Previous Next

Elektra Glide is an incredible game on the Atari. The Commodore 64 version is expanded and revised - and just as good.

The concept behind Elektra Glide is just to stay on the road; no other cars, no closed circuit track, just you, a track, lots of beligerent objects, tunnels and incredible graphics.

The game is vaguely racing-based, though whether you are driving a car or not is debatable. The road stretches out in front of you in Pole Position-style 3D and mountains grace the horizon.

Scenery such as sign posts and trees line the road, though you stay on the road whatever happens.

Fast incidental music hammers away in the background to get you in the mood, lengthened and improved from the Atari version. The general appearance of the graphics is less than the Atari version. This says more about how good the Atari version is rather than anything else. The shading is just that bit better on the Atari due to the extra 112 colours that you get on that machine. But the Commodore version is still pretty excellent on the graphics front.

After the game starts, and you are greeted by the vector graphic titles, you can select which joystick envelope you want to use. This affects the sensitivity of your controller.

You can also select which of three trucks you want to use: England, USA or Australia. I think England is easier than the other two, but there is no indication of difficulty, and it may only be my personal preference (like I can get further on that track!). Changing track also changes the colour of the scenery and the type of shrubbery that is along the side of the road.

As you drive along, you can encounter rotating, triangular prisms that you can drive around, bouncing balls looking like somethng out of The Prisoner that bounce up and down, as well as zig-zagging from side to side and rushing towards you! A plane can also fly overhead and drop piles of vertical bars that can impede your progress unless you swing around them.

And, an extra from the Atari version, you get the occasional short tunnel in the track.

Get to the end of a section within the time limit and you go onto the next, harder, section. You do this by entering a longer, twisty, tunnel that connects up the different sections.

The game could be summed up by a comment to me from a very puzzled Your Commodore (our sister magazine) editor who was reading the instructions as I was first playing the game. "It's got how to play the game, but tells you nothing else." That says it all. No corny story or scenario. Just a game to get down and play - a real gamer's game.