Cold-war fever in action for Green Beret, as a single soldier armed with only a knife runs through Soviet military complexes killing everyone in sight. Run from left to right, jump, stab, and occasionally pick up weapons such as flamethrowers and rocket launchers. Lovely.

The arcade version was difficult, but excellent fun. Nobody ever got past the second level, but that didn't stop us trying. The small, slightly featureless graphics moved fluidly and seemed perfectly good 15 years ago.

The Spectrum version clearly lacked the colour of the arcade, but the gameplay was almost identical. A bizarre difference occured when you stabbed an enemy - in the arcade they fell over, on the Spectrum they turned into skeletons and disappeared (just like real life). Also, at the end of level two the main character was attacked by a horde of dogs, some of which could levitate. I have never seen that far into the arcade version, but I doubt the floating hounds make an appearance.

ARCADE NOSTALGIA RATING: 4
SPECTRUM NOSTALGIA RATING: 4
"Rescue the hostages"

Stab those naughty Russians!

Stab those naughty skeletons!

The plot for this one - the knight Arthur has had his girlfriend stolen by Lucifer himself. Rather than get drunk, go to a nightclub and snog some aging drunk woman with purple hair, he decides to mount a one-man rescue operation. What a hero.

The game involved running through various unpleasant locations, killing nasty undead creatures and obnoxious demons. The finest feature occured when Arthur was hit by an enemy - on the first hit his armour would fly off, leaving him to continue fighting in only his underpants. A second hit would cause his flesh to fly off, leaving only a pile of dried bones. It's this sort of realism that is sadly lacking in modern computer games.

The Spectrum version featured slower gameplay and ridiculously quiet sound effects. The disappointing graphics were poorly detailed copies of the pretty arcade characters, leading to some confusing gameplay situations. The lances looked like missiles, the fire-torches looked like ice-cream cones, the zombies looked like butlers...
Fortunately, all the arcade features were retained, and despite the naff appearance the game was very good. Even if nobody ever got past level 3.

Trivia fans may be interested to know that a plotline in Australian crap-fest soap opera Neighbours once involved one of the teenage characters becoming addicted to playing the Ghosts 'n' Goblins arcade machine. Hmmmm.

ARCADE NOSTALGIA RATING: 5
SPECTRUM NOSTALGIA RATING: 4
"Take a key for coming in"

Eat lance, evil zombies!

Eat missile, evil butlers!

Oddly enough, this was a sequel to the classic Gauntlet. The Gauntlet games were one of the first to allow 4 people to play simultaneously, which was a clever move by producer Atari.

A warrior, a wizard, a valkyrie and an elf are stuck in a series of dungeons, and the Englishman says to the Irishman...
Hang on, I'll start that again. Four characters are stuck in a series of dungeons, where they fight through hordes of monsters, collect treasure and search for the exit to the next dungeon. Gameplay was fast and frenetic, with hundreds of monsters attacking from the word go. Fighting through them was essential, as 'generators' constantly spewed out more monsters if you didn't shoot them ASAP. The graphics were adequate and a narrator provided commentary to spur you on.

Sadly, the Spectrum version was a big letdown, even though the gameplay was almost the same as the arcade. Why? Because it was just about identical to the first Gauntlet game on Spectrum, but with inferior graphics! What a waste of Dad's £10.

ARCADE NOSTALGIA RATING: 3
SPECTRUM NOSTALGIA RATING: 2
"Red Wizard is about to die!"

Ha! These ghosts are no match for my battle axes!

Ha! These ghosts are no match for my giant yellow cauliflower!

Loosely based on abysmal Japanese fighting game "Kunio Kub", Renegade was absolutely terrible in the arcades. To this day I have no idea how this game passed any kind of quality check at all.

The basic story - Renegade's girlfriend has been kidnapped. For some reason this means he must fight several different gangs of thugs and beat up their leader.
The graphics were stunningly pathetic - just look at the screenshot for God's sake - and the gameplay was worse. This remains one of the most ludicrously, brain-bleedingly over-difficult piles of frustrating crap to have ever been excreted into an arcade. Why anyone wanted to convert this to the home computers of the day remains a baffling mystery.

But convert it they did, and greatly improved it was to. The Spectrum version maintained the same basic gameplay elements, but reworked them completely. The transparent little men fought each other with entertaining vigour, and actually responded to the controls properly (unlike the arcade machine). I must have played this game hundreds of times and I still enjoy it. An absolute classic.

Particular mention must be made of the excellent background music in the enhanced 128K version of the game, and the fact that the first gang leader looks like Jesus of Nazareth (complete with crown of thorns). A home computer-only sequel, Target; Renegade, was just as good. Sadly the franchise was wrecked by a puerile third instalment which involved time-travelling. Pah.

ARCADE NOSTALGIA RATING: 0
SPECTRUM NOSTALGIA RATING: 5
"Get lost, Punk!"

Does anybody here have a nose?

Does anybody here have a nose or eyes?

This was a fantastic arcade game. Two people fought their way through diverse locations, attempting to rescue the girl as usual. Meaty sound effects backed up the action.
The games variety was one of the best points. A huge amount of weapons could be stolen from enemies - knives, baseball bats, dynamite, packing crates... The backgrounds were interactive too, featuring conveyor belts, fatal drops and giant statues that poked people in the eye with spears. Yes, really.

A Spectrum conversion was a long time coming, and when it was finally released I ran off to the shops with a speed comparable to a cheetah on steroids. Pity it was rubbish.

Most of the arcade features had been retained, but twisted horribly. The graphics were terrible - the enemies all looked the same and had heads shaped like pillows. There were two sound effects - a low bleep when a man fell over and a high bleep when a woman fell over... I can't go on. The whole game was a travesty of entertainment and a mockery of the lovely arcade version.

ARCADE NOSTALGIA RATING: 5
SPECTRUM NOSTALGIA RATING: 1
"English Tear"

Mr. Blobby attacks Liberace in a yellow mess.

This game tampered with the time-honoured 'rescue the girl' plotline by replacing it with 'rescue the US President'. What an incredible twist!
The two "Bad Dudes" from the title were street fighters who dressed like male strippers. They had to fight their way through hordes of colour-coded ninjas, occasionally stopping to pick up weapons or cans of Coca-Cola. The characters had precious few fighting moves and there was very little variety in the enemies. Only an occasional interesting background, such as the second level which took place on top of a moving articulated lorry, offered anything to spice up the proceedings.
The game was good fun in the arcades, but the lack of variety meant it soon became very dull.

Slow and repetitive was certainly the order of the day for the Spectrum version. The strange-looking little monochrome characters fought with the speed of a pregnant sloth, and the whole affair became mind-numbingly tedious in a matter of seconds. Not impressive by any standards.

ARCADE NOSTALGIA RATING: 3
SPECTRUM NOSTALGIA RATING: 1
"Are you a bad enough dude?"

Ninjas unimpressed by air guitar stance!

I used to think this game was great, and I have no idea why. Two ninjas leap across the screen, beating up people in hockey masks. That's about it.
The game became horribly boring after playing it for about 2 minutes. The only redeeming feature were the stupid fighting animations, which made everyone appear to be dancing rather than attacking people. This provided at least 30 seconds worth of amusement.

By the time the game was converted to home computers, everyone had moved on to the joys of 16-bit machines such as the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga. However, a few years ago I stumbled across the long-forgotten Spectrum version.
Although a third of the screen was taken up by a huge status panel featuring a picture of a ninja, the conversion was surprisingly faithful. An attempt had been made to put some colour into the game, and the all the gameplay was there in it's tedious glory. Especially pleasing were the attacking animations, which looked even more dance-like than the arcade.

ARCADE NOSTALGIA RATING: 1
SPECTRUM NOSTALGIA RATING: 2
"Ninja in USA"

Dancing in the streets.

Dancing in much smaller streets.