ESP Soft released a new platform game called El Linaje Real a few days
ago. You are Prince Ernor, and you have just been informed that your father,
King Abner, has died. However, you will only inherit his throne if you are
present at the coronation ceremony in three days' time – otherwise, your
evil brother Devilus will become King of Arngur instead!
El Linaje Real features excellent music and graphics with very
detailed backgrounds, and you can
download it
from ESP Soft's site.
Shining has released Pentomino. You can
download the
game from Shining's site. With 464 levels to complete, it should keep fans
of puzzle games occupied for a while...
12th April 2017
El Tesoro Perdido de Cuauhtemoc
4Mhz have released El Tesoro Perdido de Cuauhtemoc. You can
download
the game from 4Mhz's site, or purchase a physical copy of the game on
3″ disc for €15.00 (excluding postage).
Pentomino
Shining has uploaded
a video of his forthcoming game Pentomino to YouTube. It's a puzzle
game featuring 464 levels (appropriately enough) in which you must fit
several Tetris-like pieces into a defined area. The game is expected to be
released in the next few days, hopefully in time for the Easter holidays.
Video preview of Pentomino on YouTube
2nd April 2017
The Oliver Twins YouTube channel added
I've added links to videos on The
Oliver Twins' YouTube channel on my site. The Oliver Twins don't need any
introduction to CPC fans, as they've developed around 20 games for the CPC, and
are responsible for that (mostly) well-loved egg Dizzy. They've uploaded
several "Let's Play" videos of their games, and clips of some of their
appearances on British TV, to their channel.
Games in development: Baba's Palace and Red Planet 2
Rafael Castillo has tweeted
that he is developing a new game for the CPC called Baba's Palace using
the CPCtelera framework, which should be ready for release by autumn 2017.
Salvador Cantero is also developing a platform game called Red Planet
2, again using CPCtelera. He recently
tweeted
a short video of the game in action. There's no indication of when it will
be ready for release, but it looks very nice indeed.
Limited edition releases from Psytronik Software
Psytronik Software have released all
four of their Amstrad CPC games – Dead on Time, Relentless,
Star Sabre and Sub Hunter – in clamshell cases, priced at
£9.99 each (excluding postage). The games were previously available in
double-size transparent jewel cases. You can buy all of these games from
The Binary Zone
store. Clicking on any of the game covers shown below will take you directly to
the page where you can purchase the game.
Dead on Time
Relentless
Star Sabre
Sub Hunter
12th March 2017
Another YouTube channel added
I've added another YouTube channel to my list of links
– Novabug. He's a
retro gaming enthusiast and regularly posts videos featuring games on a
variety of machines. Most of his Amstrad CPC videos consist of 5-10 minutes of
gameplay with a commentary, which is enough to give you a fairly good idea of
how good or bad a game is going to be.
If you haven't seen it yet, check out one of his most popular videos,
The 464 Project,
which is nearly 55 minutes long and features 464 Amstrad CPC games; how many of
them do you recognise? He's also just released a
follow-up video
featuring another 128 games.
El Tesoro Perdido de Cuauhtemoc
The excitement around the release of El Tesoro Perdido de
Cuauhtemoc is building. McKlain has
uploaded a short video to
YouTube which shows the game in action.
Video preview of El Tesoro Perdido de Cuauhtemoc on YouTube
Screenshot of Steel Wheel table from Pinball
Dreams
11th March 2017
Pinball Dreams
Batman Group has
tweeted
a screenshot of another table – Steel Wheel – from their forthcoming
conversion of Pinball Dreams to the Amstrad CPC. In case you missed it,
you can download
a playable demo of the Beat Box table from NVG.
El Tesoro Perdido de Cuauhtemoc
Un Pasado Mejor has
tweeted
some new screenshots of the forthcoming game El Tesoro Perdido de
Cuauhtemoc (The Lost Treasure of Cuauhtemoc) from
4Mhz. It's developed by the same team who
were responsible for Adiós a la Casta: Episode 2 – a
colourful platform game that was released last year. The game should be
officially launched and released at the
Amstrad Eterno
event which is being held in Barcelona next weekend. Click on the screenshots
below to view larger versions.
Screenshot of El Tesoro Perdido de Cuauhtemoc
Screenshot of El Tesoro Perdido de Cuauhtemoc
8th March 2017
At the request of Missas, CPC Game Reviews now has a new feature which I
should have added a long time ago, but never got around to doing – links
to YouTube videos!
Below some reviews, you will now see the YouTube icon (a white triangle
within a red rectangle) with links to videos featuring the relevant game.
Clicking on the name of the YouTube channel responsible for the video will open
a new tab or window where you can watch the video. Below is an example for
The Untouchables.
Watch YouTube videos of this game by:
jgonza,
Xyphoe.
I've spent some time over the last few weeks trawling through the following
YouTube channels:
Axelino was one of
the first people to upload longplay videos of Amstrad CPC games to YouTube, with
his first video being uploaded back in June 2007, but since 2012, he has largely
ceased activity on his channel.
Metr81 is a Spanish
CPC fan and an expert gamer – well, given the reputation that a lot of
Spanish games have for being very difficult, maybe that's not too surprising!
His channel consists of longplays and is very well organised, with videos
categorised by software house, and playlists of games from a particular year.
ChinnyVision
has been an Amstrad CPC fan for a long time, and his channel is largely
dedicated to comparisons of games on different 8-bit and 16-bit computers. His
videos are very professionally produced and I always look forward to each new
episode.
Retro Danuart's
channel is a more recent addition to YouTube. As well as Amstrad CPC longplays,
he also uploads videos of ZX Spectrum and coin-op arcade games.
jgonza
is a Spanish CPC fan who started uploading videos to YouTube in January 2014.
His channel contains longplay videos of a wide variety of games, and it also has
playlists based around software houses.
Xyphoe
is a dedicated Amstrad CPC fan, and the proud owner of a 6128 Plus. He started
uploading videos in 2008, and his videos consist mainly of longplays with
detailed commentary, which are worth watching.
The site has also undergone some minor tidying up, and
you may have noticed that the layout is slightly different, and the text is
hopefully easier to read. You can now use access keys to navigate the site:
P takes you to the previous page in a category, or if you are
at the first page in a category, you will be taken to the final page in the
previous category.
Similarly, N takes you to the next page in a category, or if
you are at the final page in a category, you will be taken to the first page in
the next category.
T takes you to the top of a page. Of course, you can also press
the Home key on your keyboard to do this...
1 takes you back to the front page (the one you're reading right
now).
Rainbow Graphics has
awarded their CPC Game of the Year 2016
to Magica by Juan José Martínez, based on
polling by CPC fans. Congratulations to Juan for the award and for developing
such a fun little game! Personally, my CPC game of 2016 was
Imperial Mahjong by Cargosoft. Rhino's conversion of Pinball
Dreams also looks extremely impressive, but as only a preview version is
currently available, it shouldn't count in my opinion.
McKlain has released an album of 30 chiptunes that he
has composed for the CPC and Spectrum, entitled Basic 1.1 – Ready. A
Chiptune Compilation. Many of you should be familiar with his music, as he
has contributed tunes to games such as both Adiós a la Casta
episodes, Megablasters: Escape from Castle in the Clouds and Space
Moves, as well as several demos. You can
buy
the album from Bandcamp.
Keith Sear has released a new version of Chibi
Akuma(s) which fixes a couple of bugs and speeds up the game slightly. You
can download the new version from
the game's website.
Chibi Akuma(s), the shoot-'em-up that I mentioned just before
Christmas, has been released. You can download it from
the game's website.
I'm sure everyone will agree that 2016 has been an incredible
year for new CPC games. This
article on the Retro Gaming Mag website by CPC4eva reflects on 2016. I've
also just noticed that Rainbow Graphics is
organising
a poll to determine CPC fans' best CPC game of 2016. You can vote via
Facebook
or by posting a tweet on Twitter with the hashtag
#bestcpcgame2016.
The deadline for voting is next Saturday 7th January 2017 at 13:00 GMT (14:00
CET).
Missas has reviewed seven games, all of which were released
during 2016:
As it's Christmas, CPC Game Reviews is pleased to bring you a little
present!
Some of you may recall that
Cronosoft used to sell some text
adventures that were written by Jason Davis and originally published by WoW
Software during the early 1990s. I helped Simon Ullyatt, who runs Cronosoft, by
providing new loading screens and master copies of the new versions. Because
they were being sold commercially, Jason had requested that they were removed
from the NVG FTP site so they would no longer be freely available for
downloading. (At the time, NVG was the major download site for CPC games, and
CPC-POWER and
CPCRulez didn't exist yet.)
However, the games have not been available for purchasing for
several years. Well, following some discussions with Simon Ullyatt and Jason
Davis, they are now freely available to download from NVG once more! Just click
on the loading screens below to download the corresponding game.
The Smirking Horror
Yarkon Blues
Yarkon Blues II: Space Station Zebra
Help Inc.
Here are links to reviews of all four games, in the order
in which they were released:
I have been given the privilege of playing a two-level preview version of
Chibi Akuma, the forthcoming shoot-'em-up from keith56, and it looks
pretty good! The game will require a CPC with 128K of memory. The game features
some humorous touches as well.
Some screenshots from the preview version are displayed
below. Many of you may already have seen what the first level looks like from
the author's message
on the CPCWiki forum and the game's website,
but the second level looks different and features different enemies – but
I don't want to reveal what the end-of-level boss is!
Title screen
Level 1
The level 1 boss
Level 2
I have reviewed twelve games, all of which have been released during 2016:
I wanted to review Sir Ababol II: The Ice Palace as
well, but it appears to be bugged and parts of the second level became
corrupted while I was playing it. Has anyone else experienced this issue?
The quantity of new games released in 2016 has amazed me,
and probably many of you as well. So much for my resolution at the start of the
year to "curtail my Amstrad CPC activities significantly"... It was going quite
well for the first half of the year, and then game after game was released and
I couldn't resist trying them all out.
Will 2017 be another great year for CPC gaming? Let's hope
so! In the meantime, I wish all CPC fans a Merry Christmas!
18th December 2016
A new version of CPCGamesCD has been released. CPCGamesCD is a CD-ROM
image that contains all the games on the NVG
FTP site, and it provides a useful front-end called
CPC Loader that enables you to browse
through the entire list of games and select which emulator to use to play them.
It also contains nearly 200 Amstrad PCW games. You can download a zipped ISO
file from the CPCGamesCD website;
the links are at the bottom of the page (the download from mega.nz is the best
one to use).
Screenshot of Chibi Akuma
CPCWiki forum member keith56 has announced that he is working
on a shoot-'em-up called Chibi Akuma. The game should be released in
January 2017 (i.e. next month), and it will use some of the Plus machine's
enhanced abilities. It will also feature up to 256 enemy bullets on the screen,
so it's going to be a pretty crazy shoot-'em-up! You can
read
the discussion on the CPCWiki forum or
visit the game's website.
Screenshot of Phoenix
3rd December 2016
Norbert Kehrer has released a conversion of the 1980 coin-op arcade game
Phoenix for the CPC. It's a shoot-'em-up with five levels and it is
influenced by Galaxian. The first four levels see you shooting formations
of alien birds which take it in turn to swoop down on you. If you reach the
fifth level, you have to destroy a mothership by repeatedly firing at it, which
slowly wears down its shield, until you hit the alien inside it. Two versions of
the game are provided; one with colourful MODE 0 graphics, and another with
higher resolution but less colourful MODE 1 graphics. You can download both
versions from
Norbert's website.
Juan J. Martínez's game Golden Tail has been
released on cassette, 3″ and 3½″ disc. You can buy copies of
the game from poly.play.
Watch YouTube videos of this game by:
