It’s not easy bein’ green
Nebulus is cute. It has a cute little character, Pogo, who lives in a cute little world populated by cute little hostile nasties, and cute little sound effects accompany Pogo’s jaunts to the top of cylindrical towers that, for whatever reason, our bipedal frog-like chum has decided to rid his world of.
Don’t let this fool you, because if ever there’s a game that’ll make you want to smash a joystick to pieces (or your Wii, if you’re playing on Virtual Console), this is the one. And that’s because this game is hard.
The premise is simple: climb to the top of each tower via a maze of stairs, lifts and collapsing platforms. Once atop a tower, Pogo demolishes it (presumably, they aren’t well built; either that or Pogo hides extremely powerful explosives up his bottom), and you get to relax for a few seconds by playing a bonus game that finds the wee green guy catching fish using a high-tech submarine.
One might wonder: if Pogo has access to such technology, why not just hire a spaceship and blow the towers to pieces? But if he did that, we wouldn’t have this game. Instead, you’re lumbered with creeping slowly up the towers, ever mindful of the tight time-limit and the fact that absolute precision is required to pass many of Pogo’s adversaries.
This would all be fine if the game was utter rubbish—it could then be cast aside and you could get on with playing something a mite less frustrating. But the fact is that even 21 years after Nebulus first arrived on the C64, it’s still annoyingly captivating. You’re sucked in by the disorientating manner in which the towers are navigated (unlike most platform games, there are no edges—instead, Pogo moves ‘around’ the towers, which rotate in real-time on the screen, an effect that was astonishing at the time and still looks pretty today) and the utterly devious puzzles. And when you finally demolish one of the structures, you feel a true sense of achievement. Just don’t expect to get very far until half your joysticks are in tiny pieces.
Nebulus is available now on Virtual Console for 500 Wii points (about £3.50), and the sedatives you’ll need to calm yourself down after a few games are probably available from your GP.
Pogo discovered fishing was much easier when you have access to a submarine with a gun.
June 18, 2008. Read more in: Commodore 64, Gaming, Rated: 4/5, Retro gaming, Reviews, Wii Virtual Console
It’s a dog’s life
Perhaps due to it helming short-lived sci-fi title Starlord in the late 1970s, Strontium Dog always felt like it could happily take the leading role in 2000 AD if Judge Dredd ever nipped off for a quick holiday. Following the exploits of mutant bounty hunters, most notably Johnny Alpha, it was a remarkably fully-formed story right from the off, and is a piece of politically laced science fiction with a smidgen of Western that seems to modern sensibilities to marry X-Men, Firefly and typically British 2000 AD grit.
Rebellion’s Strontium Dog line has been nothing short of astonishing—a remarkably complete collection, charting the strip from its earliest days, even unearthing the most obscure related content (including strange text pages from long-forgotten 2000 AD annuals). With the suitably named Final Solution, the story reaches its end.
To talk in any depth about the epic tale would give too much away, but the general premise has a corrupt British government using a combination of magic and technology to deal with the ‘mutant menace’, teleporting mutants to a deadly dimension under the guise of sending them to utopia. As Alpha and his allies uncover the truth, they have to do all in their power to stop mutants being wiped out once and for all.
Although the original Strontium Dog artist Carlos Ezquerra was absent from this tale, his role was ably taken by Simon Harrison and Colin MacNeil, although the shift from one artist to another mid-story is jarring, due to their different styles. However, Harrison’s dynamic energy works well in the early part of the story, as does MacNeil’s more considered painterly approach during the tragic ending.
Not to be outdone by its forerunners, the book also dutifully packs in a bunch of extras that weren’t squeezed into previous trades, including morality tale The Town that Died of Shame, and the fun Judge Dredd crossover Top Dog, along with the usual selection of covers. And while this collection doesn’t quite hit the dizzy heights of the previous two books in the series, it still comes highly recommended to fans of Strontium Dog and damn good comic-books alike.
Strontium Dog: The Final Solution is available now for £13.99, as are the previous four volumes, all of which are essential reading. For more information about 2000 AD graphic novels, check out the 2000 AD Books website.
Johnny Alpha does his level best to prompt religious madness by bleeding from where his eyes should be.
May 30, 2008. Read more in: Graphic novels, Rated: 4/5, Reviews