Bomb Jack

[CraigGrannell]

I may make myself unpopular now

I doubt it—any C64 fan in their right mind must be aware how appalling the C64 version of Bomb Jack is. Oddly, I do remember a Zzap! listing that reduced the sprites from expand-o-size down to normal size. This actually made it more or less as good as the other 8-bit releases (the CPC version of which I've recently been playing in a roundabout fashion via the recent GBA port).

I'm surprised, though, that people are so anti-Bomb Jack 2. I've always really liked that game—it's fast, fun and playable. Sure, it's very different to the original, but, hey, wouldn't it be boring if all sequels were the same?

Mighty Bomb Jack was the last version I bothered with, and that was, to my mind, a bit dull.

Buggy Boy was in a different class to everything else... Great 3D effect at a time when people reckoned the C64 couldn't do racers very well

A great 3D effect, to some extent, but, boy, were the controls 'easy' on the C64. Just let go of the joystick and watch your buggy pottle round every corner...

[markopoloman]

But I AM a C64 fan - and still admit to liking bombjack!
AND other Elite games I enjoyed were......

Yes - Space Harrier (Blocky but playable)
Yes - Ghosts'n'Goblins (excellent conversion I think)
Yes - Commando (flickery but good solid gameplay)
Yes - Buggy Boy (classic)
yes - 1942 (brilliant)
yes - Exile
Yes - Ikari Warriors
NO - Kokotoniwilf!
NO - Paperboy!
No - Thundercats
NO - Scooby Doo (although I suppose it wasn't aLL BAD)!

Clouded memories???

Maybe - but honest, the ones I said yes to above - I enjoyed very much when I was a teenager!

[CraigGrannell]

Clouded memories?

Probably just personal opinion, although I can't see how anyone could have liked C64 Bomb Jack, seeing as its fat-git sprites meant the play area was massively reduced. (Why did Elite go for expand-o-sprite nonsense?)

As for some of the others:

Space Harrier: I agree that it was playable, but it did leave out a fair bit of the arcade game, and it was stupidly difficult.

Commando: I thought this was a joke—three out of eight arcade levels, flickery graphics, and massive slow-down. Next to Who Dares Wins 2, it looked like a major rush job.

Ikari Warriors: Despite the iffy graphics, this in many ways made up for the hash Elite made of Commando. I actually prefer the C64 version to the arcade game.

Paperboy: I actually didn't entirely mind the C64 conversion of this at the time, but it's aged terribly compared to practically every other home conversion.

[sparky]

I doubt it—any C64 fan in their right mind must be aware how appalling the C64 version of Bomb Jack is.

You see, that's why I like to play games I like, not what other people say, It's personal preference and nothing to do with the state of one's mind.

[The Universal]

Does anybody remember Mr Rignalls Space Harrier review in Zzap? Dont have it too hand but it started something like does the cbm have "Insert Arcade Machine Spec"? then he spent the review slating it. Felt a bit sorry for Chris Butler at the time, did most of the Elite conversions at the time singlehandedly (cept music), the arcade is going through one of its most noticeable technical evolutions and this guy has to convert the games to an 8 bit machine.

I must say that I enjoyed all of the above, but I took them as tributes to the arcade machines rather than conversios. My expectation of conversions dimmed when I twigged at about 12 years old, that however good a programmer was, I was never going to be playing an arcade perfect Dragons Lair on the speccy. Sad day it was too.

[CraigGrannell]

Zzap! did a few stupid reviews like that—the Enduro Racer one was similarly damning, largely focussing on the C64 not having the same spec as the arcade machine, rather than whether or not the game itself was any good. (This is why it was good to see the "conversion" rating during Houghton's reign—you could see, at a glance, whether a game was good, despite it being a crap conversion, or vice-versa.)

And, yes, Chris Butler did get a hard time, although he was finally somewhat vindicated by his excellent Power Drift conversion (somewhat different to the arcade game, but wildly playable and fully deserving of a Zzap! Sizzler at the time).

Space Harrier wasn't bad, but then I paid something like three quid for it at a market stall, about a year after it was released. The only other review I remember of it was CU's one (which I think was Eugene Lacey's doing), which raved about the conversion, lavishing it with praise and awarding it a "Screen Star". My opinion was about half-way between the two at the time, and probably the same now.

[necronom]

I may be getting mixed up with the Amiga version (if there was one), but I'm sure the version of Bombjack that I liked was the C64 one. It had music that I think was composed by Jean-Michelle Jarre.

When I get home I'm going to have a go on the C64 version to see if that's the one I liked.

[LeeT]

I may be getting mixed up with the Amiga version (if there was one), but I'm sure the version of Bombjack that I liked was the C64 one. It had music that I think was composed by Jean-Michelle Jarre.

When I get home I'm going to have a go on the C64 version to see if that's the one I liked.

There was a BJ clone called Bombo which could be the one you are thinking of?

[CraigGrannell]

With apologies to Lemon64 for deep-linking, this is the C64 version, complete with expand-o-sprites, meaning you couldn't leap over them if they were on the top platform or sneak past them at the sides of the screen:



And, yes, the music was a (fairly ropey) rendition of Magnetic Fields 2.

[necronom]

If the only Amiga one was Bombo, then it was the C64 one that I liked. I liked the music too.

I'll have to play it again and see if I still like it.

[CraigGrannell]

If the only Amiga one was Bombo, then it was the C64 one that I liked. I liked the music too.

Bomb Jack was released for the Amiga. It was an Atari ST port and while it could have been arcade-perfect, it wasn't. Bombo, on the other hand, was a half-baked Bomb Jack clone for the C64, and its only saving grace was the excellent music by Ben Daglish.

Actually, I can't think of any Bomb Jack-style game for the C64 that I thought much of. Code Masters' Super Seymour Saves the Planet wasn't too bad, but it still wasn't all that great.

[The Last Ginja]

OK, the definitive opinion(well mine anyway )

C64-Crap, blocky mess, with way too big Jack
Spectrum-Sluggish, but graphics ok
Amstrad- Best of the lot, speed just about right, no music but thats not a problem, the fire bombs even spark in the same order as the version on Tecmo classics!!!

On a very related note Mighty Bombjack on C64 is a pretty goood game!
Avoid Bombjack 2 on any platform.

[DonkeySpank]

Bombo was released on the C64 too I'm sure (wasn't it by Rhino software?!) - anyway I used to play BombJack on the Speccy and Bombo on the C64 as they were the best "conversions" available. Still a great game today on MAME - and Speccy actually - I rank it up there with PacMan and Defender as some of the most original games ever created.

[The Last Ginja]

I played Bombo C64 this afternoon, have to say overall I'm not that impressed.

However, I've found this with a few games that other people played back in the day which I never got round to, so I just judge them without those rose tinted specs.......

[sparky]

It's a good job we all have out own opinions, otherwise we'd either all be playing the same games or playing nothing at all.

Then retrogaming wouldn't exist at all, or would it.