And here's Speccy Nation author Dan Whitehead (me) banging on about Turbo Esprit for @eurogamer.bsky.social back in 2011, a retrospective that - oh god - is itself now retro.

The text adventure is way more obscure, whereas the terrible "arcade game" was ubiquitous and still turns up in literally every job lot of Speccy games on eBay.

Thank you! Volume 3 is in progress - definitely out next year!

And that's the strange, sad story of how a fan club for skinhead wheat biscuits led to a computer games lawsuit. Here's Weetabix vs The Titchies in all its dubious glory. Judge for yourself.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_r...

Weetabix promptly sued Ubik, understandably really given that the game obviously featured Weetabix. So, Paranoid Pete was pulled from sale and the cereal company pressed ahead with the presumably rushed Weetabix vs The Titchies instead, despite it being rubbish and a worse game than Paranoid Pete.

Games developer Ubik Software was given the job of turning wheat biscuits into a game but, for whatever reason, their effort was rejected by Weetabix. Undeterred, Ubik simply rebranded the game as Paranoid Pete and released it themselves.

So Weetabix decided to capitalise on this popularity by commissioning a tie-in computer game, available via mail order. Members of the Weetabix Club (and, yes, cereals had fan clubs back then) could get it for the bargain price of just £2.75.

The story behind Weetabix vs The Titchies is probably more interesting than the game itself. Back in the 80s, the skinhead themed TV ads briefly made Weetabix a cool kids brand. Yes, that is Bob Hoskins voicing Dunk, the leader of the "Neet Weet Gang".

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFil...

Correct! In the 1970s he was studying at the London Film School and working as a freelance illustrator when Donner hired him to create bespoke Action Comics pages for the movie.

I think it's as perfect an intro to a platform game as the first stage of Super Mario World. Everything you need to know about the game is contained in that screen. But, yeah, it's tough to get through.