Computer Gamer


Dragonskulle

Categories: Review: Software
Publisher: Ultimate
Machine: Commodore 64

 
Published in Computer Gamer #12

Dragonskulle

Yet another game from Ultimate featuring Sir Arthur Pendragon. He has finally reached the island of Dragonskulle where he is to search for the evil Skull of Souls. As usual with Ultimate games, the cassette inlay gives you a lot of blurb about feelings of evil and dire warnings but absolutely no indications of what on earth you are supposed to be doing.

The game's graphics are very attractive with the caves to be explored being presented in 3D perspective. There is a fair assortment of nasties to be overcome or avoided such as falling acid drops and stalactites, bouncing skulls, wasps and eyeballs and a huge, finely animated dragon.

Sir Arthur starts off on a beach where he has landed in his small boat. The only entrance to the caves is through a huge skull complete with eyes that seem to follow you. Your way is, however, blocked by an electrified force field. Fortunately, it is not long before you find the magic starfish that de-activates this energy barrier. As well as moving around, Sir Arthur can perform certain other tasks. These are depicted as icons at the top of the screen and can be selected from the keyboard. The icons allow you to dig and wear a magical energy cloak (once you have found the appropriate items), pause the game, throw a magical orb and jump. A nice touch here is that if you try to do something without the necessary item Sir Arthur's shaking head appears instead of the icon.

You start the game with five lives although extra ones can be found (though you will need a grave sense of humour to find them). When your last life finally disappears, a huge, hooded skull appears and you see your soul sucked from your body.

Dragonskulle is a pleasant enough arcade adventure and probably the pick of the Arthur Pendragon games to date... but you can't help feeling that you've seen it all somewhere before.