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Another 3D isometric maze game for the Amstrad.

You play the part of a robot sent down to a deserted colony planet to find out why the population has died out. You can also re-program robots that you find on the planet to perform tasks that would be too hazardous for you to do. Apart from this original and well thought out addition to the game it has no immediate merits or differences from any of the other dozens of games of this type for the Amstrad.

The programming system for the droids that you find littered around the planet is very straightforward and simple. You have to stand next to them and enter the programming mode. This cuts the screen in half and puts up a scrolling list of commands on the lower half. You can then select whatever command you want with the joystick and fire button with subsidiary lists appearing for commands that need them. The program can even be edited, added to, or deleted like any other program.

The 'language' is a plain English variant of Turtle/Logo. Commands deal with movement and simple functions like jumping, picking up and dropping objects, and certain functions like 'help' to tell you how the robot is programmed.

Once the program is in the robot it can be left indefinitely and the robot can be returned to later and activated. As I mentioned earlier, apart from the programmability option, there is nothing different about this game at all. The graphics are adequate and very colourful, using the sixteen colour mode to great effect. The problems are as good as could be expected and it fits into the middle of the road very nicely. The only bad point is the length of time it takes to draw each screen out, which is fairly long as it gets unpacked from memory.

Definitely a game for the player who is an addict for this sort of game, the average player has probably already got a game of this type and after one or two of these games have been added to a collection there is little need for another one.