Crash


Fantastic Voyage
By Quicksilva
Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Crash #16

Fantastic Voyage

This is the officially licenced computer game version of the 20th Century Fox film of the same name. In the film a group of scientists are miniaturised together with their submarine and injected into the body of a seriously ill patient in an attempt to carry out vital surgery in situ - micro surgery from within. They have to wear scuba equipment to survive in the bloodstream and squishy organs of the person and find that white blood cells are more lethal than sharks.

The game follows the film idea quite closely, except that now you are on your own and by some stroke of misfortune your submarine fails to respond so well to miniaturisation and is scattered throughout the body in eight pieces. Among the objectives of the game, one of the most important is to recover the eight pieces and assemble them within the patient's brain to escape.

The display shows a large playing area of interlinked screens. You start off inside the mouth, just behind the firmly clamped teeth. To the right of the playing area is a graphic representation of the human body. A small dot shows your relative position. Here also are shown the infections which from time to time infect the host body. A red flashing square indicates where and you must move quickly to destroy the infection with your laser before it raises the body temperature excessively and kills it (thus ending the game). Above the playing area is a temperature bar, score lines, location name, time taken, percentage scored and the name of the location where any infections have broken out.

Growths within the body can be destroyed by collecting a white blood cell and getting it to collide with the growth. Cholesterol may block some passages and can be removed by lasering it (although the laser only operates horizontally). Green viruses are dangerous but may be destroyed by your laser whereas other hazards are immune and lethal. Although this is set inside the human body, it is very much a mapping game and the player will have to discover the various routes around the body, collecting the submarine parts as you go.

Comments

Control keys: preset as B/N left/right, SPACE to Pick/drop, P to swim and L to fire, but all these are user-defineable
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor type
Keyboard play: very positive response, uses a gravity effect which is overcome by 'swimming'
Use of colour: very good
Graphics: well sized and smooth, the internal organs are convincing
Sound: very good effects, the continuous tune may be toggled on/off
Skill levels: 1
Lives: 5
Screens: more than 40 locations with every major organ and artery named.

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