C&VG
1st June 1986Saboteur
In Saboteur, another blood 'n guts game, you take the role of a highly trained mercenary, with a suitably destructive mission; you have to break into a building, disguised as a warehouse (the building, that is) and steal a disk. The disk contains the names of various rebel leaders - who will presumably come to a rather sticky end, once in the hands of your "employer". Then you have to escape.
Loading the game was no mean feat in itself. The naff title page took an absolute aeon to form, and the rest of the program took even longer, causing the screen to disintegrate before admitting that it was ready to go!
Some horrible music "plunks" away in the background while you are being asked to select joystick/keyboard options, and your skill level (1: Extremely easy/9: Extremely hard). Eventually, the game gets going, and pretty good it is too. Your character glides across the water in a yellow dinghy and waits by a jetty. All in black, you leap out and make your way up the rickety wooden structure, toward the enemy base.
The sound couldn't be described as "great", but is adequate, with some fairly convincing sound effects.
The game is a race against time. You must time your way around the maze, picking up objects with which you can kill the defending guards.
To climb a ladder, you have to be under it - obviously. Unfortunately, you have to be directly under it. This isn't very easy to achieve when there is a hungry dog at your heels.
The items you need are all hidden away behind crates or barrels. As you pass one, you'll be shown a picture and told it is "nearby". By pressing fire you can pick it up, although only one object at a time is permitted.
Despite some quirks with movement, and the animation becoming a little jerky at times, it's a good game, and a whole lot more preferable than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.