Planet New Texas is the home of Tex Hex, who is currently under the influence of an evil spirit called Stampede. A remnant of New Texas' past, Stampede wants to reign over the planet by reincarnating the prehistoric Broncosaur bones that litter the desert.
Unable to do this alone, he induces Tex Hex to kidnap the ancient Indian, Shamen, and force him to reveal the magical spell which completes the evil deed.
Hearing of the dastardly plan, Marshall Bravestarr heads for New Texas in order to rescue his teacher and long-time friend. Equipped only with his trusty laser gun and saddle rocket, Bravestarr has a mere nine days in which to rescue Shamen; the passage of time is continually shown by a countdown clock and the movement of the sun.
The trail leads Bravestarr to the mining town of Fort Kerium, where he immediately enters into a running battle with Tex's men and a strange menagerie of birds and dogs; contact with whom increments the fatal timer. However, blasting the baddies scores points and, more importantly, provides Bravestarr with amulets which give him extra firepower or stop the countdown clock for a few valuable seconds.
Further exploration of the town leads Bravestarr to his saddly rocket which enables him to visit such places as Starr Peak, the Prairie Mines and an old abandoned ghost town. Here, Bravestarr gains information and objects which may be traded for further clues to the whereabouts of Shamen.
Eventually, all the clues lead to the location of Tex and Stampede, who are destroyed to facilitate Shamen's release.
SJ
Even if Bravestarr is supposed to fall into the 'younger players' market, there's no excuse for this lame parody of a game. All aspects are of a very low standard that I wouldn't expect to see coming from a professional company such as Probe software.
Animation is practically non-existent, collision detection (what collision detection?), shallow gameplay that is practically repeated to the pixel on repeat goes and ludicrous amounts of enemies.
I have no option but to dismiss it out of hand. The £10 price tag is a travesty.
PS
Bravestarr is frustratingly boring to play: a case of mindless blasting interspersed with laughably weak adventuring. It only took a few sessions before I was thoroughly sick and tired of the whole thing.
The graphics are very poor - the game should be retitled 'Marshall Blocksprite wobbles around Legoland' as the "animated" blobs cripple across the rather amateur backgrounds. Not a game I would heartily recommend - even to my worst enemy.
JR
Take one designer cowboy, add a couple of dogs and some dumpling-shaped aliens and throw them all into an appallingly corny scenario. The result is Bravestarr, the story of a rootin' tootin' borin' cowboy in a game as plastic as the toys.
The gameplay is absolutely fire. Actions are performed in a set order: even though you know where and what the information is, when you restart, you have to painstakingly go there time and time again to access locations. This rigid routine soon becomes incredibly tedious and leads to the 'off' switch being gratefully depressed remarkably quickly for a full-priced game.
Bravestarr is unadulterated tripe - designers Probe must have very lax standards to let this through.
1st March 1988
