If you thought 2023 was crap, think again!

 One of the requirements for a crap game surely has to be a great name, one that instils a frisson of excitement and a sense of wonder as to what it will herald. This game has such a name, move over Ant Attack here comes Sloth Attack. The accompanying email adds to that level of promise "Anyway to this Spectrum game. It's all quite simple. You control a character who's sole need for survival is to avoid a sloth. A rampaging, murderous sloth that kills on contact. And it is hell bent on doing so. Fortunately it's a sloth, and it's slow. But it's constantly out to get you. It's probably on cocaine or something because it never goes to sleep. " Now if this is paired with excellent graphics, kickass music and unmissable gameplay play this game will be a winner. It begins with a simple intro explaining the content of the game. All framed with a pretty leafy border. So far, so good. Unfortunately, there isn't any intro music, but still a chance for excel

 This is a game that I have waited a life time to play. Billed as Tetris for the spatially challenged, UNIS gets rid of the awkwardness of different shapes and replaces it with a simple cube. Loading the TZX file presents the player with a simple but effective loading screen. Once loaded the player is offered the choice between using the keyboard or Kempston joystick. The latter wasn't tried in this review due to a lack of the required hardware. Since there is no need to rotate the playing piece the keyboard is limited to 3 key O and P to move left and right and A to drop the piece faster.  The object is to make lines of cubes the same colour vertically, once you have 5 in a row, the row will disappear. Initially the pieces drop slower than a snail with a terrible hangover, but as lines are formed this speeds up to the maximum speed the BASIC program is capable of running at. Pressing left or right causes the pieces to keep moving in that direction until a wall is hit or you press

 Hot on the heels (well a couple of weeks after, but there is a review backlog) of Orb Pondering comes a game with a very similar concept, but a hint of extra gameplay.  "I think you have a QL? Well, I made a game for it. But then I thought you'll never manage to run it. Because running anything on a QL is impossible, and the emulator might be £40 or something. For all these reasons, I converted my game to work on QPC2 - which is free and QL based. So stick the attached files into a random folder on your PC. Set DOS2_ to point to your windows folder location in QPC2 and the LRUN the bas file," Because the BASIC listing contains calls specifically for QPC2 it won't run on a real QL or other emulators. It was the first time for me using QPC2 and a fuzzy head from a bout of man flu meant it took far longer than it should have to get the program running. With hindsight, even the fuzzy head is a poor excuse. Of course, if it is the first time starting QPC2 you will be give

To prove I can follow instructions I turned off fast load for this one. "Do not fail to load this at normal speed, though, because I had to use some interesting trickery to get the loading screen to appear in the way I did! And, the chances are, it'll take longer to load overall than it will to see everything in the game." Even at normal speed, it is necessary not to blink. For a brief second a screen with A O P S appears Before blending into the image from the cover of A Spy in Isengard which spawned a multitude of memes around orb pondering. The email promised me "You'll play it once to lose, once again to win, that's your lot.". Since I only read the email before loading I wasn't sure what to do at this point. I poked around at various keys with no result. Maybe this was after all a genuine Niksen simulator? I left it running in the background while performing a couple of chores, suddenly there was a fuzzy crackling and the emulator reset. What th

 The email doesn't fill me with hope. "My apologies on the lack of red for the circle. It appears Sinclair basic lacks a function to fill a circle. Were it not for that hiccup, this would be complete. as it stands, enjoy." ZEsarUX freezes trying to load the TZX file as a Spectrum file, EightyOne at least gets a little further but not much Life is short so on to the next one. If you want to try your luck the TZX file can be found here .

 Where to start with this one? With the email might be a good start "As a critical asset of our lives, coffee is a mainstay. But if we drink too much...play on. As stated in the REM, I was going to use the Ringo R470 but the keyboard is a nightmare to use." Comments in a REM statement only become useful if you can load the program. My trusty friend Tapir tells me the TZX file is created in Eighty-One so that if the emulator I'm going to use. Loading using Ringo-470 doesn't appear to do anything. ZX81 does nothing, Lambda 8300 at least gives me a semi-listing, but doesn't run TK85, Jupiter Ace, Timex TS1000, and Spectrum 16K, all refuse to load. Time to move on. If you wish to try your hand at playing Guess the correct host computer you can download the file here .

 The accompanying email provides a promising start "Pancakes are taking over the earth, smash them into oblivion" So does it live up to its early promise? Sadly no. The game starts in a familiar fashion by not autorunning.  After running I have Deja Vu, for a moment I think I am back in 'cmpltly awsme bgl simlater'. The screen presents me with a circle and 2 dots.   With no idea what to do I press a key. A small UDG appears presumably a pancake smasher. From then on I get inputs which I seem to be able to type anything into and the program progresses via mournful beeping to being told I have smashed 3 pancakes. Whatever I enter the game resets. Technical Ability - 8.1% The program listing is a mystery, lines 20 to 60 are superfluous, and line 146 gives me 2 chances to end the game without even starting. There is no game just a series of empty inputs leading me towards the end. Achievement - 2.9% It runs and does something. Fun - 7% I enjoyed 2 minutes of reading the l