Game Review: Beat It (Commodore 64, Mastertronic)

Back in 1983, Taskset released Jammin’, a bright and colourful game which involved you having to locate the four instruments for your band and place them in locations on the screen, complete with some excellent music that drove you on – even including some cover versions of Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Sex Pistols and Jean-Michel Jarre. The concept was addictive and deservedly was praised at the time for being an original and fun game. Several years later, the sequel Beat It (also noted as Jammin’ II on the title screen, which confirmed its sequel status) was released.

The plot is that Rockin’ Rodney has made strides on his musical career. However, he has now been sent to collect notes from the Sounds Sourcing System. This means negotiating sixty mazes, collecting all the quaver notes needed to make the melody, and avoiding any nasties that will get in the way or, worse still, turn down the volume completely. And if love is found along the way, then that is just sweet serendipity, and a hefty bonus score to boot.

Options of Octaves

When the game loads, the title tune plays, and should sound familiar if you have played Ghettoblaster, by the same programming team. Yes, several of the tunes appear to be remakes of those from that game. The logos for both Beat It and Jammin’ II on different screens are big and bold, with splashes of colour everywhere. Pressing F1 for options gives you several choices. First, you can select one or two players with F1 as well as the number of lives with F3, one to nine or even infinite. There is no scoring in the infinite lives version but it may be useful for a practice mode. The skill level is set with F5, with four modes available, and lastly, the choice of playing as male (Rodney) or female (Rachel) with F7. The latter is a very nice touch and shows consideration for all games players, which was not always the case back then.

It is also well worth reading the instructions in full, as this details all the characters you will come across in the game and what they do. Instead of finding out purely by accident what each of them do and losing lives or the game because of it, knowing what to go for will immediately make your game last a lot longer. Although the premise is simple in terms of collecting all the quaver notes, the key is what you can collect and what you must avoid along the way.

Don’t Rush the Bum Notes

As you start the game, you will notice the single quaver notes that are stationary along the maze. All of these must be collected, and as you do, the note meter at the top shows the melody playing. In a nice touch musically, the lead instrument for the tune plays for the number of notes you have collected before stopping, and so will play in full when all notes are collected. However, some of the characters will hinder you in this task. The most common are the bum notes. Hitting a normal speed one makes you drop one of your notes and you need to collect it again, and a super-fast bum note means two notes dropped. The distortion (basically a spike) means the fuzzbox is used, the sound plays distorted, and you lose a life. The doom skulls and gloom-mask turns your volume down (it turns down the in-game soundtrack too) and the latter turns the screen grey.

The joystick reverses the joystick control for a time, whilst the arrows can move you across when collided, or reverse the direction of the conveyor belts. The policeman also turns the volume right down as he belies rock and roll is noise pollution. The light switch makes the level all dark, with only the bulb turning the lights back on. The warning triangle slows you down, and the psychiatrist splits your personality and you need to collect your other half to continue. The beer sends the world spinning as if you were drunk. Always avoid the green “angries” too as these will lose a life. Thankfully when a life is lost, you do not have to collect all the notes again which is definitely very helpful.

Very Metal Noise Pollution

There are some helpful characters though: the loudspeaker and headphones increase the volume and makes the in-game soundtrack louder, the clock gives you more time to complete a maze, and collecting the flowers on levels with girls and boys, and delivering the flower to the opposite sex (so if you are playing as Rachel, give the flower to the boy) means that hearts appear which you can then collect for a bonus score. They were not kidding when it was said you may find love along the way. All of that might sound a little hard to remember at first, but makes much more sense when you play.

The conveyor belts will move you along in a certain direction, and sometimes can be reversed when hitting the arrow stationary. These belts do not move as fast as you can when not on them. You need to exit the belt off to a coloured area of the maze, and you can move only within that coloured area to collect any quaver notes you need. The key here is to work out which way to exit the belts and therefore be able to collect the notes. On the first level, the belt at the top moves right, the bottom one moves left, and you can switch between and collect the quaver notes either side of the belts, keeping an eye on any characters to avoid. That and the next few levels give you a very good introduction to the game, introducing the likes of the doom skull and gloom mask and angries early on, and having the light switch and bulb on the same level allows you to work out the mechanics without having to complete the whole level in the dark, which is a sensible move all round.

Bomb the Bass

Later mazes also need you to avoid the bombs which can roam around the maze quickly, and instead of conveyor belts, some of the mazes just have circles with directional arrows, and you can only go across these in the direction the arrow points at, so can be quite useful to know which way they go, more so when avoiding a bomb. There are also some mazes where the conveyor belts have the distortion placed at the end of the belt, and getting off the conveyor before you collide into these is key to keep going. That adds another layer of frenetic action as the levels gradually get more difficult to complete.

Despite all this frenetic action, the joystick controls are responsive, which helps with the playability considerably, and getting off the conveyor belt means you will drop off as soon as you push off. One thing to note is you cannot go across a conveyor belt as if it were a bridge straight to a part of the maze opposite, so some careful planning is needed to make sure you can enter and exit as you need. You can also abort the level with F3 if things are really going wrong, and you can lose a life and go again. In the infinite lives mode, you can also use F1 to skip to the next level and F5 to abort the game, making it much more of a practice mode so that you know what to expect in the levels. This is again a good idea, meaning you can see more of the game and get used to what lies in wait.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics and sound in Beat It are very colourful throughout: from the title screen to all the mazes, there are big splashes of colour, and the characters are overall well animated, as they move around the maze smoothly. The main Rodney and Rachel characters are very distinct, both with big hair, and lots of personality as they move around, which is nice to see. The music, whilst mainly reworkings of the soundtrack from Ghettoblaster, is well done, with the build-up of the notes as you play and collect the quaver notes a neat touch to be able to chart your signs of progress. There are a good variety of tunes as you play and as a result the game sustains a nice musical interest throughout.

Final Thoughts

Beat It may take a little time to get into, even with the lure of the bright colourful graphics and the soundtrack drawing you in. Once you work out the characters and what they do, collecting the quaver notes for each level seems a much more enjoyable task, with progression by hearing more of the soundtrack a nice audible touch. The variety of maze designs and the fair difficulty level choices mean that you can progress well, and will soon find it an addictive game that is difficult to put down. The option to play as Rodney or Rachel is a huge positive and shows careful consideration was put into the gameplay, and the infinite lives mode for effectively practicing the mazes means you can get proficient and then go for it to see how far you may get. It is an addictive and fun game to play once you get into it and for me, it is an under-rated gem that you should seek out.

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