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As such, when I saw that a collection of Monty Mole games was also getting the \u201cCollection\u201d treatment, I was intrigued. Monty Mole is a classic figure of the British 8-bit computer scene, but not quite as well known as he should be, so I was intrigued to see what we might get, especially given the collection\u2019s relatively low asking price. Turns out there\u2019s a reason for that low asking price, because while The Monty Mole Collection is indeed a collection of Monty Mole games \u2013 mostly \u2013 it\u2019s also rather depressingly bare-bones.<\/p>\n
Specifically, it\u2019s a bundle of the Spectrum and Commodore 64 versions of Wanted! Monty Mole (1984), Monty On The Run (1985) and Auf Weidersehen Monty (1987), as well as the Spectrum only version \u2013 because it was a magazine Christmas freebie covermount back in the day \u2013 of Moley Christmas (1987) and spin-off title Sam Stoat Safebreaker (1985).<\/p>\n
Which means straight off the bat, Monty is Innocent (1985) and Impossamole (1990) aren\u2019t included in any form, so it\u2019s sadly not a comprehensive history of this particular talpidae and his exploits. I\u2019m going to guess that this is a rights issue, and maybe also an included emulators one, as Impossamole was an Amiga\/PC Engine game where the others were 8-bit efforts only. Even within that, however, it\u2019s odd to see C64 and Spectrum included but the mighty Amstrad 464\/6128 versions omitted.<\/p>\n
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What\u2019s more annoying is that you get the games with basic emulator add-ons such as save states and limited rewinding, along with mediocre CRT\/soft screen filters and a screen stretched mode that pushes the scores off the top of the Switch display in handheld mode, which is just shoddy coding\u2026 and that\u2019s all you get, period.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no included manuals to give you a proper idea of objectives, so good luck \u2013 for example \u2013 trying to work out what the hell you\u2019re meant to be doing at all in Sam Stoat Safebreaker. Actually, good luck with that one at all, because it was awful back in the day, and time has not<\/em> been kind to it at all. I guess if you wanted to know what really bad games from the mid 1980s were like it would be something of a crash course.<\/p>\n The Monty Collection also lacks any further content or detail that talks to the specific history of these games. Do you know why in Wanted! Monty Mole he\u2019s stealing coal precisely, and why he might end up in \u201cArthur\u2019s Castle\u201d with a ballot paper? It\u2019s actually one of the very earliest instances of political satire in a commercial video game, dealing with the UK miner\u2019s strike. While it sits on a highly right-wing view of history (take that as you will), you\u2019d never know that just from The Monty Mole Collection.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t hard to research, and it wouldn\u2019t have taken them long to at least pull together a few paragraphs talking about why each game was important (with one exception), or maybe a developer interview or two? But no, you just get games and that\u2019s it. I\u2019m all for properly paying for games where appropriate, but if you can\u2019t do better than a simple but illicit emulator\u2026 that\u2019s not really good enough.<\/p>\n This is a huge pity, because while the other games are as predictably tough as home platform games were at the time, and the music is\u2026 challenging, especially on the Spectrum versions unless you like discordant chaos, there\u2019s still some fun to be had here beyond the simple pangs of nostalgia. If you think that hard-as-nails games only came via From Software relatively recently, have a crack at finishing the Spectrum version of Wanted! Monty Mole on one set of lives and think again. Or discover what a totally different game it is on the Commodore 64. The later full Monty titles have greater similarity in them, but you can also see how the concepts and design ideas evolved along the way, as well as how game developers weren\u2019t afraid to throw a few genuinely weird ideas and colour schemes into 1980s platformers.<\/p>\n The Monty Mole Collection isn\u2019t extremely expensive, and that\u2019s perhaps its saving grace, because examining its fare won\u2019t set you back a lot. But in the shadow of far superior collections that genuinely pay homage to why retro gaming is so important to not only be preserved but played, this is definitely second-rate. Monty may or may not be innocent, but he deserved better than this.<\/p>\n![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.digitallydownloaded.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/2024010804021200-551486D7FB242CE27B99185848BF3736.jpg\")
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