It's a Pixel THING

Developed and released in 1989 by Rainbow Arts, Rock’n’Roll was available for a bunch of systems, like the ZX Spectrum, the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, PC and Atari ST.
You’re looking at the Amiga version which, besides the fabulous gameplay,  features music composed by the great Chris Hülsbeck.
In this action arcade puzzle game, there are 32 huge levels (plus 1 secret bonus level) divided across 7 continents where we control a ball with the mouse and the objective is to reach the exit in each one of them. But this apparently simple task can be, sometimes, really hard and stressful. Thankfully, the superb soundtrack keeps us tapping our foot on the floor making every level an awesome and extremely joyful adventure.
There’s numerous objects scattered throughout each level that help or hinder our path to the exit. These take the form of ventilators, which blow the ball away, magnets, which attract the ball, arrows, which roll the ball in a specific direction, etc. Many objects can also drain…

As the developers themselves admit, this title was heavily based on the Indiana Jones adventures. As the game starts, you’re immediately chased by a giant boulder, just like in the first Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of The Lost Ark.
Developed by Core Design and published, in 1989, by Firebird Software, it was available for the greatest machines of the time: Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Amstrad CPC and the ZED X Spectrum. This was the first original game created by Core Design who later became famous for the success of their Tomb Raider franchise. Thinking of that, is Rick Dangerous the biological father of Lara Croft?.. Hummmm…
Part time hero and stamp collector, Rick Dangerous is hunger for adventure. Set in 1945, he hears a rumor about a lost tribe somewhere on the Amazon jungle. He plans his trip and, moments before landing, something went wrong with the airplane. A normal thing to happen when you travel air-penguin! Rick’s plane crash lands in the jungle right in the spot wher…

Inside the box, with, by the way, a simple but superb illustration of Indy’s magnificence, we’ve got a jewel case containing the 2 CDs for its massive eight hundred megabytes of data for the full install of the game and, as well, its full color manual with the beautiful art of Drew Struzan, the guy responsible for the Indiana Jones, Stars Wars, Back to the Future, Harry Potter movie posters and also some of Alice Cooper’s cover albums.
Firstly, and in my honest opinion, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine is a huge overlooked gem.
Back in 1999, in a time where point-and-click adventure games have already died out its flame, Lucas Arts released the first 3D action adventure game based in Indy’s adventures. I remember that I was extremely anxious and really looking forward to grab this game at my first opportunity! And so I did!
Ok, you all know that I’m a huge Indiana Jones fan and that this game is kind of a poor Tomb Raider clone. But you have to agree that this in one hell of a good…

Alien 3, directed by David Fincher, was a good looking movie with a crappy story that didn’t do so well on the box office. As for the game based on the movie, it still is one of my best Alien based videogame of all time.
Developed by Probe Entertainment and released between the end of 1992 and the beginning of 1993 for a crap load of 8 and 16 bit systems, the one that really was worth playing was the Super Nintendo version.
The game wasn’t at all faithful to the movie. There were only 3 things that makes us remind Alien 3: the title, the intro scene and Ripley’s haircut. Everything else is different, like the fact of all the levels are filled with aliens – in the movie there was only one – and, as the game starts, we’re granted access to a flame thrower, pulse rifle and a grenade launcher – once again, in the movie, there were no fire arms of any kind whatsoever. So, I think that we can’t directly compare the action present on the game to the one we see in the movie. Besides these obser…

FUEL, as you might know, features a gigantic open world environment set in a post-apocalyptic Earth, ravaged by extreme weather.
Fuel has become more valuable than gold, though your focus will be on finishing the races to get more of that precious liquid, something we’ve seen on the cult movie Mad Max.
Published by Codemasters in 2009, this game received average reviews and its massive fifty five hundred square miles of land was certified by the Guiness Book of Records as, and I quote: “the largest playable area in a console game”. 
To this day, FUEL sold about 670.000 units worldwide.
There’s 75 vehicles to unlock, 70 races and 190 challenges. In some of these challenges you’ll not only be facing your opponents but, as well, huge tornadoes and massive sandstorms.
All these features were kind of unique on a video game, but this wasn’t the original idea. As you might know, France is home of world’s greatest offroad event: the Dakar. In consequence, France is also a country that built fantas…

Besides playing games, real Mountain Biking is an hobby of mine. The freedom and the sensation of almost being part of nature is something that inspires me and keeps me motivated. 


NUMBER 6 MOUNTAINBIKE CHALLENGE 2010 (PC) 

Developed by GreenTube, Mountainbike Challenge 2010 is a freeware title financed by in-game advertising.
Graphics are great, the controls are simple, but the music is a bit repetitive.
It still has a huge online community and thousands of people still play it online.
There’s only 5 tracks available, but, in a free game, what else could you ask? It’s freaking fun!
Go play it!


NUMBER 5 No Fear Downhill Mountain Bike Racing (1999 – PS ONE) 

Developed by Unique Development Studios and released by Codemasters in 1999 for the PS ONE, No Fear Downhill Mountain Bike Racing features 8 international tracks and 8 riders to choose from.
The tracks are long and based on real locations and you can customize your bike on almost every detail.
To win you need to conserve your energy, so try t…

Batman: the Movie, from 1989 is an action/platform game based on Tim Burton’s amazing film of the same name and was released for a bunch of systems: the ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, MS-DOS, Apple II and Atari ST.
There’s five action packed stages based on the movie and, when I first tried to load the 128k version of the game on my spectrum, about 14 minutes later I was blown away by the fantastic music by Mathew Cannon and all the 5 levels loaded at the same time! That was just freaking amazing!
In the first level we control Batman through the maze of platforms. We’re looking for Jack Napier and the action takes place at his Axis Chemical plant. You know what happens next: Jack falls into a container filled with acid. The Joker is born.
In the Spectrum version, the second level is a horizontal scroller where you take the wheel of the Batmobile through the streets of Gotham dodging traffic and avoiding the police using, for that matter, the grapple gun to go super-fast a…