Crash


Captain Kelly
By Quicksilva
Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Crash #34

Captain Kelly

Captain Kelly was a 'space hopper ' a pilot who treks from the Moon to the Earth and back, day in, day out. A new job was what he desperately needed, one with prospects and plenty of travelling. Oh, and lots of money.

Whilst browsing through the Space Gazette one day, he saw an advert: 'See the universe and make Mega Credits'. How could he resist? He didn't. He applied, and much to his surprise, Kelly was taken on immediately.

At first the job seemed ideal, simply picking up newly finished spaceships and delivering them to clients rather shady clients at that. Unfortunately, the job began to go drastically wrong when Kelly tried to get into one of the robot controlled mining traders...

Captain Kelly

Usually, when a pilot inserts a credit disc it disables all security systems inside the ship. Not so this time. Unwittingly, Captain Kelly stumped inside, And it was only then did he realise to his horror that although the security system lets people inside the complex with no trouble, it just won't let them out again. At least not in one piece, anyway.

And so, Captain Kelly came to face the hardest mission of his life. Somehow, he had to reclaim control of the ship from the robots and make his delivery on time.

These robots are not stupid by any means. The entire ship is a robot's playground. As well as the numerous robots on each level of the ship, there are robot repair bays which re-activate droids that have been knocked out of action.

There are seven levels of the ship and five robots per level. Robots can be disabled by using a laser gun. However, Kelly has a limited amount of ammunition and each droid requires several blasts to kill. Extra ammunition can be found around the ship, but it is heavily guarded.

To make matters worse, Kelly has a limited amount of oxygen and energy. When either of these vital commodities runs out, his life support systems cease to function and he dies. Fortunately, energy can be replenished by entering one of the many infirmaries around the ship.

Status reports can be accessed from various points wound the ship. These detail how many robots have been destroyed and how many are still intact.

Kelly moves around the ship on foot but he can use the teleports scattered around the ship to transfer him to different levels. Kelly's got a real problem on his hands, maybe driving to the Moon and back was a nice job after all!

Comments

Control keys: redefinable
Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2
Keyboard play: adequate
Use of colour: pale effect overall
Graphics: two dimensional flat view
Sound: funky little tune at the beginning and spot effects throughout
Skill levels: seven
Screens: scrolling play area

Comment 1

'What's this, get rid of the nasty robots wandering over the several levels of your space ship. I think I've heard that one before somewhere. I honestly wonder if this game was written on QUICKSLIVA's new games designer as it isn't at all professional. The graphics are on the whole quite colourful, but the playing area tacks a lot of detail and the characters are badly animated. The best thing about Captain Kelly is the sound track; there's a lovely tune on the title screen and the odd spot effect during play. The game is very easy to get into as it doesn't really involve any thinking, but because it is so easy it gets monotonous very quickly. On the whole Captain Kelly is not playable or compelling, so I wouldn't splash out any of your hard earned cash on it.'

Comment 2

'Captain Kelly immediately reminded me of Quazatron, on viewed from above. Although I found the basic look of the game very pleasant and appealing, I found it very boring and hard to get into. The sound effects are extremely good and the title screen features a very good two channel tune. The game features some reasonably fast scrolling, but the movement of the characters is very slow. The scenario on the inlay is very well written and the way the instructions are laid out is very good, giving you a quick idea of what the game is all about. Captain Kelly has excellent presentation - it's just boring to play'

Comment 3

'This is a rather dull little shoot 'em up. Nothing much to recommend: it's much the same as any other blast away game. There are a few nice bits of tactics, like getting the robots to shoot each other, but essentially it's just a matter of blazing away. The infirmary is rather silly, pounding away on the keyboard decathlon-style to get the guy to rotate in order to restore energy. But don't get too good -if your energy goes over 100 per cent, the game crashes!'

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