Electron User
1st August 1986
Published in Electron User 3.11
Robico is well known for the quality of its BBC adventures and so it was with some interest that I tackled its first Electron game. You play the part of Rick Hanson, secret agent. Your mission is to assassinate General Garantz, an evil criminal who is threatening to explode a nuclear bomb in New York unless he is paid a ransom.
You begin your mission in a railway station. An initial exploration of the fourteen locations surrounding you reveals several objects, all of which are useful.
A visit to the telephone box should give you further information about your mission, but reversing the charges is a throw-away line. After collecting everything else you can find you must look for a route out of the station. Leaving by the front door is not the answer as you will soon discover. Hesitation can also prove fatal as one of the general's men is somewhere inside looking for you with evil intent.
To get on the right track, or rather over it, head back to the bridge. A passing train is on, and in time. The guard should be dealt with quickly, so put in the spanner in his works. Leaving the train will find you in a village with more exploring to do.
There's lots to do here and if you take a gamble in the tavern you will find you can stay the night. You must now try not to avoid too close a shave, and cracking the code should see you well equipped to solve the remaining puzzles before leaving the village.
I am very impressed with this game. It has about 220 locations and is totally logical. Packaged with the game is a card which entitles you to help if you get stuck.
Also enclosed is a smart adventure's notebook. This is about the size of a diary and consists of blank, colourful pages. I'm not sure how useful this is, but it does add an air of professionalism to the game.
The program uses screen memory because of its size so you can only see eighteen lines of text at any one time.
Rick Hanson is nothing less than brilliant and Robico must now join Epic as being the software houses for adventures on the Electron. I look forward to spending time on the follow-up version, Rick Hanson 2, which from initial impressions seems to be every bit as good.
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