Computer Gamer
1st May 1986Get Dexter
Zarxas is an earth-based computer that controls, amongst other things, the Xul3 colony. As Zarxas is under threat of pulverisation in a global war, a plan is devised to steal its memory banks. In order to do that, you have to discover an eight figure code before making your way to the actual computer.
Despite the usual inane plot, Get Dexter is actually a very good arcade adventure. Written in France by a company called Ere, and licensed by PSS, the game features many original ideas and bright colourful 3D graphics.
The rooms are depicted in a style that will be familiar to anyone who has seen an Ultimate game on the Spectrum. There is lots of furniture lying around which needs to be pulled, pushed and climbed on as you try to reach seemingly inaccessible areas of your current location. As you shunt the tables and chests around, so you discover more passages and items that will prove useful to you later on.
There are eight scientists wandering about the complex, each one of which holds one part of the code. If you approach him wth the appropriate item, he will divulge his knowledge to you. The items lying around the place are many and varied ranging from bottles to hypodermic syringes and including colour coded passes that are essential for opening certain doors. Only one object can be carried at a time so some careful planning is needed.
Different items may also control some of the various nasties that pursue you relentlessly. These nasties include assorted androids, robot cats and dogs, punk rockers and buxom blonde nurses. As they collide with you, so your energy decreases although it can be replenished if you can find a holophonic cabin. Throughout all this action, you are helped by a little creature called a podocephale - a head stuck on a foot whose exact purpose is as yet undetermined but who follows you closely wherever you go.
The attention to detail throughout the game is excellent. Jump onto a swivel chair and it spins round several times before you are thrown off. The problems too are original - and frustrating - leaping from platform to platform trying to reach some obscure exit, walking through rooms when manic gates try to stop you and discovering the secrets of libraries and hospital wards.
But it is the graphics that attract you most. So many moving objects, all of differing colours that there is almost too much detail at times. Definitely the best arcade adventure that I've seen for the Amstrad so far.