ULTIMATE GUIDE GAME OVER

IT’S THE SPANISH-MADE GAME THAT CAUSED A COLOSSAL – AND HYPOCRITICAL – STIR IN THE UK THANKS TO ITS CONTROVERSIAL ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN. JOIN RETRO GAMER AS WE LOOK BACK AT THE 8-BIT RUN-AND-GUN GAME THAT CEMENTED DEVELOPER DINAMIC’S REPUTATION – FOR BETTER OR WORSE

- GRAEME MASON

ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC fans in particular will know the name Dinamic well. They’ll remember the pretty graphics. The impressive presentation. And, of course, the rock-hard, interminable gameplay that made you want to throw the cassette on the floor and stomp it into a million pieces. The Spanish software house, revered in its home country, seemed to revel in producing exceptionally tough computer games. Colourful yet attribute clash-ridden, vague collision detection and a habit of sending you right back to the start when you lost a life; these were all Dinamic calling cards.

Following moderate success with arcade clone West Bank and platformer Abu Simbel Profanation at Sheffield software house Gremlin Graphics, Dinamic shifted to the UK’s biggest games company for its 1986 release Army Moves. Published under Ocean’s Imagine label, the reception to Army Moves in the press would soon become familiar. “The first six levels are much too hard,” grimaced Crash reviewer Ben Stone, “so one gets increasingly frustrated.” The theme continued into Navy Moves, a game that houses an opening level so perversely tricky it’s a wonder that any of the game’s cassettes remain intact.