Manic Miner

More old school gaming this time with the classic Manic Miner, the precursor to the equally legendary Jet Set Willy, which acts as a sequel. Manic differs from JSW in that to get to the next room you must collect all the keys in the current one. There are more than 16 rooms to get through, and with only 3 lives to do so this presents a real challenge. One which is fun and frustrating in equal measure.













I played this on the Amstrad CPC464 when I was a kid, and am thus well equiped when it comes to reliving the game on the emulator software I downloaded. It is amazing that these games which took up to ten minutes to load, and cost £20.00 each or more (a month's worth of pocket money), now load in seconds and are free to download from sites such as this one.













For those who grew up playing with the slightly cooler ZX Spectrum, or the equally nerdy Commodore 64, there is plenty of emulator software out there for those too. Manic Miner and the sequel Jet Set Willy were, and are still so popular and indeed iconic that they transcend all platforms to stand alone.













There are reworkings and pc updates of these classics just as easily available, and just as fun. But I prefer to play in its original form, that way I can pretend never to have grown up, something which may well be very close to the truth.