Hop to it!

As if bomb squads don’t have a hard enough time, Jumpman is tasked in this platform game with defusing bombs in Jupiter Headquarters, a place that clearly needs a serious heath and safety check. Precarious platforms and all manner of hazards await our athletic chum in this dated, playable and frequently frustrating platform game.

With Jumpman originally arriving on 8-bit computers in the early 1980s, it’s not much to look at, and the sound is guff, but designer Randy Glover had a wicked sense of humour and a real sense for level design. Therefore, each of the 30 levels brings its own set of dangers, such as ledges that vanish once you defuse a bomb, UFOs that dart around the screen, and manic robots hell-bent on killing you in the face. Also, when you inevitably come a cropper and tumble down the platforms to your untimely demise (and a jolly, slightly sarcastic rendition of the death march), you still defuse bombs that you bump into and can therefore sometimes complete a level during your dying moments, which is a nice touch.

Aside from poor aesthetics, niggles with Jumpman largely relate to some screens being absurdly difficult and controls being twitchy on the faster levels. However, if you can put yourself in the mind of a 1980s gamer—it was a time when gamers were real men: hardcore, but with mullets—you’ll find Jumpman a compelling, challenging, and occasionally maddening game.

Jumpman is available now for 500 Wii points (about £3.50). It’s tough, so wimpy gamers need not apply. Mullets, however, are optional.

Ignoring the ladder entirely, our hero aimed for the bomb by leaping majestically.

It rocks. It’s diamond. Etc.

In the early 1980s, Peter Liepa was tasked by First Star Software to rescue a project that was, at the time, a canned and barely playable clone of obscure arcade game The Pit. Rather than fudge a solution on his Atari, he instead deconstructed the 1981 Centuri title, playing with its component parts of digging through earth, avoiding monsters and collecting jewels. What evolved was a game that in every way bettered its arcade-based inspiration and provided the cash cow that First Star subsequently milked to exhaustion over the next 24 years.

The core of Boulder Dash is simple: guide Rockford (who, depending on various artistic interpretations, is either a prospector or a cave mite with a penchant for munching diamonds) around various underground caves, tunnelling through dirt, avoiding deadly monsters, grabbing diamonds and seeking out the exit once a set number of gems has been pilfered. Tight time limits, varying speeds, excellent level design and occasional new foes ensure that Boulder Dash never lets up, and once you’ve conquered its 16 caves and four intermission screens, you’re plonked back on a harder Cave A, with a different layout and an increase in enemy numbers.

An almost perfect combination of frenetic arcade gaming and thoughtful (but quickfire) puzzling and strategy, Boulder Dash is one of the very few games from the early 1980s that is a true classic. And although the C64 version on Wii Virtual Console doesn’t quite match the Atari 800 original, it comes close. Sadly, the majority of subsequent Boulder Dash games (including the recent—and dire—DS Boulder Dash Rocks) never managed to capture the magic inherent in Liepa’s original, and so here’s hoping this rerelease enables a whole new generation of gamers to fully embrace and enjoy the game, and long-time gamers to fall in love with it all over again.

Few games truly stand the test of time, but Boulder Dash is a rare example of one that will still be worth playing in 2028, let alone today. Essential.

Boulder Dash is available now for 500 Wii points (about £3.50). If you like videogames and don’t buy this, you’re an idiot. Oh, and no the NES version wasn’t better, Nintendo fans.

One of the best videogames ever, assuming you have some taste.

Alternatively: just stop. Right now

Sometimes, you just can’t go back. Games built solely around engrossing gameplay (Pac-Man) or a core of fantastic gameplay but with added fantastic visual effects (Defender) still engage today. But for some genres, notably racing, it’s all about thrills driven by visual excitement. And if there’s one thing lacking in early 1980s C64 racers, it’s visual excitement. And thrills. (OK, two things.)

Back in the day, Pitstop II wowed. Its split-screen enabled two players to battle it out head-to-head (well, tyre-to-tyre), or for Billy no-mates to take on computer opponents. As the name suggests, Epyx were rather excited about the pitstop component, which enabled you to refuel and change worn tyres.

On playing the game now, it’s almost impossible to see it as anything other than a relic. The graphics are dull, the sound mind-numbingly tedious, and the gameplay shockingly boring. The pitstop, supposedly a high-point, is absurd in its sluggishness and just gets in the way. When it boils down to it, Pitstop II is merely a split-screen Pole Position, with an unwanted extra ‘scene’. The thing is, Pole Position is actually more fun.

Pitstop II is available now on Virtual Console for 500 Wii points (£3.50ish). You’ll also need some rose-tinted glasses, however, and those cost extra.

This is the news! Rising fuel costs slash pit team personnel!

Hiiiiyaaaaaaaaaaa!

Once upon a time, all fighting games were about Eastern pyjama-wearing gents kicking each-other in the face. They were sedate affairs, based on tactics and cunning, epitomised by Melbourne House’s Way of the Exploding Fist. And then IK+ arrived, blowing everything else out of the water.

On the surface little had changed: there was an extra fighter and a prettier backdrop. But having that extra competitor on-screen transformed the fighting genre, turning the sedate into the frenetic, ensuring the player rarely got a chance to catch their breath.

In today’s market, IK+ looks blocky and dated. The C64’s graphics lack the charm of a Pac-Man or a Mario and the definition of a Spectrum title. But the animation is fluid, and the collision detection spot-on.

Importantly, though, the gameplay still shines through after over two decades. Moves are carefully assigned to logical control positions, making fights intuitive and instinctive, rather than a memory test. And with its combination of varied opponent styles (they change every level), frantic bonus game (deflect bouncing balls with a shield) and its lack of button-mashing, this classic from yesteryear genuinely manages to give most of its modern equivalents a thoroughly good kicking.

IK+ is available now on Virtual Console for 500 Wii points (£3.50ish). If you think that’s too much for a 21-year-old game, more fool you.

Old man speak wisely. Red player can’t even tie belt properly.

Can you play Last Ninja 2 on Wii? Shuriken!

In the second game of System 3’s once-lauded series, the last ninja finds himself mysteriously dumped in modern-day New York (well, the New York of 1988, hence the distinct lack of dozens of Starbucks). Once again, his mission is to defeat the evil shogun Kunitoki, with only his wits, weapons and a dreadful control method to aid him.

Plot-wise, this is the kind of high-concept garbage that makes for dodgy Hollywood movies (“Hey! Let’s put a caveman in 2008! No, wait! How about a rap star in the 1800s?”), but the juxtaposition of ninja and New York somehow works, resulting in the best title in the Last Ninja series.

The refined graphics go some way to help, and the variety of locations—Central Park, downtown, sewers, an opium factory, an office block—offer a sense of variety and real-world wonder that the original game and its sequel can’t match. Sonically, the game also appeals, with Matt Gray’s thumping SID tunes driving you on.

Where the game fails, much like the original, is in its lack of gameplay. Combat is tedious and borderline canned, and gauging distances for numerous fussy jumps is regularly made problematic by the isometric viewpoint. On the C64, this is bad enough, but Wii owners will likely find the game an exercise in frustration when playing using the Wii remote.

My advice is to leave your happy childhood memories of the game alone, along with those for things like Thundercats, Bagpuss and The A Team, which are also rubbish in the cold, harsh light of the modern day.

The Last Ninja 2 is available now on Virtual Console for 500 Wii points (£3.50ish). As Nebulus came out at the same time, you should get that instead. It was also glossy and visually exciting in the 1980s, but it happens to still be a decent game.

No, I’m the last ninja! No, I’m the last ninja! Etc.