 Welcome back. This time we're playing Rodland on the Amiga. If Target Renegade is the best beat-em-up I've ever played, this is the best cutemap. Anyone who doesn't agree with me must be dead from the joystick up. Got wrenchingly cute it might be, but there's no denying Rodland is a fantastic little game. In fact it's been said and put firmly on record by the programmer of the Amiga and the Atari ST versions that they programmed Rodland on the Amiga and ST the way it should have been programmed originally in the arcade. This Amiga port wasn't released until late in September 1991. The Amiga version even has bonuses and hidden levels completely absent in the arcade original. It doesn't stop there either. Unused sprites and animations from the arcade original were shared with the developers of the Amiga version giving every character in the game extra animation. In fact this arcade conversion is so good Amiga Power rated it the 16th best game of all time. So the story goes your mum has been stolen and locked in a tower. Luckily you've been handed some magic rods and thanks to the Wizard of Oz you've been given some magic slippers. Although not the Ruby Red variety. It's here where the pursuit begins as the wretched demon flies off with your mother which sees you racing to the tower with hoping your heart that you can still reach her. You'll need to use your magical ladder to aid you in reaching otherwise impossible platforms and places. The way to go is to collect all the flowers before hitting the enemy. This will give you extra play and bigger bonuses including spelling the word extra for more lives. For those in a rush you can still or be a little bit more difficult steam through rod land like Rambo whilst repeatedly body slamming enemies as you go. It's immensely satisfying and never quite gets old. I know this is for an Amiga game but a special mention has to go out to the ZX Speccy version which is basically arcade perfection crammed into a measly 64. I apologise 48k finished in monochrome but sadly missing the wonderful catchy arcade tune. The boom explosions and character animations are really special in the ZX Speccy version. So a massive Q-DOS needs to go out to sales curve here as I don't believe even the mighty ocean software could have put together a better version. I would however like to know who programmed the ZX Speccy version as at the end of the game the programmer refers to himself as Strawberry Jam. What on earth was he thinking? The only thing I can imagine is that his mind was completely boggled by all this cuteness. I can't recall if rod land ever received a sequel but there are moments in this game where you are bogged down right in the thick of nastiness only to crush a baddie and release some kind of homie missile from the baddie's remains. Only the early 90s can pull off such a cute game in this way whilst including weapons of mash destruction. It must be said and put on record that the elf girl is a lot hotter on the Amiga version than seen in the arcade original. So a big bonus points there even if it's for all the wrong reasons. The Amstrad CPC version as well that's really good. It's a little bit slower compared to the arcade Amiga and ZX Spectrum but it's still highly playable and features mode zero graphics which boasts 16 beautiful colours. When I think back to this game the real bonus, the nostalgia if you like was playing with my cousins, friends, family trying to outdo each other in the high score department. So I think it's those memories that make games like this even more special when you play them or think about them and look back. And it's also wonderful to see that the game is every bit as beautiful, cute and playable as you remember which definitely can't be said for the PlayStation 1 generation of games. The 3D mostly looks blocky and horrible by today's standards. These 2D games still look good in my opinion. In fact playing this game has given me a good idea for the next video. So for the Amiga I'm thinking about doing perfect arcade ports so which arcade ports made it to the Amiga and were perfect if you like or almost perfect or as with Rodland in my opinion, better than the arcade original. So I think I'm going to try to do that on all the main 8 bit computers and then the 16 bit computers as well for the popular ones of the time. So we're getting ever so higher up the tower and the variety of enemies as you go higher and higher changes as well. It's absolutely brilliant. The difficulty as well is also starting to seriously ramp up there. So just because this game is cute it doesn't mean it's easy by any stretch of the imagination. In fact if you've never played this or you have played it but never took it quite seriously it's good to go back in because it's a real test of your skills. I know it doesn't look like it but it will seriously push your skills to the limit. I haven't played the Commodore 64 version but I've heard it's really good so that's one I'm going to look back at and give it a try and give it a play through. I've never played the Atari ST version either or any other version that might be out there other than the arcade, the Spectrum, Amphred CPC and Amiga. I'll put that right at some point and I'd like to see how the Commodore 64 version handled it. I've gotten myself a little bit stuck here. I don't know what I'm doing. I might just... That's the only thing I could think of. Ah, nice one. Somebody mentioned to me that there's an even cuter game than this. Now I do know which one he's talking about but why not drop in the chat if you think you know what that game is? It's probably not as obvious as you might think but have a go. The very first time I actually ever played this game was with my cousin in the local fish and chip shop. Back in the day the fish and chip shops were like little mini arcade halls and they had several arcade machines. Now you go in there and there's not. Today you actually just go in there for food but back when I was probably 11, 12 around that age you had pinball machines, slot machines and arcade machines. In fact I remember there was one that even had a pool table. So I don't want this video to go on any longer than 10 minutes. I hope this has brought back some memories to you. It could be that you'd never heard of this game and this is a good one to go back to. It's also a good game, a great game because of the two player element to introduce your kids to as well. If you liked this video please support us by subscribing or leaving a comment. Oh and don't forget to press that little bell that will give you notifications when I've next uploaded a video. And hope to discuss this game more in the chat. Until next time, bye!