#BOULDER DASH CLONES SERIES#

What I didn’t quite appreciate so much were my first impressions once I’d actually installed the game though. Okay, I know it’s only Boulder Dash, and I know it’s hardly the 3.5K we started with here, but all the same, doesn’t happen much anymore, but if I was playing on Switch I’d appreciate it!

#BOULDER DASH CLONES SERIES#

And honestly, I’d pay the £12.49 asking-price (which I don’t think includes Nintendo Switch tax if you’re on there) to be able to play the original on my brand new Series X alone! Speaking of Switch, when I first installed this I was pleasantly surprised to see the download coming in at about 700MB. You’re also getting The Liepa World, twenty new levels from original creator Peter Liepa, and, best of all, you’ve got the original game thrown in too. It was crazy addictive too!įast forward to now, and Boulder Dash Deluxe is taking the same classic gameplay, giving it all a lick of paint and dumping it into 180 new levels across nine unique worlds with no less than fifteen new enemies to mix up the puzzle action. I guess it could be compared to Dig Dug, but it played way quicker and had more going on, often becoming a real head-scratcher the further in you got. On the way, you’ll come up against various dangerous creatures, falling boulders that can quickly turn into an avalanche, as well as explosions and other such underground perils. Boulder Dash is a 2D action-puzzler that has you, Rockford, digging through caves and collecting enough gems to allow you to reach the level’s exit before the timer runs out. And none of that is encouraging me to add to cart! Anyway, no matter because Boulder Dash Deluxe has now arrived on Switch, Xbox and PC, and for transparency, publisher BBG Entertainment has kindly sent me a review code, which I’ll be looking at on Xbox Series X.

Now that’s out of my system, let’s move to what I think was around the start of this very year, when I was still keeping an eye on that new Atari VCS console, and an announcement that not only was there even more Boulder Dash on the way, but 36 years on it was coming back home and launching there first, all over again! I must admit that I lost track of the Atari VCS a bit – it sounded pricey, getting it shipped to the UK was significantly more pricey, and even though we’re way into September 2021 now, if you go to the official store to order one, you’re still being told that the “product will arrive in Spring 2021” and that pricing is subject to change. Actually, when I first got my C64 Mini, that was the very first game I scrolled around to and fired up on there (and, behind the scenes, couldn’t resist doing again about 45 minutes ago, as I write, to get me back in the mood)! No, it’s simply because the game made greater demands on the player than it did the hardware, a bit like when Andy Warhol took down his paintings because he was the art! The concept was brilliant and the C64 was a perfect match, and while, when I think C64, I might think Commando first and Winter Games second, Boulder Dash would probably be next. And not just because no game was ever more suited to demonstrating its graphical prowess thanks to all that chunky brown action going on! It’s not even because that’s where I eventually played it the most. Was there ever a game that came out on as many platforms as Boulder Dash? And that’s before we bring it its sequels and remakes and remasters and construction kits and spin-offs like Rockford and GemJam! Or, indeed, it’s rip-offs on the one system that completely missed out on any Boulder Dash love, which was, of course, the one that I owned! We had Rockman on the VIC-20 though, and while it wasn’t quite Repton on the BBC, it was a great Boulder Dash clone! In fact, considering it was available for the unexpanded, 3.5K VIC-20 no less, and it was a Mastertronic budget title, what we got here was nothing short of a miracle, albeit a ridiculously hard miracle most of the time!įor all of its proper ports though, stemming from the original 1984 Atari 8-bit versions by First Star Software, I will forever associate Boulder Dash with the Commodore 64.

Boulder dash clones