Previous Next

Although our story is set many years in the future, the noble art of chivalry is not dead. This is just as well as the ship in which Amelia is travelling has crashlanded on planet 2749/2 of the Zrag9 system, and worse still, the fair Amelia has been abducted by the dastardly Spegbott. Guarded by the grotesque Henchdroid in Spegbott ' s castle, Amelia's life is in mortal peril.

Randol, a professional hero and Future Knight, receives a distress call from the wrecked S.S Rustbucket requesting his help immediately. But when Randolf reaches the crashed ship he finds that he has quite a mission on his armour-plate. Of course, for the love of Amelia he is willing to risk life and limb - cor, they don’t make them like that anymore!

There are twenty levels to Randolph’s mission. Firstly, the Future Knight has to hack his way through the ruined space ship out on to the planet surface. Once there he must make his way to Spegbott's castle and locate the alluring Amelia. However, in each main level there are multiple sub-levels. Each of these sub-levels has two doors, and Randolf must fight his way from one door to the other greeting each foe in his path with zeal.

Randolf starts out each life with 999 units of energy. Each time he's caught by one of Spegbott's henchmen, this level goes down by a certain amount. When this level reaches zero, then Randall loses one of his three lives. A bomb, if picked up, will not only rid the screen of all aliens, but will also boost your Knight's energy. When all three lives have been used up the game is over, and Amelia will be left to the dastardly devices of the evil Spegbott.

However, the baddies don't get it all their own way. Randolf has a very nifty gun built into his space suit which is very handy for blasting the baddies. This gun can be changed for another by visiting the ship's armoury. These guns have infinite blasting power, so Randolf can go forth and be very destructive if he likes.

Randolf is a bit of an exhibitionist. If you ignore him for a period of time, then the little Knight starts waving at you to attract your attention. If you refuse to continue the game he starts doing a little dance to amuse himself. If you still take no notice then he starts going totally berserk and spinning around on the spot.

There are other useful objects which Randoif can collect to help him with his mission. These range from confusers, which do exactly what their name suggests, to various spells which will build bridges and extra exits.

Control keys: left O; right W;up; P;down L; Fire SPACE; use, U; abort, BREAK
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: pretty slick
Use of colour: effective
Graphics: detailed with good shading
Sound: nice tune if you play it on the 128, a bit beepy on the 48K
Skill levels: one
Screens: 160

'I'm not very sure about this game. It was actually great fun for a while as I leapt around the platforms fighting nestles. However, there are some niggly problems. For a start off climbing up certain ladders just lead off onto the screen above - fine, except when you don't want to go to the screen above. Generally, I can't really put my finger, there's something about It that I'm not too keen on and I would recommend that you have a look at this before investing the old crinkly stuff.'

'This isn't perhaps the most original of games but it is good fun all the same. Legging it around the largish playing area trying to get out does get extremely frustrating after a couple of goes as it is very difficult to actually die, but you can get trapped in small spaces, so you have to about the game. The graphics are very good, each of the characters is very well drawn and animated and the backgrounds are colourful. The sound is also good, there area few effects during the game and a lovely tune on the title screen. Future Knight isn't the best game around at the moment but it is certainly well worth a look.'

'I tried to look at this with as open a mind as possible, bearing in mind GREMLIN'S past record, but unfortunately, I was somewhat disappointed. The graphics are very good, and well up to the usual high standard of GREMLIN, but unfortunately, the game struck me as being a very run of the mill one. The most enjoyable thing that I found about it was the way in which you characters stops, knocks on the screen, and starts dancing if you leave him alone for too long g a period of time. Of course, you like this sort of game, then I think you'll be OK.'