. The game was originally developed for the Amstrad CPC, with separate versions for 64K and 128K machines (the latter benefited from more detailed location graphics). Sadly, the Spectrum version was developed for the standard 48K machine with no 128K embellishments. Ironically, programmer Geoff Phillips has since revealed that Ubisoft specifically asked him for a 48K version, and he spent ages optimising the graphics to fit into memory, only for the packaging to wrongly state that it would only work on 128K machines! That mistake may have affected
MINORITY REPORT: ZX SPECTRUM
ENIGMA FORCE
COMMODORE 64, ZX SPECTRUM ■ The sequel to Shadowfire retains the icon-driven interface but introduces the ‘Mind Probe’ feature which enables players to take direct control of the characters. The result is a less strategic, more accessible game in which you explore a vast underground complex in search of the evil General Zoff.
ALIENS
ZX SPECTRUM, VARIOUS ■ Regarded by many as the scariest 8-bit game ever
made, Aliens faithfully recreates the scene from the movie where the marines sweep the colony on LV-426. There’s a greater emphasis on action and strategy than Zombi, and being rushed by an alien is far scarier than encountering the walking dead.
HURLEMENTS
AMSTRAD CPC, PC
■ Fans of Zombi should check out this 1988 follow-up
that’s almost identical in style and execution, except this one’s based on the 1981 werewolf movie The Howling (which was released in French-speaking countries as Hurlements). It was never translated, but it’s easy to play if you’re au fait with Zombi.
DEAD BY DAWN?
■ Click here to switch control » [ZX Spectrum] One of the puzzles involves venturing into the mall’s gloomy basement and fixing the fuse box.
sales, but there was a bigger reason why the game underperformed. The original was released in 1986, yet the Spectrum version didn’t arrive until 1990, by which time icon-driven adventures were looking a little stale. It was also based on a movie that, despite its growing cult status, was 12 years old at the time and featured zombies wearing flared trousers. We wanted games based on RoboCop and Batman movies back then. Zombi is an overlooked classic that’s worth seeking out, particularly if you’re playing on a Spectrum Next as you can plug in a PS/2 mouse and use that to play the game – you’ll just need to search the web for the modded version that supports mouse control.
between the four playable characters. If someone dies they don’t come back to life and try to eat your face. You missed a trick there, Ubisoft!
VITAL STATISTICS
■ Important stats (food, health and stamina) slowly diminish over time. Thankfully, there are items and areas to be found inside the mall that can replenish all three.
MALL EXPLORER ■ You move around the mall by
clicking the directional arrows. You can also interact with items, and deal with the living dead by putting bullets though their brains.
ACTION STATION
■ The icon bar is a lot simpler than the
one in the original CPC version. From left to right you have: use item, quit game, save game and load a previous game.
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THE MYSTICAL NINJA SERIES, OR GOEMON IN JAPAN, HAS A TROUBLED HISTORY. ITS ARCADE ORIGINATOR WAS LUKEWARM, FEW RELEASES WERE LOCALISED, AND NOW IT SEEMS ABANDONED. SAD, BECAUSE ITS FIRST OFFICIAL ENGLISH RELEASE IS ONE OF THE GEMS OF THE 16-BIT ERA Words by John Szczepaniak
FUR MAN CHU AND HIS PAL CRABBY
» The excellent artwork that featured on the western box art was created by Tom duBois.
CAPTAIN TRICKSTER 60 | RETRO GAMER
tarting in arcades in 1986 with Konami’s Mr Goemon, our eponymous ninja didn’t have the most auspicious starts. It featured a Hokusai-inspired art style and was fine to play, but no one would have expected any great legacy from it. There followed some sequels on the Famicom and MSX2 and then, in the summer of 1991, there was Ganbare Goemon: Yukihime Kyuushutsu Emaki for Super Famicom. It’s hard to imagine but, as of writing this, the game is nearly 30 years old. It’s also hard to tell what Konami’s aspirations were for the title, given that the rudimentary credits list mainly programmers, with a few artists and musicians, almost as if the joyous mechanics within happened without planning. Under the title of ‘Boss’ the credits list programmer Shigeharu Umezaki, previously director on Konami’s Contra and Life Force, and also coder on the next two Super Famicom sequels.
S
This was the first Goemon game to be localised, reaching America a year later as The Legend Of The Mystical Ninja. Sadly it suffered some censorship, losing the farting dance and striptease. It’s unknown who translated it, but Goemon became Kid Ying and Ebisumaru became Dr Yang (get it?). The in-game English was clear, though maybe lost some of the original’s humour, while the English manual was a hilarious gag-reel of outrageous puns and nonsensical jokes. Import purists may complain, but honestly the wacky shenanigans are in keeping with the series’ tone. Electronic Gaming Monthly judged it well, though complained it was too pastel, with scores of 8/8/9/8. The UK and European PAL territories wouldn’t see reviews until December 1993 and, contrasting with our po-faced former colony, scores across the board were unanimously excellent; CVG, Super Play, Total!, Game Zone, and others, all scored it 90% or above. It also featured in the 2010 book, 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die. These are the facts and yet, searching our shared collective memory, is that truly how Mystical Ninja is remembered? Despite the accolades, high scores, praise, and how everyone either played or knows someone who played it, the game never quite entered the SNES era’s defining zeitgeist in the same way Zelda,
PIGGYBACK
CARP MEISTER
» [SNES] In the theme park stage there are these body cutouts, where you can stick your head through. Pointless but fun.
TANUKI SPIRIT
NAKED OTAFUKU BOSS
GHOST
RUSH
WOMAN
The game’s first boss shows off some lovely sprite distortion and smart transparency effects. She’s also why the northern part of town is haunted. HOW TO BEAT IT: She’s immune to direct attacks, so the trick is to hit and knock back the plates she throws. Be careful since they ricochet on the screen’s edge.
KABUKI
High atop Tengu Mountain is this kabuki warrior, complete with a neat flying wig! He’s also the toughest boss in the game with devastating range. HOW TO BEAT IT: No special trick, it’s a battle of attrition! The preceding village sells no inventory restoratives; make sure you’ve been stockpiling since Zone III.
ULTIMATE GUIDE: THE LEGEND OF THE MYSTICAL NINJA
GINSU GRANNY
TOGA POOCH
LANTERN MAN
OTAFUKU
Two bosses in one; it starts with sumo wrestlers throwing a ball, followed by a giant detached Mode 7 face that grows in size as it becomes more damaged. HOW TO BEAT IT: Focus on one wrestler to halve your problems. For the face, watch out when the cheek-balls enter the eye sockets – that means it’s angry!
Although Sasuke is playable in the later Mystical Ninja games, for this he’s actually one of the bosses here! He’s not evil though, just protecting his inventor. HOW TO BEAT IT: This is where bombs are the most useful! Their arcing trajectory allows you to attack safely both above and below. Just don’t fall off!
HAKURYU
DARUMA
HANNYA SHOGUN
There’s a festival in Shikoku! This intimidating beast has a fearsome mask and is found inside a southwesterly tent, surrounded by dancers and two taiko drummers. HOW TO BEAT IT: His movement is restricted so stick to the screen edge. Though it’s safe to stand on his striped platforms, you can also just shoot coins from afar.
You visit the Dragon Pond in Izumo while searching for the magical White Mirror. Hakuryu is actually a guardian spirit protecting the mirror you seek. HOW TO BEAT IT: Be patient, his attack pattern is slow and basic. You’re only going to get hit if you’re greedy when retaliating. Spare some coins for sniping.
There are two bosses in this stage, midway and at the end, based on Japanese Daruma toys. The first has coloured blocks, the second spiked arms. HOW TO BEAT IT: The first form’s head is always vulnerable no matter its position, so jump to attack. The second form is so easy it has no health bar!
SASUKE
The final showdown actually starts with a battle against Lantern Man and Otafuku. Only afterwards do you face the leader of the Hannya gang! HOW TO BEAT IT: This guy is immune to normal attacks; you need to jump and strike one of the arrows he shoots, so it deflects into the face of his mount.
DEAR DEER Final Fantasy, or even Konami’s own Castlevania and Contra titles did. Heralded as good, maybe even great, but never legendary. If you’ve eagerly read this far to the fourth paragraph, then you know what we’re going to say (and are in agreement). Retro Gamer sees The Legend Of The Mystical Ninja as an essential part of experiencing the 16-bit era, and the equal of Konami’s other classics. Functionally it’s similar to Zelda, albeit with chronological stages and alternating overhead/ side-scrolling sections. A blend of action platforming with light RPG overtones. The game starts with an impressive for the time cinematic, complete with written dialogue and Mode 7 facilitated close-ups. The ghost woman of Horo temple is acting strangely so the two comrades vow to investigate. Thus players are thrust into a satire of ancient Japan; houses with sliding
KONAMI GIRL
paper doors, fishmongers with oversized catches, while the music is unmistakably eastern. Here also is one of Mystical Ninja’s strengths – make a mental note of what you see, because each stage will introduce numerous single-use qualia. Some aspects, such as spear enemies and stores, show up throughout, but so much else is unique. The ghosts of the haunted village; the actionstage bell which kills all enemies; the taiko drummers at the festival; the burger joint at the theme park; a multitude of Mode 7 gimmicks (rotating stages, inflating bosses); even a Kid Dracula secret if you know where to look. Not to mention the restaurants which restore health. In any other game you’d have a text menu, maybe three generic items repeated forever – in Mystical Ninja there are 20 distinct little graphics representing real delicacies, and they all just do the same thing.
HANNYA CARPENTER RETRO GAMER | 61
Volition veterans Adam Pletcher and Jason Scott reveal how a talented team created one of the greatest space games of all time, one that still commands a cult following to this day, in less than a year
threatened to get out of hand. For example, an early version of the story featured seven factions and – as I seem to recall – an entirely new race, but that proposal was mercifully shot down. To get the game done on time and on budget, we had to focus and simplify.” “I forgot about all those factions,” Adam responds. “Really, » Adam Pletcher has been in the that was the heart of it, just careful business for decades, working on titles like Descent through to Saints Row IV. management of scope. We already had a list of technical and design features we couldn’t fit into the original FreeSpace. It made a great could require video hardware starting point for the sequel and acceleration, and we really tried to helped keep everyone focused. capitalise on that with FreeSpace 2. Like, ‘Here’s the game we really Switching from a polygon-based nebula background to one that used wanted to make.’” big detailed textures was a big deal The improvements Jason and for us. Flying through the volumetric Adam mention were a significant nebulae was another one, and [that] part of what makes FreeSpace 2 let the designers create new kinds of » Jason Scott stuck around at Volition, feel special. Having multiple working across a broad range of mission objectives. gigantic capital ships going at it, well-received titles. “On the gameplay front, we their powerful beam weapons wanted the big ships to have more interesting lighting up space as you flitted about among behaviour, weapons and overall role in the them doing battle with other small fighters, battles,” Adam continues. “I think the details gave battles a real sense of scale. You often added there really helped flesh out the chaotic had a very specific job to do, tasked with aerial combat feel of the missions.” performing a small role, such as protecting Jason and Adam explain that part of the a particular ship from bombers, rather than reason the team was able to complete the game being an all-destroying hero doing everything so quickly, was that it didn’t go overboard on new features and wisely choose to zero in on elements that would bring something significantly worthwhile to the experience. “We chose a small set of new features – nebula, beam weapons, large capital ships – and reused a lot of content from the first game,” Jason recalls. “And studio and project leaders (Mike Kulas, Philip Holt, Jim Boone, Adam Pletcher, Dave Baranec) » [PC] Hunting down and destroying bombs is one of the most important parts of intervened when scope defending a cruiser. On the flip side, there are missions where you get to unleash them.
WORDS BY PAUL WALKER-EMIG he backstory behind the development of FreeSpace 2 sounds like a recipe for disaster. The first FreeSpace game – a spin-off from the Descent series – was released in 1998. “Once we saw FreeSpace selling well, both Interplay and Volition were interested in turning it into a series,” designer Adam Pletcher recalls. So far so good. The only problem was that development on the game didn’t begin until the end of 1998 and the developers were tasked with completing it for October 1999, giving them less than a year. You wouldn’t be surprised if what came out at the end of this rushed development cycle was a complete mess. But, somehow, the team at Volition created a classic of the space sim genre. Not only that: it was finished a month early. To achieve this impressive turnaround, the team had to curb some of its early ambitions. “Two ideas I remember discussing were ship interiors and planets, but neither of those features would have been feasible in our short timeframe,” writer Jason Scott tells us. “We were planning a DLC pack set in the Sol system where we would’ve used our nebula features to create gas giant missions, but we cancelled that add-on early in its development.” The focus instead had to be placed on what about the first game could be enhanced and what key additions would make the biggest impact. A starting point was the new possibilities offered by nascent hardware acceleration tech. “I remember we wanted to improve some of the visuals,” Adam tells us. “This was the start of the era where games
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THE MAKING OF: FREESPACE 2
» [PC] Ah, the spectacular site of failure. Well, at least it looks cool.
“ONCE WE SAW FREESPACE SELLING WELL, BOTH INTERPLAY AND VOLITION WERE INTERESTED IN TURNING IT INTO A SERIES”
ADAM PLETCHER
IN THE KNOW » PUBLISHER: INTERPLAY » DEVELOPER: VOLITION » RELEASED: 1999 » PLATFORM: PC » GENRE: SPACE COMBAT SIM
yourself. This was an interesting and refreshing approach that tied in nicely with an overarching story that placed you in the position of being a cog in a machine who was only told what they needed to know. “The universe of FreeSpace is very impersonal,” Jason says. “Your character is referred to only as ‘pilot’ or ‘Alpha 1’, and you’re up against countless waves of a seemingly unbeatable, genocidal adversary that never communicates its goals or motives. In the briefings we tried to convey the sense of a much larger conflict unfolding in multiple systems, while at the same time hinting that your commanders weren’t telling you the full story. Mechanically, beam weapons transformed capital ships from floating space furniture into lethal weapon platforms that could blow you to pieces with little warning. All these factors created a sense of alienation, tension, and discomfort.” “I think the addition of flak cannons really pushed the immersion factor up in those battles,” Adam reflects. “They were a key tool for the big ships to fend off the smaller
» [PC] Large ships will always be accompanied by fighters and other small ships, and it’s usually your job to deal with them.
fighters, but more importantly they were loud. Explosions going off all around you, it really raised the intensity of those missions.” The game appears to make a conscious effort to weave missions into its story, building drama and weaving things together logically, rather than stringing together a random series of objectives. We ask if this was a part of the ethos of the game’s mission design. “The FreeSpace Editor (FRED) enabled designers to build missions very quickly, and because missions all took place in open space, designers didn’t have to worry about building environments and all the complexity that involves,” Jason explains. “But FRED’s strengths were also a weakness in that missions could easily fall apart without some architecture and terrain to shape the action. At one point, we jettisoned the entire first act and started over, placing more emphasis on raising the stakes, building tension, and pacing the experience more intentionally. We got a little too heavy-handed at times, with all the missions about protecting tiny, vulnerable shuttles and cargo ships wending their way through angry swarms of attackers.” FreeSpace 2’s campaign holds
DEVELOPER HIGHLIGHTS
SUMMONER SYSTEM: PS2, PC, MAC YEAR: 2000 RED FACTION SYSTEM: VARIOUS YEAR: 2001 SAINTS ROW (PICTURED) SYSTEM: XBOX 360 YEAR: 2006
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O
Denki has created close to 2OO games over the past two decades, making it one of the world’s most prolific developers. But not even Sky was the limit of its ambitions, as Gary Penn explains Words by David Crookes
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ne of the big complaints people make about television is that there are so many channels but nothing to watch. Even today we can find schedules chock-full of repeats of the most dire of programmes endlessly running one after another. Back in October 2001, however, Sky Television (or BSkyB as it was known) sought to give viewers an alternative to aimless channelhopping. It tapped into the videogame market by launching Sky Gamestar, which grew to host many casual titles over a good number of years. By pressing the ‘Interactive’ button on the Sky remote and selecting ‘6’, viewers could enjoy games based on classic characters such as Scooby Doo and Tom and Jerry, as well as lots of original content. But who was making these titles? The answer to that lies, in part, with a small Dundee-based developer called Denki. For much of the Noughties, Denki was one of the most prolific videogame developers in the world. Set up in March 2000 by four former DMA Design employees – Colin Anderson, Aaron Puzey, Stewart Graham and David Jones – it was created as an antidote to the technological arms race that existed at the time. Within a short timeframe, Gary Penn, the legendary Zzap!64 reviewer and former editor of The One, also joined. “With Denki, the idea was to make smaller games within a tighter production loop,” he explains. “The scale they were aiming for didn’t involve spending huge periods of time on a game and I guess, from my point of view, I didn’t really need to be at DMA any more. I wasn’t 19 years old and I didn’t want to work like crazy.” Each of the founders brought their own expertise to the table in audio, coding, design and business. David, in particular, was an entrepreneurial spirit, having cofounded DMA Design and created the Dundee studio of Rage Games – the latter working wonders for Denki. Rage published the developer’s first title, Denki Blocks! in September 2001 for the Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color. “David helped us by using his contacts which meant we were introduced to different people and were able to gain publishing deals from the start,” Gary says. Denki Blocks! was a simple puzzler that involved sliding blocks to make them stick together with the
»[Sky TV] Dexter’s Laboratory: Dexter Vs Mandark saw players seeking to build gadgets to regain control of the lab.
FROM THE ARCHIVES: DENKI
TIMELINE 2000 ■ Denki is founded by four former DMA Design employees.
2001 ■ Denki Blocks! is released for the Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color. ■ Debuts on Sky Gamestar with Denki Blocks!.
2002 ■ Provides design and audio consultancy for Crackdown. ■ Rage publishes Go! Go! Beckham! Adventure On Soccer Island. »[Sky TV] Codename: Kids Next Door was the interactive TV game of Cartoon Network’s animated television series.
»[Sky TV] Caterpillar Crunch was based on a familiar retro concept and had a great nostalgic vibe.
To make our games in the most efficient way possible, we created a role called ‘product architect’ which was kind of like being an editor on a magazine
aim of connecting each colour set. The title won the ECTS Overall Best Game Of Show and Best Handheld Game in 2001 and the bods at the top of Rage Games were impressed. When it heard Sky was seeking decent developers for Gamestar, Rage put Denki in touch with the broadcaster. This led to a version of Denki Blocks! being made for the interactive service too. Very quickly, Denki established a strict method of working that drew on Gary’s magazine background. “We wanted to get into the mindset that development couldn’t slip otherwise, like in publishing, the game just wouldn’t come out,” he says. “To make our games in the most efficient way possible, we created a role called ‘product architect’ which was kind of like being an editor on a magazine,” Gary says. “It was similar to being a producer and designer with responsibility to contract out coding, graphics, music and so on, and it enabled us to create a process that we refined over many years.” Denki became a development machine, able to create titles in very short timeframes, and it
»[GBA] Denki Blocks! was the very first game from Denki and is a smart little take on the puzzle genre. It was also available on Game Boy Color, and later Sky Gamestar, PSP and mobile.
Gary Penn
hit the ground running with a second original title in 2002 called Go! Go! Beckham! Adventure On Soccer Island which was also published by Rage for the GBA. “We had the [David] Beckham licence and thought we should try and do something with it while keeping things original but it was at a time when original games were finding it hard to get traction,” he says. “Trouble is, we bit off more than we could chew with that one and it got very shallow very quickly. It does have a cult following but I don’t understand why.” Shortly after, Rage hit trouble. It had suffered a bad run of sales – including those based on its David Beckham franchise and the publisher filed for bankruptcy in January 2003. Denki Blocks!, however, had been played a million times in six months on Sky Gamestar. Denki’s future path appeared to be mapped. In a short space of time, Denki had converted Pac-Man, Bust-A-Move and Super Breakout on behalf of Namco, Taito and Atari for Sky Gamestar. It went on to work with major franchises on games such as Looney Tunes: Back In Action and Hulk while releasing Sky Sports Darts, Word Crunch, Caterpillar Crunch and Duopolis. There were tie-ins with TV channels such as Cartoon Network which led to Tom And Jerry In Mouse Party, Courage The Cowardly Dog In Katz Komeback and Scooby-Doo In The Mystery Of Eerie Island in 2004 among others. There was Boggle, Dexter’s Laboratory, Jumble Fever and The Grim Adventures Of Billy & Mandy in 2005.
2003 ■ Receives an industry
excellence award for its development processes.
2004 ■ Creates many licensed games such as Tom And Jerry and Scooby Doo on Sky Gamestar.
2007 ■ Signs deal to provide games for Californian satellite service provider DirecTV.
2008 ■ Releases the game-based learning tool InQuizitor.
2009 ■ Launches the online game DenkiOrNot.com.
2010 ■ Denki Blocks! is released on iOS and Facebook. ■ Difficulties finding a console publisher for Quarrel leads to mass redundancies. ■ Creates Juggle for Xbox Live Indie Games.
2012 ■ Quarrel is released on Xbox Live Arcade by UTV Ignition Entertainment. ■ Releases HTML5 browser games Save The Day and Denki Word Quest.
2014 ■ Consults on Crackdown 3 which is eventually released in 2019.
2017 ■ Fails to raise enough money on Kickstarter for new game Autonauts.
2019 ■ Perseveres and successfully launches Autonauts.
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THE MAKING OF
In the mid-Nineties, as PC gaming entered a bold new, 3D era, cutting-edge startup Monolith Productions went against the grain, determined to create the perfect 2D sidescroller. The developers spent so long on their masterpiece that by the time of its release, the world had moved on
DEVELOPER HIGHLIGHTS
BLOOD SYSTEM: PC YEAR: 1997 SHOGO: MOBILE ARMOR DIVISION SYSTEM: PC, AMIGA YEAR: 1998 MIDDLE-EARTH: SHADOW OF MORDOR (PICTURED) SYSTEM: PC, PS3, PS4, XBOX 360, XBOX ONE YEAR: 2014
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I
Words by Hareth Al Bustani
n 1994, as Doom took the world by storm, Windows 95 emerged with the promise of a glorious new era of PC gaming. While most developers hurled all their resources into churning out ’Doom clones’, a small startup operating out of Kirkland, Washington, did something else entirely. It took two steps into the future, and one into the past – harnessing the full power of cutting-edge Microsoft DirectX technology, and using it to breathe new life into the world of 2D platforming. Monolith Productions’ first big break came in the form of the inauspiciously titled Games Sampler 2 for Windows 95. Cofounder Brian Goble recalls, “There was an underground team at Microsoft that was making gaming technology for Windows, and they wanted to get everyone excited about it, so they came up with the Sampler CD – which was basically a bunch of demos from other publishers.” Though the company was young, it had already developed a stellar 3D engine for Windows, which the team used to build a virtual world for the Sampler CD. “The user could go into the world, go into a room, see the game demos and launch them from within the world.” The project not only
demonstrated Monolith’s mastery of DirectX but introduced it to a huge number of publishers – and Microsoft kept sending people the studio’s way. Buoyed by the success, Brian felt it was time for the startup to develop its own flagship game, and he knew exactly where to start. Before Monolith, he had been a programmer at educational software company Edmark, where he worked with artist and Monolith cofounder Garett Price on an animated dragon. “As soon as I saw it, I was like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to make it breathe fire,’” he remembers. Though they worked on opposite sides of the building, bound by mutual enthusiasm, they struck up a friendship, and Garret shared his portfolio. Among the most curious illustrations were those of a pirate cat, called Nathaniel J Claw. Garrett first developed the Captain Claw concept in art school. “He’s a bit of a loner, and an actionoriented leader that his crew loves and will follow anywhere,” he says. “He may do a few bad things now and then, but probably feels like he’s doing them for the right reasons.” While Claw was not based on one particular pirate, Garret tells us, “If I was pressed on the issue, I’d say probably someone like Captain Kidd.” On the contrary,
IN THE KNOW » PUBLISHER: MONOLITH PRODUCTIONS » DEVELOPER: MONOLITH PRODUCTIONS » RELEASED: 1997 » PLATFORM: PC » GENRE: PLATFORMER
» Brian Goble was one of the cofounders of Monolith Productions. He left the company in 2002.
» After Claw, Chris Hewett worked on the acclaimed horror shooter FEAR as executive producer.
» [PC] While still working as a Boeing flight test engineer, Chris Hewett says designing the vine-swinging sections of the Dark Forest was great fun.
secure the amulet before his Garrett drew inspiration from rival, the lion Red Tail. the most unexpected of Each level is fraught with places – the pirate fashion of violent enemies and perils, new wave band Adam And such as moving platforms and The Ants, and the animated crumbling bricks, fatal spiked film, The Secret Of Nimh, pits and hot tar. Claw himself featuring sword-wielding is armed with a sword, gun, anthropomorphic rodents. stock of dynamite and magic Brian, who always dreamed claw, which fires off into the of developing a side-scroller, distance somewhat like a had already created a 2D Nathaniel J Claw is a sarcastic, hadoken. He can also throw scrolling engine for his game yet warmhearted, feline pirate – a his enemies to their demise. misunderstood hero, who despite The Adventures Of MicroMan. Along the way, he discovers For all the hype, the tide his profession, always does the time-limited special powers, had yet to turn in favour of right thing. Despite being a bit of such as lightning, fire and the emerging 3D revolution, a loner, he inspires honour and ice swords, obliterating all and the 2D platformer Jazz bravado amongst his men, who enemies in his path. Many of Jackrabbit side-scroller had just would follow him to the grave if the levels culminate in a boss proved the genre could work need be. Likes catnip. fight, each requiring a different on PC. Brian says, “DirectX strategy to overcome. had just come out and one of Among those to be brought in was Brian’s the demos was this really cool parallax side-scrolling family friend Chris Hewett – who was working as demo called FoxBear. You just couldn’t do that in a flight test engineer at Boeing. Though he had Windows prior to that.” designed some levels for Wolfenstein, he was new As Brian busied himself building the engine, Monolith began bringing in new talent, even hiring a to programming and working at a gaming company team of ex-Disney animators to produce 23 minutes still felt like a pipe dream. He asked Brian, “What of cutscenes. At a time where fullscreen animation do I have to do to become a programmer? I’ll do itself was rare, it was a novel move – accompanied anything – I’ll take out the trash.” After spending by an orchestral score, and a cast of voice actors a day familiarising himself with Brian’s level editor, that included some members of the team and their he went away and produced a design for the first families. The story revolved around Captain Claw, dungeon stage on a dot matrix printer – a savvy who winds up imprisoned after his crew is attacked move that earned him a part-time job, and a further by the Cocker-Spaniards. In his dungeon, he finds a 20 hours on top of his 60-hour work week. treasure map, indicating the locations of the various Although Monolith had begun working on a parts of the mythical Amulet Of Nine Lives – which Doom-like FPS, Blood, Chris was impressed by the grants its wearer immortality. Breaking free, Claw way Claw paired an ‘old-school’ genre with intricate embarks upon a quest to rescue his crew and design, a rich story, high colour artwork, parallaxing
THE MAKING OF: CLAW
Captain Nathaniel J Claw
“Claw is a bit of a loner, and an action-oriented leader that his crew loves and will follow anywhere. He may do a few bad things now and then, but probably feels like he’s doing them for the right reasons” Garett Price
» [PC] Claw increasingly scales up the difficulty as the game progresses, and timing soon becomes crucial to survival.
» Garrett Price first came up with the Claw concept at art school, originally envisioning it as a comic, graphic novel or illustrated book.
Mr Tabby
Captain Claw’s first mate is a loyal, intelligent and powerful ally to his team, but he’s captured alongside the rest of the crew at the beginning of the game. He and Claw are later reunited when the latter rescues his men from beneath Pirate Cove.
» [PC] Though earlier NPCs are relatively easy to dispatch, the stripy residents of Tiger Island are not to be trifled with.
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» [PC] Soldiers will follow tracks left by your troops, but the Green Beret is undetectable when he buries himself in snow.
F O Y R O T S I H THE BE ICK. “I’LL L C . K C I L C + S. DAT.” CLICK. CTRL HUH, WISH I COULD DO . K C I L . C ” . LICK. “ NE MORE GO.. YES, SIR C O “ . , . S Y K A C + K I O L L C R ! T H . C G AR K. CLICK CLICK. CLIC . SOUNDS OF GUNFIRE.] ” . E R E H T T H RIG RENS OD IS PA C K W O ALARM!” [SI ! M R A D S B Y LE W L R A O “ W . K CLIC » Jon Beltrán De Heredia is currently working on Katoid (katoid.com), an innovative game analytics project.
» [PC] You can split the screen multiple times in Behind Enemy Lines to give orders to different groups of commandos at the same time.
» [PC] The third level of Behind Enemy Lines sees you tasked with blowing up this dam, although sadly no bouncing bombs or gruff airmen are involved.
» [PC] This is an ideal time for the Spy to distract the guard while the Sapper sneaks up and nicks these explosives.
» [PC] This gunboat will mow down your troops in seconds – best to stay well hidden until it passes.
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» Javier Arevalo stayed on at Pyro Studios for many years after Commandos 2, but eventually left to join the English-teaching company Lingokids.
9000
THE HISTORY OF: COMMANDOS » [PC] This impressive mansion appears on one of the hardest levels of Beyond The Call Of Duty, where you must kidnap a German officer without detection.
» [PC] Beyond The Call of Duty introduced several new abilities, like being able to lob a stone to distract guards.
» [PC] This mission from Beyond The Call Of Duty tasked you with blowing up experimental German jet planes.
“A » Manuel Mendiluce went on to become a level designer at Pyro Studios, and is now a senior level designer on CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077.
» [PC] The level of detail and variety of missions on Beyond The Call Of Duty was seriously impressive, like these beautiful ruins.
t the time, there wasn’t anything like Pyro Studios,” says Javier Arévalo. “Pyro was created with the goal of making games that would be sold everywhere around the world.” Plenty of developers in Nineties Spain were producing games for the domestic market, and some of these games eventually went on to international success. But Pyro, the Madrid-based studio behind the Commandos games, was founded in 1996 with an international outlook from the start. “It was the first time that the exclusive goal [was] making games not just to sell first in Spain and then elsewhere,” says Javier, who was technology lead on the first three entries in the Commandos series. When it came to deciding on the studio’s crucial first game, there were a number of contenders, recalls Jon Beltrán De Heredia, lead programmer on Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, Commandos: Beyond The Call Of Duty and Commandos 2: Men Of Courage. “They were actually working on three separate projects,” he says. “There was a World War 2 game, which would become Commandos, and there was also a pirates game – I don’t think it had a name, ‘Corsairs’ maybe. And there was a third game, which was not as well defined – it was a Conan The Barbarian kind of universe. “So the Commandos prototype had a lot more work put in than the others, then they went to pitch the games to several publishers in the UK, and Eidos, on some whim, decided to buy the rights to Commandos, which was the one they really liked. I think Ian Livingstone was a key figure deciding to buy into the project.”
Javier reckons it was the uniqueness of Commandos that piqued Eidos’ interest: “I imagine that the difficulty to categorize Commandos was one of the things that they saw as a potential strength.” And Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines really was a strange beast back then: it was nothing like a hex-based war game, but neither was it anything like the real-time strategy games of the day. And its stunningly detailed graphics were a cut above. “The way it played or felt was very unique,” says Jon. “Back then, Command & Conquer existed already, but it was a lot less detailed – I mean, obviously, it’s a different genre, it’s an RTS, but it didn’t give you this feeling […] like, wow, this is like a lead model figure brought to life. It felt like a little world that was alive.” The developers dubbed it ‘real-time tactics’, and Jon cites the tiny soldiers of Sensible Software’s Cannon Fodder as an inspiration, along with The Lost Vikings, an early title from Blizzard Entertainment (then known as Silicon & Synapse). In Blizzard’s game, the player has to switch between three characters with unique abilities to complete a level, and Pyro’s offering uses a similar mechanic, demanding that the player utilises each of the commandos’ individual skills. Another huge inspiration was WW2 movies of the Sixties and Seventies, highlights Javier, mentioning films like The Guns Of Navarone, The Bridge On The River Kwai, The Eagle Has Landed, The Dirty Dozen and Kelly’s Heroes. “That was our biggest inspiration,” he says. “And that was something that the creative director [Gonzalo ‘Gonzo’ Suárez] always pushed for, like this has to remind you of those movies.” In terms of actual game design, Javier reckons that the Commandos secret sauce was a mixture of set
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