Game Review: Rockford – The Arcade Game (Commodore 64, Mastertronic)

Rockford: The Arcade Game was a conversion of the Arcadia Systems arcade game, where the systems were based on Amiga boards and used that hardware as its base version.  The Rockford character and indeed the game it was from was officially licenced from First Star Software, with the inlay from the game both showing Rockford and Boulder Dash as registered trademarks and giving due credit – and also bizarrely calling the character Rockman in one instance, which was of course a previous Mastertronic game.  For the 8-bit machines, the game issued as part of Mastertronic’s short lived MAD X label (IC 0239), with the X being that you got an extra game free. In this case, Back to Reality featured on the B-side of the cassette.

Being based and licenced on the classic Boulder Dash, it is worth a reminder of how the original game plays.  In effect you as Rockford need to locate the required number of diamonds to exit each cave, and can dig through dirt and avoid falling rocks once the dirt underneath them has been dug.  Other obstacles include amoeba, butterflies and fireflies, some of which you can make sure a rock falls on in order to gain extra diamonds if needed.  Once the required number for each cave is gained, the exit flashes and you touch that to exit.  The game had already spawned two sequels and a construction kit, allowing you to make your own levels, as well a number of clones.  Its popularity of course meant an arcade version made some sense.

For Those About To Rock, We Salute You

Once the game has loaded, the title screen is very basic, but does at least allow you to choose which of the five worlds that you would like to start on.  This is a sensible move and gives you access to more of the game should you wish to try later levels first.  There is also a pleasant title theme but nothing more, and you would think that maybe even a nice logo on this screen would increase the presentation a bit.  Once you have selected the world and pressed fire to start, Rockford shows at the start of the first level of each world.  A little interlude theme plays and you are off.  No matter what the world is, the status display will always show the number of gems required, which can be confusing as none of the worlds actually have gems, as mentioned below.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Rockford himself needs to move fairly quickly, as not only are there a required number of gems to be collected, but also this is within a strict time limit.  This owes more to ensuring you put coins in if playing it in the arcade, of course.  The five worlds effectively has Rockford as a different role, and in each of those worlds there are four levels.  Rockford needs to collect the required number of objects, called treasure items in the instructions, and then locate the exit.  In the first world, these are golden masks, followed in the other worlds by apples, pennies, suns and hearts.  There is the usual dirt to dig through on some of the worlds too, and monsters to avoid or drop a rock on, and with some of the monsters this means that they will spawn into more treasure items for you to collect, which can be handy.

Let There Be Rock

The first thing you will note, no matter what world you start on, is how garish and unappealing the colour schemes are.  They are attempting to show some bright colours and that is something, but they are also unappealing on the eyes in the way that they have been combined, and does immediately detract from the game.  As you then make your way along each of the levels, the other thing worth noticing is that getting near the edges of the screen involves some push scrolling.  It seems to be smooth but during that push the whole game appears to be somewhat jerky and slows down with action on screen – and that is something you would not encounter in the original classic.

Puzzling Paradoxes

Several of the levels within each world have a number of puzzles to solve – and this can often be down to the extra objects which you will encounter during gameplay.   Fire can be put out by taps of water, or blood in the fifth world, and there are also walls which will expand horizontally when exposed so can block you in.  There also snakes which can be touched and utilised, some turning rocks into treasure, but this can also work the other way around too, so it will be a case of finding out what each one does and remembering that for future play.  The amoebas of course are present and correct and act like they do in the original, so keep well clear of those if you can.  All of those do at least serve some purpose in the game, but this can sometimes be at the expense of making the level too difficult, either because you run out of time or because you end up hitting a monster despite being nowhere near it due to some poor collision detection, especially on world four.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Rockford are awfully garish to say the least.  The combinations of the colours on each of the worlds are not pretty on the eyes, and the definition of Rockford in each of the worlds is passable but definitely nowhere near as cute as the original.  The scrolling does some form of push scrolling as you get to the edges, and this along with a number of enemies moving can result in slowdowns, which does affect the gameplay.  The sound has a pleasant enough Jason C Brooke title tune and some in-game jingles, but the sound effects are not that good and it would have benefitted the gameplay had better effects been present.

Final Thoughts

Rockford should have been a worthy follow up to the Boulder Dash series, taking the character into the different worlds and resolving the puzzles along the way.  However, the game feels a let down, especially with some awful choices of colour scheme and not feeling too smooth when you move, more so when the game scrolls.  The playability is also no match for the original series either, with some of the puzzles being a little too difficult too early, but also meaning that you inevitably end up running out of time when making a move and have to repeat the same level on a world over again.  Whilst being able to select a starting world is a nice feature, none of the five worlds are even close to being on par with the original classic, and boredom soon sets in.  A wasted opportunity of a licence.

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