Gangs. Horrible, nasty gangs. They won't be happy till they've raped and burned and killed us all (while covering our nicer buildings in graffiti). They are evil (just for the sake of it). They are also (as 70s cinema has taught me) implausibly heterogeneous. A dizzying mix of ethnicities united by a mutual desire to utterly destroy society. Members are fond of (yuk!) leather waistcoats over (ugh!) bare chests. Also, bandannas. And fingerless leather gloves. And switch-blade knives. Is there one good man among us who has the guts and gumption to stand up, step up and stop them?

Well, Charles Bronson – obviously. And the Aryan beefcake, vigilante heroes of side-scrolling, 1980s beat-em-up games. Men (both fleshy and pixellated) who've had enough. Men who refuse (unlike faggy liberal peaceniks) to merely talk and to think and to legislate.¹ Men who oil up their pecs, grab the nearest rocket-launcher and start (Yeaaah!) blowing shit to fucking pieces.²

One of the more notorious articulations of such ass-whupping reactionary fantasising was Michael Winner's Death Wish 3 (1985). A "wipe the scum from the dirty streets" wank-fest it may well have been, but at least there was some pretence at narrative. Some context (gang members killed Bronson's best pal, or his auntie, or something). The C64/Amstrad/Speccy adaptations just plonked our virtual Bronson in a poorly-rendered cityscape and issued him with a stark and simple command.

The pre-game screens showed nervous old dears tottering along ravaged streets as shameless and wanton hussies hiked up their skirts.

The city, we were encouraged to infer, was fucked. An open sewer. Morally wrecked 'n' ruined by the excesses of a permissive society. Time to call forth the righteous fury of pixellated little Chuck.

Trouble was (as the above picture grimly demonstrates) it was almost impossible to blow away the gang baddies without the massed ranks of shuffling grannies getting in the way. Caught in the cross-fire, and shot with a revolver, they would fly backwards (see above) before crumpling into a piteous attitude of deadness. Here's a close-up…

She's still hanging on to her handbag. And the pension and boiled sweets within. It's horrible!

Though not as horrible as what happens when Chuck whips out his bazooka. Granny approaches…

Kablamoh!

Smoke clears to reveal…a pulped and scorched mass of dessicated granny-flesh lying oozing at Chuck's feet…

At this point, white-coated paramedics would sprint on, squat over the remains, and drag them slowly and hideously off-screen (where, presumably, they'd be reprocessed into yummy soylent green: foodstuff of choice for all urban dystopias).

Classic late-70s/early-80s stuff. Back when popular entertainments cheerily indulged the wannabe vigilante (or psychotic misogynist) in every 13-year-old boy (while shamelessly claiming a spurious moral high ground).

1. It's Your Country, Your Call motherfucker! [back]
2. The kind of men, in other words, who give weedy Daily Mail readers raging erections. [back]

Which is why we must be ever grateful to the mighty Epyx and their string of classic 8-bit waggly/bashy home gems: Summer Games I, Summer Games II, Winter Games, California Games, and (best of a glorious bunch) World Games.

For children like myself – those of us whose passion & enthusiasm for log rolling, barrel jumping, and…er…caber tossing knew no bounds – World Games (1986) was a pixellated gift from virtual heaven.

Most of the events were harmless, chuckle-inducing fun. With one exception. Cliff diving. An 8-bit rendering of a lunatic sport that managed, somehow, to be even more terrifying than the real thing. There you'd stand at the dreadful summit of the cliff that beetled o'er its base into the sea – gathering your thoughts, gauging the wind speed.

Out (into the yawning void) you'd fling your fragile body…

Headlong you'd plunge toward the dark waters below…

And…shit you'd think, I'm getting awfully close to the gnarled face of that cliff…

Garrrhhh! Layers of skin shredded and ripped rudely off. Stomach a mass of gore and peeking-out organs…(not shown due to technological limitations)…

Broken body curled pathetically into a tumbling ball (in a futile bid to ward away the terrible, terrible pain)…

Splat. Crump. Head 'n' neck pulped and driven into intestines.

The horror too much even for the normally aloof and stoic pelican (left of picture).

Mummy. While most games were happy to offer geeky (powerless) young chiddlers a sense of power, potency, and (relative) invulnerability – World Games showed (in grisly and unsettling detail) exactly what would happen if a 10-year-old you were unwise enough to leap off an enormous cliff.

And it worked. Total number of cliffs I've leapt off to date? Zero. Thanks, Epyx. Now please just make the nightmares go away…

Before the NES, the SNES, the N64, the…well you can see the pattern – there was, in the old family homestead, the Amstrad CPC 464 (affectionately known as the Arnold). Though I'd previously played the Atari 2600, various home versions of Pong, the ColecoVision etc., the idea of having a games playing machine in one's own house remained an almost impossibly thrilling one.

The genius of the 464, the Commodore 64 (etc) was, of course, that they cunningly advertised (or disguised) themselves as educational/professional tools. It was, therefore, a relatively easy job to convince sceptical parents that the object would both a) help us young 'uns with our homework (in a completely non-specified way), and, b) help them with their accounts (or whatever shit it was that we imagined adults did).

Of course, from the time the Arnold came out of its box, to the moment it got deposited (old and unloved) in the family attic, it never provided even a nano-second of educational support – which is precisely the way we wanted it. My parents had, in fairness, made a brief stab at unleashing its all-knowing power when we booted it up for the very first time. On came the familiar (eyeball-destroying) green screen which comfortingly promised that Arnold was "Ready":

After pausing for a moment or two to decide how to proceed, my father (I think it was he) suggested I "ask it a question". This, I cheerfully admit, didn't strike me as too absurd an idea. It was the mid 80s (in Ireland) remember – a time when home computers carried potent whiffs of the techno-exotic and the quasi-magical. In other words, we genuinely thought they knew stuff.

"What is the capital of Ethiopia?", typed I.

"Syntax Error", replied Arnold.

Hmmm.

Several hundred syntax errors later and a disillusioned pall began to fall over the family. TV Science Fiction had, it seemed, lied to us. Computers were not the vast, cool storehouses of knowledge we'd imagined them to be. On the plus side – it didn't look like they'd be enslaving us any time soon.

With that, my parents (no doubt feeling like they'd been had) turned their backs on the 464, never to return. The minute they did so we were popping Harrier Attack (one of the 10 bog-standard Amsoft titles given away free with the machine) into the cassette player and sitting excitedly through a 10-15 minute loading sequence.

Errrrrr Ehhhhh Errrrr Ehhhh.

Modest as it undoubtedly was, Harrier Attack did, at least, have one curious and memorable feature – it took a dim view of wanton perversity. Game players have always delighted in testing the limits of game worlds by attempting to do the unexpected – shooting passers-by in the face, stabbing a helpful elf to death (etc) – but until recently games were rarely willing (or able) to accommodate us. Obstacles to any kind of deviation from the prescribed path were routinely (and joylessly) placed in our way. Boo!

Harrier Attack, however, catered to the whims of the self-destructive. As you took off from the tiny aircraft carrier at the start of each level you could (if you were quick enough) immediately dump a load of bombs on deck. The ship would disappear. Your crew-mates would curse you as they drowned and burned to death at the same time. You'd fly off to face the enemy chuckling and high-fiving your co-pilot – the imp of the perverse.

Upon finishing the level you'd arrive at the designated landing point only to find no aircraft carrier there to greet you. Limited as the Amstrad's processing power was, it remembered what you'd done and punished you accordingly. The only option left was to fly hopelessly on before running out of fuel, sobbing and crashing into the sea. No sense of humour these navy types.

Anyhoo, the reason such memories are bouncing around my forebrain is that I've recently discovered the quite wonderful CPC Zone – a beautifully designed and lovingly maintained Amstrad fan-site. Browsing through their game archive has reminded me of just how astonishingly prolific makers of 8-bit games actually were. Slaving away in the attics of their parents' houses they churned out titles by the bucket-load – titles spanning every possible genre and every conceivable subject area. The variety was dizzying (and the quality wildly variable). Dempsey and Makepeace – The Game, anyone?

How about the isometric horrors of Nosferatu the Vampire?

One of my personal favourites was (and still is) Barry McGuigan World Championship Boxing. Not not only could one design one's own rookie pugilist (a mind-boggling innovation in 1985) – before launching him on the long, hard road to glory – but rarely has mindless aggression been so ruthlessly punished in a fighting game. Bursting out of one's corner at the bell and recklessly throwing volleys of punches saw one's "Endurance" (a critical value) plummet rapidly. One's opponent (if he was canny) would simply absorb this fury with some judicious blocking before aiming a gentle jab at one's jaw. Down you'd go like a sack of spuds – mouth agape, energy spent, hopes and dreams punctured.

I'm currently (courtesy of the CPCE emulator) working my way up the rankings with my alter-ego "Slappy O'Smacker" – a flame-haired bobber 'n' weaver who throws (on average) about 3 punches per fight.

He bores the crowd senseless but (dammit!) gets the job done – like Sugar Ray Leonard and Cliff Thorburn rolled into one unstoppable (and unwatchable) package.

10 PRINT "The End"
20 GOTO 10

Due to popular demand (or at least the absence of popular opposition) I’m dipping into my Letts Boy's Diary 1986 once more to pull out another absorbing extract.

When last we looked in on my younger self I was waxing lyrical about the excellence of the Burgerland milkshake (and the "brill-ness" of Back to the Future) while bemoaning the continued non-appearance of Halley's comet and voicing concern about my brother's burgeoning jam sandwich addiction.

All of that just in January too. What a month.

5 days after the Burgerland adventure, I had this to say:

Thursday, January 30th, 1986

Learned about sets in school. Magnum was good. Cats had a tour of the house. Played Hyper Sports.

A particularly full day I'm sure you'll agree. Let's take the various sentences in turn (leaving out the bit about sets…of which I remember nothing):

1) Magnum was good

Recipe: Take one 'tache, one Ferrari, one strict (but dryly witty) English estate manager, one never-seen millionaire author, plenty of Hawaiian shirts (well it was Hawaii), countless Film Noir-ish interior monologues (etc) and bake for 60 minutes.

Result: The marvellous (fústar family favourite) Magnum P.I.

According to tv.com, the episode aired on the night in question (in the US at least) was "All Thieves on Deck" (Season 6). The synopsis reads as follows:

Magnum is to spend a week aboard a luxury cruise ship guarding an Amakua, a valuable wooden Hawaiian statuette recently purchased by Robin Masters, to be displayed on the liner while en route to the Hilo Museum. But Magnum and Higgins find that Apollo has been shot and seriously wounded after thieves attempted to steal the artefact from the Estate. Expecting the would-be robbers to try again during the cruise, Magnum secures Rick and T.C.'s additional help in guarding the artefact, but they find themselves on-board with a ship load of suspects, all potential thieves of the Amakua.

Ho ho. Sounds like the Magnum episode Agatha Christie would have written if she hadn’t (inconveniently) died 10 years previously. I'm sure the luxury cruise setting was duly exploited to allow Higgins many snide remarks RE: Magnum's uncouthness: "Do I really need to explain why you can't wear sneakers to the baccarat table, Thomas?"

Great stuff entirely.

2) Cats had a tour of the house
The cats in question were Nelson and Felix – two utterly mouldy, manky (yet strangely loveable) strays. Nelson looked like the result of a (Fly-like) teleporter accident that had fused the worst elements of a cat and a rat. Not only that but he was – like his famous namesake – minus an eye (and even the existing eye was nothing to write home about). Felix – while affectionate and fond of leaping onto the nearest available lap – was also not without fault. His enjoyment of physical contact was somewhat regrettable since any attempt to stroke him tended to result in a cloud of dead skin, dandruff and general filth being released. Why we saw fit to grant them a tour of the house is anyone’s guess.

21 years on and, once again, 2 cats roam our house,¹ though these 2007 versions are far cuter and less prone to falling apart than their 1980s counterparts. Pet name enthusiasts might be interested to learn that Cat A is called Buster (after Mr. Keaton, one of my heroes) and Cat B (following a vintage comedy theme) was due to be called Harpo.

For the first 2 weeks after we got them home, however, 'Harpo' would dart (terrified) under the bed as soon as one of us came anywhere near him. This practice reminded us both of the peculiar habits of "Fragile" Frankie Merman of Seinfeld fame. Fans of that great show may recall that when suffering emotional strain or anxiety the young Frankie would run off into the woods, dig a hole, and sit in it till the mood had passed. Thus it was that "Harpo" became "Frankie".

3) Played Hyper Sports

Hyper Sports (for those not in the know) was the rather lame² sequel to the seminal arcade game Hyper Olympic (1983). In their home computer incarnations – we had an Amstrad CPC 464 – these games required the user to perform a lot of frantic joystick waggling to make the onscreen athletes do their thing (and this at an age when that other form of "joystick waggling" was becoming an all-consuming leisure activity among my school mates and I). The average lifespan of a joystick exposed to the ferocious battering of Hyper Sports/Olympic³ was approximately 8 seconds. After that your pixilated athlete friend would stand immobile and forlorn while you – with tears of anger and frustration welling in your eyes – waggled with increasingly desperate and futile ferocity.

The joystick, of course, was a wholly unsuitable instrument for such games. Any arcade junkie worth his/her salt would have told you that "button bashing" was the only way to go. The most effective technique was to put your head down, tense your fingers and shoulders, and try to perfect a sort of ferociously intense tremble. When performed most effectively this method appeared (to the untrained eye) to involve little obvious movement. In reality, of course, the movement was so rapid that the eye simply couldn’t keep up.

Flamboyant, over-animated button smashing immediately pegged you as a rank amateur: someone who’d tragically failed to realise that the key to athletic success lay in making the interval between left button and right button taps as brief as humanly possible. Failure to adhere to this basic maxim inevitably resulted in a catastrophic (and competitively disastrous) loss of speed at crucial moments.

One alarming aspect of the "ferocious tremble" technique was that the player could occasionally appear to be exhibiting all the signs of cardiac arrest: purple complexion, extremely tense and rigid limbs, chronic shortness of breath etc. The last time I witnessed this worrying sight was one evening (not so many years ago) in my parents' house. In attendance were yours truly, my brother Brian (Mr. Jam Sandwiches) and Copernicus (Mr. Midnight Court).

The game was the passably entertaining International Track & Field 2: a more sophisticated (but less fun) version of Hyper Olympic. As the evening wore on it became apparent that Copernicus was developing a technique of such prodigious intensity that we could no longer make out the distinctive individual click-clack sounds of alternate keys being pressed. All that could be heard was a deafening and incessant drone as Copernicus' onscreen representative crossed the line for a record obliterating 5.3 second 100 metres.

As the brother and I turned to congratulate him we were greeted with the sight of a young(ish) man utterly spent and possibly in need of urgent medical attention. I actually thought he was going to die there and then before our eyes – snatched away at a moment of minor triumph. Fortunately the palpitations subsided and (after a sit-down and a restorative glass of something or other) his heart resisted the urge to explode.

The shock of it profoundly affected Brian and I though and we never went near the game again – thus ensuring that the record still stands to this day, a testament to Copernicus' willingness to push himself to the trembling limits of human endurance.

More from the diary at a later date.

1. Not the same house mentioned in the diary of course. [back]
2. Gymnastics? Skeet Shooting? [back]
3. Yes I know it sounds odd, but it really was called Hyper Olympic not Hyper Olympics [back]