Spike (1983) Review

Review on the Vectrex game Spike

by Edmund Phoon Jian Cheng

 

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/vectrex/images/7/7c/Spike.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20101111185811

“Eek! Help! Spike!” says Molly as she is abducted. “Oh no! Molly!” says Spike, and he pursues her. These are the common quotes you will hear when playing Spike, a 1983 game based on the playable character of the same name. Developed by General Consumer Electronics and played on the Vectrex platform, Spike is known to be a ‘mascot’ of the retro console, having appeared in many small budget Vectrex games, and the one of the first assets capable of speech and displaying emotion in its processing.

Spike is about a creature of the same name who has to rescue the love of his life Molly from the clutches of his enemy Spud. Spike must climb over three moving platforms to the top to reach a caged door in order to complete each level. Enemies will appear in the second level onwards and they will prevent the player from reaching the goal. Spike has a total of 4 lives, and each contact with an enemy or fall may causes Spike to lose a life. The game is over when Spike loses all lives. Points are obtained when Spike kicks any enemy advancing on the character. Sometimes, bows and keys may appear in the levels, in which they temporarily freezes enemies and the platforms upon collection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoXM8m541ac

Like in Mario, players will have a sense of survival and revenge instinct that encourages them to play on. Avoiding the enemies such as the floating ‘radios’ and birds, as well as falling off the platforms, instil the fear in the player that he/she would lose a life out of it and this constitutes the survival aspect that motivates the player to direct Spike away from the obstacles and reach the goal to “rescue the damsel in distress” (i.e. Molly) from the enemies (i.e. Spud). Spike’s ability to kick enemies away makes up the “revenge” for the player losing a life to the enemy or sabotaged by the enemy to fall off the platform.

Spike is a very fun game to play, especially if you know how to control Spike around the environment and obstacles through walking, jumping, kicking, and arranging the ladders for Spike to get to the destination. While the difficulty level progression makes it hard for players to complete the game, this encourages the players to return and play on for more rounds, making Spike to be one of the legendary and most iconic arcade games ever made in the retro age.

Week 5 Practical: Egypt: Battle for Legacy

Review on Egypt: Battle for Legacy

Egypt: Battle for Legacy is a customized two-player strategy game that my team and I made in our practical. The game is about the competition between two opposing factions that fight to claim a throne, to become the “king of the hill”, with their respective flagships. The game shares the same excitement and the instincts off greed as in any other strategy game like our previous remake of the Battle for Moscow. As long as the players have the skills and knowledge to strategise their moves, the game would be very entertaining and fun for both players and spectators alike.

Set on a hexagonal board game as similar to that of the Battle for Moscow, the goal for this game is to capture and claim the centre point of the board with a flagship. Each player, representing a faction, has 10 similar sized tokens and 1 flagship piece, each on a hex space at the far end of each side of the board. A token has a maximum of two moves while the flagship has only one. The players’ objective is to capture the throne at the centre of the board, by attempting to transport their flagships to it. Once a player’s flagship obtains its position on that point, it must be defended for five rounds to capture that objective and win the game.

There are several approaches when it comes to conflict in terms of one player’s tokens against those of the other player. At least three tokens of a faction are required to take out the life of a token of the other faction once they surround it. Any tokens whose life is taken out is sent back to the base of the faction and takes a turn to respawn back onto the board. Movement is restricted for any token that attempts to bypass the other player’s tokens that obstruct its way, which constitutes as the enemy’s area of control. Flagships are unable to attack their enemies and it takes two tokens to take down a flagship.