Not all retro games are worth remembering
Some
memories are best forgotten. Being kidnapped and held hostage in a
foreign land perhaps. Or being beaten unconscious by hooded men
weilding bamboo canes. Both of these pale into comparison to the
total horror of experiencing Magic Carpet on the Commodore 64.
Well,
if the game is so arse-achingly awful why are you writing about it? I
hear you say, in my head. Well the simple fact is that this
abomination will be forever etched into my subconscious as it was the
very first computer game I ever owned – not counting Game &
Watch LCD hand helds. My old man bought me a brand spanking new
Commodore 64 in 1990. It was the Light Fantastic pack that came with
a light-gun and a few games such as Army days, Gangster Town, and
Batman The Caped Crusader. He also purchased a copy of Outrun, and
Magic Carpet. I had no idea that the C64 was pretty much obsolete by
this stage, but I am so glad I had a chance to experience all the
8-bit home computer games such as Monty On The Run, Boulderdash,
Bounder, Jack The Nipper and Creatures as well as being able to
purchase games for less than £2.
The shit starts right here
I
remember thinking Magic Carpet was reasonably bad back then, but just
left it to one side and played one of the other great games. Playing
it now it is hard to believe how bad it actually is. The game puts
you in the curly toed slippers of an Aladdin style guy on a magic
carpet. You must move around the single screen using the keys with
the only aim being to reach the exit without touching anything. This
is easier said than done, much like those buzzing wire games they
have at county fairs where you must move a loop of metal along the
route of the wire, without touching it. Or even that old board game,
Operation. Magic Carpet is impossibly hard. Even getting off the
first screen is a nightmare that will get the veins on your forehead
throbbing with anger. Throw in some pathetic graphics and an
irritating, piercing loop of generic Arabian music and you have one
of the worst games on the platform. I hear there are only 3 screens
in the entire game, which could be true – I have never made it past
the second screen – which, if true, seems a pretty stingy amount of
levels, even for a Mastertronic budget release. Yep, Mastertronic –
A name synonymous with absolute 8-bit garbage. Of course, I didn't
know this at the time, but a year or two of buying budget games from
John Menzies and Woolworths (R.I.P.) soon lead me to the conclusion
that Mastertronic was a seal of bullshit, a certificate of shittiness
– basically, a poor label.
Even getting off the first screen is a nightmare -
watch out for the saw blade
It
pains me that I cannot erase the memories of this game from my mind,
despite 15 years of heavy drinking in order to do so. Now I just have
a broken liver and Magic Carpet's first stage repeating over
and over in my head. I pray for the day that they invent the memory
erasing tool seen in the Men In Black movies. Only then will I be
able to lead a happy and content life. Come on boffins – get to
work!
Kids learnt the hard way to avoid any
cassette bearing this logo
