C&VG


Doc Destroyer

Publisher: Melbourne House
Machine: Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Computer & Video Games #68

Doc Destroyer

Nyaa! What's up Doc? Ah, I see. You've been roped in to play the starring role in this latest Australian epic and you don't get any lines as good as Paul Hogan! Still, let's crack a tube of the golden nectar and have a look at what the blurb calls a "role-playing science-fantasy text and graphic arcade adventure combat game with a mappable playing area, multiple choice and massive sprites." Got that? Good.

Doc puts together bits from other sorts of games, mixes them together with a liberal dose of interesting graphics and splurges out a fairly different game.

If you've played multiple choice role-playing games on computer then you'll be familiar with the multiple choice type of scenario. For example: do you a) Fancy an ice-cream b) Attack the 20ft high marshmallow-man with your pickaxe or c) hide under the sofa. That sort of thing.

Doc The Destroyer

Doc has that. But it also has a live Fist-style arcade combat section when and if you get into fighting situations. The C64 graphics for this part of the game are pretty impressive. BIG characters fighting it out. Spectrum? Well, as you'd expect they are a bit limited but still good at look at. But, hey, what about the plot? Coming right up readers!

Doc is a time traveller. With a name like that, what else could you be? One day he finds himself dazed, confused and without any clothes, lying on a pile of rubble outside an alien-looking city.

It seems that the city-dwellers are about to flood the area around their home wiping out the local tribe known as the Rubble Runners. Both the rubble and city are enclosed under an energy dome.

Doc The Destroyer

Doc's job is to save the Rubble Runners, find his time machine and generally avoid being wiped out by the various nasties that take a dislike to him.

A typical "move" in the game would go something like this. The screen display shows Doc's smiling face on the left with a "speech-bubble" on the right which contains adventure-type text descriptions of locations, conversations and the multiple choice options for your next move. These can range from simple n,s,e,w directions to whether you want to fight someone or eat something. Your decisions affect the outcome of the whole game.

A brave try at a "different" type of game. Good fun to play for a while but lastability could be a bit suspect. Once you've cracked the game, I doubt if you'll want to do it again.