Fairlight Fairlight caused a stir when it was
released due to the superb graphics. The land of Fairlight is stuck in
gloom and perpetual darkness , the Light is gone and it is your
mission to restore the light. The place sounds a lot like gloomy crappy
England, if you ask me. Alas, you won't restore light to England when
you complete the game, you still need to move to Australia or
California. Back to the game, following on the heels of
Knight Lore, isometric 3D games were all the rage, especially on
the Spectrum. Fairlight does well in creating a world with many
different locations and moveable objects. Moving objects in 3D was a
big deal back in the day.
As can be seen from the
screenshot comparison, there is not much to choose between the two
version. The graphics are virtual copies of each other. It is when it
comes to playability that the Spectrum proves to do better. It
playes faster, both versions slow down when there are many moving
objects, the Commodore just runs slower. It seems that the programmers
didn't use any of the Commodore's superior hardware capabilities.
The netto effect, the Spectrum version is better.Flying Shark
The plot doesn't matter, you fly a
bi-plane, you have to destroy everything that gets thrown at you. When
you destroy some of the enemies extra weapons pop-up. This is pure
arcade action, what you need is fast action and loads of explosions.
Let's compare the two versions, the
Commodore version uses the computer well. The game scrolls from top to
bottom AND from left to right. That is pure hardware magic working here
people. This is done while planes, tanks, boats and guns fire at your
plane without anything slowing down. It is impossible to create this
effect on the Spectrum without making the game crawl. The Spectrum
game's playing area is quite small, but for the machine, it scrolls
well and doesn't seem to slow down when the actoin hots up. The
Commodore version also has an average tune playing while you blast away.
The Spectrum version is a good shoot-em-up, the Commodore version
however soars high above the Spectrum version
Frankie goes to Hollywood
This game came as quite a surprise,
nobody thought that a tie-in with the pop group Frankie goes to
Hollywood would be a good game. Denton Design however pulled out all
the stops and created a very special and popular game. You start the
game as a person without a life, you need to increase your attributes
so that you become a full person and then enter the Pleasure dome. You
accomplish this by solving a murder, looking for disks and video's
these you use in TV's and Computers at the various locations. When you
use these items you enter one of many sub-games, including saving
Liverpool from bombers, shooting at political figures, spitting at
political figures, a weird game with holes and some other games that I
can't recall.
The Commodore version
looks a lot better, firstly the Spectrum has eight colors, in this game
pink is used. Not pretty in pink, sorry for the pun. As you can see
from the screenshots the Spectrum suffers severly from
color-clash. The Commodore includes nice touches like a crackling
fireplace, wallpaper patterns and well drawn backgrounds.
Let's however get to the crux of the
matter, this is a pop band tie-in, as we all know bands play music. The
Spectrum has nothing, the Commodore has rocking tunes. Depending on if
you like or dislike FGTH songs this might be an advantage or
disadvantage to you.
In the final analysis the Commodore has better graphics and very good
sound, hands-down a Commodore winner.
