C&VG
1st July 1984Heist
Bags of loot, time bombs, cups of tea, hammers and a painting, frustrated bank manager make up the unlikely ingredients of Heist, one of several new games from Softspot.
Heist is yet another in a long series of climbing games which are at present bombaring the market though it is a fair cry from the fast, addictive and original Transistor's Revenge, also from Softspot.
That point aside, Heist is the story of a bank manager who is just about to close up the bank at the end of the day's trading when - Crash! - four hefty thugs burst into the bank on the lookout for some easy loot.
Money bags litter the ground on all levels of the bank, so there is only one thing to be done. The bank manage must trundle around collecting the bags to stash in the vault.
Now these are no ordinary robbers - instead of disappearing with the rest of the loot, they chase round madly after the manager trying to cut him off from the vault so that they can steal the money he has collected so far.
In a fit of madness, one of the robbers lights a time bomb - tick-tock, tick-tock. The manager rushes to the top of the building to defuse the bomb before it can blow his beloved bank and everyone in it to smithereens.
One feature which is very similar to Donkey Kong are the hammers which can be used to lay out the robbers. The cups of tea appear at random to refresh the poor man as he rushes up and down to the vault.
Each level is connected by a series of ladders, with all the money on the higher levels and the vault in the basement. The game can become very tedious, though, as the bank manager can only carry one bag at a time, so he has to make several trips.
After he has safely stashed the money away, a new day and a new screen begins. As the game progresses, the robbers chase more intelligently, there are more money bags and the going becomes a lot harder.
The controls are very simple to master and a very apt tune plays throughout: If I Were A Rich Man...!