letters for clues to text adventures".

The book covers Kevin's First modem and his murky links to various Bulletin board systems, (this is before the internet for you young ones) School kids Copying games and the types of pirates, some amassed hundreds of titles but probably never played them; others just wanted the latest games, and talking
of games the book has references to some especially jumpman and various text adventures and infocom. While the book isn't a; Commodore or Atari saved my life style of evangelism, it is a look at how growing up in a new era evolved to a career in Computers as many people have done.

The book is very light hearted and dotted with pictures of various systems, screen shots from games and BBS systems and pictures of Kevin opening presents on Christmas days. While it may not be a true reflection of history from an academic level; its one persons view of growing up in a whole new electronic age of computers, flashing LED lights and speak and spell. Kevin seems to recall everything in crystal clear details, documents things as they were rather than with a rose tinted view of how things should have been.

www.terriblenerd.com/

www.amazon.com/Terrible-Nerd-ebook/dp/B00A6I85BC


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REVIEW: SUBHUNTER (CARTRIDGE)
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This game was originally connived by Frank Gasking and with the help of
Richard Bayliss as key programmer work started on this conversion to the Commodore 64 that would take approximately 4 years to complete! The game was
to be later released by Psytronik in disk tape and downloadable formats.

So Fast forward to today and RGCD have released a cartridge of the version
with some small fixes and glitches removed. Check here for more details www.rgcd.co.uk/2012/12/sub-hunter-cartridge-available-c64.html the cartridge version is also Commodore Games system compatible as it doesn't need a keypress!

The Cartridge is available in 2 versions

The standard version is priced at £25 inclusive of UK/Europe shipping, and
£26 for the rest of the world, whereas the deluxe version costs £30
(UK/Europe) and £32 (rest of world).

Let's have some brief games synopsis then get actually playing something

SYNOPSYS

Apparently a government experiment has gone wrong; and this turns into a cover-up attempt, waste from experiment is dumped out to sea. Unfortunately
the 'cover-up' has a dramatic effect on the aquatic life, it seems that swimmers are also going missing and the seas start to spiral out of control. Added to all of this the seas are heavily guarded by agent subs, who were very responsible for the government's bad incident.

It is down to you and the war sub to save the ocean and those who are lost.

INSTRUCTIONS

Use a joystick in port 2..

For 10 levels you must save 5 swimmers.

Levels 2,8,15 and 22 - Destroy groups of fish and subs to clear the way for
a pack of swimmers to get safely through

Levels 3,9,16 and 23 - Save divers trapped on the sea bed.

Levels 11,18 and 24 - Shark attack! Can you survive the onslaught of deadly sharks?

Final level - Destroy the mother mutant shark.

Bonus level - Collect diamonds for bonus points. If less than 4 lives, extra lives will be rewarded if you complete this stage. Watch out forthe bouncy mines. One hit and bonus is over!

GAME ON

The majority of the action is based on a sideways scroller but the levels are varied, as you can see from the above text. As usual with RGCD the package can't be faulted on quality; you even get a little sticker so you can stick it onto yourself and show how cool you are! Also included are instructions for
the game and of course a full colour box to hold all the items in.

So with Cartridge armed in machine I powered on; and the graphics start to tempt you and you know this is one of those really special games. As you press fire and start the game; the music kicks in and you start to see the game move its silky smooth parallax scrolling; you can't fail to be impressed you get an almost 3d effect; this is without the silly glasses needed, it's just an illusion from the depth of parallax scrolling. But it does seem to draw your eyes to a 1 inch section in the middle of the screen, it can become quite hypnotic.

Your ship can move up, down, left and right but the screen scrolls itself at a constant speed, you will have to be quick as you don't have time to admire the view kill the other stuff and collect the swimmers to move on to the next level, the next level see you bombing fish and is a static screen were your
sub is at the top of the screen and you explode bombs onto the fish below, clearing a path for the swimmers.

One thing here is Richard Bayliss has really outshone himself with this game,
I know it was a lot of work and Frank put an enormous amount of perfectionist pressure on the project; but it's all paid off this is one hell of a good
game! The music also really elevates the game up a notch, this is a must have purchase!

Sound: 9/10
Graphics: 9/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Overall: 9 /10

I really really wanted to give it a 10 but..................

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