With Your Host, Rob Remakes

Tag: Commodore 64

Watch: Beyond The Scan lines on JetPak DX

I reckon it was all downhill for Ultimate after Jetpac. Not a reflection of how poor any subsequent games were (post-US Gold aside, they were far, far from it) but how fantastic Jetpac is. Alongside Pssst and Cookie, it oozed an arcade sensibility that would largely disappear as Ultimate’s games got larger and more ambitious and it remains my favourite out of all their games.

There’s been a nice handful of remakes and tributes over the years (there’s a couple on Switch even), Rare took a punt at a remake of their own in the early days of XBLA and that turned out pretty alright for the most part. It’s part of Rare Replay so it’s not been lost to time like plenty of other games from around that era, which means you can still give it a punt fairly easily if you haven’t already given it a shot.

Anyway. My preferred remake is the excellent Rocket Smash EX, for my money it gets pretty close to besting the original and Saul’s graphics are wonderful, making good use of the C64 to really shine the thing up. However, Super Jetpak DX for the Gameboy is pretty fine too and it’s this that one of the other Robs reviews in their latest Beyond The Scanlines video. The game’s naturally a bit more cramped than your normal Jetpac given it’s got to work on a handheld but for the most part it’s a sterling job and Rob provides a great introduction to it.


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Dr Who And The Advert Of Terror

The cover art for Doctor Who And The Mines Of Terror. It's a TARDIS.

CW: Gratuitous and explicit picture of a brain.

Whilst there’s far, far more famous examples of misfiring videogame adverts out there I can’t help but keep a special place in my heart for the Dr Who And The Mines Of Terror advert.

Not only is it the thing least like something from Dr Who, beating the Dapol Davros to the star prize, it’s absolutely nothing to do with the game either. And it’s a squidgy brain with a blood splat.

Even by the standards of videogames in the eighties – notorious for often painting a far more vivid picture than the videogame could manage* – it’s, erm, somewhat off on a tangent. A whole big ‘why’ of an advert.

On the other hand, it does rather stick in the memory so I guess that’s job done?

It's the advert for the videogame Dr Who And The Mines Of Terror. It's a close up photo of a squidgy brain, complete with bloodsplat, and the words "are you ready for brain to brain combat?"

*Although I disagree with this! I have an imagination and back then (and now) my brain was/is able to quite vividly fill in the blanks, more so than any box art can manage. I appreciate this isn’t possible for everyone though.


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