Halloween Harry / Alien Carnage

A favorite title of mine that I was introduced to early in my PC gaming days, Alien Carnage (known at the time I first played it as Halloween Harry) is a story of a good game that met an untimely end.

Developed by Interactive Binary Illusions and SubZero Software and published by Apogee, the game had all the hallmarks of a great 90s action platformer: muscle-bound hero, lots of weapons and a crazy alien plot to take over the world.  It fit perfectly in line with other Apogee titles like Duke Nukem and Bio Menace, but with beautiful VGA graphics, a rocking soundtrack and a plot that involves aliens transforming people into zombies.

Originally released in October 1993 under the title Halloween Harry and then re-released in 1994 as Alien Carnage, the game has a somewhat colorful past.  After the initial release, Apogee grew concerned that the game’s title would lead people to believe it was a seasonal game connected to Halloween, when in fact the title was simply a fun reference to the protagonist saving humankind from enslavement as zombies.  To counter this, Apogee convinced the creators to change the title to the far-more generic “Alien Carnage”.  In addition, they also slightly adjusted the plot and level order.  In the original release, the story states that an alien ship burrows underneath the city, and the episode layout has you first infiltrating a high-rise office building, then gradually making your way into the city sewer system to the alien ship.  Perhaps to create a more natural progression, the Alien Carnage release changed the story so that the ship attached itself to the top of the same high-rise, and Harry begins by clearing aliens from the sewers and then ascending the building.

However, since Apogee’s shareware model makes the first episode of a game available for free, whereas in Halloween Harry you could download and play the high-rise segment, for Alien Carnage you could download and play the sewer segment.  This meant that fully half of the game was available for free.  Of course, Apogee did not broadcast this, and even including a note with the re-release that apart from minor plot adjustments and the name change the game was the same, so there was no need to download it again.  Of course, it didn’t take much effort to realize that the change meant the shareware episode being offered as Alien Carnage was completely different.

One of the elements that made Alien Carnage really stand out from a gameplay perspective is that, despite being a platform game, Harry cannot jump.  Instead, he has a jetback he can use to fly from platform to platform, or just sail around the level if you like.  Also, your primary weapon is a flame-thrower, which throws out a continuous, short-range stream of flame in from of your character that can pass through multiple enemies at a time.  The trade-off is that the flame thrower and your jet-pack share a fuel gauge.  The gauge is reasonably generous, but you won’t want it running down.  Fortunately, there are refueling stations throughout the levels you can return to if you run out.

In addition to your primary weapon, there are also vending machines that dispense additional firepower (money for them is acquired by slaying enemies), such as a photon gun that does about the same damage as the flame thrower, but fires the length of the screen, or a grenade launcher that tosses small explosive canisters.  In addition to the cool-factor of a game that makes your primary weapon a flame-thrower, this is also the only game of which I am aware wherein the grenade launcher is an indispensable weapon.  Harry can only toss the canisters about as far as his flame-thrower travels, but they do significantly more damage, and when paired with a jet-pack, it means you can fly above your foes and rain down death from above, and that never gets old.

Each episode ends with a confrontation with a large boss enemy.  During these confrontations you are limited to the use of your flame-thrower, but the game does away with fuel consumption making this less of a frustration and more of an interesting challenge.  Overall, the game just shines and really deserved to be the start of a franchise.

Unfortunately, the developers tried just that.  In 1996, a sequel was released, titled Zombie Wars (apparently picking up where Apogee’s generic title-change took off).  Although somewhat more ambitious, introducing NPC characters and allowing you to play as both Harry and Diane (present in Harry as your mission control officer), the game was not released by Apogee and lacked polish.  The developers had plans to further the series after Zombie Wars, intending to create a third title and even planning out a children’s cartoon series (which, by the way, would have been awesome) but the series never progressed beyond its frail sophomore offering.  However, Alien Carnage was released as freeware in 2007, so now everyone can enjoy the zombie-slaying goodness of the original title.

Forbidden Forest

As the Halloween season draws ever nearer, I’d like to present one of the first games that I ever found truly terrifying (of course, I was four years old at the time).  No, it’s not a survival horror…it’s an old Commodore 64 action classic called Forbidden Forest.

The work of a single programmer, Paul Norman, the game was being programed as a means of learning 6502 programming.  At the time Paul worked for a small software company which was going out of business, and representatives from another company, Cosmi, were visiting for the purpose of buying office furniture, saw Paul at his desk working on the game, and hired him on the spot.  The game was released in 1983 under the Cosmi label and became one of the more well-known and highly-regarded Commodore 64 games released.

The plot of the game is simple: you are an archer journeying into a haunted forest to find and slay the Demogorgon, an immense beast terrorizing the land.  During your hunt you will have to fend off giant spiders, dragons, snakes, skeletal warriors and eerie phantoms.  Each level was unique, with a new foe to face before you could progress.  Some levels required simple action tactics as you fought off waves of spiders creeping out of the trees.  In others, you yourself were the hunted as a dragon would stalk you through the woods, giving you little time to react before roasting you alive.

The game is notable as an early example of parallax scrolling (multiple background layers moving at different speeds to create the illusion of depth) as well as being one of the first games to feature animated blood and gore.  The latter is perhaps one of the title’s most defining aspects.  Rather than just a simple graphical representation of blood, the game contained fairly brutal death scenes.  Capture by a giant spider would result in an extended scene of the player writhing back and forth as the spider attacked, spraying animated blood in increasing amounts as the brief scene played out.  The game also had a day-night transition, complete with a moon that slowly crept across the sky from left to right as the forest grew darker and darker as one progressed.  By the time one reached the Demogorgon, the forest would be pitch-black and one’s foe could be seen only during flashes of lightning that revealed his location as he crept ever closer, stalking the player in the dark.

The game was popular enough to result in a sequel, released in 1985 under the title Beyond the Forbidden Forest.  An even more ambitious title, it was advertised as being in “OmniDimensional 4-D”, meaning that the player could walk and shoot into and out of the foreground, in addition to just left and right.  An aiming mechanic was also added, as two bars appears at the side of the screen to show the up and down angle one’s arrows would travel, which could be adjusted according to where one wanted to shoot.

Unfortunately this mechanic over-complicated the control scheme and resulted in gameplay that was clunky and inelegant.  Despite its ambition the sequel just wasn’t as much fun and isn’t as well-remembered today.

In 2003, the series was revived somewhat with a release in 2003.  Titled simply Forbidden Forest, it was a budget title co-developed with Webfoot Technologies.  The gameplay was brought into the third dimension, but although the theme of the original could have translated into an excellent survival-horror game, the resulting budget-priced title boasted lackluster graphics, a “forest” that felt more like a pleasant woodland resort and enemies who were far too generic to be frightening.  The best thing about the title was the re-orchestrated main theme and the fact that the CD contained a Commodore 64 emulator and copies of the original two titles.

Dark Ages

The influence of Apogee (later 3D Realms) was significant in its time.  Credited with developing the common Shareware method of game distribution in 1987, wherein titles were released in episodes with only the first released for free (known at its beginning as the "Apogee Model"), they also developed a string of hit titles, some of which continue to the present day (Duke Nukem).  They also had the distinction of publishing ID Software's Wolfenstein 3D, which, although not the first First-Person Shooter, often regarded as the granddaddy of them, bringing the genre great, widespread fame and leading the way for ID's runaway hit Doom.

Amongst their smaller achievements, Apogee is also credited with released the first shareware game to utilize soundcard support.  It might be easy to take this sort of thing for granted nowadays, but prior to this point in time, when otherwise excellent games were tied down to sharp auditory bleeps and blips from the extremely low-fi built in PC speaker.  Soundcard support was a huge deal.

Unfortunately, Dark Ages, although grandfathering this support on the shareware scene, was not otherwise a stand-out title.  Graphically flat and not particularly interesting, it was by no means a bad game, just not a very good one in a time when titles like Commander Keen, lacking soundcard support but trumping Dark Ages on gameplay, were already out on the scene.  It is a title that has largely been forgotten and is rarely mentioned, but nevertheless it deserves a small place in the spotlight if only as a milestone on the gaming timeline.  It also bears the distinction of being designed by Todd Replogle, who later that same year would release Duke Nukem.

That said, the game can be entertaining in its own right, even if it is weak when held against its compatriots.  Apart from its technologically advanced (for its time) music and sound, the game had a "high-fantasy" setting that brings to mind arcade games like Rastan.  You control a magic-wielding warrior prince who fights to free his kingdom from the evil wizard Garth, who has plagued the land with hordes of undead minions.  Gameplay and level-design are very straight forward, and basically you fight your way back and forth across fairly simplistic landscapes until you finally reach your journey's end.  Nothing special, but fun if you're in the mood for something simple.  Apogee would revisit this high-fantasy "babes and barbarians" style setting with much greater effect in 1995 with Realms of Chaos.  3D Realms released Dark Ages as freeware in 2009.

Monster Bash

Growing up, I was drawn to macabre tales of horror, and my imagination ran wild to think of ghosts and ghouls prowling the night.  The fact that I was afraid of the dark did little to dissuade this pursuit.  I was only afraid of the dark, because I knew what dwelled there...

That history doubtless set the stage for an imagination that was all too ready to leap upon the classical macabre stylings of games like Hugo's House of Horrors and, a personal platforming favorite, Monster Bash.

Monster Bash was released by Apogee in 1993.  Apogee, one of the early pioneers shareware gaming, had a string of excellent platform games in the 90s.  Most people immediately recognize the name Duke Nukem, which continued into the 3D era, and many remember with fondness Commander Keen, but there was more to the Apogee story, and some titles that never resulted in a franchise have sadly fallen into the void, which is a shame.  Among these is Monster Bash, a tale of a young, pajama-clad, sling-shot wielding Johnny Dash who, on a dark and stormy night, uncovers a plot by villainous vampire Count Chuck to steel the dogs and cats of the world and transform them into monsters.  Johnny sets out to free his own kidnapped pooch and the other stolen dogs and cats of the world, and his quest takes him running through zombie-filled graveyards, twisted sawmills, haunted houses and bizarre laboratories.

The gameplay was solid.  Each level had a largely open environment, with Johnny hunting down the location of the cages dogs and cats.  Once they were all set free, one could move on to the next.  Controls were tight, and the music was exciting.  I always felt that Johnny Dash would have made a fitting cousin for Billy Blaze of Commander Keen fame, and was disappointed that the game didn't produce more titles.

The real standout aspect of the game is the presentation.  The graphics are beautiful for their time, a mix of bright, colorful locations melded with what are probably some of the goriest elements you'll ever find in what is otherwise a kid-friendly platformer.  Bloody spears, some covered in unidentifiable entrails, jut out of the ground.  Zombies explode into bloody chunks upon death, and sometimes their heads will continue to roll along the ground and attack the player until squashed.  It's all in good fun and contrasts spectacularly with the otherwise kiddish presentation, making it a joyful romp through a nightmarish world.  To any fans of classical PC platform games, I highly recommend it.

Scooter's Magic Castle

I was probably about twelve when my family purchased our first PC, and the Commodore 64 was packed away and largely forgotten.  That initial, off-white tower of magic came with a bundle of educational software titles.  Most people tend to get their guard up when talking about "edutainment", a field rife with titles that are more lecture than game, but the bundle of CD-ROMs that arrived with our first PC was a treasure-trove of entertaining gems.

Granted, a lot of this material was intended for a younger audience than myself at that age, and fell right into step with my little sister who was four years behind me.  But did I care about that?  Not on your life.  Fun was fun, and in the cozy confines of your parent's basement den, who cares if you're playing Wolfenstein 3D or Gus Goes to Cybertown?

One of the most entertaining titles to come with the PC was Scooter's Magic Castle, released by EA-Kids (yes, EA of Electronic Arts fame.  This was before they became the tyrannical company everybody loves to hate).  Although the presentation is much like an early-learner Adventure game, it is in fact far more open-ended.  In the game, you follow along with a little elf named Scooter, a bouncy little fellow who could have walked right out of a Disney film, and explore a magical castle filled with mini-games.  Like many kid's games of this sort, you can click on all manner of objects to reveal fun animations.

Games encountered within the castle are often simple, but very well presented with bright colors and lively animations and sound effects.  They include a musical memory game, a fishing minigame and (a personal favorite of mine) a color-mixing game wherein you mix together various colors to bring to life a clownish Frankenstein's monster.

With its colorful presentation, perky animation and bright, upbeat music, it is easy to lose an hour exploring Scooter's Magic Castle.  The game is easily available for download on the net from various Abandonware sites (although it may require some emulation to run properly), and it is well worth a look.  It still holds up today, having more charm and fun than much of the shovelware that tends to be pushed out under the banner of education.  Even as an adult it is a charming little diversion, and if you've got young kids, they're sure to love to fall in love with Scooter.

Hugo's House of Horrors

I love a good Adventure game, be it text-only, graphical/text or point-and-click.  One of my favorites is the Hugo series, the first of which, Hugo’s House of Horror, was released in 1990 by Gray Design Associates.  The game is fairly short and not overly complex, although some of the puzzles can be real brain teasers.  It is possible to kill off your character, but although there are a few death traps they are not so common as to be detrimental to the gameplay.  The game has a charming graphical presentation and a solid dose of humor.

The objective is to lead Hugo on a quest to rescue his girlfriend Penelope, who hasn’t been seen since entering a creepy old house on a babysitting job.  The house, it turns out, is home to a mad doctor and a host of ghouls, and they have their own nefarious plans in mind for poor Penelope.

You control Hugo via the arrow buttons, and interact with your surroundings and communicate with the denizens of the house through a text prompt.  The text entry flows smoothly, and recognizes both full sentences as well as brief, keyword oriented commands.  The game recognizes commands outside of those required by the gameplay, so you can sometimes get humorous responses depending on how you choose to speak to Hugo.

The game was followed by two sequels, each following the same basic play mechanics.  The second, Hugo II: Whodunnit? is my personal favorite.  This time you take control of Penelope who is visiting her rich Uncle Horace.  Shortly after Penelope and Hugo arrive at her uncle’s country manor, Hugo disappears and Penelope discovers that her uncle has been murdered.

The game feels bigger and more open as you explore the manor, speak to the other guests and house staff and attempt to piece together what happened.  It’s not unlike a single-player game of Clue.  Following along with the quirky humor present in the first title, there is even a scene in which The Doctor (of Doctor Who fame) and a Dalek make a brief appearance.

The last title of the adventure trilogy, Hugo III: Jungle of Doom, while entertaining in its own right, feels small and stale next to its predecessors.  The humor and quirks are toned down as Hugo must quest through a jungle after a plane crash to find an antidote to the venom of a large spider that has bitten Penelope and left her in a coma.

It is not a bad title by any means, but after the quirky adventures of the previous two titles, it is a bit of a disappointment as a follow-up.

The final Hugo game was a huge departure.  Nitemare 3D retells the story of the first title, but instead of a comical adventure game, Nitemare 3D is a first-person shooter in the vein of Wolfenstein 3D, albeit stronger focus on puzzles.  Overall the level design is fairly solid and requires more thought than simply running and gunning.  Simple puzzles, secret areas and the occasional environmental curve-ball (such as having the power go out and needing to find a fuse box to turn the lights back on) keep things interesting.  There are also a variety of enemy types, some of which are more susceptible to certain forms of weaponry than others (witches against wands, human scientists against revolvers, etc.)

Although not the most polished presentation of an early 3D shooter, the gameplay was interesting and unique enough that I have fond memories of playing it, and also of being thoroughly creeped out by the first level’s dark and dreary organ music.

Hovertank 3D

Released by Softdisk in 1991, the same year as Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion (and by the same team, Tom Hall, John Carmack and John Romero), Hovertank 3D was the beginning of a wildly successful journey into first person gaming for the team that formed Id Software, although they did not know it yet.  It is often assumed that Wolfenstein 3D was the first FPS these golden boys of PC gaming would create, but while it was certainly their first big hit under the Id Software name and many gamer's introduction to the FPS world, the beginnings of that early FPS title were much more humble, but no less significant.

3D gaming was hardly new, as flight and combat sims had been doing this for years.  But John Carmack set out to create a 3D engine that was faster and smoother than any previously used in the gaming scene.  Taking place on a single plane and without any texture, but sporting fast and smooth gameplay, he developed the engine used in Hovertank, which would later become the basis for yet another FPS, Catacomb 3D (to be examined later) and finally Wolfenstein 3D.

Set in the future during a nuclear war, the player controls a hovering tank and must journey through maze-like cities rescuing refugees before a nuclear bomb drops.  The cities are filled with mutants and other hovertanks.  The game controls much like a normal FPS, but the character's vision "bobs" to simulate the flotation of the tank.  Unlike Wolfenstein, where the task was simply to find the exit to a given level, in Hovertank the goal is to find and rescue all the people in the level, at which point an exit will appear somewhere in the stage.  The head's up display provides a radar that shows the general location of people to be rescued, as well as enemies to be fought, and a timer runs on each level counting down the minutes until the bomb goes off, adding tension.

Although somewhat amateurish in execution (particularly the cheesy "Yay!" that sounds when you rescue someone), the game plays well and showcases an early, yet well-designed engine that would soon spark a fire that would burn into the present day and change the gaming landscape forever.