Home Computing Weekly


Master Of The Lamps

Author: M.N.
Publisher: Activision
Machine: MSX

 
Published in Home Computing Weekly #128

This game is definitely different. It involves magic carpets, genies and lamps; you have to assemble the pieces of three broken lamps and return the escaped genies to them. This is to be done, rather improbably, by hitting gongs.

There are two different types of screen to negotiate. In the first, which I found quite easy, you have to fly through a tunnel on a magic carpet; the tunnel is represented by a series of coloured diamond shapes, and so long as you keep steering towards the littlest one you can see you shouldn't go far wrong. The second phase is trickier. Here, a genie blows a sequence of notes into the air and you have to hit the corresponding gongs in the correct order before the notes drift down and catch you. In the beginner’s version of the game, the notes are colour coded to help you. In the full version, the colours disappear quickly if they are given at all .

Every time you complete one tunnel and one sequence of gongs, you are rewarded with one piece of a lamp. To assemble all three lamps you need a total of 21 pieces; you will need far more staying power and a better sense of pitch than I have to get them all.

> The concept is interesting, and the graphics and sound are very good, particularly the music which accompanies the magic carpet flight. It's a shame Activision had to spoil the game's appeal by putting such a ridiculous price tag on it.

M.N.

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