Captain MaCaw

The first computer I had was a ZX Spectrum way back too many years ago, and damn, does this game make me feel 6 years old again! Aimed at recreating the feel of the likes of the original Dizzy games, with a touch of Manic Miner thrown in, this completely hits my 80's nostalgia soft-spot - with a couple of modern concessions thrown in. MaCaw has well thought out puzzles that give just enough challenge without some of the more random "try it and see" guesswork many original 80's platform games left you with - more often than not resulting in unfinished games (at least in my case). Music is top notch, perfect to the games feel and recreating early music as good as I remember it. I've requested if we can get the MP3s for my phone's ringtone, as I found myself humming along so much.... Inclusion of Xbox joypad control also means even my old fingers can make those pixel perfect jumps these days! I've played the game through from start to finish 5 or so times now and am still missing a couple of achievements, lots of play here for the price. Anybody with an interest in older games would be foolish to miss this! (Dev – get cracking with a follow-up, please….)

Superb little game! It's a modern day Dizzy! If you are *ahem*, an older gentleman like myself, you will love this throwback game. Same price as the tape would have cost 30 or so years ago too! I just need to get a rubber key add on for my keyboard and I'll be happy!

Back in the mid-1980s, I was always a big fan of the 'Magic Knight' games on the Spectrum. I had a profound love of what were deemed "Graphic Adventure" games, and the Magic Knight games - Spellbound, Knight Tyme and Stormbringer (not Finders Keepers...t'was a different beast!) - and a few others (Megabucks by Firebird Software being the most obvious) kept me captivated for absolutely hours and hours as I tried to figure out the intricate puzzles that would hopefully make me inch that little bit further towards completion. Then the "Dizzy" games came along, and I hated them. I can't explain why as they were very well made (and hugely popular) but something about them just put me off the genre altogether. I called time on Graphic Adventures, and moved on to something else, figuring I'd just lost interest and was too "Grown Up". Imagine my surprise however, that amidst the 3D accelerated and virtual reality game types that overcrowd the likes of Steam and other similar hubs for game purchasing on the internet these days, is a little gem of a game called Captain MaCaw. It's written by a friend of mine, with whom I dabbled with the murky practice of 8-bit game remakes back in the early 2000's, and whom I know to be a very skilled coder, and quite willing to experiment with his own variations on a theme. And this is the result, and its fabulous. From the moment you fire it up, you are thrown backwards 30+ years by the retro/Speccy-styled sprites (minus the attribute clash of course) and the magnificent in-game music penned by Kingy, something of a legend for such things amongst the remake and retro-podcast community! The game plays as smooth as silk, and yet retains that retro "Feel" as if you were sitting at home in front of your battered Sinclair Spectrum hooked up to a portable TV, The puzzles are simple, but at the same time clever (with an element of humour too which is always a nice touch - games back in the day never did take themselves too seriously), but I can guarantee that sooner or later your will end up scratching your head as to what to do next. Fear not though, the games difficulty level is pitched almost exactly right, and a little bit of logical thought is all that is needed in most cases to progress you further. In a nutshell (and if you've made it this far through my review, I congratulate you), this is a retro-styled game that you would be an utter fool to let pass you by. Get it, play it, enjoy it.

Basically, if you like Dizzy, you'll like this. I you don't know what this is, you are probably younger that me! Macaw is a platform adventure game clearly based on the spectrum. That's certainly the look the writer has gone for! I love it. The puzzles are fun, the graphics remind me of my old computers and the music is definitely worth a mention. Best retro game I’ve played in years and I’ve played them all!

Captain MaCaw is a retro style platformer that brought back a lot of nostalgia for me. Now, I'm not good at these types of games, because I'm a big giant dumb dumb, but the gameplay and string of events that lead you from point A to point B is incredibly clever and engaging. I was not expecting the game to have as much depth as it does, and whenever I would get stuck on a part, I was able to reach out to the developer who promptly helped with any information I needed. Very well done, very cleverly made, and overall a lot of fun.

This is a charming little title! Very much inspired by the early 8bit collect em up genre of platform puzzlers. Nice chunky pixel graphics and a great sondtrack which is very much 8bit sounding. Puzzles are mostly logical, with the odd head scratcher. Ther game is very much aware it's a product of the 80's and is even self referential in that respect! Can be quite amusing at times. Don't let the price tag foo you! This is a deceptively large title!

If you were a fan of the classic cartoon adventure games of old, where you would explore cartoon kingdoms, solving puzzles, collecting objects and chatting to the locals, then this game will take you right back. More than that though, this game is a real honing of the craft. The puzzles all have a logical thread to them. You'll rarely be stuck wandering around for long as the right object or the right situation will crop up and you'll quickly put two and two together. It's a decent length and there's several different settings which you'll gradually unlock the further you play. You really can't go wrong with the price here. If you ever enjoyed a Dizzy or Magic Knight game on your humble Spec, you'd struggle not to get a kick out of this.

Though my review might sound overly negative, please don't take it that way - I liked Captain MaCaw a lot, and would heartily recommend it to any and all fans of arcade adventures. That said, Captain MaCaw looks bad. Not because it's trying to channel the 8-bit home computer look, but because a lot of it feels just haphazardly thrown together. Most of the time the art looks like it came straight out of the ZX Spectrum era, but other times it's more like one of those "200 Great Games on one CD" 90s shareware titles with crudely drawn VGA graphics. Most of the in-game text is very poorly kerned, and looks like it's been roughly scaled up in MS Paint, sometimes with antialiasing, sometimes without. Some locations have a CRT filter over them, but most don't. When the screen sin-waves in the underwater areas, the hud frame waves with it. The music sounds authentically ZX Spectrum-y, with upbeat but forgettable tunes that only get a bit repetitive toward the end. The sound effects are so few and far between they might as well not been there except for the intro sequence, where they are unbelievably loud and obnoxious. MaCaw plays just like a classic arcade adventure of the past. Walk around, talk to NPCs, pick up inventory items, and use them in the correct location. While you're at it, do some light exploration, platforming and enemy-dodging, though thankfully there isn't much punishment for dying. Solving a puzzle usually either nets more inventory items, or a new player ability. There isn't much story or a real end goal - it's all adventuring for the sake of adventuring. My biggest issue is just how spread out the puzzle locations are with screens and screens of nothing in between. Occasionally progression opens up shortcuts around the map, including a fast-travel terminal even, alas most of this happens right near the end of the game. All in all, a solid, if slightly unremarkable arcade adventure. However, with the genre nearly extinct - I'll gladly take it!