Dan Dare 3 & Extreme

"Me, I'm sold on Dan and the Mekon"

"Mr. Dare, are you trying to seduce me?"

DAN DARE 3: THE ESCAPE

(Virgin Games, 1990)

That bit in yellow above is a mis-heard lyric from the Sisters Of Mercy tune Dr. Jeep by the way, I'm sure nobody's too interested, but when I checked just now it seems Mr. Eldritch was referring to the Mekong river, not Daniel Dare's eternal green nemesis. And all these years I've thought he was a big fan of the Eagle. It's not quite as well-known as Jimi Hendrix's "Excuse me while I kiss this guy" example admittedly. What a way to start this review, things can only go downhill from here...

I mentioned recently about Christian Urquhart being a bit of an unsung Spectrum hero, responsible for many decent games, and here’s another that might not spring to mind as readily as the Stampers, Ceccos and Singletons of this world. David Perry, often accompanied by Nick Bruty. Who dey den? Let’s have a run-down of their CVs and see if they get the job.

Ace Rimmer looks on suspiciously

David Perry was a one-man band to start with, mostly making games for Mikrogen. He made Herbert’s Dummy Run, Three Weeks In Paradise, Stainless Steel, then Equinox with a certain Rafaelle Cecco interestingly. He then produced the odd but colourful Great Gurianos, but really hit his groove when he met and fell in love with Nick Bruty. Not really, although I don’t know for sure, but in the Spectrum world they became inseparable thereafter.

They both worked on Savage together with 23 more people, then just the pair of them produced Tintin On The Moon, Dan Dare 3, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Extreme, Smash TV, Captain Planet and finally Paperboy 2. Jeez, where did these programmers of old find the time to go to the toilet even? Some top titles among all these then, so the Perry/Bruty combo was certainly one to be reckoned with.

POW! Take that, you purple... horny thing, you

I’ve plumped for Dan Dare 3 and Extreme to have a butchers at, since they look the most interesting of a pretty interesting bunch. First chronologically came the Eagle’s favourite son, Colonel Daniel McGregor Dare III. Or rather this was his third adventure on our fave little micro machine. The first met with widespread approval, while the second was seen as being a bit of a disappointment by comparison, possibly something to do with the trickiness of controlling Dan’s little dinky spaceship if I recall correctly. Did the third part claw back some of the franchise’s respectability, fishermen wondered with baited breath and tender hooks? Well yeah but I’ll write this review pretending we don’t know until the end of it, so don’t tell anyone.

"Do you mind earthling, I'm trying to take a dump here"

ZX Spectrum – It Lives!!! can exclusively report that Spectrum Computing exclusively tells us that Retro Gamer had an exclusive scoop on Dan Dare 3, which related to a Computer & Video Games exclusive at the time. Namely that it was originally going to be “Crazy Jet Racer” by Probe Software, and C&VG even had some screenshots with a different main sprite, but with everything else looking the same. So Virgin must have swooped in with their D.D. licence and bought it up. It’s fair enough, I’m sure they paid the programmers handsomely for having to go back into the code and re-do large parts of it, though I bet they gnashed their teeth more than a little for a time.

Dan can hardly contain his glee as he finds a gun even bigger than he is

The mean, green alieeeen The Mekon has been at it again. He’s managed to capture Mr. Dare with the intent of experimenting on him to make a mutated army to do his bidding (in intergalactic auctions). His Treens are pretty ugly, so he’s hoping for an attractiveness upgrade by mixing Dan’s DNA in with them. But, canny chap that he always is, Dan the Man has managed to escape the green one’s clutches. He’s located a spaceship that could take him back to Earth, but wouldn’t you know it, it’s out of gas. He reckons it will take 50 pounds of high-grade rocket fuel, the really tasty stuff, to fill ‘er up, so he dons his ACG jetpac(k) and flies off to try to get some. Fuel, that is.

Be like Buzz Lightyear and "fall with style" for all you're worth

The loading screen is all very nice, but it looks like Dan has been caught out dressing as Danielle for the weekend, as he’s got some gorgeous bright red lippy on him and he’s all pouty, giving the Mekon a ‘come hither’ look. Or maybe I’ve read too much into it. Anyway, on load-up we get a strangely jaunty tune on the menu screen, not at all spacey. To me it sounds like that Motown classic “Sugar Pie Honeybunch, you know that I love you”, which I’m sure is its proper title. Odd, but it sounds nice enough.

Cor it's getting messy round here, a smart bomb might have been the better choice

Once you press fire to start, a million blocks of colour go exploding over your shoulders, so you know what to expect right from the off. It’s one of those games for whom colour clash holds no fears, they just go right ahead and spray rainbows every which way, and it ends up looking amazing. Dan himself has his jetpack on his back (Val de ri, val de ra) and bizarrely he’s kinda half yellow and half green, like he plays for Norwich City. Colourful and annoying aliens fly around, intent on sapping his health, which is shown on a big red bar on the far right of the screen, not on the big old status panel at the top, which threw me for a while.

The Mekon bought these guns second-hand from Exolon and they still work pretty well

In every section that pesky Mekon lies in wait, holding onto a security pass granting access to the next level. So you have to unload as much ammo as you can into his green bulbous head, then he teleports elsewhere, dropping the pass. Once you’ve zapped him, you also get to play on his home computer terminal and delete his high scores. These devices allow Dan a number of handy boons (yes, I said boons). He can buy a smart bomb which destroys everyone on the screen bar himself, 10 bouncing bombs which fly around until they meet something, top up his ammo, buy extra lives, and once he’s got all his fuel topped up, blast off for Earth.

Dan must shoot this alien to gain some leverage in his intergalactic negotiations

When he tries to access a new level, our hero is suddenly shown falling through space and time in a quite alarming manner. As he drops, he must line up correctly with the series of boxes (about 20 I'd say) otherwise his various particles don’t make it to the end all together, which ain’t nice. This part reminds me slightly of those hideous ‘between levels’ bits in Avalon and Dragontorc, where you always lose health, especially if a massive spider lands on you. Only this version is a bit easier, but you do tend to miss the odd box, or I do at least.

If you want to use this guy's microwave, you'll have to kill him first

You can go back to top up your various weapons and lives whenever you like as long as you’ve got enough credits, which is rather a helpful feature and prolongs game length considerably. It’s tough, but seems doable with a decent amount of practice, which can’t be said for most Spectrum games. And knowing what weapon will work best when is a key element, as well as not frittering your ammo away too quickly on the first ugly alien you clap your eyes on.

Graphicswise, DD3 looks extraordinary. Things move around so quickly considering the complexity and colour overload of all the game sprites, and it’s a fantastic advert for the computer’s capabilities. It’s pretty playable too, and is a great game to have a quick blast on and feel smug that you’re not a Commodore 64 owner. All the mags of the time loved it, giving it the big scores, apart from The Games Machine, whoever they were, who said it merited 80%. Ah well, can’t beat them all.

When stormtroopers mate with AT-STs, things get ugly

EXTREME

(Digital Integration, 1991)

Enough Dare-ing do, are you ready to get EXTREME!!!! Huuurrrrggghhh, feel the burn! This game better be good if it’s declaring itself as EXTREME! It’s quite a statement of intent really, which reminds me of ‘80s rock band EXTREME! The problem I had with the band EXTREME was the fact that they didn’t seem even slightly EXTREME at all, especially their big hit, the sappy “More Than Words”. That was about as EXTREME as one of yer gran’s tea towels. Ridiculous.

So who in Spectral terms would be the most likely software house to make a game with such an EXTREME title? Surely one of the brash, unapologetic outfits like Elite, U.S. Gold or even Ocean/Imagine (depending on what day it was). Nope, it’s Digital Integration. Hang on, that just sounds wrong, let’s look into their EXTREME history a minute.

I'd feel a little... uncomfortable buying this in WH Smiths

After the jaunty Taxi! and the riveting Football League Analysis, ’83 saw D.I. hit the Speccy simulation scene hard with Fighter Pilot and Night Gunner, both getting rave reviews from the sort of people who would like Fighter Pilot and Night Gunner. In 1984 they did literally nothing, but ’85 saw another successful flight sim, Tomahawk. For the next two years they veered (pitched?) away from planes with the perma-delayed T.T. Racer and the chilly Bobsleigh. A.T.F., a more arcadey flyer was a hit in ’88, then things went quiet until 1991 which gave us F-16 Fighter Pilot and… this game. Which is about as incongruous as Code Masters releasing a spreadsheet package you could do your home finances on.

"Mr. Extreme, I regret to inform you that you have failed your space driving test"

Being done by the Perry/Bruty powerhouse team, it was hardly likely to be a dull, green and blue flight sim, it’s true. Quite the polar opposite. And the title too suggested that a knowledge of yawing and ailerons might not necessarily be required to play this game. I’d love to know how it ended up being a Digital Integration title, maybe someone can look into this for me if they have time? Thanks, just leave me a note, that’d be grand.

Well, to start with, I have to confess that the lovely picture on the front of the box is indeed pretty darn EXTREME, if highly bizarre and homo-erotic. Though in those days an awful lot of Speccy heroes were half naked muscle-bound dudes on reflection, easily outnumbering the risqué ladies that popped up here and there. This fella’s half man, half machine it seems, in a fairly impractical set-up but there’s no doubting the EXTREMITY of it. And on the loading screen he’s even bright red into the bargain, sending the EXTREMITY levels off the richter scale!

Sandy White is having another bad dream about I Of The Mask

Is the plot EXTREME? And more importantly, is it about time I dropped the whole capital letters joke as it’s getting very wearisome? I think yes. Well, in December 1973 (when I was but 6 months old) some space doofuses aboard the Pioneer 10 craft passed Jupiter never to be seen again, but they helpfully had information onboard telling any bored aliens about Earth’s whereabouts and its squishy population. So in the year 3021 (guess they took a while to sort their packed lunch out) an alien ship crashes on Earth, and it’s set to self-destruct and blow the planet to smithereens unless the thing is disabled. It’s your job to deal with this sticky situation. EXTREMELY quickly (sorry).

"Fly, my pretty Segway air force, fly"

Once the game has loaded and the bright red man-machine has disappeared, he’s replaced with a grounded flying saucer framed by an outlandish status panel area flying up both sides of the screen. A really very nice digitised tune plays, which sounds suitably sci-fi unlike DD3’s Four Tops cover version. Press a button after a few minutes of aural delight, then the menu screen appears, very white unexpectedly. I’m not sure this is the optimal choice of background colour, as it vaguely resembles the Speccy 128 start screen.

Never mind, once you begin a big head starts talking to you disturbingly, which transpires to be the ship’s computer giving you your mission details. You stand below it, looking comically like a plodgy stick man. Unheroic. Mission numero uno is to retrieve the ship’s energy crystal from its lower decks and put it back in its display cabinet. Easy eh? Erm, really no. Your guy is aboard a kind of futuristic segway device for this bit, and as you start you’re positioned in a teleporter-looking area as your ammo level fills itself up for a few seconds. It’s a bit like waiting for a pit-stop, but once you’re full and you press fire, the most amazing colourful plume of flame shoots out from your gun, and you know that you’re once again in the mighty presence of the Perry and the Bruty. Gawd bless those guys.

Here's the fun lava bit. 57th time's a charm

Your health this time is shown by colourful blocks at the top of the screen, not the actual number in the middle as you might at first think. These guys like to confuse us. Move your fella right and you soon realise you can’t get far, but there are plenty of quite irritating little aliens to keep you company at least. So try left instead and you find a miniature flying saucer type alien and a button. Press the alien and avoid the button (?) which has presumably done something somewhere. You wait expectantly. Time passes. There’s a load of red bubbling lava below you, but it doesn’t look inviting. More time passes.

Life goal: riding a segway while firing a flamethrower. Hells yeah!

Okay, I’m not getting this, I need professional help. So time to check a walkthrough. Ah right, you have to hang around above the lava for quite some time actually, then a you-sized moving black gap appears below, which you have to dive into, then move rightwards through the lava until you reach safety. Which isn’t bloody easy when you can’t hover as such, you have to keep stabbing the up key, constantly jigging up and down trying desperately to stay in the black and out of the red (Bullseye ref. there). I suspect many people’s gaming experience might have ended prematurely here. Well I guess I was warned about the extremity of the task at hand…

Taking your crystal for a walk can be painful. Ouch!

Next you must lasso the crystal with your space lasso, then try to drag it back to the start screen like you’re in Thrust II. It has its own little narrow passageways to be guided through, and you have to keep it close company as it ambles back to its rightful place while you take all sorts of damage from lava and nasties generally. After saving my game state so very many times, I did manage to guide it to its destination, but boy was it hard going and there’s no way I’d have been able to do it ‘properly’. The enemies tend to keep coming and your ammo level tends to run out, so tactics do come into it. Extreme tactics.

On soggy stage 2, these mines are your friends and the fish aren't at all

On completion of level 1, the big head gives you your next briefing, and I was fairly amazed to find that you are then confronted by an entirely different type of game. You have to swim through hazardous fuel tanks in a great big steampunk diving suit to retrieve a key while avoiding nippy fish, which you can blow up by setting off strategically places mines, of which there are not quite enough around to make things comfortable. This is rather a fun section which seems like it should be simple, but ends up not being a walkover (swimover?) even slightly. The number of times I so very nearly did this but just fell short was, well, extreme I guess. It’s good though, light relief compared to the first bit.

Ta to Mobygames who unknowningly lent me this outrageous shot of level 3

So I had to resort to Youtube again to see what happens on level 3, and I can confirm that it’s off the charts in insanity and extremity. Your guy has to don an exo-skeleton for the final showdown, a bit like what he is poncing around wearing on the inlay. He wanders along in this ridiculously huge get-up, frazzling everything in front of him, until he eventually destroys the computer terminal at the end. It looks very un-strategic from what I can see, but undeniably fun.

Then it’s probably job done, and if you manage to do it, I’d say you probably merit the title of Extreme Gamer 3000. I suppose that if there are only the three levels, things have to be pretty tough going, otherwise it would all be over too soon. But despite the difficulty level, Extreme is still an impressive experience, absolutely choc-ful of the pair’s incredibly colourful graphics and for once, this is a product that really does live up to its extravagant name.

EXTREME RATINGS

DAN DARE 3 91%

EXTREME (1)85%