Sinclair User


Captain Dynamo
By Codemasters
Spectrum 48K/128K/+2/+3

 
Published in Sinclair User #125

Captain Dynamo

Who said that pensioners have nothing to offer society?... They have the wealth of knowledge and experience which their age bestows upon them, they've got wide-ranging talents and they're magnificent story tellers, I mean just look at Garth Sumpter, there's no way he's a dinosaur (WAY!)

Well it's time for pensioners to fight back. In fact one pensioner in particular, Ernest P. Dynamo, a retired Boy Wonder and pigeon fancier has decided to take on the mantle of aging wonder and fly off on a single man suer hero crusade, as Captain Dynamo, to save a dear old lady's stolen jewels.

Actually, if truth be told Ernest was beaten to the active geriatric post by the mad professor Austen Von Flyswatter, a retired failed world dominator and jewel fancier. Von F. has decided to hide out on the moon for the rest of his retirement but has also taken the world's largest collection of diamonds with him, pilfered from their rightful owner - Lady Phyllis Uppenhoofen. In an effort to recover them Lady Phyllis flouted her ample charms and persuaded Captain Dynamo to fly to the rescue.

Captain Dynamo

The game starts off with the main sprite appearing in a teleporter at the bottom of the mad prof's moon base. He promptly sets off on a vertically scrolling adventure, attempting to pick up as many of the good lady's diamonds as possible while avoiding death in the process. Dynamo moves vertically by flying, or rather jumping high, using his cape as a parachute to soften the landing. Luckily there are also lots of lifts and hydraulic bouncing devices as Ernst's legs aren't quite what they used to be.

On the negative side of things there are rather a lot of jagged walls, high powered compression devices, razor sharp moving blades and pools of water to deal with. Needless to say these must be avoided! There are also quite a few nasty moon mutants in the caverns too. These range from worms to spiders, to creatures that look like giant Dizzys in a bad mood. Dynamo must jump on these things to kill them.

Graphics and sound are both excellent. There is some digitised speech in the opening sequence and the music is catchy and lively, though sometimes verging on the annoying. Captain Dynamo is quite simple in concept but very good looking, very involving and very, very enjoyable Check it out, now.

Label: Code Masters Memory: 48K/128K Price: £3.99 Tape Reviewer: Alan Dykes

Overall Summary

Never have I seen so much for so little. Captain Dynamo has to be one of Codie's star performers. If you're into platform games with plenty of excitement, plenty of obstacles, plenty of humour and moderate difficulty you won't go wrong here for £3.99.

Alan Dykes

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