Was That Film Really That Bad??? Hawk The Slayer (1980)

With the inevitability of death and taxes, we all knew this one was coming. You can't have a series of posts like WTFRTB without having, in my humble opinion, the cheesiest, most naff fantasy film ever to grace some UK woodland. A childhood favourite of mine (I knew no better, honest, M'Lud), it was with both joy and trepidation that I decided to watch it for the first time in twenty years. So sit back, one and all, for the cinematic experience that is: HAWK THE SLAYER!

Elder brother of Buffy.

Released in 1980, this 94 minute fantasy adventure was initially intended as an historic dark ages homage to the likes of Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars. Instead, they added a touch of magic (to the story, not the film making itself) and we got this movie instead. The plot, such as it is, follows Hawk (John Terry) whose evil brother Voltan (Jack Palance - this is the first sign that things are not what they seem) has killed their father (and in the past also killed Hawk's wife) after trying to get his hands on the last Elven mind stone. Said stone was around Daddy's neck but Voltan runs off before discovering this. Hawk comforts his dying father, who gives him the mind stone and shows him how to attach it to the hand shaped pommel of a nearby sword (handy that!), which now obeys Hawk's thoughts. Hawk then vows to kill his brother. Voltan kidnaps an Abbess from an abbey where a recuperating soldier (Ranulf) was resting, so Ranulf and Hawk team up alongside a motley crew of fantasy tropes (Gort, (giant), Crow (elf), Baldin (dwarf) and Woman (sorceress - seriously that's what she's called throughout the film), to stop Voltan and his evil ways. 

With me so far? Good. So was that film really that bad?

(Sigh) Where to begin???

Let's get the casting out of the way first. John Terry, nice bloke he may be, is not good here. With dead, soulless eyes (that the camera keeps cutting to) and an unrepentant American accent that compliments his dead badger style delivery, it's almost as if he has watched an Eastwood western but completely missed the point (and tone) of the delivery. Of course, that performance is in complete contrast to Jack Palance who, let's be honest here, must have owed someone a fucking huge favour (or they paid him a metric fuck-ton of cash) in order to have appeared in this. His performance is full of gusto, much like a pantomime dame, and whilst his enthusiasm is contagious, it has all of the effect on Terry as a pocket cagoule in a thunderstorm. Palance knows he's starring in a crap film but is playing it for keeps and I really can't blame him for that.

The supporting cast (labelled guest stars in the opening credits - guest stars in a film??? TV, yes, film, no) are a mixed bag. Bernard Bresslaw as Gort has enough cheap film making experience in his past to know the score and, like Palance, give his role some welly. Ray Charleson as Crow is monotone and serious at all times, the consummate professional gun archer for hire. Talking very much like a robot, he's sounds identical to Roddy McDowell's V.I.N.C.E.N.T from Disney's The Black Hole. Peter O'Farell as Baldin plays it for laughs and pretty much winks at the camera in every scene he's in. The late, great W Morgan Sheppard delivers a sturdy and respectable performance as Ranulf - indeed, he's probably the best out of the lot of them and has that lovely gravelly voice that never seemed to change throughout the years. Patricia Quinn as Woman (Sorceress) gets a deal as raw as her throat must have been from all of that hoarse whispering. Sadly, you will care little for any of our heroes as there is bugger all character development throughout the film. We don't even get much of an explanation of Voltan's reliance on a Dark Lord, who seems to act more as a demonic ophthalmologist than a driving force for Voltan's actions. 

It doesn't end there though. 

Annette Crosbie gives the film some gravitas as the Abbess, gravitas that is kicked, stabbed, garrotted and burned by Shane Briant as Drogo, Voltan's adopted evil son. Every time he appears on screen, you can almost hear the booing from the crew, he's that much of a panto villain. The rest of the background cast, including Roy Kinnear, Christopher Benjamin, Derrick O'Connor, Patrick Magee and Warren Clarke are familiar faces and add a hint of Dr. Who style casting to the proceedings. In fact, it appears as if half of the cast were culled from that show's casting sheets, or were just out walking the dog one day when they were dragged into costume and make up then shoved in front of the camera. At least they'd have been used to the low budget shooting approach to the film, with costumes and props feeling like something out of Who or Blake's 7. That's also the level you should think of when it comes to the dialogue too - and that's not to detract from either TV show - at their worst, they're on a par with Hawk the Slayer, and that's probably doing them a disservice. Depending on the actor, they're either too pompous, too bored, overly dramatic or just plain phoning it in. Combine that with the aforementioned lack of character development and it's hard to feel any engagement with the story or the participants.

We few, we happy few, we band of RADA's

Ah, yes, the budget. Hawk has very much a distinctive look, and that look is either a cheap indoor set that would make the Crystal Maze blush, a random back garden for the flashback scenes or some woods just off the A3. Indoors, you can't escape the lack of money, no matter what the crew do to make it look better. Outside, they mostly rely on smoke machines to hide the fact that they only have 30 square meters of woodland to play with. And when I say smoke, I mean smoke, a Silent Hill level of haze, to the point where it is difficult to see what the hell is actually going on. As for those flashbacks, seriously, that is someone's prized rhododendron bush that Palance storms out of. Props are cheap, studio work is obvious and as for the creature in the dangerous forest, well... Just well...

A Jack in the bush...

The tosh continues with Crow and Ranulf's shooting of bow and crossbow respectively. Repeating the same arrow/bolt firing (did I mention Ranulf has a fully automatic crossbow?) is a basic trick, but falls down when they don't change aim but kill people all over the place. Hawk's sword (no, don't even go there, that's my job and I'll do that later...) is also a doozy, moving into and out of his hands at will, as well as having that same "ting" sound dubbed every single time it makes contact in a sword fight. To make things more exciting, we get slow motion bits, like Hawk on horseback, Hawk running, and even the climactic sword fight. Sadly, these do nothing to raise the pulse - hell, it just makes the latter look as bad as it probably was to film.

Like a "fire bolt", I'll come bouncing back to you...

There are more laugh out loud bits: the Sorceress rescues the team with a stick shooting green silly string to the sound of a gunshot whilst the sleeping bad guys remain undisturbed; the slaver with his over-sized Mace(!), and the use of an actual test tube to deliver a sleeping drug to a mug of beer is the cherry on the top. But hold on, says I, what about the climactic raid on the abbey? Oh Jeez! "Fire bolts" in the form of flashing coloured bouncing balls sounding like laser blasts, followed up by an avalanche of fake snow! By the time that battle ends, the place is a tip, yet two minutes later, Hawk and Voltan have their final fight in the same room with no mess but neatly re-arranged furniture and bodies. You do get to see Hawk's "Sword" pose, so there is that. 

A big Hawk's Sword... told you I would go there...

Finally, we get to the music. Some weird clash of folk, disco and pipe music, with added notes of Western film, pop and synthesiser, this is all over the place but also, curiously, well suited to the film. As batshit crazy as it sounds, you'll find yourself humming bits of it long after the movie has over. 

You may be thinking then that I don't like Hawk The Slayer much. Well, you'd be wrong. This is a gloriously bad film that remains entertaining and a cheesy delight to watch. Yes, the plot is daft. Yes, there are no real characters. Yes, the acting ranges from dire to panto-heaven. Yes, it's cheap. But, it doesn't hang around for long and that's to its credit. What you get is 90 odd minutes of cinematic Stilton that warrants, nay demands, a drinking game. Every time you hear "Woman!", every time pan pipes play, every time a recognisable bit player is on screen, the options are endless. Just don't drink every time there is smoke on screen. You'll be dead before the half way mark! 

A true classic of the "so bad, it's good" genre.

Turret Versus Broadside - Book Review

Turret Versus Broadside - An Anatomy of British Naval Prestige, Revolution and Disaster, 1860-1870 to give its full title was a book pointed out to me in an email from my mate Andy. He's on the Helion & Company mailing list and thought this book might be for me, questioning whether it was too early a period for my interest. Not at all was my reply and an order was quickly made. The author, Howard J. Fuller, has written a studious tome concerning the ten year period from the launch of the first iron-hulled frigate, HMS Warrior, to the loss of the masted turret ship HMS Captain. Beginning with the loss of the Captain and then going back to tell the tale of how and why the Captain came about, Fuller has written an engaging and thoughtful narrative about how the introduction of new technologies, changing international politics and personal rivalries culminated in the loss of nearly 500 lives.

There appears to be an almost unshakable belief that during the 19th Century, the Royal Navy ruled supreme, supporting a Pax Britannica that encouraged peaceful trade, led the fight against the slave trade and kept Britain at the height of its powers. That may be a very comforting idea, what with 150 years plus of nostalgia and pride, but it's really not that simple. In fact, Pax Britannica could be considered a jingoistic throwback because there was anything but Pax for a great deal of that century for neither Britannia nor many other countries.

Coming off the shambles that was the Crimean War, the Royal Navy found itself in a bit of a mess. Well supplied forts and an enemy that didn't venture out for a traditional Nelson-esque naval battle had deprived the senior service of widespread glory. Following that conflict, the traditional rivalry with it's erstwhile ally France had re-ignited and the launch of the latter's La Gloire, the first ocean-going ironclad, led to a naval race for ironclad ships. 

Alongside ironclads, which were a response to the experiences of the Crimean War, you also had the invention of turrets, the first being patented by Captain Cowper Phipps Coles in 1859. He saw the advantages of the turret over the broadside and wanted this to be proven in an actual ship. This smacked straight into opposition from Edward Reed (Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy 1863-1870) and Robert Spencer Robertson (Controller of the Navy 1861-1871), both of whom were heavily invested in the broadside design for ironclads.

But wait, as a man once said, there's more.

The American Civil War introduced the Monitor to the world and provided a powerfully defensive ship for ports and coastal areas, but one that was not suitable for ocean-travel. The thought of conflict between the US and Britain, so easily talked about in the early years of the 1860's quickly changed when it was seen that the Monitor and its descendants could prevent the Royal Navy from it's traditional method of war fighting and even threaten the security of Canada via the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

The increase in naval firepower brought round by huge smoothbore cannon and the latest in rifled muzzle-loaders also threatened the ironclads, as these guns could pierce the thickest of armour then floating. This led to pressure for increasing the size of ships - bigger guns, heavier armour, more complete armour protection and the continued idea of pitting ships against forts, which again had even bigger guns, all combined to worry the "public" about the strength of the navy. Indeed, the contrasting priorities of wooden sailing ships for empire policing, steam powered ironclads for fleet action and Monitor type vessels for attacking forts/port defence such as Cronstadt all led to a worrying increase in naval expenditure. It didn't help that singular, massively expensive ships like the Warrior were, at the same time, both wonderfully public displays of the strength of the Royal Navy and prime examples of how behind the times the service appeared to be, especially compared to other nations. 

This was not helped by the continued battle between the publicly owned shipyards and private ship builders. The former were seen as a traditional source of national power, the latter as profit-seeking wastrels. "Public" opinion, as expressed in letters to the newspapers and journals of the day (most notably the Times of London), was not inclined to see the Navy suffer for want of private profit. That these private yards were building ships for foreign orders seen as superior to those being built for the Royal Navy did not help matters either.

The need to cover the cost of the Navy also revealed the strains of Empire - would the "mother country" pay up or would she demand the constituent parts pay their fair share? And you may have noticed my use of the word "Public". That too, was another strain on the government, with the Reform Act of 1867 initially not only doubling the electorate, but also backfiring in 1868 when the Conservative government that formulated the act was voted out. The "Public" as it were, was a small part of the population but it's voice was heard to great, if not positive, effect.

The above it must be said, is mostly background, as the core of this book is the battle that Coles undertook to get a turreted ship designed and built. I'll not go into too much detail, but the political battles between Coles and the recalcitrant duo of Reed and Robinson were both private (within the confines of the Admiralty) and public (The Times and other publications), acrimonious and bitter. The two establishment figures come across as the villains of the piece, wedded to their existing designs for ships, deflecting criticism for not attempting to use turrets, especially after the Monitor appeared, and more concerned about private gain, be in money (Reed) or power (Robinson). The latter's attempt to gain control of ship building within the Royal Navy and to rubbish any private ship building was shocking even to contemporaries and together, they loaded the die against Coles when he came to design and have built (in a private yard) the Captain. 

The conclusion of this book is, in my opinion, fair to both sides and quite ironic. Despite the fears of falling behind other powers, the Royal Navy after 1870 had the Devastation building, a turreted, steam-powered ship that ended the argument between turrets and broadsides for good. It had also lost France as an enemy for at least a generation, that nation having suffered defeat at the hands of Prussia and having proven that, despite it's powerful navy, that service could do nothing against von Moltke's army.

Turret Versus Broadsides then is a book well worth reading if this period is your thing. It's very readable, engaging and well researched, shining a light on a period little discussed, but one with huge ramifications for naval and political developments for the rest of the 19th Century, As the author notes, by the time the court martial regarding the loss of the Captain had finished, British supremacy could be guaranteed for that generation, but not much longer.

You can buy Turret Versus Broadside direct from the publisher here. If you are a naval wargamer then Tumbling Dice do a rather decent HMS Captain in their 1/2400 Victorian naval range - you can order the Captain via this link here.

SnackSurprise - The January Box - Bulgaria

All good things come to an end and, with that being the case, welcome to the first and final snack box of 2021. For our last SnackSurprise post, we shall be experiencing the highs and lows of Bulgarian nibbles.

I Tetris'd the shit out of that!

Our final selection.

Would we end on a high or would the Bulgarian box prove to be a disappointment? A quiet Saturday afternoon would prove it one way or another.

They put lots in this bag, the bastards...

Savoury snacks first and we're off with Zayo Bayo, a corn-based snack with the flavours of cream and dill. In a promising start, the bag was full to the brim but that's where, for me, it turned sour. The smell released from the bag was like the foetid atmosphere of an ancient tomb. Past that, we sampled the rather soft, almost stale texture of the snack itself. The cream half did ok, but that dill really was off-putting and for me, it was a solid no. My good lady remains on the fence about these.

A new accompaniment to soup...???

We followed up with Kubeti Pizza, which turned out to be small toasted pizza flavoured bread cubes. Very crunchy and heavy on the tomato and oregano, my good lady remarked that these would be quite nice in tomato soup, resembling as they do, croutons. I can't help but agree, but not sure if we would ever be brave enough to try that particular recipe. 

Early enough for Beer Nuts, not early enough for beer.

The Beer Nuts were the last of the savoury snacks and, well, as you can see, they are peanuts covered in a crunchy, roasted shell. Ok, they're day-glo orange but actually tasted quite nice, with a lovely texture and a pleasant, not over-powering, flavour on top of the expected peanut. Sadly, these were not consumed with beer (it was half one in the afternoon and that's just too early for home drinking), but you can easily buy equivalents in the UK.

A bit squished, but tasty nonetheless.

Milkiss began what turned out to be one hell of a choccy fest. A triple-layered coca cake with a milk cream filling, this had suffered a little in transit but was still good enough to eat. And what a treat it was, a strong smell of chocolate was backed up with a similarly strong taste. The filling was just sweet enough without becoming cloying and the cocoa powder is a nice touch on the top. A lovely little snack.

Good stratification there.

A chocolate wafer next, with the very crumbly Nestle Mura. Not too hard, nor too dry, you get enough of the chocolate in the wafer and the milk filling kept it from desiccating your gob. A good choice to have alongside a coffee, it did the job.

The offending item is circled here.

The Balkan Cake Bar had more chocolate, wrapped around a soft cake bar that, frankly, had a very strange taste. It came across as sour cherry but had a perfume quality that sat badly with the overall idea of the bar. Not at all nice, so much so that I pre-emptively forgot to take a picture of it.

ORANGE!!!!!

Another wafer bar now, with the Borovets Wafer that's listed as having a hint of orange and peanut. That, gentle reader, is complete and utter horse shit. The orange in this chocolate wafer bar smacks you round the face and teabags you into submission. Having said that, there was still a subtle peanut essence there, but by God it's scared of the orange stomping around your gob. With maybe a bit less of the orange, this would have been a nice, if slightly boring, wafer bar, but alas...

It's a Milky Way.

Svoge Republika was another chocolate bar, and, simply put, it's a Milky Way, only slightly firmer. 'Nuff said.

Cake disc of honey/ginger goodness.

Medovinka was another snack of cake-y goodness, but by this point, both my good lady and I were suffering from the excess of chocolate. Even after having just a bite of each snack, things were getting a tad sickly. Still, this honey flavoured cake only had a thin choccy shell.  The cake itself was quite moist and had overtones of ginger as well. However, there was no way in Christendom or any other spiritual land that we could handle more than a bite each. Still, nice enough.

Cat poo? Resin block? Nope. Sugar HELL!!!

What the actual fuck is this? Chaika Dessert was a silver foil wrapped hard nugget of... Well, what? Apparently a classic dessert bar, this seemed to be a foil wrapped cat turd, or a small block of resin (allegedly... so I have been informed...). It was actually a thick chocolate shelled bar of sugar. The white fondant filling felt like 100 percent sucrose that definitely set teeth on edge. Extremely unpleasant and kind of made the heart pine for foiled cat poo.

Horrible little flowery bastards.

Temenuzhki Drops were the final snack, a small, hard sweet in the shape of flowers. They had a horrible floral taste of Violet and I couldn't finish mine. My good lady lasted another 20 seconds (she's made of sterner stuff) but in the end, she too disposed of the offending sweet. However, to avoid waste, these shall be kept as my brother in law likes this kind of stuff. Weirdo...

A bottle of fizzy honey piss... interesting...

Last, but not least, was Derby Etar, the drink of the box, and was advertised as having the "iconic" Bulgarian flavour of Etar, a combination of caramel and honey. What it certainly had was an unpleasant smell once you cracked the bottle top open, but when you had a drink, you knew why. It was foul. Very floral, the honey overpowers you and made this a horrible drink. As per usual, it felt like we're more unlucky than lucky when it came to the drinks side of SnackSurprise.

Overall, this was a mixed box, with an over-reliance on chocolate and some favours listed in the guide as "interesting" but coming over as just plain bad. Still, one or two highlights means this month's selection wasn't a complete bust.

So then, that's it for SnackSurprise. The subscription has been cancelled and we shall receive no more. It's been an interesting experiment and we've found some lovely little snacks, but there haven't half been some bad ones as well. It's certainly been an experience.

Amiga Addict - Issue Two Review

The latest issue of Amiga Addict landed through the letter box at the beginning of the week and it was something I'd really been looking forward to. When it was announced this issue was for sale, I took the opportunity to subscribe for 12 issues, which not only gets me a physical copy in the post but also a pdf copy on the day of publication. Although I downloaded that copy, I resisted the temptation to read it as the whole point of subscribing to enjoy the physical mag itself. Still, it's nice to have an electronic copy I can transfer to a tablet for future reference. So was issue 2 worth waiting for? Oh, yes!

But before we get into that, a quick note. This will be the last "review" of Amiga Addict from me. By that, I mean I won't be putting up identikit posts every month as that will just get a tad monotonous. However, when there is something to talk about, maybe an article that has caught my attention, or something I have followed up on after reading about it in the magazine, then I'll put out a post that references the mag. As it stands, my final comments at the bottom of page should be taken as writ until such time as I tell you otherwise. You'll also note, by the way, that I've only put one picture in this post, and that's of the cover. If you want to see more, go visit the Amiga Addict website and buy a copy. 

For the magazine itself, it begins with the usual regular sections (News, Keyboard Warriors, Back in the Day and Demoscene), which are entertaining and informative as before. However, the bulk of the magazine is made up of articles that definitely made me think subscribing was a good idea and these are divided into four sections: Amiga Focus, Amiga Insight, On Screen and Testbench.

The Amiga Focus section is comprised of five pieces: a photo montage of Amiga Addict in the hands of the public, the Amiga on the high street, UK user groups and meets, memoirs of an Amiga gamer and  Amiga magazines. I particularly liked the one on UK user groups, though sadly there isn't one in the north-east of England.

Amiga Insight contains the meat of the magazine, the four pages making up the first part of Memories of Dave Needle being both funny and poignant, with part two following next month. The six pages on DMA Design brought new insights of the famous software developer, whilst A day in the life of Amiga Action was a lovely little nostalgia trip to the 1990's. Finally, we have a two page article on Demoparties containing an interview with organiser Ruairi Fullam. Each of the articles is well written, no fluff, no filler, and all very interesting.

On Screen gives us games, from opinion piece Six of the Best, to a game guide for Moonstone and reviews of The Addams Family, Jim Power in 'Mutant Planet' (never heard of it but I do want to play it now after reading the review), No Second Prize and Super Sprint DRS. I quite like the retro reviews, especially as it brings titles that I knew nothing about to my notice. That's part of the reasoning behind my slowly growing collection of 3DO reviews for Retrovideogamer.co.uk, to bring attention to a format and its games that might have passed gamers by at the time and may be unknown to younger folk today. Just don't keep track of the average review score for these though, this was not a system blessed with classics...

Back to the magazine and we have a piece on the CD32, a machine I really wanted to get hold of back in the day but one that I never found the money for. Maybe one day, if the price is right... I hope this series continues for many issues to come and I thoroughly enjoyed the reviews of CD32 titles Bubba and Stix, and Cannon Fodder.

Testbench gives us news on the latest OS4.1 update, a review of Amiga Power, a soundtrack album that I think may be making it's way onto a wish list soon and a brilliant two-pager on the CDTV, another seemingly forgotten and vastly underappreciated Commodore product, and one that, if my student loan hadn't been hammered by an N64, I should have picked up from a second-hand shop in Kingston-upon-Thames way back in 1997, but didn't. What can I say, I was young and foolish... How to adapt a light gun for your Amiga and the piece on DJ-ing with the PT-1210 software both get two pages a piece and add a bit of variety - not my cup of tea but well worth reading out of interest anyway. The best article, for me, was the Amiga Tech tree, an easy to understand single page guide to what hardware/software options you have if you want to enjoy the Amiga. Hopefully, there will be some more in-depth pieces in future focusing on this topic. The editorial notes there was a planned review of the UnAmiga board but the hardware remained stuck in postal hell at the time of publication so maybe next month...

It's nice to see a couple more advertisers this month as well, both from a consumer point of view and a revenue one for the magazine, and the announcement on Discord that over 1000 copies of the first issue were sold bodes well for the future.

There we have it then, the second issue of Amiga Addict and one that continues the quality, in both writing and production, of the first. A brilliant issue and I'm more than happy with the decision to have subscribed. You can check out the magazine website here, and purchase either a single issue to give it a try or start a subscription from the currently available issue. 

Acorn - A World in Pixels - Book Review

Acorn - A World in Pixels is both a celebration of 8-bit computer games and of the hardware they were released on: the BBC Micro and it's cut-down, cheaper cousin, the Electron from Acorn Computers. I was too young for these machines (just), but I remember playing Stryker's Run on a Beeb in my form classroom in first year comp before the Archimedes took over computing duties at that school. Obviously, that was outside of lesson time...

Book and slipcase - high quality indeed.

Anyhoo, back to the book and what you get after paying the very reasonable £29.99 including postage is something that little bit different. 170mm x 230mm and weighing in at 476 pages, it's quite a hefty tome, and that's before you consider the cardboard slipcase it ships in, the case mirroring the hardback cover and dust jacket of the book. Everything about this screams quality and the thick, glossy paper lends itself well to the format, given that there is a ton of imagery in this book.

Beginning with a short origin story of the two machines, followed by contributions by hardware designer Steve Furber CBE and broadcaster/writer/comedian/retro fan Iain Lee, we are quickly led to the first major section of the book: The Publishers. Here, we get interviews and articles about the major software publishers for the Acorn machines, from Superior Software to Acornsoft, Tynesoft and more. These are enlightening in the extreme and whilst today you might consider software publishing to be an organised corporate process, that was not always the case back in the 1980's. In fact, it was very much the early days of the industry and tales both good and bad highlight its growing pains as home computers gained in popularity and financial success. 

Then we get to the games.

Some 150 titles are covered here over 360 plus pages - some games are given a half page each, others a quarter page, whilst the majority get one or two pages. The text accompanying the titles varies, from snippets of contemporary magazine reviews and comments from current day retro gamers, to full-on interviews with the developers, some of which are dotted around between the games, breaking up the content nicely. The selection is varied and, to be honest, I only knew of a handful of them. As I said before, I missed out on the Beeb era. However, there are some classic titles here, and I am not just talking about the usual suspects of Elite and Repton. No, what you get is a wide-ranging view of the Beeb's and Electron's software catalogue throughout the history of those machines. From arcade "homage" (Killer Gorilla - Donkey Kong, Planetoid - Defender and Hopper - Frogger to name a few) to original titles, (Revs, 3D Pool and Thrust), each game here is treated to sumptuous screenshots that show off the graphical capabilities of the Beeb and Electron in their best light. Yeah, they look big and blocky but that is part of their charm and one of the key points made in this book is the effort put in by the coders, artists and musicians to create these games. Pretty much every interview has a snippet on the struggle it took to code in Assembler to get the most out of the Beeb and, especially, the Electron. How to get more than one screen mode displayed at a time and how to manage the 32kb of memory when the screen alone took 20kb, those were just two of the issues developers worked with and there are many more (you'll just have to read the book to learn about them).

There is no scrimping on the screenshots.

Speaking of the developers, what really struck me whilst reading this was the number of names I recognised from the era that still ring a bell today, and again, I am not just talking about the usual suspects of Geoff Crammond (Revs, Grand Prix), Ian Bell (Elite) and David Braben (Elite, now Frontier Developments). For example, here are three names that, over that last thirty years, have had an effect on gaming in the UK following on from developing for the Beeb: Martin Edmondson - co-founder of Reflections (now part of Ubisoft), creator of the Driver series among others. Darryl Still, who moved to Atari and oversaw the launch of the ST, Lynx and Jaguar. Chris Roberts (who created Stryker's Run which I enjoyed so much), moved back to the US and created a little known space combat sim called Wing Commander, its numerous sequels and spin off's, the film version (of which I wrote about here) and later founded Cloud Imperium Games, currently developing Star Citizen which holds the record for the most amount raised via crowd-funding in videogaming history (and is still going). There are others who remained in the industry, whilst more than a few decided to leave what was becoming a vastly different beast to the bedroom coding they grew up with. It is these personal stories that bring life to "A World in Pixels" and really show you how much the industry has changed. No more copying cassettes and selling them via small ads in the back of magazines, or sending off a tape with a game on it to a publisher, getting accepted and then given a few hundred pounds for the pleasure. What this book does is highlight and revel in the era where videogames in the UK were moving from a cottage industry towards where is it now, a still changing multi-billion pound entertainment giant.

The artwork shines (as does the paper).

Not all of the stories are about the good times though, and for every good company, there were others that didn't pay royalties on time (or at all), and whilst it is easy to romanticise those early days, there was very much a wild-west attitude as well, that the popularity of the industry would vanish overnight and money had to be made whilst the going was good. What is clear from a lot of the contributions is that quite a few of those devs were creating games for the technical challenge, or just to make a few quid on the side - selling a video game was more lucrative than a paper round - but there was no long term aim here, no real plan for a career. That is became so for some can be considered a definite success story.

After the games comes a selection of interviews (and a remembrance) of those known for pushing the art and sound capabilities of the Beeb to its limits. This is followed by a smaller section on the magazines of the period: Acorn User, The Micro User, A&B Computing and Electron User. A piece on Lost and Found games (some of which were mentioned in passing earlier in the book) is followed by a Retro section, covering the Beeb scene today and a few games that have been released in recent years.

Stryker's Run - great for pre-registration chilling.

Finishing this book left me feeling quite melancholy. It felt as if I had missed the glory days of computing in the UK. Yeah, the Amstrad CPC 464 was a great little machine but it seemed to lack the passion that the Beeb invoked (and invokes to this day). The Amiga was another brilliant machine, and whilst its extra capabilities were mind blowing compared to the 8-bit era, it was another step removed from the bedroom coder, with greater numbers of people being required to create truly jaw dropping games. Oh, there were still individual devs here and there, but the gaming industry was changing, and even as the 16-bit computer market retreated under the onslaught of consoles - both cheaper and more powerful - it was clear that the days of the bedroom coder were numbered, as were the days of relatively cheap home computing - at least until DOS/Windows PC's dropped in price and became truly mainstream.

But to feel any sense of sadness would be to miss the point of this book. These games should be remembered and celebrated, as should their creators. Without the fervour of picking every scrap of ability from these machines, the gaming industry in the UK would have been, and today would be, far less vibrant. "Acorn - A World in Pixels" then is not just a thoroughly enjoyable book about an internationally little known 8-bit format, it is also a history about games creation in the UK during the industry's formative years, and that makes it not only an essential purchase for fans of the Beeb and Election, but also for those with an interest in the history of the industry itself.

You can purchase Acorn: A World in Pixels direct from the publisher here.

50 ST Games you have to play - Book Review

"50 ST Games you have to play" by Karl Morris is the latest release from Zafinn Books and, as the title states, gives you a list of ST games that you have to play (in the author's opinion). It is not just that as you can probably tell from the cover. It is also a celebration marking the 35th anniversary of the ST range (1985-2020) as well. Unlike the two previous coffee table-style Atari-themed volumes from Zafinn Books (reviewed here), 50ST (that's what I'll be calling it for the rest of this review) is a 220-page A5 book of predictably high print quality and good production values. A couple of stickers were also included with the book.

Priced at €35 including postage (about £32 depending on the conversion rate), this may seem a little steep to some but, as with the "We Love Atari" books, this is a small scale independent publisher focussing on a niche market and when you consider the cost of postage (€7.50), I don't think the price is too high at all when you consider what you get.  

Of course, if this were just the author's 50 favourite games, it would be an interesting read, finding out why each particular game made it onto the list, but also a pretty boring one. After all, that could get quite monotonous for fifty titles. However, this book is not just a list of games. Oh no. It's much more than that.

After a touching dedication on the first page, we start with a 36-page potted history of the Atari ST, from its creation and initial success, to the faltering of the early 1990's and its final removal from the market. There is also a lovely list of the 26(!) models that were announced, some of which that made it to the market, and some that rightly (or wrongly) didn't. You'll find a deeper history in volume 2 of "We Love Atari" but, from 50ST's perspective, this section gives the reader everything they need to know about the ST. Having said that, you really should buy that twin volume set as and when you can.

Next up is the introduction to the games, and the author uses this section to talk about the very earliest titles released for the system as well as how he played each title before including it within this tome. Following on from the earliest titles, the rest of the selection is grouped by genre: arcade conversions, strategy, adventure, unique games, shoot 'em ups, simulations and sports. As you can see from the pictures below, each entry is divided into sections. First up, we have the game's title, developer, publisher and the year of release. We get a half page of text describing the game and why the author has chosen it for the list. There is a review box, where the author has put a nice graphic in to state how long you'd need to play that game to get a good idea how the game plays, a graphic denoting the author's determination of the title's learning curve, and then a four column review score made up of graphics, sound, playability and an overall rating. A screenshot of the game framed in an Atari SC1435 monitor round off that page.

First page of a game's entry - apologies for the reflection.

The second page gives you a half page screen shot of the game's title/loading screen, a quarter page image of the box art, and finally an "Interesting Things" boxout with fun facts and tidbits about that game. A nice touch here is that the second page is framed in the style of the GEM desktop. 

Second page of a game's entry - less shiny.

Between the games, there are ad breaks - pages showing the advertising posters of some of the titles featured. We also get smaller sections on honourable mentions, recommendations, deeper delves in particular genres and a two page piece by Jeff Minter, which is a great little bonus. The final section of the book covers how to emulate the ST on modern day systems, as well as a reprint of an article the author published on his own website about the ST's sound chip, the Yamaha YM-2149, and some great promotional pictures of the various computers Atari launched during the ST's reign.

As you can probably tell from the above, this is quite a densely packed book and in truth, it does take a bit of reading if you indulge in the time to savour the contents. The relaxed style of writing suits the topic brilliantly and the presentation is clear and easy to follow. The author's passion for the ST and the games he has highlighted is clear to see, and the quality of 50ST matches that of his earlier books.

As for the games chosen, well, that's his personal choice but I will say that it's a varied selection and, having played quite a few of them back in my Amiga days, I'd agree with a lot of his choices. Of the ones I have not played, it has awakened an interest in giving them a go. Certainly, memories were brought back  by the screenshots and descriptions. One of the joys of this book is that most of these games also had Amiga versions (some also had Archimedes conversions too). Even if you weren't an ST owner back in the day, you'll still find plenty of interest here from the heyday of 16/32-bit home computers. 

I also enjoyed the section on emulation, as this is pretty much the quickest, cheapest and easiest way you can experience the joys of the ST today, much as it is with the Amiga. Unlike the ST sadly, legal Amiga emulation is quite simple and easy. Same with RISC OS, where the OS is now open-source and just a free download away. 

There is only one (very slight) criticism of note - there is an apology stuck to the inside back cover of the book about typo's and yes, I did note a couple that the author had not commented upon within his apology. However, these in no way spoil the book and I am sure that future print runs will correct those in due course. I don't wish to be seen throwing stones as regular readers of this blog will have noticed the odd boo-boo and I quite like this glass house as it is... :-)

50ST is another great release from Zafinn Books and the author is to be congratulated on an entertaining combination of games and accompanying articles. Not only a great standalone volume for ST fans and fans of that era of home computing, this is a fantastic companion piece to the "We Love Atari' duo. Highly recommended.

You can purchase this fine book here.

Virtual Cities - Book Review

Virtual Cities by Konstantinos Dimopoulos is a more studious videogame tome than I usually read. When I first saw it on the Unbound crowd-funding publishing site, I had missed the original funding drive. Fast forward a couple of months and its presence on Amazon quickly led to a purchase. So what exactly is this book about?

Dimopoulos is a games designer and game urbanist (with a Masters and PhD in Urban Planning - check out his impressive CV here) who, alongside visual artist Maria Kallikaki, has created a book that investigates the design and implementation of cities in a selection of forty-five videogames. Sitting somewhere between shelf-based reference and coffee table atlas, this is a high quality 208-page hardback though a Kindle version is also available. Each of the entries is given between four and six pages, each consisting of a description of the city, a dedicated map of the settlement, a couple of illustrations and a box out containing comments from either Dimopoulos or, in a small number, that particular title's designer.

The descriptions of the cities themselves are definitely the highlight and each one has been cleverly done. Rather than have identikit accounts which, if repeated for each of the entries would get more than a little stale, the author has framed each city differently. Be it a travel guide, a "historical" note, or the telling of a legend, this in-universe approach is fresh and engaging. By writing about each city as if it were real, you not only gain essential background information and atmosphere, but also a real sense of depth to the story behind each one. And that is a key point for this book - the city is not just a setting, it is part of the story itself and exists not only to wander around but also to provide immersion for the player. By having carefully designed city settings, the engagement the player feels is increased. With the examples chosen for Virtual Cities, the author has proven this with each of the selected games. 

It also helps that Dimopoulos has not constrained himself to a particular gaming period - the games covered here were released between 1983 and 2018. Nor has concentration been given to purely blockbuster titles - I had to Google some of the games as I had never heard of them. What is clear from each entry is that Dimopoulos knows his stuff - both in the sense of videogames design and urban development. He points out exactly how a particular city feels "right', real and believable. He is also clear that, where a settlement is physically impossible, it still works as a concept and to the established in-game rules whatever they may be. Despite the changes in style and presentation, each entry is easy to read and consistently good. 

The commentary sections are interesting and of a suitably different tone from the main text, whether written by Dimopoulos or a guest writer. Here, we get a wider view of the city's place in game, how it relates to real world theory and the various influences that led to its creation. Although much shorter in length, the insights provided by these compliment the main text wonderfully and serve as an explanation as to why each city was included in the book.

The illustrations are stylistic and may, to some, appear quite basic, but the illustrator has done a good job in my humble opinion. The city maps are great, and whilst they may not match the in-game maps you might be familiar with, it is best to consider these as representations rather than direct copies.

I didn't rush through this book, instead reading a couple of entries at a time and letting my mind work its way through the ideas and concepts presented. After finishing it, I admit to being intrigued by some of the landscapes described and have purchased a number of the titles featured here to go with a few I already own. What I feel this book does is give a new perspective on what is a key part of many a video game - the character of the urban environment the player finds themselves in. The importance of having a believable canvas has always been relevant and the fact that videogames developers were thinking about this nearly forty years ago shows that it's not a new idea to the medium. If characters are placed in a city or town that doesn't feel right then it can destroy the very immersion the creators are aiming for. Once that immersion is gone, it can be impossible to get back, spoiling the experiences of the player. In Virtual Cities, you will find many examples that demonstrate that even the smallest detail will benefit that sense of immersion. 

With Virtual Cities, Dimopoulos has written a brilliant book that takes a unique approach to videogames and one that tackles a subject little raised in the art form - because yes, videogames should be considered an art form. This book is not only for those who play videogames, but is also a reference for games designers and, really, anyone interested in world building in general. All in all, a highly recommended read.

Virtual Cities can be found on Unbound.com here, and on Amazon here. You can find out more about the author here.