Al 'n' Dave's Speed Reviews A-Z: Q

QUADRON

(Andrew Beale, 2018)

"You ain't going anywhere near my flowers, you robo-ba$tards..."

In all honesty this was the only modern era game I could find that begins with Q. Quazatron's a bit old in the tooth innit? This game was started back in '88 but never got released. You, as an ickle wobot, have to defend your base from aliens wot are marauding, like always. You can use power-ups and high tech weapons as you scuttle round the base. Get scuttling, Dave.

Too many yellows on this screen. Our robot acts yellow and runs off

Dave: "Pew, pew pew...! This is a slick little shooter, the smooth movement of your bot has the slickness and feel of an early Ultimate title. At first I was trying to figure out what I had to do, but it seems basically - well, err... shoot everything? It's quite good fun for a while, but it seems to go from easy to insanely hard pretty fast. As soon as I got swarmed I was dying pretty quickly. Probably didn't help that I was bouncing all over the place."

Alien 0 stops to admire the nice sprites

Al: "This is like a megamix (do people still say that? No, okay) of various Ultimate classics, since you've got an Alien 8 type robot moving round a slightly Sabre Wulfy environment, and when fighting off aliens it feels like 'spraying the bugs' in Pssst. The sound is pretty Ultimately too, but if you're going to copy, you might as well copy from the best. As for the game, dumb me doesn't quite get it. You're defending the crystals but you've got some of your own to fire too, to no obvious benefit. I've read the instructions but am still at a loss."

"Sometimes it's hard to be...a robot"

SCORING TIME!

Dave: "Quite a fun shooter, seems to be nicely programmed, though it didn't hold my interest for very long."

6.5/10

Al: "Looks the biz but I'm not quite on board with it."

6.5/10

"Just one more thing..."

Columbo: "Quadron never saw a release back in the 80s. But which other unreleased games interested you the most?"

With apologies to retinas everywhere

Al: "Beaver Bob in Dam Trouble, since I designed that winning loading screen! That's a total lie of course, but I bet the guy who did was well gutted. Only ironically his work is more famous now since it didn't get released. And maybe the Judge Death game which Piranha were planning before they folded, since I'm well into my 2000 A.D. stuff these days."

Hmmm, don't think this is a Speccy screenshot. And sadly it's quite good

Dave: "Ooh, well the (absent) daddy of them all has to be Mire Mare, right? Its non-release spawned all sorts of gossip and (probably unfounded) rumours that the game actually existed. Good luck getting a screenshot of that for your website Al, ho ho... I don't know if it counts, but Scooby Doo also springs to mind. I know the game was 'technically' released, but let's face it - it was a completely different game from the magazine-featured exciting arcade adventure with big graphics. So I'm gonna count it as a separate unreleased game.

Did they seriously think they'd be able to animate this on a Speccy?!

The last one that I would've liked to see is the infamous Star Trek. I think Mike Singleton would've probably done a decent job given his past record, as he was a Speccy god. "...Spoooooock...."

Ah look, it did come out after all

Al: "Yep, got a pic of Mire Mare, Dave."

Dave: "Hmmm. If you did have a shot of the ‘real’ game, the Stamper Mafia would be round to ‘disappear’ you, I think. Al? Al? Uh oh..."

Proof positive