Where have I been for the last year? I mean, someone is creating a Bomberman clone for the Commodore Plus/4, and it falls completely under my radar?

Anyway, good news, albeit a little late, is better than none at all I suppose. At the time of writing, there's no download yet available, but there's some nice YouTube footage over at www.youtube.com/user/chronos75 (which includes a selection of demos too for the 264 series), with downloads for your computer or emulator available from absenceandwilds.extra.hu.

While on the subject of Commodore's late-starter, there have been a few other pieces of entertainment software released for the technology over the past months. The puzzle-cum-platform game 'Find Another Way' was added to the Plus/4 EmuCamp archives, and is a somewhat testing and frustrating maze affair using platforms and ladders. This game has also been released on the Commodore 64 too, though I've been unable to find it for now at least. However, the C64 version (which will work on all 64k C16 machines too) can be downloaded from plus4.emucamp.com/software/Find_Another_Way_Again.

If you want a game that will test your reactions, then 'Get It' (also available on the Plus/4 EmuCamp archives) might be for you. Released by the group Assassins, this is a rather slickly-presented affair in which you're tasked with finding the exits from each dungeon by avoiding the roaming nasties. This piece of software can be found at plus4.emucamp.com/software/Get_It.

It must be a week for the less successful 8-bit machines, as there are two new games released for Atari's XE/XL machines. The first will run on 64k machines, and is described as a 'Trailblazer' clone, but played on a circular track, rather than simply on a flat road. The game is called Yoomp! and looks both technically impressive and rather fun to play too. However, I'll need to get to a system that's capable of emulating something as complex as the old Atari, for instance, either a real machine, or a PC that's not running Windows Vista. So, you'll have to wait for my verdict on this one...!

The other Atari release is a rather spiffing Mario-esque clone called Clownland.

The final version requires 128k of RAM and has appeared in this column previously, so I can already vouch for its playability and general slickness. Yoomp! is available from yoomp.atari.pl and Clownland can be found at www.laresistance.pigwa.net/crownland.zip.

It seems like hardly a week goes by these days without hearing about new software for Sir Clive's rubber-sporting wonder machine. Astro 2008, by Canadul, has been recently released for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, but at the moment, the game is in Spanish only, which is great if you have a good grasp on the language.

However, those friendly Speccy enthusiasts over at the World Of Spectrum forums have very kindly provided a translation, which can be found by reading this thread here - www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/showthread.php?t=18153, so there's no excuses not to play the game really. Download it from canadul.speccy.org.