Amstrad Action


Diamond Mine
By Blue Ribbon
Amstrad CPC464

 
Published in Amstrad Action #6

Diamond Mine

Diamond mines are unlikely to become a gamester's best friend. This game has an absurdly simple task to match the similarly simple sound and graphics. It will satisfy only those who've never seen a computer game or those who've seen so many that their sense of discrimination has become totally befuddled.

You start at the top of a maze layout controlling a pipe which gobbles the diamonds (dots). Rushing around in the maze are hostile aliens (purple blobs). You can suck them up the end of the pipe, but if they touch any other point you lose a life. Controls are left/right, up/down and retract, which freezes the action and allows you to get back and gobble some aliens.

The whole - the *only* - interest of the game is in learning to press retract rather than a control key; going back on yourself loses a life. So you can have some fun for about ten minutes. Once you've learned to control yourself the game is a bore, despite its ten mazes.

Second Opinion

Diamond Mine

Here we go again with a good old single screen game that tries not to be Pac-Man by introducing some new elements, and still ends up being Pac-Man. You might have some fun until you've completed a screen but after that the feeling of deja vu will sweep over you causing drooping of the eyelids and stagnating of the brain. These sort of games give budget labels a bad name.

Good News

P. Instant fun.

Bad News

N. The fun lasts about ten minutes.