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    007: Licence to Kill

    Game » consists of 29 releases. Released 1989

    007: Licence to Kill is a top-down shooter based on the James Bond movie of the same name. The game was developed by Quixel and published by Domark Software Inc. / Ltd.

    Playing all the video games - Part 000005

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    F1000003

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    Edited By F1000003

    I am continuing with the rather futile task of playing all the video games.

    I've been a little busy this week taking part in a thoroughly enjoyable puzzle hunt. My team still has 2 more puzzles to solve, but these games aren't going to play themselves, so I took a few hours break this afternoon to play through 007: Licence to Kill on the ZX Spectrum. Or, more aptly, I should probably say that I took a few hours break to figure out how to connect a spectrum to a modern telly, find a working cassette player, a suitable power converter - and figure out how to load games from cassettes onto the console. I then spent about 30 minutes playing the game - stopped for a break, realised that in the process of loading the game, I'd broken the "play" button on the cassette, and so had no way of reloading the game! Still, I think I saw the majority of it...

    Game 000005: 007: Licence to Kill

    Licence to Kill was a video game developed by Quixel and released on a variety of cassette based home computers in 1989. I played through the spectrum version of the game - but the differences between the versions seem only to be cosmetic.

    007: Licence to Kill
    007: Licence to Kill

    My time with this game was relatively short, and I only managed to see four of the six levels before the difficulties of relying on decades old technology caught up with me. The game took about 2 minutes to load, but once it was stored in memory the transitions from level to level were practically instantaneous.

    Level one begins with Bond flying a helicopter, dodging some incredibly accurate anti-aircraft guns and chasing down "the evil drug smuggler Sanchez". Not that you'd know any of that by playing the game - as the story, controls and level objectives are only found in the games instruction booklet /cassette case insert, (so much for in-game tutorials!) This proved an issue several times during the game, as I couldn't work out how to pause. So upon starting a new level I would inevitably die within the first few seconds while looking up the controls, lose all three lives and have to restart the game from scratch.

    Is that a henchman or an oil barrel?
    Is that a henchman or an oil barrel?

    Perhaps the most interesting level was the second, which had you infiltrate an enemy base on foot while shooting down Sanchez's henchmen. Conserving ammo was essential here, which was a challenge due to the game's confusing controls. (Hold down the fire button and the direction keys are no longer used for walking, but instead for aiming.) Being forced to duck in and out of cover gave this mission some depth that the other stages seemed to be lacking.

    Having very little familiarity with games from this era I feel ill equipped to pass any judgment of this game relative to its peers. It was nice to see that each level had essentially been coded from scratch, and introduced a new game-play mechanic - but some of these were more entertaining that others, and after my half an hour stint with this game I felt no incentive to return to it. Messing around with this older hardware however, was a lot of fun. I'm certainly looking forward to to playing through some more Spectrum games in the future, (I recently acquired a box of about 100 of them from some guy who was going to throw them out!)

    ---

    In other news, my copy of 007: Everything or Nothing finally arrived this week - so I look forward to playing through that over the next week. For now however, back to the puzzles...

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    F1000003

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    #1  Edited By F1000003

    I am continuing with the rather futile task of playing all the video games.

    I've been a little busy this week taking part in a thoroughly enjoyable puzzle hunt. My team still has 2 more puzzles to solve, but these games aren't going to play themselves, so I took a few hours break this afternoon to play through 007: Licence to Kill on the ZX Spectrum. Or, more aptly, I should probably say that I took a few hours break to figure out how to connect a spectrum to a modern telly, find a working cassette player, a suitable power converter - and figure out how to load games from cassettes onto the console. I then spent about 30 minutes playing the game - stopped for a break, realised that in the process of loading the game, I'd broken the "play" button on the cassette, and so had no way of reloading the game! Still, I think I saw the majority of it...

    Game 000005: 007: Licence to Kill

    Licence to Kill was a video game developed by Quixel and released on a variety of cassette based home computers in 1989. I played through the spectrum version of the game - but the differences between the versions seem only to be cosmetic.

    007: Licence to Kill
    007: Licence to Kill

    My time with this game was relatively short, and I only managed to see four of the six levels before the difficulties of relying on decades old technology caught up with me. The game took about 2 minutes to load, but once it was stored in memory the transitions from level to level were practically instantaneous.

    Level one begins with Bond flying a helicopter, dodging some incredibly accurate anti-aircraft guns and chasing down "the evil drug smuggler Sanchez". Not that you'd know any of that by playing the game - as the story, controls and level objectives are only found in the games instruction booklet /cassette case insert, (so much for in-game tutorials!) This proved an issue several times during the game, as I couldn't work out how to pause. So upon starting a new level I would inevitably die within the first few seconds while looking up the controls, lose all three lives and have to restart the game from scratch.

    Is that a henchman or an oil barrel?
    Is that a henchman or an oil barrel?

    Perhaps the most interesting level was the second, which had you infiltrate an enemy base on foot while shooting down Sanchez's henchmen. Conserving ammo was essential here, which was a challenge due to the game's confusing controls. (Hold down the fire button and the direction keys are no longer used for walking, but instead for aiming.) Being forced to duck in and out of cover gave this mission some depth that the other stages seemed to be lacking.

    Having very little familiarity with games from this era I feel ill equipped to pass any judgment of this game relative to its peers. It was nice to see that each level had essentially been coded from scratch, and introduced a new game-play mechanic - but some of these were more entertaining that others, and after my half an hour stint with this game I felt no incentive to return to it. Messing around with this older hardware however, was a lot of fun. I'm certainly looking forward to to playing through some more Spectrum games in the future, (I recently acquired a box of about 100 of them from some guy who was going to throw them out!)

    ---

    In other news, my copy of 007: Everything or Nothing finally arrived this week - so I look forward to playing through that over the next week. For now however, back to the puzzles...

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    bed

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    #2  Edited By bed

    hmm i'm wondering if you use emulation for older games or do you have physical copies of 'em? i don't know how rare old home computer systems and their games are. also, i'm awaiting your Everything or Nothing write-up. whether you end up liking the game or not, it may give me a kick to go replay it.

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    sins_of_mosin

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    #3  Edited By sins_of_mosin

    I've seen stuff like this for years.  A person says they will play every game from an era or a system or ect ect.  To say you'll play every video game actually makes me less interested because your goal is impossible and thus not worth caring about.  Now, if you picked a system like the NES or Sega CD and had a list that people could check on, that would give them something to cheer for.

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    F1000003

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    #4  Edited By F1000003

    I'm not emulating these games. The ZX Spectrum was quite popular in the UK - so quite a few people have them stored away. I picked mine up a couple of years ago at a low cost. The games don't seem to be too rare - at least I didn't have any trouble picking up a copy of this game from ebay... I've just discovered that I also seem to own a copy of this game for the Commodore 64 - so maybe I'll do a side by side comparison some day. It'll be interesting to see the differences between the two machines.

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    LassieME

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    #5  Edited By LassieME

    Dude, you are still crazy, keep on keeping on.

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    TaliciaDragonsong

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    #6  Edited By TaliciaDragonsong

    Looking forward to your EoN write up, I loved that game! The co op was superb for its time, I had a lot of fun with it with friends.

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    killacam

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    #7  Edited By killacam

    i continue to back this, and always will.

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    MooseyMcMan

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    #8  Edited By MooseyMcMan

    Everything or Nothing was great! I look forward to reading about that one next time. (Also, good read this time).

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    Justin258

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    #9  Edited By Justin258

    @sins_of_mosin said:

    I've seen stuff like this for years. A person says they will play every game from an era or a system or ect ect. To say you'll play every video game actually makes me less interested because your goal is impossible and thus not worth caring about. Now, if you picked a system like the NES or Sega CD and had a list that people could check on, that would give them something to cheer for.

    Yeah, but it will be interesting to see how far he gets. Besides, he may never actually do it, but in this endeavour he will learn a priceless amount of video game knowledge and, more importantly, have a better appreciation for how far games have come since then.

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    sparky_buzzsaw

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    #10  Edited By sparky_buzzsaw

    That's pretty neat you're able to play some of these on the old hardware. I've never seen a Spectrum. Keep up the great work!

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    AdzPearson

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    #11  Edited By AdzPearson

    Wow, you have one of the older Spectrum units. I had a +2, which had a built-in tape player. My dad had one of the older models stored away, though. Do you have the one with rubber keys?

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    F1000003

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    #12  Edited By F1000003

    @AdzPearson: Yes, I think I have the original... a little speaker plays a satisfying click noise when you type on the rubber keys.

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    AdzPearson

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    #13  Edited By AdzPearson

    @F1000003: Yeah, it made a little noise when I typed on the +2 as well (on the main menu bit, which I'm not sure the earlier models had). I'm sure the noise came from the TV speakers instead, though. Interesting. I didn't realise the original had an internal speaker.

    With it being the original, there are some later games that won't be compatable. The original had 48k of memory, but later models had 128k.

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