Imp-ressive: -Endless Forms Most Beautiful
By Adam Smith on July 10th, 2012 at 6:00 pm.
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Terrifically named screen-wrapping, teleportation collectathon, Endless Forms Most Beautiful, is a PC remake of a ZX Spectrum game. That doesn’t mean the original is older than grandpa Albuquerque’s dinosaur steed though because this particular ZX game was made in 2012. That’s almost certainly the same year that you’re reading this and, if it isn’t, go and play 2013′s best-selling first-person remake of Q*bert until your eyeballs emit lightshows of their own creation. David Hughes made the ZX version and the PC remake comes to us courtesy of RGCD. The game, manual, posters artwork and MP3s can all be found here. Trailer below.
This is a brilliant game and really is the sort of thing I would have spent ages staring at as it spooled into life before stuttering and failing at the last moment. It’s a classic case of being able to learn how the whole thing works quickly but then continuing to die, tearing your mousemat in half with your teeth and cursing the gods themselves. Actually, it’s not quite that hard but the term “braincrashing”, used by developer Locomalito to describe the game, is a fair assessment.
It can be played alone or co-op/versus on one computer. I haven’t played with another person helping out yet but I reckon it’d make it more fun and less difficult, much like going through life in the company of a friend, lover or loyal pet.
Freeware Game Pick: Endless Forms Most Beautiful (Locomalito, RGCD)
July 9, 2012 5:00 AM | Konstantinos Dimopoulos / Gnome
So, what can you do if you are out of classic games to remake? Why, you simply remake new games for 8-bit machines and port them over to modern PCs of course, and that is exactly what Locomalito with the help of RGCD, Gryzor87 and Marek Barej just did. They took David Hughes' brilliant Endless Forms Most Beautiful for the ZX Spectrum and turned it into a lush freeware offering for Windows machines, while retaining the core arcade gameplay and adding more than a few options, new graphics & sounds and a ton of extras.
The game, besides looking wonderful and decidedly retro, is a frantic platformer with light-puzzle elements that both feels and looks like something you would be playing in the arcades during the mid-80s. Appropriately it provides with two two-player modes that can be enjoyed on one computer and, hysterically, one keyboard.
You can grab Endless Forms Most Beautiful complete with manual, soundtrack, DVD inserts, artwork and the original ZX Spectrum version via both RGCD and Locomalito's website.
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