A look back in anger (possibly) at an old review of an old game by an old man.
“Time to re-hash another of my old reviews, this one coming from my ‘Part 2’ era. Well, if Taylor Swift can have eras, I can have ‘em too. It’s a game which comes up quite often in dispatches, usually because of my mate Dave’s extreme irrational hatred of it, but I do believe that, love it or hate it, it’s one of those unique games that the Spectrum seems to specialise in. Let’s watch the review together, it’s coming up now, sssshhhh, here it comes…”
KOSMIC KANGA
(Micromania, 1984)
Sometimes it's nice to review the odd old game, since everyone and his dog already knows all about it, and I don't have to go into endless boring detail about the plot and gameplay. Instead I can digress somewhat and ramble on about a subject I can pretend is vaguely relevant to the game. Like...
Games magazines, eh! When you look at it, as I briefly have, there were millions, weren't there? Well, at least a good 15 or so. In my search to back up the claim that Kosmic Kanga, much like Airwolf, is one of the Spectrum's most Marmitey games ever, I consulted the encyclopoed... encyclopes... encyclaed... really good source of info that is the Spectrum Computing database (thanks guys).
Let's start with the proper mags. The mighty Crash gave this game a Smash (poetry), even though it dipped slightly below the 90% range which usually applies to such things, getting an impressive 88%. So they liked it. Next, the mighty-ish Sinclair User, who decided it warranted 5 out of 10. Not big fans then. Your Spectrum either ignored it, or didn't exist at that point, but frankly there's no excuse either way, it's just plain sloppy.
Then come the more dubious publications. I think we've all bought some of these in our time. Maybe there was nothing better in the newsagents that particular day, or maybe we had been promised a games mag by our parents, and so were forced to buy SOMETHING there and then. But sadly, on closer inspection, they tended to have little Spectrum content or were just plain dull. Bummer.
First up is Personal Computer Games, which to be fair wasn't too bad and fun-ish on occasion. I may even have bought this issue, as I remember the caricature of Vyvyan from The Young Ones on the cover, although I think all the mags had one of those at the time, and quite right too, he was a legend! They gave KK a respectable 7/10.
Next we have Big K, which I'm sure was a brand of peanuts. They gave KK KKK, which is frankly racist and should therefore be dismissed and reported immediately. Seriously, did they not even think that ratings system sounded dodgy at the time? You know what they say - some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses. Uh. However, not everyone is totally evil, as they clearly rather enjoyed kangaroo-based Speccy games.
Sadly there was no review from Ace magazine, but I’m going to mention them anyway. They had four categories in their reviews: Visual Effects, Audio, IQ Factor and Fun Factor. All of these were rated out of 7... obviously. And the final total was therefore rated out of 1000… also obviously. For instance, Thundercats scored 6 for Visual Effects, 4 for Audio, 1 for IQ Factor (harsh) and 7 for Fun Factor, which clearly gives a total of 931 out of 1000. There's even a graph on every review showing the game's Predicted Interest Curve. What sort of mental illness was at play here?! I think further investigation into back copies of Ace might need to be undertaken to get to the bottom of this…
Next up is Popular Computing Weekly, which pretty much looked like a regular, dull newspaper, and tended to be rather worthy and not very game-y. They liked KK, calling it "excellent". But they were more interested in the stock exchange really.
What the heck was Sinclair Answers? I've literally never heard of it. Whoever they were, they reckoned KK was "reasonably good fun but..." and then the print is too smudgy to read unfortunately. Didn't like it much, I surmise.
And finally MicroHobby, which wasn't dodgy at all. In fact it looked pretty ace, but it was of course in Spanish. Looking at the review, they gave KK between 1 and 2 thumbs up (great system, guys) and called it "un juego bastante", which translates to... well, you can probably figure that out yourself. No need for such language though surely.
So much for the media, now onto the plot. The excellently concise inlay says "Help Kanga find his spaceship so he can return to his home planet. Take control of Kanga as he leaps about buildings, trees, clouds, mountains, etc. Kanga scores points by picking up bonuses, throwing boxing gloves at his enemies, and by completing each different screen."
That's all you need to know. The plot and gameplay are simplicity itself. Which doesn't mean it's easy to play straight off though, far from it. I suspect those who strongly dislike this game, Dave, never quite got to grips with the control method. It's a bit of a black art, controlling the height of Kanga's jumps, but I've largely mastered it, so it can't be that hard! Just keep as low as possible most of the time, until you feel like a nice big bounce. Easy.
Once you make it through a horizontal level, you're faced with a vertical challenge instead. These bits tend to be the trickiest, and are a definite step-up in difficulty. But they're certainly not out of line with other 'Spectrum Hard' games of the time. If you ever saw the third level of any game at all, you were a frickin' genius frankly.
There is nowadays of course the option of semi-cheating, in the form of saving your game state, which in my view often gives new life to many an overly hard classic. In this way, I've got up to around level 6 or 7, and very much enjoyed getting there. It's still bloody hard even so.
I've seen some complaints about flickery graphics in this game, but on the whole I think they're very good, and the main sprite is a bonafide Speccy icon, so you can't diss that! There's bags of colour and decent use of sound, considering this was 1984. And the screen in between levels is fun and colourful, with a good beepy rendition of the Australian national anthem "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport".
An 11-year old Al back in '84 would probably have more or less agreed with Crash's 88% rating. In fact that young whippersnapper went and bought (not copied) the game on the strength of the review. But after returning to Kosmic Kanga after all this time... 50-year old Al actually agrees with 11-year old Al. Well, whaddyaknow? I've literally learned nothing.
THE VERDICT
Whether other people love it or hate it, I personally hereby reaffirm Kosmic Kanga as a quirky, fun and unique Spectrum cracker! Any dissenters will be forced to don boxing gloves and fight the killer 'roo to the death.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING
88%
