Your Sinclair


Gauntlet

Author: David McCandless
Publisher: Kixx
Machine: Spectrum 48K/128K/+2

 
Published in Your Sinclair #38

Gauntlet

Yes. the metal glove that reduced many a games player into a shivering sleepless wreck. This is one of the only coin-op conversions that ever really captured the addictive essence of the original and was the big Chnstmas hit in '86. I was enchanted by this one for months.

If you don't know already the idea is to direct your beefy medieval hero (or heroine) on a quest through billions of multi-load levels, fighting off hordes of ghosts, ogres and grim reapers, collecting potions, treasure and extra-weaponry, sifting through caverns, mazes and bonus screens, blasting, exploding, pulverising, shooting... aarrghhh! It's brilliant! The creatures are fairly brainless, churning about, chasing you. They're fairly easy to dispatch as well, a couple of welltimed axes down their ectoplasmic gullets usually does the biz. You race towards the exits but doors block off sections of the maze, so keys must be collected to open them. The mazes become progressively more complex and progressively more populated with nasty cultures. You collect extra weapons and deal death in a fun way.

The graphics are a little simplistic, the colours a little garish and the multiload a bit tedious, but all these niggles are swiftly forgotten when you experience the pleasure of simultaneous two player action. Playing with a friend (at the computer, I hasten to add) lends another dimension to the game. You can be savagely nefarious and leave your partner to the Reaper's mercy, be savagely sadistic and shoot him 'accidently' or even be savagely cooperative - either way it's bags of fun and well worth the money.

David McCandless

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