28/01/2011

Funny Games - Cobra - Classic ZX Spectrum Game

Cobra ZX Spectrum
I'm kicking off this blog with an arcade game by perhaps the greatest ever programmer to grace my favourite 8-bit computer, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

Jonathan Smith programmed the game of the movie back in 1986, and it was as hilarious as it was brilliant.

As soon as this classic game loaded up you just knew you were in for a real treat.

The impressive loading screen to Cobra- ZX Spectrum If you elected to redefine the keyboard controls you were asked to choose Up, Down, Left, Right... and 'Murder'! Not the usual 'Fire', but 'Murder'. Genious!

From the 'Rocky' inspired music ditty on beginning the game, to the cartoon style sprites (moving across perhaps the most impressive scrolling ever on the Speccy) this game was funny from the word go.

Prams would make our hero go weak at the knees, your lives were represented as boxing gloves, baddies were headbutted away (sending them flying across the screen) and eating hamburgers gave you a temporary weapons powerup.

Your weapons powerup time limit was represented by a slowly dissolving rubber duck - once again nothing to do with the movie but utterly funny!

Rocky/Cobra headbutts some bad guys
The incidental little tunes were lively and fitted the style of the game superbly.

When all of your lives were gone it was 'game under' and you could enter your name in 'the morgue'.

This game was a rarity. It was better than the film it was (loosly) based on, was very playable, a technical marvel and made the player laugh. Funny stuff and a true classic game from Ocean Software.

Classic Arcade Action:


Classic Games, Arcade Games and Funny Games

No comments:

Post a Comment