Several factors played an important role in the game’s success. First it was the technology, mainly graphics and animations, which were smooth and incredibly advanced on the C-64. The music and non-linear gameplay were two other factors to ensure the great success of the game.

Hurrican is a freeware remake of Turrican for Windows based PCs. It stays true to the original game in many aspects. the game is freely downloadable from the developer website. Be warned though: It plays much better with a gamepad or joystick, and it stays true to its origins which means that it is a tough game.

The game can be played alone or with a friend in two player mode. Users on the keyboard will have to use more keys than usual to control the game. You control the character with the arrow keys, shoot with ctrl, jump with alt and use the secondary 360 degrees weapon beam with Shift. It is kinda unusual that the up key makes the character look up in the direction he is facing to shoot bullets in that direction. This takes some getting used to time on the keyboard.

New users should start with the tutorial that explains the game’s basics and offers some tips and tricks which will help you in the game. It is for instance possible to shoot faster by tapping on the fire key repeatedly, or to enter ball mode by pressing down and the space key simultaneously.

The game stays true to its heritage. This begins by the fake crack intro and continues with the music, animations, open level architecture and enemies that you come across.

Here is a video of the first Hurrican level.

Hurrican has been released in 2007. The last released version is 1.04 which ships with an level editor to create custom levels for the game. The game tested fine ona 64-bit edition of Windows 7. It should run on other Windows systems as well.

Great game for old school gamers who enjoyed playing the game on the C-64 or Amiga, and new gamers who may have never heard about the game but like these kind of action games (Contra, Metroid anyone).

Rocks and Diamonds is a Boulder Dash clone for Windows, Linux and Macintosh computer systems. The game is not a 1:1 copy of the original Boulder Dash game, as it introduces new elements to the game. But first the basics.

You control the miner with the cursor keys. Left Control is used to clear an adjacent field without moving into it, while Right Control to drop an element in inventory, like dynamite.

The game is highly configurable, all controls can be changed in the setup input menu. Here it is furthermore possible to change other settings, like in game music, resolution and quality.

The game ships with level sets. It comes with a custom level set created by the designers of the game, and level sets of original Boulder Dash games, including Boulder Dash 1, Emerald Mine, Sokoban or SupaPlex. That’s a lot of digging and mining. The original Boulder Dash set alone offers 99 levels of fun, enough to keep you entertained for days, if not weeks. Even better; Unlike the original Boulder Dash where you had to start from the beginning, Rocks’n'Diamonds comes with a level selector to start at a later level directly.

The game itself plays just like the original Boulder Dash. I have not tried the Sokoban and Emerald Mine levels and cannot really say how they play. The music has been taken directly from classic Amiga demoscene tunes, which is an incredible idea. If you have been part of the demoscene then you will surely love that idea.

Rocks And Diamonds comes with a level editor to create new levels. The editor is easy to use. You see the current level on the left side and can use controls on the right to add, edit or remove items from that level. You can place enemies, rocks or diamonds there for instance among other things.

The game is well done and lots of fun. Especially the original Boulder Dash levels bring back memories. One thing that is not optimal is that there levels are not automatically switched. You always go back to the main menu where you have to click the start game button to play the next level.

Users who would like a dose of one of the most popular C-64 games of all time can download Rocks And Diamonds from the developer website.

This is brilliant and it’s just like being back in school in the heady days of the home computing revolution.  Then I had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum and those of us who preferred squidgy keys and colour clash got terrible batterings, in more ways than just figuratively sometimes, from those people with Commodore 64s.

It was brilliant that technology got people so hot under the collar, but then we hit the late 80′s and everything became really dull and quiet.  In fact for a long period there was nothing to get excited about at all as the console revolution that we have today hadn’t started, and PCs were still far too expensive for people to have in their homes.  If you had an ageing Commodore Amiga or Atari ST you’d use that.  If not you were in a non-technical wilderness.

When technology became more affordable again, which began with consoles, it was Sony that not only ruled the roost, but that had the entire market to itself and so far as PCs went, nobody dared get all excited about the horrible beige box they were forced to keep hidden away.

Now though things are much more exciting.  We’ve got all types of smartphones with competing operating systems, tablet computers with even more competition when it comes to operating systems, and home PCs that are finally funky enough, and with an operating system good enough, that their owners can start shouting at the Mac people again saying they got ripped off.

I’m a PC guy, I have a media centre PC under my TV, a Windows Phone and two Windows-based computers.  I also now have a Windows 7 tablet on the way to me as well.  Why do I have exclusively Windows-branded stuff?  It’s certainly not for my job, as an author I could write perfectly well using Linux, as a tech blogger I could comment on all things Windows from a Mac and for my leisure I could be quite happy with an Android phone or an iPad.

We’re back in the same situation were were in during the mid-1980′s though when you find yourself, by hook or by crook, locked into a particular eco-system.  The reason I have all Windows stuff is that I need connectivity and for everything to work together in harmony.  It just so happens that this is the best way to achieve that.  This is in the same way that all my wireless networking kit is all from the same range and from the same company, it helps take the pain out of configuring it.

I have a good friend in London who has gone the other way.  He has a PC that I built for him but he never uses it.  He instead uses a Mac.  He’s also had an iPhone for a while and has bought an Apple TV and an iPad recently.  It’s all exactly the same kit that I have myself but, well, just different.  It will all work in exactly the same way as the kit I have here too.  Now I don’t believe for a single moment that his choices were anything to do with brand loyalty.  I know him well enough to say with confidence that his primary concern was that everything worked well together and that each device didn’t present him with a new, steep, learning curve.

It’s interesting the way this has panned out because we’re in a position now where the customers are once again doing much of the marketing and promotion work for the companies they buy from, just as my friends and I did in school singing the praises of Sinclair, Commodore and Acorn and even, once in a while, swinging someone else away from their own choice.

So occasionally I write things about Apple or Google but because people know me as a Windows guy I’ll get flamed for it.  I have to write this stuff though because it’s my job.  I love Apple and Google because, while I may not always agree with their business practices and products, they, like Microsoft have inspired a new generation of people to feel passionately about the technology that they buy and use.

What could be better then than a really good argument.

Make sure you take a look at the massive Beta page where most games are hosted. Its not 100% sure that all beta games work normally but as of now, all did work for me.