Minority Report
INTERESTING GAMES YOU'VE NEVER PLAYED
Mastertronic released hundreds of low-price games in its lifetime. Retro Gamer looks back at some of the lesserknown games from this famous budget software house
VIDEO MEANIES
■DEVELOPER: TONY KELLY ■YEAR: 1986
■ With its wide-eyed, comical cover from artist John Smyth and colourful title lettering, it would be easy to dismiss Tony Kelly’s Video Meanies as a juvenile platform game of some description. In truth, it’s one of the finest C16 games from Mastertronic, a novel blaster with a steep challenge but a good sense of progression. The player assumes the role of a poor, downtrodden robotic videogame shop employee – but this is not your standard game shop. Perched on the top of a mountain, this particular establishment is a castle owned by an eccentric millionaire. During the day, it’s a typical games shop, selling piles of cassettes to eager customers; yet once night falls, the Meanies come out, and each room of the store turns into a death trap. Unfortunately for this metal guardian, its master has left all the video-cassette machines running – the maintenance droid has to turn off each before they can head to bed, or whatever robots do to rest [Put their feet up with a nice can of oil? – Ed].
The Meanies themselves flit about each room, bouncing off the walls and zapping the player whenever they come in contact with them. The robot’s cannon can destroy some walls; others are deadly to the touch, and some are invisible. Every time the player turns off a video machine, a small piece of the puzzle appears in the top lefthand corner, while keys allow the player to access locked locations. Once the entire title of the game is revealed, the robot’s job is done for the night. Zapping Meanies only disables them temporarily; agility is as key in Video Meanies as blasting skills.
Uncomplicated yet entertaining and professionally produced, Video Meanies was a bargain for C16 owners, with plenty of puzzling gameplay bolstered by some exciting shooting action. Sales-wise, it did decent business for Mastertronic, despite falling short of bestsellers such as Vegas Jackpot, Kikstart and Tony’s earlier game, Mr Puniverse. Nevertheless, buoyed by the success, Tony himself converted Video Meanies to the C64, and while it is quite different visually, it maintains the elements that made the original so fun, scoring a credible 71% in Zzap!64 magazine.
The prolific Tony Kelly created five games for the C16 in 1985, followed by this, his last, in 1986. After a handful of C64 games, it sadly appears that this talented coder lef
