The Games That Time Forgot: 1989 Edition

The targets are behind you, Mr. Elf. Epic fail, lol

TARGET

(Summit Software)

By the late eighties some of the Spectrum's top programmers were most likely looking to move on, maybe to the Amiga (ptui) or Atari ST (gag). I'm not even going to dignify them with colours. The old girl's days seemed numbered, so you couldn't blame them. The budget market was still going strong though, so the likes of Pete Cooke could still make a living from such as Zolyx and Brainstorm for Firebird, and A Whole New Ball Game on covertape.

If only the levels were as packed as the loading screen suggests

Don Priestley was no exception. He started out on the ZX-81 with Mazogs of course, then graduated to the Speccy with the likes of Maziacs and 3D Tanx. Then came his defining moment with Popeye's colossal sprites, and there followed an avalanche of such games, nearly all very well received for their near-impossible visuals and quirky gameplay. Afterwards, it was back down to earth with the likes of the bizarre Up For Grabs and this title, both published by uninspiring budgeteers Summit.

Bounce your ball onto the round target before the bonus runs out. Which it practically has

Martech is mentioned on Spectrum Computing as the publisher, but there seems to be no evidence of their involvement. It appears to be Summit's baby really, but as you can see above, they don't even mention our Don on the inlay, the ingrates. He was totally out of their league, girlfriend, let me tell you. Got to give them points for randomly having a green elf out in the country on the cover though, guess they had that picture knocking around somewhere.

Lose 3 lives? In one go? Let rage-quitting commence

This reminds me of The Cube, y'know the TV prog with Philip Schofield. Well, probably not any more now. You control a rubbery ball and try to bounce it on randomly appearing targets. Simple as. Only you've got to do it quite a lot to pass the level, something I never managed. So not sure what happens thereafter, I don't think anyone else has ever played the game. The cover has a yellow level, so maybe that's next up.

Don did this one too, but it just seemed to be a load of weird text as far as I could tell

Apparently you're not allowed to bounce your balls off the walls, which seems a bit rum. You incur penalties if you do, something I discovered rather too late in the day to give a cr@p about. Knowing this though did improve my performance somewhat (pardon) but I still found the going unreasonably hard.

This amusing sub-game appears if you get the bonus. Quite good actually

It's alright in a way, but rather fun-lite. The animation and perspective is as good as you'd expect, considering the source, and the ball moves a lot like its elderly relative, the awesome Bounder. The trouble is, that game had so much more variety, making this one seem rather basic. Still, a Priestley's gotta eat, you know.

RUBBERY RATING

55%

THE GAMES THAT TIME FORGOT: 1989 EDITION

5th out of 5