V

Retrobrothers · January 2012

V - one of my favourite shows from the 80s

So why was the game such utter dirge?

I've added it to my blog at:
Spectrum Games

What a shame - the TV show was spot on for a great game conversion. Aside from the nice loading screen and animation on the central character it has little else going for it.

Mark R. Jones · January 2012

It was rubbish wasn't it. Walk around for 4 mins, nothing happened, plug pulled.

Tom Gale · January 2012

I seem to recall that the principle problem with V was a complete lack of relevant instructions. I think there is actually quite an interesting game there if you know what to do...

Retrobrothers · January 2012

Mark R Jones wrote: »

It was rubbish wasn't it. Walk around for 4 mins, nothing happened, plug pulled.

Yep that's about it in a nutshell

JuanF. Ramirez · January 2012

The key is the map. It's monotonous and boring: You see only corridors, corridors, corridors....

Not a good incentive to keep on playing, IMHO. I remember similar graphics in Freddy Hardest (side A).

I agree the loading screen is very good (David Thorpe again!)

And no lizards in the game!!! As a 80's teenager who loved the show, I expected to see legions of scary visitors...

Ralf · January 2012

I remember some earlier topic where a possible fate of V has been suggested.

I could have happened that the game we have now, was originally developed as some general non-license game about mazes, corridors and robots.

Then there was a need to make a V game quickly so it was adapted in a hurry with some V elements added. But the development was already so advanced then it was impossible to make it more V without rewriting it from scratch.

Dwayne Dibley · January 2012

It was simply a random game tagged onto the 'V@ licence , designed to earn mega bucks.

No screenshots on the cover and the game released before being reviewed in mags should have told everyone everything they needed to know about what the game was going to be like.

Unfortunately I didn't listen to myself!

MinerWilly · January 2012

Dwayne Dibley wrote: »

Unfortunately I didn't listen to myself!

Neither did i. And to add insult to the injury my intentions were to buy Batman but it was sold out so i bought V instead. I didn't get to play Batman until later in the emulatorage. And i have always loved isometric 3d games! :x

Dwayne Dibley · January 2012

The name was quite appropriate too - it was like the programmers flicking a two-fingered salute to us - abut we only realised that AFTER we'd bought it!

Maroc's Astral Projection · January 2012

MinerWilly wrote: »

Neither did i. And to add insult to the injury my intentions were to buy Batman but it was sold out so i bought V instead. I didn't get to play Batman until later in the emulatorage. And i have always loved isometric 3d games! :x

That's a truly horrific story of when you choose the wrong path in life. I hope you've recovered now ;)

Pag · January 2012

I remember Your Sinclair's preview of it, they made it sound so good.

loki88 · January 2012

Same thing in a way, the crash review made it out to be bland, generaly rubbish. Disapointing realy, v included, so many of those well loved tv shows crashed and burned.

Out of all of them though, v's the one i wish had seen some more love down the line.

fog · January 2012

Ralf wrote: »

I remember some earlier topic where a possible fate of V has been suggested.

I could have happened that the game we have now, was originally developed as some general non-license game about mazes, corridors and robots.

Then there was a need to make a V game quickly so it was adapted in a hurry with some V elements added. But the development was already so advanced then it was impossible to make it more V without rewriting it from scratch.

you got me thinking... I think your onto something there.. does it remind you of another game "slightly" ? say... impossible mission ? :)
author gary knight... author of this garry knight..(or the other way around :p) I recon its' the same person , but WOS obv turns up 2 entries

it wouldn't surprise me if you looked at the routines in a disambler it's prolly the same

my advice > go play aliens US Or Alien 3 on c64 :D

ZX Beccy · January 2012

Biggest memory from that game... Where the @?^" were all the visitors!

redballoon · January 2012

They were away out, y'know, visiting.

fog · January 2012

ZX Beccy wrote: »

Biggest memory from that game... Where the @?^" were all the visitors!

tea break ? :)
all these alien "sorts" have cloaking devices of some sort.. tsk :)

Mark R. Jones · January 2012

I remember thinking at the time I first saw V that it looked very much like Impossible Mission.

Timmy · January 2012

According to this page in C&VG, V was made by a company called Softstone.

Which happens to be the same developer for Impossible Mission, according to the WoS database...

(Disclaimer: I have never played any of them.)

fog · January 2012

Timmy wrote: »

(Disclaimer: I have never played any of them.)

well ya really wanna play IM on a c64.. don't get me wrong it's "ok" on speccy, but well better on 64 :-p

*runs from angry mob*

that page also mentions a tony knight.

Retrobrothers · January 2012

I'd never played Impossible Mission so I wasn't aware of the similarities between the two!

I'm sure that 'V' was a nearly completed existing game or engine that was quickly knocked together to cash in on the license.

Almost a devious as those damn visitors!

Tch Tch Ocean....

fog · January 2012

not really crafty.. code / engine recycling went on a fair bit I bet :)

a lot of the later hi-tec games used the same style of engine, just with gfx changed (only speaking for c64)

joefish · January 2012

They changed the graphics but not the sound - that Brrrrpp noise when you jump, where the pitch depends on how high up the screen your character is, is a dead give-away. Although they were later in the Speccy's life.

I wouldn't say engine re-use was all that common (though there are some obvious examples) but doing a licensed game by hijacking whatever had just come in seems to have occurred several times. We'll probably never know quite how common it really was.

landorb · February 2012

I was a big fan of V on the telly and when I seen the speccy game in WH Smith I hounded my gran to buy it for me. I think it was ?7.99. ?7.99!

I loaded it up a soon as we got home. The loading screen got me really excited. When it loaded I dived sraight in. Hours passed. I kept saying to myself 'I must be missing something' and 'What am I supposed to do?'. I eventually convinced myself that there WAS something wrong and that it wasn't me. Being pretty new to the speccy and this being my first 'big box' game I came to the concludion that there must be a tape missing, that this SURELY cannot be it. I moaned at my gran until she took me all the way back to WH SMITH just to find out that I was wrong: The game did come on one tape. Gutted. To this day I regret not asking for a refund or exchange. Why? Why????????????

Years later I began thinking 'you know, it was probably me. I was like 9 or something at the time, I probably just didn't understand it. So I loaded it up on an emulator and quickly discovered, to my relief, that it wasn't me at all. It was just a real shit game.

And now that you guys mention it, it does look like an IM game hastily tarted up for a quick cash in. Rotten bastards.

Graz · February 2012

No lizards and a Loading screen which tried to capture a rubbish cover.

Other than that I rather like it.

V

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