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Future time. The Earth's youth is a distant speck, BT has long been bankrupt and Cliff Richard has just retired.

Out of this mayhem has come Rygar, the legendary warrior. Strong and silent, he speaks but one language... combat. Those who cross his dangerous path regret it - or at least they would if they lived.

But there are still many who resent Rygar's rule and seek to destroy him with the deadly sweetness of their touch - scuttling aardvarks, large-headed snerds, hideous harridans and grunting Goths, These are the dangers the warrior meets as he runs, ducks and leaps his way through the strange landscapes of the far future.

Rygar fights with the power of thunderballs, unleashed upon attackers. But even his fighting skills cannot get the better of a treacherous world, and gaping chasms of incredible depth and darkness await the hero's final fall.

As the eternal struggle rages between life and death, Rygar grows in power by gathering the icons that are revealed when he blasts parts of the scenery. But as the heroic Rygar travels further on his adventurous trail, he encounters ever more weird and deadly forms of futuristic life which (that's enough purple prose - Man Ed).

Probe Software's last release before Rygar was Trantor - The Last Stormtrooper (68% overall in Issue 46), for the GO! label run by US Gold. Trantor's graphics were highly praised, but the CRASH reviewers felt it, like Rygar, was too easy.

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: simple but not ugly
Sound: spot effects
Options: definable keys

'You can tell just by looking at Rygar that it's a coin-op conversion - it actually looks like it wasn't written to run on a Spectrum. And that's exactly how it plays! The graphics are dull and uninterestingly coloured, the first level is far too easy and the others offer no stimulation.'

'Not being much of an arcade player - stuck in sleepy Ludlow - I'm usually disappointed by arcade conversions after all the hype they get. But the main problem, graphics, has been overcome well in Rygar. The main character is a bit small, but the colourful parallax scrolling adds depth to the play area, making it a Joy to play. And though the first three levels are so easy they're unnecessary, subsequent levels are harder and create a very addictive game. Rygar is one of US Gold's better arcade conversions.'