Metabolis
Just look at that loading screen, doesn't that fill you with excitement ! It does if you watched Buck Rogers on TV in the 80's! That is Thom Christopher as Hawk from Buck Rogers and as soon as I saw this title screen, that is who I connected this game with! The game is Metabolis from Gremlin Graphics which was released in 1985, but I found it on a Crash Magazine covertape in 1989
Covertapes were always a bit hit and miss, with Crash in the early days it was 4 games, usually 2 bad and 2 good! But even so, getting 4 games for £2.50 wasn't to be sniffed at ! This game was a winner straight from the loading screen. A superb sci-fi plot, you have been turned into a bird by the evil Kremins. This has left you with a dicky ticker ( sorry weak heart) , your quest is to find the serum, and nuclear weapons to turn yourself back into a human and blow up the Kremins.
But let's face it , to a younger game player the plot isn't that important. What got my attention was the screen design. By 1989 I'd played quite a lot of these exploration type games. I was a big fan of all the Ultimate games and the Magic Knight series as well. So why was this one so different?
I had never played a game with that many different back drops before. The graphics on this game completely blew me away, I just kept flying around, guzzling those heart pills, looking at the designs of the Kremins in amazement. There's something very surreal about some of them. Almost Dali -esque. I didn't want to find the nuclear war heads to blow them up, I was having far too much fun exploring.
This game had me hooked. 150 screens, yes, 150 of them. I even had to put my normal playing of Atic Atac on hold. I don't think I ever played this game as the instructions intended , it was always about finding new backdrops I hadn't seen before. I tried not to let the introduction run as I didn't want the game to show me any treats I was yet to find.
The great thing about the computer magazine covertapes was that some of the games on them were not the mainstream games everyone knew and loved. You could have your friends round and know you had games that they had never heard of and more importantly weren't very good at! This one in particular was always a favourite to load up , there was just so much to see and the bird added to the 'cute' factor. The backgrounds in the game inspired me in art class at school as well. So many pieces of structure and pipework to practice drawing perspective with.
It was another game I never finished, and to a certain degree I forgot about it over the years. It was only last year when I joined Nick Jenkin's YouTube channel that the memory surfaced and I scuttled off to find it once again. Suddenly I was able to remember why it had stuck in my mind from all those years ago. Those wonderful graphics.
Some games we play to win, some games we play to challenge us and some games we play to just look at the scenery go by, retrogaming mirrors real life once more.
Some games we play to win, some games we play to challenge us and some games we play to just look at the scenery go by, retrogaming mirrors real life once more.
