Previous Next

Converted from the Spectrum, Dynamite Dan is Mirrorsoft's highly successful platform game. Our hero has to steal some secret plans from the Evil Doctor Blitzen in order to stop him using his super psychon mega-ray which would give him world domination. The game starts with Dynamite Dan having landed his dirigible on the Doctor's roof and all he has to do is enter the house, find eight sticks of dynamite, blow up the safe, get the plans and escape back to his blimp. Easy!

There are 48 screens to be explored but it feels like many more as every one is action-packed. There are usually several areas on each screen that can only be accessed from other screens so careful planning of your route is necessary. The rooms wrap around to form a cylinder. In other words, if you keep going left, you will eventually come back to where you started from. A nice touch is that the screens overlap slightly so that if you are standing on a block on the right-hand edge of a screen then that block will be on the left-hand edge on the next screen so that you don't have to go leaping into the unknown.

As well as the dynamite, you will have to find food to sustain your energy. There are also other objects lying around such as test tubes that give you an extra life (you will certainly need them) and deodorants which let you walk through nasties without any damage to yourself. The nasties disappear if you hit them so that you can only be killed by them once. There are trampolines for you to bounce on and an underground river that has to be negotiated by means of a raft.

There is nothing startlingly original in Dynamite Dan and it does not have the class of games such as Monty On The Run but it is enjoyable and one that platform fans will want to have in their collection.