Where would we have been, without Turbo Loaders on games ? Slightly more bored or a greater reason to sleep unlike Cats who seem to do that most of their lives ? Well, anything to speed up the time in waiting for your favourite game to load, isn't that bad ? Three questions in the first paragraph is asking for trouble, but despite the wonder of Turbo Loaders, there is also the terror of them failing at the same time ...
Just two for you this time, in between my rant about Turbo Loaders ...
Mastertronic Added Dimension ::
Storm Bringer
Ricochet ::
Dragon Skulle
I have some favourite Turbo Loaders and also some most hated ones, more so for their total failure in my experience on certain C2N Tape Decks. Don't get me wrong, Commodore's ROM Loader is fine on smaller games and programs, but we must praise Turbo Loaders !
Favourite [ 3 ] ::
1 : Burner ( Mastertronic )
2 : Novaload ( US Gold and Ocean )
3 : Bleepload ( Firebird )
Worst [ 3 ] ::
1 : Cyberload ( System 3 ) - Why ? : Some Backup Cartridges needed to be removed in order to play the game.
2 : Wildsave ( Thalamus ) - Why ? : The Loader is way too sensitive on certain C2N Tape Decks. I hated those thin multi-coloured lines when the loading failed !
3 : Virgin Loader ( Virgin ) - Why ? : Multi-coloured lines of pure hatred on load errors !
One of the two games from this batch, Dragon Skulle, has quite a long loading time. Counter 149, that's about 5-6 mins or maybe a bit more. Quite a chunky wait after a loading screen ! Some of Mastertronic's Ricochet releases have Invade-a-load and when the game has loaded you can see the decrunching process happen, as characters change colour and go slightly corrupt. Does this mean the original game was frozen and then restarted with a JSR e.g. ( $4000 ) ?
Anyway, the current collected total so far is ... 180 !
N-i-n-e-t-e-e-n ! A line from Paul Hardcastles' 19 is more difficult to write in words, than it is pronoucing it verbally. So, just take yourself back to when you first heard the track and then go and listen to it on YouTube, is it how you remember it ?
Anyhow, it is Batch 19 with a few shoot'em ups and a real classic, Eddie Kidd Jump Challenge. Loosely based on the British equivalent of the USA Stuntman, Evel Kenievel.
Beat-it or rather Jammin' II is a pretty good game, where you must collect notes and use Escalator type areas on the level to reach them. Die Alien Slime felt like an enhanced Shoot'em up Construction Kit game. Though, there is nothing wrong with that, I could help feeling a reminder of this when playing it. Again, Try and check out some or all of the games that appear in the All About Mastertronic Blog, you are sure to find something of interest.
Mastertronic ::
Beat-it, Frenesis, Starforce Fighter, Starlifter and Zzzz.
Mastertronic Plus ::
Die Alien Slime and Mindtrap.
Ricochet ::
Aliens and Eddie Kidd Jump Challenge.
Batch 20 won't be far off ...
Whoa ! It's October and very hot outside, instead of it being cold and autumnal, like we all love and hate. Anyway, we have raced up to another Batch with a considered rare game from the Americana stable. I still found a copy from the usual source, eBay !
You might not think of Zorro being a hard to find title, but like many titles, there is always the odd one that becomes a challenge to track down. The graphical style of the game kind of reminds me a Conan and Goonies. Both Datasoft titles as well, ironically.
Americana ::
Zorro
Mastertronic Plus ::
Leviathan
The other title of this Batch, is Leviathan. A rather unusual Zaxxon clone with some of the craziest controls I've ever seen on a shoot'em up. When you do get the hang of it, it's good to shoot the baddies out of the space sky and try to get ahead through the level. I did find loading different Landscapes from Tape a little crazy, loading from Disk must be a tad easier.
Coming sometime soon ... Batch 19 !
