Old vs. New A to Z: The Letter Q

CURRENT SCORE:

OLD GAMES 7

NEW GAMES 9

I think they just enlarged the game sprites until they were big enough for a loading screen

QUACKSHOT

(Sparklers, 1985)

These things get tricky when you get to letter Q or X, I don't know how Sesame Street coped. You nearly ended up with a lovely review of The Quill, facing off against something on the QL - surreal. If I'm honest, Quetzalcoatl actually came up first, but proved to be a bit too dull, so I chose again and came up with this quacker (ouch).

They made keys big in those days. But like phones, they've gradually got smaller

This cheapo offering from '85 came courtesy of Sparklers, a.k.a. Creative Sparks, a.k.a. Thorn EMI, who clearly wanted to change their identity as much as possible over the years. But was it due to lack of quality? We'll see. Quackshot reviewed pretty well at the time, Crash going a bit crazy, giving it 86%. But how well has it stood the test of time, and how will it compete against one from the noob team?

Level 2 and one of those hateful blue scrotes is about to home in on you yet again

Would you believe it, it's only your first night on the job as night watchman at the toy factory, when all the bleedin' toys decide they've taken all the abuse they can take, and they decide to launch an escape attempt, killing you into the bargain. Jeez, you'd never get a well-behaved Spectrum doing that. An Amstrad, yeah definitely. Your task is merely to escape through 16 mazes (strange shop) and zap any errant toys with your stun gun and Acme Duckbuster bombs (c) (R) (pat pending).

Level 1 and our hero's got the scrolls again. Old jokes never die

This is a very neat looking maze game which seems decent enough for a budget title. It's quite fun to play, though it can get tricky as you can shoot neither up nor down, only left and right (at the same time unusually). Your bombs come in very useful and it's good playable fare. Until... you encounter these nasty little blue shi... shenaneganeers who go scarily fast and home in on you quite unfairly. Because of these fu... funsters I could only make it to level 3, more's the pity. Story of my life.

Holy crap, the Pope wrote this game. Kudos, your eminency

QBOX

(Sergio Llata Pena, 2017)

"Ah, great Ted". I'd never heard of this game before and my options for newer Q games were starting to look grim. So a big fat gracias to Sr. Pena, who surprisingly doesn't seem to have made any other Speccy games of note.

You need number 3 unfortunately, not 5 or 6. And try not to fall on those cracks

I say surprisingly because this is such a technically impressive thing. It looks like Marble Madness but plays a lot more sedately, so you shouldn't go spinning off into the reeds, swearing wildly as much. Remember that noise in Gyroscope when you fell off? Horrible.

At the start of level 2, your health column on the right is impressively erect

Oh yes, the plot. The inlay is in Spanish only, so here we go. The ano is 2525. You're stuck in el universo Qbox. You're a fragil esferica who must reach la piramide de transporte. Avoid all los enemigos y trampas. Don't think I came across any tramps, maybe they shuffle in on a later level. Okay, that's good, enough to go on, just.

That hole next to number 1 opens and closes mischievously

It becomes clear that you have to collect 6 items in strict order on each multi-screen level. Your little bubble moves around very nicely, not frictionlessly though, thank gawd, and the enemies follow set patterns. You get 4 lives and it's not too hard to get past the first couple of levels. Then the toughness sets in as you'd expect, but it's still some nice 3D fun. And the best news is the brilliant AY music playing a treat throughout.

VERDICT

BEST GRAPHICS - QBOX

BEST COLOUR - QUACKSHOT

BEST SOUND - QBOX

MOST PLAYABLE - QBOX

MOST ORIGINAL - QBOX

MOST ADDICTIVE - QBOX

FINAL SCORE

QUACKSHOT 1 QBOX 5

Qbox wins!