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Very strangely its not one of the really fondly remembered arcade games of our time, Time Pilot 84 is the forgotten sequel to Time Pilot. Where the original had you changing from a plane to a rocket as you went through time, Time Pilot 84 had you in the same ship and flying across some very detailed planet landscapes in 8 directions.
Time Pilot 84 - first level
Well, i’ve had the rare day off today, so I treated myself to the excellent ‘Braid’ on Xbox Live. The game costs around £9 in credits and puts you in control of a small man who is trying to find the princess. It features elements of Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong and hints of other titles – all wrapped together with a series of puzzles and literally having to piece them together! 
Although I haven’t really played it loads to give a full review, i’ve really taken to the game with its fantastic oil painting style of 2D graphics and the wonderful classical soundtracks throughout. But it is the game itself which does something a little different from your conventional 2D platformers. This is not just a Super Mario Bros clone, but so much more. When you die, you must reverse time to keep going – but its the reversing of time which adds a new dimension not seen before in gaming. The reversing of time can be used to great effect, and is where the puzzling element of the game really comes in. For instance, certain objects and characters which have a green haze over them will not go in reverse when you rewind time, but the rest of the world will. This has an interesting effect on the pattern of play and can be the difference in opening a particular door or making a particular jump (Where you use jumping on enemies to propel you higher to a higher platform).
It’s been a while since a modern title grabbed my attention (Since Burnout Revenge). This is a fantastic pick up and play game and worth the £9 in gold!
And so it is here… today… the 3rd match up of Scolari V Eriksson … or England V Portugal if you prefer.
A match up which is a repeat of Euro 2004…. Could it be 3rd time lucky for England?…. Yeah, like shit will it be …. Today England will be exposed as a team with a weak manager and no ideas by a good quality Portugese side who will reach the Semi’s for the first time in their history (or is it second time?)
Ah well… will be a nice experience to see England knocked out while in a pub…. I’ve always watched at home when knocked out of the last few tournaments.
1983 Atari
The next game in the spotlight is a title which i’ve recently dug up from my gaming past called “Battlezone”. I’ve dug out my old VCS and have been playing a fair few titles for old time’s sake. Battlezone is an arcade conversion and whereas most arcade conversions on the old VCS were quite poor, this one bizarrely manages to improve over the vector based arcade game.
Battlezone on the Atari
1982 Terminal Software
Back in 1989, I picked up my first computer… a Commodore Vic 20, packed with a load of games (all on tape) which gave me one of the best birthdays I ever had. There’s something about this machine (and which i’ll write about someday) which brings me back to dig out certain games, Skramble! (1982 Terminal) is one of them.
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