Flashback

 

Amiga 1500, Flashback (1992) game

This was the one, my main reason for wanting to get the 1500 down from the loft after all these years: I really wanted to play one of my favourite games of all time, and certainly the best 2D platformer I ever played (and there were a lot of those on the system, and on every system in those days!). The question was whether it would still hold up as a great experience... My memories were fairly vague, I remembered the first level set in the jungle very well, not least because I'd had a brief go on the DOSBox version in recent years (though it's not a game to be played via keyboard and I could never get my USB joypad to work correctly), and I had memories of the next two levels, the underground city and the Death Tower gameshow, but otherwise nothing except for the lizard aliens that slop along the ceiling and drop down on you in the last levels. I have to admit to experiencing a sudden wave of nostalgia rushing over me when I first made it to Level 2, that first area with the turbine up above, probably because I was stuck there for a while on original play, not realising, much like escaping the pit in 'The Dark Knight Rises,' you had to let go of all inhibitions and take a risk by getting up on the first platform and running towards the higher one without pressing anything else, meaning that if it was within reach your man, Conrad, would automatically launch himself at it and pull himself up, but if it wasn't you'd plunge to your death as you couldn't survive a drop of two levels.

On this run, though I played it through on both Normal and Expert (having completed it only on Easy back in the day), there were very few moments I encountered serious obstacles, the puzzles being generally logical and the issue usually being about skill and agility: there was one I couldn't progress beyond, during the first part of the alien world, Level 6, you come to a room with a man standing behind a door, a switch on a platform above, and a trapdoor, plus another door barring you from another switch below - on switching the upper switch it only opens the trapdoor, not the second door to open the switch to open the door to the man! I thought it must be something to do with the previous screen where you have three pressure sensors, one to open a door, one to switch a fire off, and one to close the door. To proceed through that particular puzzle you only have to place a stone on the door-opening sensor which negates the door closing sensor, and you can leave the upper fire sensor to the mechanical mouse that's running back and forth and keeping it activated. I thought maybe you had to leave something on all the sensors in order to affect the door in the next screen, but no combination made any difference and in the end I stumbled over the solution by mistake when I was letting out some frustration by firing my gun off and happened to hit the offending door, which then opened. It was a real oddity as no other door in the game opened that way, but otherwise the puzzles were fair and I could see why I'd loved the game so much when I was younger: it was one of the few I'd been able to see the end of.

Accessibility is one of its charms, but it's also that it had a good story - they really went to town on the manual which included a whole magazine-style section before you even got to the instructions and controls, etc, so you could read up on this world you were entering, adding to the immersion - game manuals were more commonly included as part of the overall gaming experience in those days, and this was one of the best, with a terrifically evocative image on the cover of a man's eyes open with fear or wonder, and a great logo. Now I can see the story has a lot of influences from other sources, such as the plot of 'Total Recall,' which is similarly about missing memories and going off to another planet to escape the authorities, but also 'V' and its human-disguised lizard aliens (not that I've seen the latter), and 'The Running Man' (another death gameshow). I had it in mind that 'Blade Runner' may also have been an influence, but having played the game not so much other than perhaps in tone (but there's no rain-streaked night streets lit with neon!). Still, the story is well presented with attractive cutscenes and good music, and not just at the beginning and end of levels, there are scenes that activate during certain actions, also, and the cinematic nature of the story helped immeasurably to draw the player in.

The major selling point is much simpler than any of these bells and whistles, however: rotoscoping. Just as I believe the same makers had pioneered such rotoscoped animation to make the character movement look realistic in the original 'Prince of Persia,' they used the same technique to craft the most fluid animation and realistic body movement I'd ever seen. Conrad himself isn't that detailed, but that simple colouring of blue jeans, white trainers, leather jacket and white t-shirt underneath were used to such great contrast with the detailed, colourful backgrounds that there is a very real impression that this is a piece of art. In fact I would go so far as to say a design style for a computer game is indeed art - I would happily have a screenshot from this game up on the wall, it's a thing of beauty. And that's without the movement! When you take into account Conrad's believable running, jumping, shooting, rolling, it's a pleasure to play merely to see him move. The controls are superb, too, with the ability to smoothly transition from one action to another with ease, and in fact a big part of succeeding in the game is how well you learn to grasp the controls, the precision and timing important, especially on the hardest difficulty when enemies are tougher and occasionally more numerous. But it's the precision that impresses me, and it's not that you have to be perfect in judgement, jumping at exactly the right time or falling to your death, it's not one of those pixel-perfect games, but it is pixel perfection.

Your standard step measures the time in which you have to change to another action, so if your goal is to run and leap across a chasm, you set yourself running and then within that final step you activate the jump, so it's a very intuitive system, and once you understand the 'measurements' of a screen, how far you'll roll or jump, it becomes second nature, and in fact is essential when it comes to later opponents, such as the lizard aliens whom you have to roll to avoid their jelly-splodge form until they stand vertical and you can shoot them: it's part of the struggle that you need to find an area wide enough to allow you to roll backwards and forwards to be able to take them on. My favourite animation was when you run straight into a wall and Conrad shoulder barges into it to stop himself, but I also liked the quick turn which you can use if you're running and want to change direction, and the slightly comedic way he pulls himself out of a run if you're heading towards a drop and you pull back, flailing his arms to regain balance. But every movement is beautiful to watch, and it's also the detail of the game that makes it sing: your gun when fired ejects a tiny cartridge for every bullet, which bounces on the floor, or the sound of your footfalls as you walk or run, it's simply exquisite sound and visual design.

One strange thing about the game is that it doesn't rely on music most of the time. When you enter a new area or succeed at a puzzle you might get a little piece of suitable accompaniment, but generally the music, which I've always liked a lot, only kicks in during cutscenes, which gives them more power when compared to the almost silence in which you play the game. But that also emphasises the sound effects and makes you feel more alone in your quest. You're not entirely alone, you do occasionally meet people you can talk to, most commonly in the underground city of New Washington, which makes up Level 2, and is the largest of the game to the extent that you really do need the map the travel guide gives you. It's made up of four districts: Asia, America, Africa and Europa, and you take the subway between them. This was another part of the game that made it stand out among so many lesser platformers: it would have been one of the earliest games I'd played where you could interact with the environment more than merely getting from A to B, shooting or fighting enemies. In this level you visit various places, talk to people and take on jobs to get credits to pay for identity papers to get you out of there! It's not like you have choice over what you do, so it wasn't anywhere near as open as 'The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening,' the Game Boy game that introduced me to the concept of interaction and using items. But at the time it still felt like a great freedom above other games of the genre.

Collecting and using items was also a significant part of the game. You only have one weapon, your gun which never runs out of bullets and is but a double-tap of the fire button away (an innovative use of the one-button Joystick - it could be a little cumbersome on occasions when you had to select something from your inventory using the keyboard, but this was the only part of the game lacking in finesse and was a necessity based on the limitations of a Joystick), and you'd also carry credits and most importantly, your personal shield, without which you'd die the instant anything hit you. The shield added another layer of tactical play to proceedings as you had to keep an eye on how many hits you could take (four at full capacity), and sometimes it was necessary to backtrack to a Generator which would recharge it. Handily, there were also SAVE consoles placed in the levels which would store your progress to that point until the game was turned off. Another helpful aspect was that each level had a password, so unlike many examples of the genre of that time you could start at the beginning of whichever level you'd reached instead of being required to play the entire game in one sitting! This, and the multiple difficulty options probably betrayed its console origins, and I never played a game like it on the Amiga, it was certainly unique to me.

The environments were mostly varied, though after the vast difference between the opening three levels in both look and style, the others did become a little more samey as if the creative outburst had bloomed and then played itself out a little bit before the end. Not to say levels four to seven weren't varied, but the Earth streets and the prison which follow were both similar in featuring sandy-coloured walls, and the last two levels are both set on the purple and pink alien world, complete with its alien soundscape, and were just one big level split into two. By that time you're dealing with these lizards and descending into the lair of the alien brain, and I'm glad it wasn't required to complete the whole thing in one go as, especially on the Expert setting, I had to replay parts of that over and over: even getting past the seventh lizard man in Level 6 took many attempts as you were limited in movement unless you could get to the highest platform from which you could take him on, nowhere else on that screen having enough room to roll! It was the kind of game I felt sad to have finished, as evidenced by the fact I was very keen to replay it on Expert once Normal mode was conquered, and as I'd only ever finished it on Easy originally I was pleased to have finally beaten it in its entirety all these years later. For me it still stands up as a terrific game that blends cinematic storytelling with intricate actions and visuals and careful use of sound. I've since experienced far more freedom and impressive design in size and scope in such 3D platformers as 'Banjo-Kazooie,' but I certainly had an attachment to my character to the extent that at the end, when he's resigned to drifting in space for who knows how long, I felt genuine sadness for him.

*****